nihon popular in pop videos again?

[kotatsuneko]

what with gwen and her "gals" [anyone know the true story behind them btw? which agency they came from, et al. ? ] Basement Jaxx lensing tokyo in their latest "bingo bango". the pet shop boys shooting there a while ago for "flamboyant" and Gorrillaz latest "Feell good Inc" being more than a little inspired by Laputa et al., the whole Puffy affair, is/could the world ever be ready to see some real aspects of nihon, or will it for ever be relegated as a whore to be plundered for alt. cultural images?

[amdg]

[Samurai_Jerk]

is/could the world ever be ready to see some real aspects of nihon, or will it for ever be relegated as a whore to be plundered for alt. cultural images?

You mean like the US? Japan is exporting a lot of this pop culture. It's not being taken by anyone. I was watching Korean R&B and rap videos on the Asian channel the other day. Talk about cultural squatting. There's nothing more ridiculous than Asian guys with cornrows and short legged, no-booty-having Korean chicks trying to dance like they got some junk in the trunk.

[Lupin4]

"...see some real aspects of nihon, or will it for ever be relegated as a whore to be plundered for alt. cultural images?"

The real aspects of nihon are worse than the alt.cultural images. I mean, last year, Tokyo had more folks killed by (illegal) handguns than my hometown in the EVIL USA.

[FG Lurker]

The real aspects of nihon are worse than the alt.cultural images. I mean, last year, Tokyo had more folks killed by (illegal) handguns than my hometown in the EVIL USA.

Let me guess...your hometown is Buttfuck, Nevada, population 72?

[amdg]

The real aspects of nihon are worse than the alt.cultural images. I mean, last year, Tokyo had more folks killed by (illegal) handguns than my hometown in the EVIL USA.

Let me guess...your hometown is Buttfuck, Nevada, population 72?

Yes, Lupin4, that was not really very informative. Tokyo has the largest population of any city in the world, if I'm not mistaken, so unless you're from NYC, I don't see your point. And what's your source?

[Lupin4]

FG Lurker: My hometown is the most desireable place to live in the USA (or top 5, depending on the survey). Seriously. Bwahahahahahaha.

amdg: Japan is a "safety country", yet little boys in Osaka shove littler kids off of parking structures, and beheaded kids are found in (I think was) Saitama. The "real" Japan is something the locals don't want spread around the globe. So let's politely bemoan goofy cartoons and images of easy girls spread around the globe - lest the world see that the average prefecture has girl groping/assault/worse records that challenge a United Nations relief effort.

My source for the gun deaths? Bwahahaha. There can't be gangster shootings in Tokyo. Guns are 'illegal' in Japan, remember? Oh wait, cheap shot (no pun intended).

My comparison was Portland, Oregon's police records for the year. As for the Tokyo reports, dig through the MDN for a bit, the english section lists the dead. I was counting the year 2003/2004.....I've since stopped counting.

[FG Lurker]

There are somewhere around 1200 murders per year in Japan. There are somewhere around 19,000 per year in the US. Sure, the US population is double that of Japan, but that is still 1200 vs 9500.

The difference though is in the type of murder -- there are not a lot of random killings in Japan. Mugging and other violent crime is also a lot lower.

I would have no problem carrying US$1000 around at night in a major Japanese city. I don't do that regularly, but having a couple hundred bucks my wallet is not unusual. I would say that most FG are the same.

I also will walk the streets at night with several thousand dollars worth of camera gear over my shoulder and have no problems -- even in a "less than desirable" area of town. I leave a fairly expensive carbon-fibre-frame bike locked up near stations when I go out drinking at night. (No, I am not "loaded", I have just accumulated too much stuff in my time here.) I see expensive (Ferrari etc) cars parked in unattended parking lots regularly.

Would you be comfortable doing the above in your "top 5" city in the US?

Japan is not perfect of course...But crime in general is much lower here than a typical "western" country.

[Lupin4]

FG Lurker: Nice try on changing the subject, but no dice. A city with no guns allowed saw more people shot by criminals than a city where I freely (and often) carry one of my many handguns.

Apples & oranges doesn't begin to cover it. Japan is advertised as a "safety country", but gangsters still kill innocents caught in the (illegal, natch) crossfire. There's a difference there, and that's in Japanese denial, which may actually be a defense mechanism.

