[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> This is, on the face of it, completely insane behaviour, but neither article attempts to explain why the government did this.

How is it insane? Did the outcome turn out to be chaos and mass murder? Are the Japanese people all becoming lunatics due to the cognitive burden of trying to remember the differences between one foreign color word and the other? Will the Reticulan Space Navy destroy the Japanese for their insults to chromaticity?

This isn't insane. It's just boringly bureaucratic.