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The timing could not have been worse. The energy was already flagging in Electric Town as the area was slowly becoming a police state in the wake of crackdowns on street idols and cosplayers (the TV is now praising the already-elevated police presence in the area, saying there would have been more mayhem if not for them).
But even if the perpetrator, or the media - bless them - doesn't blame it all on moe figures and hentai doujinshi, you know, the "otaku boom", the deal has been sealed, the epoch has been crossed, and the new message is not "Yokoso Japan."
Yeah, yeah.. Guess you're right. I just get frustrated when there's little resistance towards crazy guys in suits with knives..eddie wrote:gotta say the knee-jerk mockery here of the locals is a bit disappointing...sure there's plenty to goof on living here, but this is a real sad story. c'mon...
Japanese legally have very poor rights of self defense and almost no rights for a "hero." Anybody who tried being a hero would be in jail today..a gaijin hero would be "questioned" in custody for days.Kuang_Grade wrote:In all fairness,...Facing an opponent who has shown active use of a large knife in an open area with clear lines of escape, most folks aren't going to think for nanosecond about taking him on..they are going to run....
The Akihabara district attracts its share of troubled types - typically, socially inept young men who view the world through the prism of manga comics and computer games. But while thousands go there to find acceptance and a kind of camaraderie, Tomohiro Kato arrived there yesterday for very different reasons. The aim of people like Kato "is to make as big an impact as possible," said Nobuo Komiya, a professor of criminology at Rissho University in Tokyo. "They see famous places like Akihabara as a stage, and themselves as the protagonist. It's their way of breaking out of their isolation and getting society's attention. The worst thing is that, in their eyes, they are doing nothing wrong."
Komiya cites the ever-growing income gap in Japan as one of the factors in creating an underclass of young people who go to extremes to break out of their isolation. "The gap between rich and poor is growing at the same time as Japan's information society is becoming more sophisticated," he says. Even government ministers admit that poverty is now at unacceptable levels; that neo-liberal economic reforms have created a low-paid, part-time workforce, the antithesis of the job-for-life security that the Japanese took for granted until the arrival of the "lost decade" of recession and corporate restructuring. While social conservatives are quick to blame the promotion of individualism in Japan's postwar, US-authored education system, few American children would recognise the relentless pressure on their Japanese counterparts to pass exams, and the ease with which the system discards those who fail.
While yesterday's killing spree is an extreme example, Japan has few safety nets for those who feel they are about to reach snapping point. Counselling services lag far behind those in the west, partly due to a strong cultural resistance to discussing personal problems and the stigma attached to mental illness. And Japan's prowess in information technology has only made it easier. Only last month, a government panel called on parents to limit their children's mobile phone use amid a dramatic rise in anonymous bullying on internet school message boards. "The internet means people start believing they can function, find what they are looking for in life without ever having to really interact with another human being," Komiya said. While mercifully few people turn to murder, many more seek escape in ending their own lives. More than 30,000 Japanese people kill themselves every year. Already this year about 300 people, mainly in their 20s and 30s, have taken their own lives by inhaling the deadly gas produced by a concoction of household detergents. Last year the government set aside more than £100m for suicide prevention. While Japan looks kindly on studious pupils and workaholic employees, it can be unforgiving for those who underachieve.
halfnip wrote:It's fucking scary to think about it. Kind of scary like back in the day when people used to just worry about getting robbed or shot in the US for no reason. But nowadays in the US, you can pretty much avoid that stuff by staying out of the "hood" type of areas or by not flashing too much "bling". Here though, you can be standing there waiting for your train and some dumbfuck can decide to give you a bump, or some guy just killing someone "just because I wanted to kill someone".
omae mona wrote:Halfnip, you really can't avoid random violence in the U.S. any more than you can in Japan. Just off the top of my head, I can think of three random shootings in the U.S. over the last year. 5 dead in a mall in Illinois, 6 killed by an upset off-duty cop in Wisconsin, and of course the big one: 33 dead at Virginia Tech. None of those took place in dodgy areas. Even adjusted for population size, statistically speaking it's a lot more likely that you end up a victim of random violence in the U.S. than Japan.
The tendency of national news outlets to cover every small crime nationwide, and then to sensationalize it, gives us an inflated sense of the danger in Japan, I think.
halfnip wrote:It's fucking scary to think about it. Kind of scary like back in the day when people used to just worry about getting robbed or shot in the US for no reason. But nowadays in the US, you can pretty much avoid that stuff by staying out of the "hood" type of areas or by not flashing too much "bling". Here though, you can be standing there waiting for your train and some dumbfuck can decide to give you a bump, or some guy just killing someone "just because I wanted to kill someone".![]()
I blame how this country looks down on people expressing their opinion's and the whole culture based around sempai/cohai (not that it's bad in all senses) type of shit where people talk to you like you're some fucking idiot just because they have been in the company longer than you. I hear these guys absolutely bash their subordinates and personally, think it's uncalled for. You think that doesn't drive them nuts to the point where they want to "kill" them? Heh, think again...
In other countries, you've got a psych therapist on every block, but what do people here in Japan do? Go to pachinko parlors?
;)"Yeah, I've been always awkward toward women and have spent pathetic life so far but I could graduate from being a cherry boy by using geisha's pussy at last! Yeah!! And off course I have an account in Fuckedgaijin.com. Yeah!!!"
Mulboyne wrote:
;)"Yeah, I've been always awkward toward women and have spent pathetic life so far but I could graduate from being a cherry boy by using geisha's pussy at last! Yeah!! And off course I have an account in Fuckedgaijin.com. Yeah!!!"
Neo-Rio wrote:His comment about always being forced to be a good boy and having to decieve people ring true. The only way to escape madness is to learn to start being honest. I don't want to believe that most Japanese would, instead of taking-it-like-a-man and deal with their issues, that they'd rather pull knives on each other.... like something out of a samurai movie.
omae mona wrote:Links, please.
Mike Oxlong wrote:So if that's a legit HepB warning, why wouldn't they advise the volunteers to go to the nearest hospital or clinic for testing. Why is police contact necessary? Am I being paranoid, or is there more to the story?
Media Coverage shows that some of these volunteer aid givers were non-Japanese.
;)"Yeah, I've been always awkward toward women and have spent pathetic life so far but I could graduate from being a cherry boy by using geisha's pussy at last! Yeah!! And off course I have an account in Fuckedgaijin.com. Yeah!!!"
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