[FG Lurker]

FG Lurker: Nice try on changing the subject, but no dice. A city with no guns allowed saw more people shot by criminals than a city where I freely (and often) carry one of my many handguns.

Apples & oranges doesn't begin to cover it. Japan is advertised as a "safety country", but gangsters still kill innocents caught in the (illegal, natch) crossfire. There's a difference there, and that's in Japanese denial, which may actually be a defense mechanism.

You are comparing a city of 20 to 30 million people against a city of 530,000? Japanese don't really even consider a city of 530,000 to be a "real" city.

(Oh, and excuse me for a moment while I bust a gut laughing! )

Now, how about the answer to my question above?

[Lupin4]

FG Lurker: Actually, Portland is 2-million, but nice try on your research skills.

Tokyo gangsters (who can't buy guns downtown) have killed more bystanders than were killed by police and gangsters in the USA's Most Livable City.....sure, laugh away - hopefully from Nagoya.

Considering most of the Tokyo dead were gathered in a space the size of downtown Portland, you should take your math skills someplace with fewer people in it.

[FG Lurker]

To add to the above: Tokyo has one of the highest (if not the highest) population densities on Earth. Portland is semi-rural really, in comparrison.

Pack 20 million to 30 million Americans together in a city the size of Tokyo and watch what happens. I shudder to imagine.

[FG Lurker]

FG Lurker: Actually, Portland is 2-million, but nice try on your research skills.

Uh, it's not my research skills that are lacking. Have a look:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/41/4159000.html

Perhaps you think Portland has quadrupled in size since the 2000 census? The entire state of Oregon is only 3,421,399.

Really though, what validity is there to comparing the murders of the most populous urban area of the world to a semi-rural American town (by Japanese standards)? Since you are so big on avoiding "Apples to Oranges", lets compare the US's most populous cities to Tokyo, shall we? That would be New York and Los Angeles if I am not mistaken.

Or, since Tokyo is the capital of Japan, perhaps we should compare it to Washington DC, the oh-so-safe capital of the US? Last I heard DC was the gun-murder capital of the US which in turn is the gun-murder capital of the world.

[amdg]

Forget about it FGL. Just file it under troll and ignore.

[FG Lurker]

Forget about it FGL. Just file it under troll and ignore.

Yeah, I know I shouldn't feed the troll. It's funny to watch him try to prove the improvable though.

[amdg]

Forget about it FGL. Just file it under troll and ignore.

Yeah, I know I shouldn't feed the troll. It's funny to watch him try to prove the improvable though.

Yeah I know, but I just worry about his poor innocent mother who has to foot the bill for all of this posting...

[FG Lurker]

It's even funnier cause the Tokyo metropolitan area contains about 1/4 of Japan's population. He's trying to compare it to what is essentially a hicktown. A nice hicktown, but a hicktown all the same.

"Yeah, my little city (0.19% of the US population) has fewer murders than Tokyo (25% of Japan's population)!!"

The fact that he even thinks they *could* be compared shows the shocking state of violent crime in the US.

[jingai]

Forget Portland.

Take the crappy town I live in, Hartford CT.
Population: about 120,000 people. I'm not counting "greater Hartford," which would include all of central CT, but just the city itself. Guns are legal and plentiful. Land area is about 17.3 square miles.

So is this a land of bliss like Portland, Oregon and proof that just because you have available weapons and widespread poverty you don't have crime...
Let's take a look.

From citydata.com Hartford's 2002 numbers
http://www.city-data.com/city/Hartford-Connecticut.html
25 murders (20.2 per 100,000)
57 rapes (46.1 per 100,000)
891 robberies (721.2 per 100,000)
574 assaults (464.6 per 100,000)
1,572 burglaries (1272.5 per 100,000)
5,571 larceny counts (4509.5 per 100,000)
2,180 auto thefts (1764.6 per 100,000)
City-data.com crime index = 770.8 (higher means more crime, US average = 330.6)

According to recent FBI figures for 2003, Hartford crime rate for 2003 is 93.0 per 1,000 persons and CT is 29.14 per 1,000 persons.

Not sure of the sources but it's interesting:
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/ja/Crime&b_cite=1
Assaults in Japan: 0.33 per 1000 people
Murders in Japan: 0.00 per 1000 people
Compare to Hartford above.

I'd rather live in Tokyo and simply stay away from Yakuza/Triad gang wars.
Roger

[jingai]

Not to compare apples and oranges- you must convert 1000 to per 100000.

