Yoshimatsu Ikumi, a model from Saga prefecture, was crowned ‘Miss International’ in Okinawa on October 21. This is the first time since the annual ‘Miss International’ pageant began in 1960 that a Japanese delegate has taken first place, prompting widespread joy at the global recognition of Japanese women’s beauty. While Yoshimatsu’s win has attracted great attention on the Japanese internet, Japanese netizens have taken it upon themselves to discuss whether or not Yoshimatsu deserved the title over her equally beautiful counterparts. Many say that she looks considerably older than her twenty-five years, and that she doesn’t fit the Japanese beauty ideal at all. Regardless, for the next year Yoshimatsu will take up her position as ‘Miss International 2012’ until the competition returns to Japan in 2013.
From Yomiuri Shimbun:
Japanese Representative Yoshimatsu Ikumi Becomes ‘Miss International’
On October 21, the 2012 Miss International worldwide pageant was held in Naha city in Okinawa, and the Japanese representative, model Yoshimatsu Ikumi (25), took the title. She is the first Japanese representative to win the title since the competition began in 1960.
Following the pageant, Yoshimatsu told us the reason for her victory:
“In order to beat the Western contestants, whose figures are superior to mine, I thought that I had no choice but to focus on my good points, so I put my effort into the speech. I believe women will become leaders in opinion in the next generation, so I spoke about the kind of things I would like to do.”
As a native of Tosu city in Saga prefecture, Yoshimatsu was inaugurated as a tourism ambassador for the region in March this year. As a sportswoman, she was an athlete in the 100m hurdles in her high school track and field club. Her hobby is running, and she entered this year’s Tokyo marathon, successfully completing the race.
On winning the pageant, she said:
“I don’t know if I’m in a dream or reality. Of course, I approached the pageant with the intention of winning, but I’m overjoyed to have won.”
She also won a separate prize awarded by members of the media for ‘Miss Photogenic’.
In this year’s competition, representatives of 69 countries and regions participated. The competition was held in Okinawa commemorating forty years of Okinawa being returned to Japan, and 37 years since the 1975 Okinawa Expo was held there. As a result of the attractions of Okinawa, it has been decided that the competition will be held in the prefecture every year until 2021.
Miss International is taken to be one of the three major global pageants. This year was its 52nd year.
Comments from 2ch.net
38 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
Amazing. She’s kind of like an actress from the old days w
40 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
No matter which way you look at her, she’s like the babes you see down at the pubs/bars. Thank you very much.
41.名無しさん＠１３周年:
You guys are really harsh and nasty…I guess she’s just a conventional beauty.
42.名無しさん＠１３周年:
I have no idea how foreigners see beauty. Seems like a forty-year old sex industry hag w. Was the whole thing fixed? w
43. 名無しさん＠１３周年：
She’s a beauty, but there are much more beautiful people in Japan.
44. 名無しさん＠１３周年：
Her make-up is too thick so you can’t see her actual face, but I don’t suppose she’s a beauty or a shit.
67 ：名無しさん＠１３周年:
No matter the nationality of the person who takes the prize, they all have the same face.
71 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
I think she’s pretty, but the level of selection is a bit of a mystery. I reckon that if Horikita Maki went in that competition she’d also take the prize though.
79 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
I don’t really get the Western view of beauty.
80 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
Damn, I mean, I don’t want it to be thought that this is representative of Japan…
82 ：名無しさん＠１３周年
Is it because the age of people using this board is quite old, I wonder? I can’t hear anyone booing. For me, she’s totally ugly w Plus she’s got the type of face I hate.
She looks like she must be around forty, and like the kind of model who appears in housewife magazines.
151 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
Seems like she’s got the kind of face foreigners might like. It’s the complete opposite sense to the Lolita-style girls we 2ch guys like. The perspective and the level is different, so we can’t even understand it, let alone be satisfied with it. I’ve forgotten whether it’s Miss Universe or Miss International who competes most based on physical beauty, but ignoring their personalities, but I guess that Westerner’s perspective of beauty has come to be more multi-ethnic because of people of colour. At any rate, there are loads of beauties in Okinawa.
152 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
She’s beautiful, but she looks like a transgender person ＞＜She’s old ＞＜
名無しさん＠１３周年：
She’s a beauty but is she really 25???
230 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
Japanese people’s tastes are different to this. They also differ from the foreigners who win. She has the kind of face that Asians ought to have when seen from white people’s perspective.
231 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
She doesn’t seem that beautiful to me…
232 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
She’s kind of like a Bond-girl
240 ：名無しさん＠１３周年：
I don’t think I’d do her, and she’s not my type, but there’s no argument that she’s beautiful. I think that if she came up to you and spoke to you, you’d be nervous and wouldn’t be able to answer straight away, and you’d sweat. She’s clearly from a different world to me.
242 ：名無しさん＠１３周年:
A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman. But she’s someone who has an older face if you think about it in the traditional sense of Japanese beauty. I mean, she’s not a bit different from the sense of beauty in Japan. She’s been chosen based on what someone white would go for.
What do you think? Do Westerners/white people have a different sense of beauty from Asians/Japanese?
