Chinese President Hu Jintao has just completed a rare state visit to Japan, supposedly establishing an “everlasting warm spring” in the relationship between the two countries.

Meanwhile the writers of Nijuu Mensou no Musume (The Daughter of Twenty Faces) seem to be busy trying to set Sino-Japanese relations back several decades. Consider the following elements from Episode 2:

1. All of the Chinese characters are depicted as duplicitous.
2. One of them is drawn in a way that amounts to an offensive racial stereotype.
3. The most sympathetic Chinese character, an attractive woman, gushes about how much she enjoyed “entertaining” Japanese troops during the war.

I predict that this is one anime that will not be popular in China, and it probably won’t be licensed for Region 1 either. It’s no great loss. I’ve rarely seen a story so riddled with logical holes.