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Japan-A bit fucked?

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08:58 / 13.06.04

fair enough it isn't the most thought through idea ever, and yes i don't have a heck of a lot of evidence... actuallly your right it was a pretty shit point, but im not saying that the japanese people are more violent, im just saying because of the way japanese culture has developed, japanese people do not have adequate healthy means of expressing their aggressive tendancies and this leads to them becoming distorted.

The Knights Templar Boogie Machine

09:18 / 13.06.04

I think merzbow has a pretty good outlet.........

15:18 / 13.06.04

In contrast then, what's our healthy way of relieving agression that the Japanese lack?

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:22 / 13.06.04

Karate.

Obviously.

16:49 / 13.06.04

Distorted? You mean like Chibi-fied?

19:13 / 13.06.04

Wasn't there a spate of umbrella killins in Japan a while back? Like in one, some guy kept being called something outside his 'societal station' like 'dude' or 'mate' by one of his friends. So he stabbed that motherfucker right through the neck with his brolly.

Coz he, uh, deserved it. Right.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:53 / 13.06.04

The frequency of child on child killings in Japan does seem to be higher than in western europe/America etc

This may well be true. It may also be bollocks. Give us some evidence for it being the former, or I'm personally gonna gravitate towards the latter.

The kids who killed Jamie Bulger were very English. To me it seemed a very English crime- I remember what English schoolkids were like, having been one. And I was amazed that kind of shit never happened more often. Does that make England fucked? Very probably. But it seems more to be a fucked thing in humanity in general, which can be summed up in the phrase "kids are wankers".

They just are. In any part of the world.

21:07 / 13.06.04

Wasn't there a spate of umbrella killins in Japan a while back?

Are you sure you didn't just fall asleep during The Ipcress File?

01:12 / 14.06.04

No, because your mum kept me up all night.

I went there.

02:12 / 14.06.04

Pretty sure I heard a while back that the Japanese government made umbrellas with points thinner than a certain width illegal, because there'd been a spate of gang members stabbing each other with them.

The Tokyo underground Sarin attack was done using sharpened umbrellas to puncture the bags of gas, incidentally, or so I'm told.

03:50 / 14.06.04

You went there twice. If you were really triplets, you'd of gone there THREE times!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:47 / 14.06.04

Nah, one had to stay home to look after the TV.

15:08 / 14.06.04

Jimminy Cricket. You people are nuts. When I was in Japan, not only did I murder a whole bunch of schoolgirls in the street and nobody cared, I also saw two old women stab a pregnant girl in the face with pointy umbrellas and then all these guys disemboweled themselves right in front of my hotel. That country is fucked.

If you all don't mind I'm just going to put on the snarkomatic pilot. Wake me when we get to Bakersfield.

10:23 / 15.06.04

Rhythmic Vigor no BAKA! Bedaaa!

11:12 / 15.06.04

Difficult to find specific statistics on infanticide. Although the tables are missing from his study of post-war homicide trends, this guy mentions that "eight nations (Israel, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Ireland, Norway, Germany) have rates under 1 per 100,000" (average being 7.74 per 100,000), and that, in fact, Japan bucks an apparently-international increase in post-war homicides ("only four nations in the sample (Chile, Japan, Mexico and Singapore) experienced average declines in their homicide rates between 1956 and 2000").

So... unless anyone's able to produce statistical evidence of a specific rise in child homicide, one would have to conclude that at least this element of the 'Japan - a bit fucked?' hypothesis is essentially baseless ie. bollocks.

11:51 / 15.06.04

Perhaps the origin of the "Japan - A bit fucked?" attitude stems from teh fact that we just don't know very much about the place to begin with. In the past year or two, the only things we have heard about Japan have been the child killings, the punch-up in their parliament, and various anecdotal mentions of people being stabbed with umbrellas and the like. Throw in the sarin gas attacks, earthquakes, misogynist (sp?) culture stereotypes and the fact that Japanese companies seem to (still) be taking over the world by doing everything so much better/cheaper, and it's understandable that the overall reaction would be something like 'whoa, that's a pretty fucked up place'. I'm not saying it's the right reaction. Just trying to analyse where the reaction comes from.

Because, honestly, who learns about the walk-out from the League of Nations, the occupation of Manchuria and the Meiji Restoration (to name just a few historic Japanese incidents) in school these days?

13:30 / 15.06.04

Yes, yes, yes, but do we have the statistics on the incidence of TENTACLE RAPE?

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:52 / 15.06.04

Because, honestly, who learns about the walk-out from the League of Nations, the occupation of Manchuria and the Meiji Restoration (to name just a few historic Japanese incidents) in school these days?

Well, people doing GCSE history, back when I were a lad. HAs the syllabus really changed that much?

