Hayden Panettiere: Illegal In Japan

Hayden Panettiere is best-known for being the cheerleader from Heroes who can mangle up her body and then spontaneously regenerate - either that or being the one from Heroes that makes you feel the most like a dirty old man.

However, if you're from Japan then Hayden Panettiere is a high-profile fugitive who hates Japanese culture to such an extent that she's in a huge amount of trouble for it. Admittedly that's because the part of Japanese culture that Hayden Panettiere hates the most is the way they slaughter dolphins - and her surfboard-based pre-dawn attempts to disrupt a dolphin cull last month has resulted in a Japanese arrest warrant being placed on Hayden Panettiere's head. Forget 'save the cheerleader, save the world'; this is a case of 'arrest the cheerleader, curtail a potentially knotty international diplomatic incident'.

Also, it's thought that - following Hayden Panettiere's Japanese arrest warrant - the schizophrenic porno girl from Heroes who used to be in Dawson's Creek has decided to keep her controversial anti-Hello Kitty sentiments to herself for now.

Of all the western TV shows ever made, only two have really stood out for their love of Japanese culture. One was Tenko - which concerned itself with the ancient Japanese practise of putting bits of glass in Stephanie Beacham's dinner - and the other is Heroes, thanks to the break-out success of lovable Japanese geek Hiro. Heroes loves Japan.

But Japan doesn't love Heroes back, because the cute cheerleader girl from the show keeps trying to stop them killing dolphins all the time. And now that cute cheerleader girl - Hayden Panettiere - is going to get arrested for it.

The story started last month when, along with five of her friends, Hayden Panettiere paddled out to sea on a surfboard to to try and disrupt attempts by local fishermen to slaughter a bunch of dolphins; only to become trapped by the fishermen, who contained her with their boat propellers and pushed her with sticks until they got to kill the dolphins like they wanted to. At the time Hayden Panettiere described the dolphins as:

"So pretty. They were teddy bears in the water. They slowed down and started gathering in the net towards us. This little baby popped its head out and looked at us and all of us just wanted to cut them out of the nets and set them free.”

However, so infuriated are the Japanese by Hayden Panettiere's actions that they've placed an arrest warrant on her head. Although Hayden was stunned into silence when she was told of this on live Australian TV yesterday, she's since put out this statement:

“Obviously this issue has generated defensive behaviour on the part of both the Japanese Authorities and Fishermen,” she said in the statement. “I have grown up hearing - and adhering to - this phrase: ‘condemnation without investigation dooms one to everlasting ignorance.’ We must unite as a world to solve our increasing international environmental crises. We can no longer hide [behind] out-dated, senseless cultural traditions and lazy, bad habits that are resulting in the annihilation of our planet’s resources and the extinction of our species.”

Of course, it could be argued that Hayden Panettiere's actions and statements show a lack of understanding of the greater issue here. For example, if it wasn't for the dolphin cull, Japanese fishermen wouldn't have a livelihood. Plus, the Japanese Fisheries ministry maintains that the dolphin slaughter is done in a highly-sustainable way. And also, Hayden should be thankful to the Japanese for killing all the dolphins, because if those buggers ever grow legs and thumbs and decide to invade dry land then that's us done for, buddy.

But it's unlikely that Hayden Panettiere will ever willingly go to Japan to get arrested, so all of this is moot. And that leaves the Japanese government with two real options here - either they can capture Hayden Panettiere and ship her off to Japan in a cargo ship to torture her for two years like the Chinese did with Jack Bauer that one time, or they can redub all the imported episodes of Heroes so that Hayden's voice sounds a bit stupid. We're fine with either of those.