So Japan's murders would still be less than 0/100,000 and assaults would be 33/100,000 comparead to 465/100,000 for lovely Hartford.

Also you can graph per capita murder rate for developed countries:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap&id=OECD

and per capita assaults:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_ass_cap&id=OECD

USA! USA!

[Lupin4]

Portland population is 2-million when you count the metro-area, which everyone does. You don't, but I'll let that slide. The population goes to 3-million when you count the Tokyo sized area.

Japan only had 637 reported & cataloged murders in 2000? Not bad. I wonder what the total in 2003 was.

So as I said Japan isn't ready for the world to see the "real Japan". The "Japan as advertised" vision is much more to everyone's liking.

And yes jingai, Hartford sounds like a dump.

[FG Lurker]

Portland population is 2-million when you count the metro-area, which everyone does. You don't, but I'll let that slide. The population goes to 3-million when you count the Tokyo sized area.

So the population of metro Portland is 2/3rds of the entire state of Oregon? And if you enlarge it slightly further it is nearly the same as the entire state of Oregon? So the other 90,000-odd square miles of Oregon is essentially uninhabited? Interesting...I don't remember it that way.

All my figures are from the above linked government census page. I'd like to see the sources for your figures.

Japan only had 637 reported & cataloged murders in 2000? Not bad. I wonder what the total in 2003 was.

Generally in any given year Japan has less than 1 murder per 100,000 people. If you want sources I can dig for them but they will be in Japanese (I have already tried to find English ones, but nothing particularly reliable & recent seems to exist.)

So as I said Japan isn't ready for the world to see the "real Japan". The "Japan as advertised" vision is much more to everyone's liking.

Dude, I have lived in Osaka for over 10 years. I *know* the real Japan from first hand experience, both the good & the bad. Japan is far from a perfect country and there are many criminal problems (rather severe gov't corruption, bid-rigging, price fixing, just to name three) and many societal problems. However, trying to compare violent crime rates between the US and Japan is a joke -- even your own numbers show that clearly.

[Lupin4]

"So the population of metro Portland is 2/3rds of the entire state of Oregon?"
Yep. If you extend the radius to include Salem (40 miles south of the Portland border) you get almost 3/4.

"trying to compare violent crime rates between the US and Japan is a joke"
That's not my point at all.

What I *am* pointing out, is that the Real Japan is darker than what the locals really want presented to the world. I also enjoy my time in Japan, warts and all. But I also see that the difference between Advertised Japan and Real Japan is more than the casual difference the long-timers assume.

As for my bringing up the comparison to Portland, I wasn't saying that Japan's crime is worse than the USA. Not even close. I was showing that the Safety Country can outdo even a bad year in the USA.

The year I compared to Tokyo saw Portland's shootings in the national news twice. That's a record, even for the city that hosted the "Don't Choke 'em, Smoke 'em debacle".

[Samurai_Jerk]

Lupin, please come back and join this discussion when you've grasped some basic logical and statistical concepts.

[FG Lurker]

"So the population of metro Portland is 2/3rds of the entire state of Oregon?"
Yep. If you extend the radius to include Salem (40 miles south of the Portland border) you get almost 3/4.

And your source for these stats is....? "Common knowledge"?

"trying to compare violent crime rates between the US and Japan is a joke"
That's not my point at all.

What I *am* pointing out, is that the Real Japan is darker than what the locals really want presented to the world. I also enjoy my time in Japan, warts and all. But I also see that the difference between Advertised Japan and Real Japan is more than the casual difference the long-timers assume.

Actually, what you are pointing out is your lack of understanding of valid statistical comparisons. I'm not flaming you with this comment either -- many people don't "get" stats properly which is why almost anything can be "proven" with them. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, perhaps you understand statistical comparisons but are ignoring what is valid and what is not. Or perhaps you believe you understand them, but actually do not.

In either case though, you absolutely cannot make valid comparisons of total numbers of crimes between cities of vastly different sizes! Any attempt to do so will produce completely and utterly meaningless results.

As a clearer example of a meaningless statistical comparison: Did you know that you can overdose on water? Using your statistical methods I could then "prove" that drinking water (4 or 5 litres within a minute or two) is more dangerous than drinking, say, household pesticides (one small drop of standard bug spray/RAID). This is why it is critical to compare things in equal amounts -- apples to apples, so to speak.

