Review - South Park: episode "Whale Whores"

It's not terribly difficult to understand why some people were offended, but I for one found the cartoon South Park episode “Whale Whores” is hilarious.

Under the leadership of Captain Paul Watson, the Sea Shepherd gang sails south with a pirate flag find, confront and interfere with Japanese whaling vessels by "nonviolent" means, though the planned measures include hurling stink bombs onto what they call "the killer ships" to disrupt their operation. Like the most extreme quadrants of the animal-rights movement, these personalities take their passion to off-putting heights -- even if that means endangering other people's lives, as well as their own, to fulfill their objectives.

This episode is obviously meant to be a parody of the disputes between the anti-whalers and Japan and it does that very well. The show is not one sided however, both the Japanese as well as the anti-whalers are displayed as a bunch of retards and it's a good thing since it means you can have a good hard laugh while watching the episode regardless of if you support whaling or are against it. Odds are you are wandering how exactly the show insulted anyone, and the reason for that is how the episode depicts the people on both sides.

The Japanese are shown as begin a bunch of raging savages who at one point in the episode go as far as killing the whales by crashing aircraft into them WWII kamakazi style, and all the while the anti-whalers are shown as begin fat stupid tree huggers who don't know about what they are talking about and only do what they do for the media attention. But what really takes the cake is....WARNING! GIANT SPOILER ABOUT THE ENDING AHEAD! is the ending where the reason for the Japanese "hatred" towards the whales is revealed: It turns out that at the end of the second world war the Americans gave the Japanese an edited image of the Engola Gay (the bomber that dropped the first Atom bomb on Hiroshima) where the pilot is a whale instead of an American and that the modern day Japanese were merely looking for some payback against the whales whom they believe dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima. Stan Marsh then gives the Japanese another edited image of the Engola Gay in order to make the Japanese stop killing whales and focus there anger on another "much more acceptable" pray: cow and chicken.