Words fail me.

[schild]

Youth Violence Has Japan Struggling for Answers

By Anthony Faiola

   SASEBO, Japan -- On a cloudless afternoon in this sleepy port city, an 11-year-old girl drenched in blood and clutching a box cutter walked into the lunchroom at her elementary school. Teachers and students froze, assuming the sixth-grader known for her lighthearted nature had gravely hurt herself -- but she quickly dispelled that impression, witnesses said, by uttering a few chilling words: "This is not my blood."

  Minutes later, teachers found Satomi Mitarai, a 12-year-old girl, lying in a pool of gore in an empty classroom overlooking the sandy playground at Okubo Elementary School. The 11-year old killer, according to her own admissions as recounted in interviews with school officials and counselors, had led Satomi, remembered for her toothy grin, into the room. The attacker drew the curtains before slitting her victim's throat and brutally kicking the dying girl's head and sides, according to those interviewed.

  The killing two months ago  marked the latest and one of the most extreme in an extraordinary series of youth crimes in Japan -- including a number perpetrated by children who did not show unusual behavior beforehand. In many of the cases, the children involved seemed to snap without warning, in fits of kireru, sudden acts of rage.

The surge in youth violence has sparked calls for a reassessment of the increasingly violent and sexually charged youth culture in Japan, now exported worldwide through animation, comic strips and video games.

The young killer in Sasebo, whose name is being withheld under Japanese law, was an avid fan of "Battle Royale," a popular teen movie turned Internet game in which students kill one another through blood sport. Although the girl is still undergoing psychological evaluation, she is believed to have been set off by a seemingly minor offense: The victim, one of the girl's closest friends, once called her "overweight" and "prissy" on a Web site.

  "What is so scary is that she seemed normal to us in every way," said Masashi Watanabe, head of the Sasebo Children's Counseling Center, whose staff interviewed the girl after the  killing. "She did not seem like a troubled girl; there were no warning signs picked up by her teachers or parents. She could have been any of our children."

The youth crime wave is damaging the national sense of personal security in a country so safe that young children often ride subways or walk home through teeming cities unaccompanied by adults.

In recent years -- particularly since 1997, when a 14-year-old boy cut off the head of an 11-year old and left it at the entrance gate of his school -- Japan has experienced a rising tide of serious  youth crimes, including arson, assault, rape, manslaughter and premeditated murder.

  Incidents of violence on school grounds have increased fivefold in Japan over the past decade to 29,300 in 2002, leading the national Mainichi newspaper to warn of Japanese schoolyards descending "into battlefields." Violence by younger children in particular has risen rapidly,  with the number of minors under 14 processed for violent crime increasing 47 percent in 2003 from a year earlier. One study by a children's research institute found that as many as 30 percent of high school and middle school students had experienced sudden acts of rage at least once a month. In response to rising youth crime, Japan lowered the age for criminal prosecution in 2001 from 16 to 14 and might lower it further.

Experts blame the violence on low self-confidence among children, and cite pressures on family life during the country's 13-year economic slump. Finances in Japan, the world's second-largest economy, are on the rise, but years in the doldrums sent divorce, domestic violence and suicide rates soaring, tearing at traditional family life and alienating child from parent.

  "In Japan, youth crime is not a problem related to poverty," said Akira Sakuta, a noted criminal psychiatrist. "But rather, you can say it's more related to stress and developmental problems from children feeling they are not wanted or are lacking attention."

  Many youths have retreated into the virtual world of the Internet, now easily accessed out of adult view on their cell phones. Children can view popular short animated films -- anime -- such as "Gunslinger Girl," a tale about murderous cyborg schoolgirls in plaid miniskirts.

Japan's top literary prize this year went to "Snakes and Earrings" by Hitomi Kanehara, 20. Shocking youth apathy, sex and violence are central elements of the book, a favorite of young people.

  To be sure, violent crime is not the only social ill facing Japanese youths. Suicides by minors in Japan shot up for the fifth consecutive year in 2003, jumping 22.1 percent compared to a 6.9 percent increase for adults over the same period.

  An estimated hundreds of thousands of Japanese students, from grade school to college, are suffering from a behavioral disorder known as hikikomori, meaning they are unable to leave their homes or cope with daily life, according to experts and sociologists who have studied the phenomenon.