Ex

14:16 / 15.06.04

We didn't stray far outside Europe in GCSE History, as far as I remember. Nazis, Nazis all the way. And the scramble for Africa, and Indian independence, but those were introduced as Things Europe was Doing to Other People.

16:15 / 15.06.04

Wow. We didn't even really get Nazis. Too upsetting. I think we got the Magna Carta, a light basting of electoral processes, and 2 years of George Washington: Fucking Awesome.

20:43 / 15.06.04

Whay Ex said - in standard GCSE History fourteen years ago we spent some time looking at WWII from an almost entirely British/French/German angle, but the majority explaining crop rotation and the principle of common land.

Not that that's a good excuse for adults to be relying on, mind. They never learned me this shit in school, dude! Yeah, it's half my lifetime ago, but why the hell should I be expected to have learned myself new stuff good since then on my own like? Eh?

13:17 / 17.06.04

Gosh, E. Randy, what is a good excuse? I mean, I am basing my perception that the entire nation of Japan is like the second reel of Kill Bill Vol. 1 on first hand experience. I have seen the bloody plazas. I have seen the carcinogenic lunchpails. I have seen the hammers bent back from hammering. I would like to know why no one is acknowledging my eyewitness account.

13:27 / 17.06.04

See, youse gone done edumacated yerself good about this stuff, and therefore I can't fault yer accuracy. Similarly, I know for a fact that certain areas of the country are ruled over by pensioners in atomic robotic geriatric suits, others have a police force entirely consisting of saucy female human/feline hybrids and yet more are on the brink of societal collapse due to der yoofs ripping up the streets on neon motorbikes.

13:52 / 17.06.04

My sylybus for GCSE History was, 'Medicine through time', 'The rise of Hitler', and the 'Russian revolution'. That was 11 years ago. At the time I wasn't that interested and wanted to learn about knights and kings but now I can remember a fair bit of what I learnt and I'm really glad I did since its far more relevent than all that King Arthur stuff!

My knowledge of Japan is quite limited but I know a fair bit about Japenese POW camps during WW2 since my Grandad lived in one for 3 years. Heard some mad stories over the years. My girlfriends Mum lived in Japan for 3 years and she has some great stories as well. And my "brother in laws" girlfriend is living out there now. In fact I know far more about Japan than I thought! Oh, I've also watched and read Akira and seen Battle Royale and I remember Blue Peter going to Japan on holiday when I was a kid. Based on all that limited knowledge I declare Japan a fascinating country that I really want to go and visit that is no more fucked up than anywhere in the west.

Oh and 1978 was the last time someone was assinated with a poison tipped umbrella in the UK. source

13:55 / 17.06.04

Don't forget the planetary defence force equipped with a cornucopia of giant robots, robots that turn into planes, planes that turn into tanks and tanks that turn into other, bigger tanks. All crewed by really skinny girls with big breasts in form fitting suits along with a robot who's design has been ripped off from the original Robbie the Robot and whose sole purpose is to make wisecracks and occasionally save the day in mind-bending plot twists.

...oh, and let's not forget the Space Battleship Yamamoto.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:00 / 17.06.04

Well, I think that any problems the old country may be having should be solved by the appointment of the new Minister for the Interior. He's got a history of public service, a commitment to social reform, and he's *made of robot lions*.

14:11 / 17.06.04

Jesus Christ, the snarkomatic pilot is shorting out. Why can't you people take anything seriously?

14:21 / 17.06.04

Because we grew up watching Battle of the Planets, Star Blazers, Voltron, Robotech and a whole host of other Japanese TV series...the subliminal undercurrents of these shows all combined to ingrain in us the unshaken belief that Japan is just like it is portrayed in those series. Plus it's full of CD players the size of pennies, mobile phones that double as umbrellas and trains that go faster than light.

14:30 / 17.06.04

I reakon our collective fascination with Japan is just based on how different it is. I know that when I went there as a teenager it was a big head fuck for me (in lots of ways in a very good way). Much more so than my other travelling experience at that age, which involved some of europe and a bit of israel. There just was no real common ground in Japan... maybe this is mostly to do with the language barrier, but things did just seem materially different to me.

One time, when I was about 13 or 14, I went to a baseball game with my dad and some guy he worked with, who was about forty, and his son, who was a few years older than me: I remember my dad's friend asking me if we wore sexy uniforms in england, like the japanese school girls did,...
the fact it was something a middle aged man thought it was ok to ask the daughter of his collegue in front of his own son seems kind of weird to me in a way that is not entirely possible to dismiss by saying I'm just too white/western to understand the culture...

People there in general seem to have a very much more sexist view of women, in my experience, and as you can see through the culture that comes our way in the West...

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