No one knows who's behind the elaborate hoax. Some suspect the editor-publisher of the book, identified only as "M.L. Tanaka," is a disgruntled former Japanese tourism official. Others insist the culprit is a U.S. autoworker who lost his job to Japan in the '80s.
I find it fascinating that over 50,000 copies of this book were presumably printed, edited, perhaps proofread ... and published by a publishing company that had to be a somewhat sizable operation - and NO ONE noticed? No one spoke enough English to see what was going on? No one caught it? Wow. Weird.