  Thousands of teenagers, mostly girls in large cities throughout Japan, have entered into what authorities describe as voluntary prostitution, marketing themselves to adults through Internet sites accessed by cell phone, mostly to earn money for designer handbags and brand-name clothing.

  As society searches for answers, the Japanese tradition of discreet affection is coming under fire. A nationwide public service campaign on subways, trains and television is urging parents to hug their children.

"We are confronting a serious problem of how to reach out to our children and teach them the difference between right and wrong," said Kohichi Tsurusaki, superintendent of the Sasebo Municipal Board of Education.

In a country where parents and children traditionally shy away from expressing their feelings, the power of the virtual world has perhaps had amplified effect, experts said. Children, one government expert said, have become too used to dead characters coming back to life with the touch of a button on a game console. The young killer in Sasebo, for instance, did not appear to grasp fully the fact that she had ended her friend's life, telling the family court that she wanted to apologize to her friend in person for the deed, according to sources familiar with the case.

  "Many Japanese children live in small block apartments with no pets and are not exposed to real death," said Takeshi Seto, a specialist in youth crime at Japan's Justice Ministry. "They may not understand the concept as much as they should."

  Without doubt, some youth crimes -- such as a 12-year old who sexually mutilated and then pushed a 4-year old to his death off the roof of a parking lot in Nagasaki last year -- involve disturbed children with histories of psychotic behavior.

  But many students in Sasebo have commiserated not just with the victim here -- but with her killer. According to school officials, the 11-year-old had been under parental pressure to get better grades and was forced to quit the school basketball team to study harder. Insults from her friend may have seemed slight, but students appeared able to understand the girl's rage.

  "I wasn't so surprised," one junior high school girl wrote in an Internet chat for students hosted by NHK TV network. "I have experienced the feeling that I hated someone to an extent that I wanted to kill the person . . . a couple of times."

  During another Internet chat organized by a local television station in the nearby city of Nagasaki, a student going by the handle "Arrow of Pain" wrote: "I understand so painfully how the offender felt. I have experienced being lonely, and being disliked . . . and of course forced to do things by my parents."

  Sasebo, a city of 240,000 located about 200 miles southwest of Tokyo, was already reeling from the killing in June 2003 of a teenage boy  by bullies at a local high school. The community is trying to heal in part by fortifying parent groups, encouraging parent-child conferences, and offering broader counseling to children and teenagers.

  Part of the process was a recent memorial for Satomi Mitarai, whose father, Kyoji Mitarai, was the Sasebo bureau chief for the Mainichi newspaper and had lost his wife to cancer. Before his daughter's schoolmates placed large yellow sunflowers on a white altar topped with a large portrait of the slain girl at the local community center, Mitarai, fighting back tears, beseeched students to learn a lesson from his daughter's death.

  "Please do not forget that right beside you are people who love you the most," he pleaded. "Please do not forget that there are people who would be very sad if you disappeared, even if not by death. Please treasure your lives."

That's horribly, horribly fucked up - makes school shootings in America look like a joke.

Edit: Thank god movies like this come out in Japan to educate children. Note: The previous comment does not curtail the fact I believe Izo will kick total ass.

[Paelos]

I won't pretend to hide my dislike of most things Japanese as the entire culture is completely lost on me. This seemingly isolated incident could be a part of something larger, or it could be young angst looking for a place to explode. However, it's not all that different in America, as youth crime has transcended socio-economic boundaries as well. My thinking is this is not just a problem in Japan, but world-wide in top economic countries.

The Japanese and Americans both have issues at home that need to be resolved. The WASP ideal of a nuclear family facade and the Japanese ideal of discreet affection are not that different. "We never knew there was a problem" is no longer a viable excuse. The reason you didn't know is because you weren't looking, and if you want to get to know your children, they aren't going to volunteer information.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

HUH?

WHU?


THE HELL?


(locked)

[Kenrick]

(locked)

Test.

No it's not!

[Morfiend]

i pk u irl keke la


Sorry, had to be done. Like they said, you cant expose a culture that is so repressed in their feelings to some of the shit that goes on in aname, and not expect them to come away with a warped sence of reality.