Anyway... Even comparing on a "per capita" basis cities of vastly different sizes is not really possible because mega-cities like Tokyo/NY/LA and small cities like Portland have very different dynamics. However, "per capita" is the best system available that is easy to understand and use.

As for my bringing up the comparison to Portland, I wasn't saying that Japan's crime is worse than the USA. Not even close. I was showing that the Safety Country can outdo even a bad year in the USA.

Read what you just wrote... You said that you weren't trying to show that crime in Japan is worse than crime in the US. Then you said you were trying to show that crime in Japan is worse than the US.

Give up trying to prove this before you fall further behind.

In any case, you are of course welcome to your opinion, devoid of facts and improvable though it may be.

[FG Lurker]

Lupin, please come back and join this discussion when you've grasped some basic logical and statistical concepts.

Perfectly said!!

I didn't see your reply as it was quite some time between when I hit "quote" and when I had a chance to finish my post below yours.

"There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics."
--(Attributed to many different people)

[Lupin4]

"Read what you just wrote... You said that you weren't trying to show that crime in Japan is worse than crime in the US. Then you said you were trying to show that crime in Japan is worse than the US. "
I was pointing out that the *perception* of crime-free Japan is incorrect.


"I'm not flaming you with this comment either -- many people don't "get" stats properly"
I'm not flaming with this either -- I'm not commenting about the actual stats. I'm using this *limited* comparison to show the fallacy in the perception of *Safe* Japan.

The limited example showing that in 'Gun-Free' Japan more people were shot dead than in a 'Right-to-Carry' city is an example of Japan's two faces. Folks in American assume Japan is non-stop wonderfulness, but the 'real' side does contain notable exceptions to the wonderful stereotype.

Yes, yes, comparing Tokyo to Portland-metro isn't an even comparison. But I'm not trying to make an apples-to-apples comparison. What I am pointing out is that the Real Japan has some case-in-point examples that do give casual observers of Advertised Japan reason to pause.

That's all there is to it - I'm not saying Japan is worse than the USA in any demonstrable/statistical way. But I am showing that Real Japan can be worse than Americans think.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Lupin sounds to me like one of those guys who came with rose-tinted glasses and was shocked to find that, yes, Japan has some crime and social problems too. It's not all high-tech gadgets and giggling animated school girls. Now he wants to convince the world that Japan is fucked because his dream is shattered. Most Americans I know don't think Japan is a wonderland. Just the otaku that have been rubbing 'em out to Sailor Moon since junior high.

[FG Lurker]

You fail to understand that your comparison is absolutely meaningless. It is just as valid as me saying: "I was only trying to show that water can be poisonous too."

It's bullshit. Or, as AK would say, BULLSHIT!

No one has said that Japan is crime free. However it is factually correct that Japan is the safest industrialized (or G8 if you like) country. Tokyo is very likely the safest large city in the world.

Further, your likelihood of being shot/stabbed/strangled/mugged/etc in Tokyo is far smaller than *any* American city. I defy you to prove otherwise.

[FG Lurker]

Lupin sounds to me like one of those guys who came with rose-tinted glasses and was shocked to find that, yes, Japan has some crime and social problems too. It's not all high-tech gadgets and giggling animated school girls. Now he wants to convince the world that Japan is fucked because his dream is shattered. Most Americans I know don't think Japan is a wonderland. Just the otaku that have been rubbing 'em out to Sailor Moon since junior high.

Again, well said.

Japan is certainly not perfect. In the area of violent crime though trying to compare the US and Japan seems very bizarre. Why not compare the US with the UK? The UK also bans firearm ownership but violent crime is on the rise.

[Lupin4]

"Lupin sounds to me like one of those guys who came with rose-tinted glasses..."
Actually, I knew about the prostitution and kiddies killing each other before I moved to Japan. I expected the mob violence in Japan. I also expected the drug problems. Even the suicide-with-strangers I was comfortable with. But the shooting aspect did catch me off-guard.

Seeing the news report more folks getting shot in Tokyo than in my nationally-hyped hometown cut too close to the bone. After all the anti-gun whining in the USA, it was an uncomfortable example of what keeps happening around the USA (Washington, DC being the best example).

"Why not compare the US with the UK?"
The West has already internalized the decline of the UK, unfortunately. And yes, Australia and the UK outlawing good guys from owning guns is a bad idea.