Ukrainian-born model winning Miss Japan re-ignites identity debate

“There have been racial barriers, and it has been challenging to be accepted as Japanese.”

That’s what a tearful Karolina Shiino said in impeccable Japanese after she was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.

The 26-year-old model, who was born in Ukraine, moved to Japan at the age of five and was raised in Nagoya.

She is the first naturalised Japanese citizen to win the pageant, but her victory has re-ignited a debate on what it means to be Japanese.

While some recognised her victory as a “sign of the times”, others have said she does not look like a “Miss Japan” should.

Her win comes nearly 10 years after Ariana Miyamoto became the first bi-racial woman to be crowned Miss Japan in 2015.

Back then, with a Japanese mother and African American father, Ms Miyamoto’s victory raised questions about whether a person of mixed race should be eligible to win the competition.

Now, the fact Ms Shiino has no Japanese parentage has upset some on social media.

“This person who was chosen as Miss Japan is not even a mix with Japanese but 100% pure Ukrainian. Understand she is beautiful, but this is ‘Miss Japan’. Where is the Japaneseness?” said a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“If she was half [Japanese], sure no problem. But she’s ethnically 0% Japanese and wasn’t even born in Japan,” said another comment.

Others said her win was sending the “wrong message” to others in the country.

“I think that Japanese people naturally (would) get the wrong message when a European looking person is called the most beautiful Japanese.”

Others questioned whether choosing the Ukrainian-born model was a political decision.

“If she were born Russian, she wouldn’t have won. Not a chance. Obviously the criteria is now a political decision. What a sad day for Japan,” one person alleged.

Ai Wada, the organiser of the Miss Japan Grand Prix pageant told the BBC that judges had chosen Ms Shiino as the winner with “full confidence”.

“She speaks and writes in beautiful and polite Japanese,” Ms Wada said. “She is more Japanese than we are.”

Ms Shiino had announced in Instagram earlier last year when she received Japanese nationality, saying that she “may not look Japanese”, but her mind had “become Japanese” because she had grown up in Japan.

And as she accepted her trophy as Miss Japan 2024, she said winning the title was “a dream”.

“Being recognised as a Japanese in this competition fills me with gratitude.”

Additional reporting by Chie Kobayashi