I mean, there is a reasion then when you see a really fucked up video on the net, 9 out of 10 times, it is Japanese.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

[Murgos]

In recent years -- particularly since 1997, when a 14-year-old boy cut off the head of an 11-year old and left it at the entrance gate of his school

I'd like to see Michael Moore do a 'documentary' about that.

The fact that he left the head a the gate of the school like some kind of offering or trophy is pretty eerie.  I can see shooting up the kids at a school, if you want to kill the people that torment you then the school is where they are at.  it's a simple confluence of needs.  But bringing severed body parts to the school and leaving them ritualistically positioned is f'ing messed up.

[SirBruce]

It's not surprising.  Many cultures like Japan are "safer" because of a tradition of safety, but all it takes is a few incidents were those boundaries are tested, and broken, to prompt others to engage in the same behaviour.  Then, much like in the US, you have widespread institutional freedom, the free flow of ideas and capital, etc. but rampant repression on social levels.  The individual can be left feeling wronged and alienated, entitled to all these things they can hear and see through various media but unable to obtain them from their peers.

It doesn't really matter what Japan does; the violence will increase over time and eventually ebb as the society matures.  I just hope these incidents do not prompt authorities to attempt to stifle freedom of expression.

Bruce

[Paelos]

All it took for our authorities to stifle us was the boobie seen round the world.

[TripleDES]

Coming from a country that's majorily into scat, bondage, panty sniffing, the whole honor bullshit and shit like Powerrangers? Not surprised at all.

[SirBruce]

All it took for our authorities to stifle us was the boobie seen round the world.

We're hardly stifled.  Broadcast radio and television is stifled, because those are shared resources that everyone has a right to vote on how they should be used.

Bruce

[Paelos]

Hard to argue though, that it wasn't an overreaction to the problem. Considering the fact that violence is still very much prevelant on American TV while "swears" and sexually suggestive stuff was knocked down. I don't remember as a child the first time I heard the word "fuck" but I remember the first time I saw someone get brutally gunned down in a movie. I can't remember the first boobie I saw in a porno mag, but I do remember the movie that desensitized me to violence.

I just think our priorites are out of whack when it comes to how we attempt to shelter our youth.

[HaemishM]

I love how freaked out parents and government/school officials try to draw some gigantic correlation that encompasses ALL teens/children whenever something so obviously fucked up rears its ugly head. Then they try to blame it on anime. Or computer games. Or some other form of media that cannot and should not be held as the deciding factor in why some children feel the need to slice other children's heads off to relieve stress as opposted to private masturbation.

Maybe, just maybe, some of these cultures such as the US or Japan could look to their own forms of social repression to see the cause. Things like the inability to express ones burgeoning sexual desires (both cultures) despite quite obvious examples of that sexuality being flashed from every bookshelf, TV show, or other peers. Perhaps these cultures could look to their own guilt to determine why a child feels so penned up that they must break out in the only way they can think of, sheer violence.

Children deal with a massive amount of shit. Both Japanese and American culture piles on a massive amount of guilt over sexual issues that children have to come to terms with as a normal part of puberty. Then peer groups add to that with typical dominance/acceptance games, piling on more guilt on those who do not follow the crowd's particular form of expression.

All in all, it's a wonder every teenager doesn't just go Reservoir Dogs on a daily basis.

Only, they don't. The majority of teens flirt with crazy, dance a bit with trouble, and in the end, unfuck themselves before they do something stupid. The ones who do something stupid more than likely cannot be stopped from doing said crazy, especially not by adding on MORE guilt pressure and restricted access to media. They might be helped by the ability to express their feelings of guilt, desire, and isolation in a healthy manner. Or they might just go bugfuck insane anyway and kill someone.

The answer to the quandry lies not in governmental intervention, but individual parental attention.

[Paelos]

I agree with you Haemish about the sexual repressiveness and whatnot. I know for a fact those kids are going to see naked people eventually, and they have hardwired feelings to indicate so.

However, while i'm cool with the sexual stuff, i'm not so cool with the violence. I'm not blaming video games or television or movies for creating psychopaths, because that's spurious. What I am saying is that there is no reason children have to grow up desensitized to violence because they go their hands on it at an inappropriate age. Part of that is smart parenting, ie not buying your 10 year old GTA and not taking your preteens into R-rated movies at 10 PM. Another part of that is where our government has to step in and put mandates on uncontrolled media directed at children, because lets face it, parental responsibility sucks in our country. I think that falls completely in line with the right messages getting to the right audiences.

