Fujifilm Said to be Eventually “Happy to Give Nikon a Help” – via Sentaku’s Anonymous BMTU Source (Sator-Photography Translation)

Initial Notes

1. This information comes from a FR-reader (Sator-Photography), who said he read the article and translated it for us at the fuji-x-forum here and also on FujiRumors here (he send me the images of his personal copy of the magazine)
2. If there is anyone out there, who can confirm Sator-Photography’s translation, please let us know in the comments or write me at fujirumor@gmail.com
3. This is NOT a rumor from FujiRumors. The original source of all the Nikon/Fuji thing is the Japanese magazine Sentaku
4. Sentaku never said that this is a done deal.

Sentaku Magazine Translated

FR-reader Sator-Photography had the opportunity to read the famous Sentaku article (he send me an image of his personal copy of the magazine via email). It confirms what we already wrote here.

He was so kind to translate parts of the article for us.

It says that Fujifilm and Nikon have some similar business models, like the medical business and the camera business. Which is why the Japanese government thinks that it could make sense for Fujifilm to invest a stake into Nikon. The government is afraid that Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese investors will buy into Nikon, and wants to keep it in Japanese hands.

This is 100% in line with what we wrote from the very first day here on FR:

Sentaku’s Source and the Fujifilm CEO

According to Sator Photography’s translation, the Sentaku magazine says that their article is based on information coming from an anonymous source at the Mitsubishi UJF Bank (BMTU), which is Nikon’s largest stockholder.

In his Sentaku translation, Sator writes:

“In the bitter struggle to acquire Toshiba Medical, Fujifilm got beaten by Canon’s use of underhand tactics of dubious legality, leading to outraged comments from Fuji CEO Shigetaka Komori. “If that’s the case, we’ll only be too happy to give Nikon a helping hand” he said.”

Note. I can not clearly say if the “he said” refers to the Fujifilm CEO or to the BMTU source, who indirectly quotes what he has heard from the CEO (I think it’s the latter). To be 100% sure, we will have to read the full original and translated article, which will be online shortly here.

“Even a blind man can tell, when he’s walking in the sun” (src. – Fink)

After we shared the first “Fujifilm might help Nikon” report, there was a big confusion in the community. But it’s not my fault. FujiRumors reported about it 100% accurately since day 1.

Sadly, other websites created confusion, by immediatly claiming the whole story was just a Fujirumors.com clickbait, fake news, hoax (just to mention the kindest attacks)…. without making any research by themselves and taking no time at all to investigate the story.

So it happens that, despite their self-proclaimed superior investigation skills, those websites didn’t even notice that the Japanese blogger, who initially broke the story, quoted 2 times (!!!) the Sentaku magazine as the source of his information.

Of course, in my first report on FujiRumors, I provided you guys with the statements of the Japanese blogger, including the double reference he made to the Sentaku magazine. And of course, I made my research, and shortly after I found at least a link to an excerpt of the Sentaku article, and I immedialty updated the article with the links. I also checked out Sentakus Twitter page (with an interesting tidbit I’ll mention below).

So, I just did what every good blogger should do… invest time in research, and not in shitstorms :)

And if even a blind man can tell, when he’s walking in the sun, then even the biggest FR-hater can see, when facts are stronger than his blind hate. And when they saw I 100% accurately reported about the Japanese reports, they got really nervous and started a new strategy, which created further confusion.

The Irony of the New Strategy

The new strategy adopted by the websites, who initally said it’s all FujiRumors clickbait, was to say that Sentaku is an unreliable magazine.

Ironically, I googled their websites, and I found that many times they reported about some random magazines that make wild specualtions about cameras. So I get it: Sentaku is not good… but any other random magazine making wild (and turns out also wrong) specualtions is worth to be featured on their blogs. Ok… that’s 100% logical :).

Sentaku replies on Twitter to “fake news” accusation

I’m used to all kind of insults, copied rumors, edited out watermarks, entire live bloggings 100% copied (I have it all documented) and a lot more! So for me it’s just standard procedure to get insulted. I think that all I can do is just to continue to work with joy and passion on FujiRumors and focus to do my thing here as good as I can.

But it seems that Sentaku is not used to such hard attacks. In fact, right after the huge shitstorm, they wrote on their Japanese Twitter page (google translated):

“Foreign sites have been discussing our June article as a “rumor”. They admit they don’t have the full picture because our article is behind a paywall. We talk about Fuji’s response. Best to read our full article“.

Some Hard-core Sentaku Facts

• Sentaku is on the market since 42 years (yep, they saw the Vietnam war ending).
• Given the high-level readers of Sentaku, if Sentaku would have posted only fake news and speculations, they would not have survived 42 years in the market.
• Sentaku’s work, criticism, considerations and opinions are very appreciated by the largest Japanese English Language newspaper, The Japan Times, since they regulary feature them in the Opinion section of their website. So, The Japan Times thinks that the opinions and considerations coming from Sentaku are something worth for their readers to check out.
• Sorry guys… but if a blog, that never read Sentaku, says Sentaku is crap, and “The Japan Times” values Sentaku’s opinion so much that they feature them on their site, well, then I trust more The Japan Times.
• Just like “The Economist”, also Sentaku never mentions, who writes their articles. They say “this is so our contributors can unflinchingly write articles containing confidential information and express honest criticism and comments“
• Some FR-readers like Sentaku and call it a serious magazine, some FR-readers don’t like Sentaku. But that’s just normal I think… CNN is considered serious or fake news, depending from who judges it.

It’s my job…

… to report about Fujifilm related news and rumors. And this story is one of those that has to be shared.

How will it end?

I don’t know… personally I think nothing will happen, but as always in these cases, there are so many things to consider, that it’s difficult to make any accurate prediction. It’s not just “I’m good, I’ll help you, take my money, and do what you want with it“. Fujifilm will want something in return… and this is where the difficult part of the deal begins.

All we can do is to wait and see.