[HaemishM]

The biggest problem with placing governmental restrictions on media is that government is so poorly suited to doing so. Our government, Japan's government, these are not bastions of morality or responsibility. They are also entirely too easily swayed by commercial influences, because as the flap over copyrights has shown, law can be perverted by expensive lawyers and lobbyists with ease.

What more do you want movie studios to do? They already self-regulate content with R-rated and NC-17 movies. So do game developers and publishers. However, the creators can only control that so far. The theater owners, the game sellers, these are the ones who are supposed to be responsible for making sure those ratings are enforced. Should we then start jailing theater ticket sellers who don't card minors at R-Rated movies? Do we start treating the viewing of media as a crime on the same level as selling alcohol to a minor or selling a gun to a minor? If so, then we are walking down the path which says that an IDEA is as dangerous as an ACTION. And if we start letting government's, especially our easily swayed government, that ideas are dangerous...

BYE-BYE FREEDOM.

Yes, it's a long road to get from laws protecting minors from seeing R-Rated movies to Bradburian thought control. But all the impetus that is needed is to make the ramifications of thought equal to that of action.

Does Television go too far sometimes? Yes. But I'd rather it went too far than not far enough. You can only shelter children for so long, and the more you shelter them from the harshness of the world, the less equipped they will be to deal with it.

[Paelos]

I think even further than Television as the primary influence in disassociating with natural life, the kids in Japan are looking to the internet primarily as their connection to the world. They are bypassing the simplest forms of human interaction with a few clicks on a keyboard. We do it here too. All you people are faceless entities to me, just like I am to you. We can vent insults at each other's ideas while avoiding the impositions of our physical presence. While that's good for rational or often irrational discourse, if it were the main focus of our social life, we would suffer in "regular" interactions of the outside world.

Couple that factor with a society that doesn't express open emotions in public and general media that counteracts the repressed ideology and you get a culture of bipolar disillusioned youth. How they are going to react is anybody's guess, but they will react. Is it the media's fault? Not really, the media in and of itself is nothing more than a message, but without the guidance of a good parent, it can be destructive. Do you protect the children who's parents don't care, or do you trust the parents to educate them in the presence of these images. Obviously, the latter is the ideal, but I would say a combination is necessary. Small curtails of the media available to children coupled with programs designed to encourage better family involvement are both important.

[HaemishM]

What I would like to see, as opposed to some sort of curtailing of entertainment media, is a placing of the correct blame. Instead of trying to blame the media, or the game developers, lets blame the parents instead.

So let's put in a law that says any kid under the age of 18 kills, the parents are open to civil and criminal penalties equal to the child. Because we all know, it's the parents fault for not protecting them from the bad media, or for not nurturing them enough, etc.

GREAT! Now, personal responsibility is completely removed from the child until it is one day thrust upon them like a grenade at age 18.

See, here's the thing. You could be the most loving, responsive, open parent, and your kid could still be a fuckup. You could watch the child, give him everything he needs, and he will still hate you and become a retarded drain on society. And how'd you like to be serving a life sentence because your kid didn't like being called a fag and shot some twerp at school?

Why? Because children, despite some people's insistence, are NOT tabula rasa zombies. They have their own wills and personas, completely separate from their parents. They have the ability to process and survive things that no human should ever have to deal with, IF THEY WANT TO, and IF THEY ARE STRONG ENOUGH. Some choose not to, and if there is anything the government or their parents can teach kids is that they have to accept responsibility for their actions.

Curtailing their GTA time isn't going to do that. And making it illegal for them to have GTA isn't going to do that either.

The sad truth is that these kinds of stories are not the norm, no matter how the media and statiticians might like us to think so.

[geldonyetich]

The young killer in Sasebo, whose name is being withheld under Japanese law, was an avid fan of "Battle Royale," a popular teen movie turned Internet game in which students kill one another through blood sport.

I hate to seem like the fasciest conservative over everything fun, but that's somewhat a dead giveway.   This isn't like Doom and Columbine, where the kids were obviously pretty fucked up to make a mod that involved killing their classmates before actually doing it.   No, the Battle Royale game, movies, and manga sounds as though it were based entirely on hardcore violence in school, personified as being really cool, and apparently it's primary audience is minors.

This 12 year old girl apparently didn't have the neurons grown that told her what she was doing was wrong.   Should they ever manifest, I wouldn't want to be inside that head when she realizes the terror of what she has become clashes with the reality.

We're all pretty quick to say, "Hey!  Not everyone is so damn naive as to take a form of entertainment as gospel in how to behave in real life!"   However, this is admitting that some people are.   It may annoy you having to look at your pack of smokes and read, "Reading: Smoking may be dangerous to your health", but it's there because some people are actually that oblivious.

Personally, I hope some authorities in Japan pick up these Battle Royal guys and slap them with a lifetime of debt.   Sometimes it makes more sense to go after the corrupt preacher than the drooling follower.

[Rodent]

Not really surprising, Japan is if anything reknowned for it's cold hearted killers. Now granted theese last few years everyone thinks anime when you mention Japan, it used to be suicide, beheadings, samurai, ninjas and general fucking malice during WWII.

[geldonyetich]

Yeah, but that was World War II.   The whole world was up at arms.    Unmerciful visciousness and self-sacrifice in the aim of world domination is what war is all about.   (At least for the Axis.)   That kind of behavior got a few nukes dropped on them, and that was probably quite humbling.

<unneccessary political statement>But hey, if the old men plotting to rule the world really turns you on, feel free to vote Republican.</unneccessary political statement>

[MrHat]

Youth Violence Has Japan Struggling for Answers

Edit: Thank god movies like this come out in Japan to educate children. Note: The previous comment does not curtail the fact I believe Izo will kick total ass.

Umm, IZO = crazy half god time traveling samurai?  Could you explain this for me?

[SurfD]

The young killer in Sasebo, whose name is being withheld under Japanese law, was an avid fan of "Battle Royale," a popular teen movie turned Internet game in which students kill one another through blood sport.

I hate to seem like the fasciest conservative over everything fun, but that's somewhat a dead giveway.   This isn't like Doom and Columbine, where the kids were obviously pretty fucked up to make a mod that involved killing their classmates before actually doing it.   No, the Battle Royale game, movies, and manga sounds as though it were based entirely on hardcore violence in school, personified as being really cool, and apparently it's primary audience is minors.

Just as a side note, I have seen the Battle Royale movie (I can not coment on the internet game, or the Manga) but the movie is most definately NOT about hardcore highschool violence.  The movie is a violently satirical social commentary/human nature piece, which happens to involve taking a class of delenquent highschool students, strapping bombs on their necks, and forcing them to play a game of survivor on a deserted island till there is only one left. Typical things happen, such as people ganging up to take out the classmate they hated the most, cliques forming, backstabbing/violence among some "freinds groups" who werent really all that freindly to begin with (or were pretending to be friendly to fit in) kind of thing.

I would heartily reccomend you actually WATCH the movie (probably easily found on most fileshard networks), before commenting, as there are probably a fair number of North American movies which are almost EXACTLY identical in premise and presentation.

[geldonyetich]

I don't know about the movie myself, but the sample page from the manga makes it look like they moved the domain of violence firmly into the classroom, and protrayed murder as a casual, elegant thing.   I can't see an online game capturing the subtle difference between the movie (which, from what I read, seems to teeter totter between tragedy and satire) and the manga (which I can only judge from that sample page as being "Kill Bill" style macho death-dealing in the classroom).

The second movie appears to be about fighting within the school.   Apparently the school is found to be harboring terrorist students, so the government sends more students in to kill them off.   That's not quite interesting enough, apparently, because the government wires those students up with pairs of collars that kill the other if one of them dies.   The whole thing stinks of Big Brother-style entertainment, moving into the fictional realm expressly for the purpose of accomidating murder, and then going way out of control, and nobody seems to understand it was meant to be satire.    If that doesn't indicate it's something that must be stopped, what does?   Perhaps 11 year old girls kicking eachother's heads in?

[Roac]

Curtailing their GTA time isn't going to do that. And making it illegal for them to have GTA isn't going to do that either.

It's fashionable to blame media.  Keep in mind though, how people learn.  Children especially learn a good deal by mimicry (I have annoyed my sister to no end by by chomping my teeth, and watching as my year-old niece copycat'd me).  No, kids don't watch some movie and figure that picking up a 50 cal machine gun and going to school to kill evil alien zombies is a good way to socialize, but they can get impressions about what are appropriate ways to deal with their emotions.

The media isn't the only place, of course; our culture as a whole teaches children (and adults) on how they should and shouldn't behave.  So do parents.  Of course, no one tells children that decapitating their playmates and leaving it as a trophy is a good way to deal with anger.  More than likely, that child was backed into an emotional corner by their culture, parents, and media.  They're left with difficult goals, inadequate tools on dealing with them, horrendous social pressures, raging emotions, and a vague idea of some options available.  

It's difficult to impart any sort of value system on children in a heidonistic culture.  You wind up with parents who are focused on themselves over their children (even as they love their children), and a culture which urges you to do what you want.  You have school children trying to force their desires on other children as the kids work out an internal pecking order, and you have the losers of that scuffle trying to find a way to cope with their loss, and the feeling that they're supposed to get what they want.  You have kids with the understanding that might makes right; a lesson taught by parents, teachers, bullies, and media.  

Then some poor kid snaps from the weight of it all, and everyone is left pointing fingers at someone else so as to avoid responsibility.  The media claim parents should be more responsible for their kids; parents blame the prolific amount of media that they can't hope to stop (so why try?).  Or parents blame the teachers who didn't spot trouble ahead of time, or give their kids more attention; but government won't fund schools enough to get class ratios down.

And all the while, everyone looks for the One Person responsible for it all, when such a hunt is doomed from the start.  There isn't A Reason why kids snap - there are many that stack on each other.  Want to fix things? Start chipping at all of them.  Won't happen though, because that requires work and a change in social attitudes, which is something heidonistic cultures just can't accept or do.  Instead we'll grab a scapegoat.  Media seems to work for now.

[HaemishM]

I would heartily reccomend you actually WATCH the movie (probably easily found on most fileshard networks), before commenting, as there are probably a fair number of North American movies which are almost EXACTLY identical in premise and presentation.

Here's the problem. The people in charge of legislating if that movie is "bad" or not will not have seen the movie, and will likely only watch the movie after it's supposed effect has taken place. They will be legislating from a position of almost complete ignorance, taking the stance that Geld took simply based on assumptions as to what the story is about.

It sounds to me from SurfD's review that the movie bears more resemblance to "Lord of the Flies" than "Dragonball Z." And if that's the case, I suppose we should expect our teens to start killing each other in schools any day now.

Media does have an effect, it just isn't the effect people try to make it out to be. Roac is closer to the truth in that it's a number of factors that contribute to societal violence, especially in culture's like the US where the individual is a self-made deity. In Japan, the individual is a cog, a closeted part of a larger whole, yet the media that is being blamed is one which takes the stance of the invididual as deity. It is a Western ideal clashing with the Eastern stoicism, and it's a messy damn clash.

In short, a closed society is convulsively reacting to exposure to an open society. The powers-that-be in the closed society think that closing off even further is the way to handle the messy side effects. An open society, ours, unfortunately has the exact same reaction.

[Murgos]

In Japan, the individual is a cog, a closeted part of a larger whole, yet the media that is being blamed is one which takes the stance of the invididual as deity.

One of my most vivid memories of Japan is when I looked around while in a traffic jam on a major highway and every car I could see, probably close to a hundred, was white (I was in a red car, screw you stolid conformity).  Whats that mean?  I don't know, I'm not a psychologist but it's gotta be something fundemental and probably not good.

[Paelos]

I don't know about the movie myself, but the sample page from the manga makes it look like they moved the domain of violence firmly into the classroom, and protrayed murder as a casual, elegant thing.   I can't see an online game capturing the subtle difference between the movie (which, from what I read, seems to teeter totter between tragedy and satire) and the manga (which I can only judge from that sample page as being "Kill Bill" style macho death-dealing in the classroom).

Yeah, not seeing the movie I won't make judgements against it, but I have a hard time seeing how what is portrayed in the picture you posted isn't disturbingly similar to the lead article atrocity. Who's to say its not life imitating art, or vice versa?