Anime Encourages Murder; Updates: More Murders

A Blogs 4 Brownback Investigative Report

What Is Anime?

Many of you are probably aware of Japanese anime (Japanese animation or Japanimation) because of popular kids shows like Pokemon, Speed Racer or Star Blazers. Prior to release in the west, these shows have been cleaned up from their original violent and sexually explicit hentai (perverted) form which most Japanese cartoons seem to take. Fortunately these shows are edited and redubbed without all the violent and sexual content when they are released in the United States.

Make no mistake about it though: unlike in America, in Japan cartoons aren’t just for children. Probably due to the high cost of big budget live-action productions, a number of programs are produced for Japanese adults in the animation format. Often these are shown late at night to keep them away from children, but even the cartoons shown to children are violent, sexual in nature and make numerous references to magic and demons with no mention of G-d or Jesus. That’s because most Asians do not believe in G-d, but rather in primitive religions such as Buddhism or Shintoism (paganism).

NOTE: Be sure to see the list of terms at the end of this article.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (When they Cry) and Violence

Recently a couple of gruesome events took place in Japan which require the attention of parents in Japan and the world, including the United States. In usually peaceful Japan, violent acts mimicking an anime have rightly shocked the Japanese public and caused a number of television stations to suspend broadcast of the anime series.

Tokai Television Broadcasting Co. (Tokai TV) has decided to cancel screenings of the anime “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai” because of violent scenes it contains, it has been learned.

The broadcaster made the decision following an incident in which a Kyoto Prefectural Police officer was murdered in an ax attack by his 16-year-old daughter. The anime contains a scene in which a girl is pictured swinging an ax, and after Tokai TV received information about the anime from viewers, it decided to cancel the program.

I had read elsewhere that the girl was an aspiring mangaka (manga, Japanese comic book, artist). So it is pretty simple to conclude that she was heavily into anime and manga. The image on the right comes from the Higurashi manga – it’s quite similar to the crime (click the image to enlarge).

This troubling incident took place last week. It’s still newsworthy however, since it’s not an isolated case. Although another similar incident has occurred since then, it seems the series (24 30-minute episodes) is continuing anyway.

The 12th episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai murder mystery anime aired on TV Tama in Japan’s Saitama Prefecture, Sun TV in Hyogo Prefecture, and Chiba TV in Chiba Prefecture on early Tuesday morning, despite the episode’s earlier preempting on two other stations due to an axe murder case – and despite the news reports of a second axe murder attempt.

Here’s how they report the second incident, inspired by this horrible anime series containing gratuitous violence committed by children:

Officials in the Nagano Prefecture city of Tatsuno received an emergency phone call at around 2:05 a.m. Monday morning from a woman who said, “My child wounded my husband.” They found the 44-year-old husband bleeding from his head at the family’s residence. About twenty minutes later, the second oldest son, a 15-year-old third-year junior high student, voluntarily appeared at a nearby police station and reportedly said, “I struck my father with an axe.” Police arrested him for attempted murder.

What is Higurashi?

It seems the anime is based on a Japanese-only murder simulation computer game written by doujin (amateurs) group 07th Expansion and sold to ravenous otakus (obsessed anime geeks and loners) at Comiket (Comic Market, an unauthorized annual gathering of otaku, obsessed anime fans, and amateur artists in Tokyo, Japan). Here’s a brief description of the game:

“The game is about a series of mysterious deaths in a mountain village. A young girl protagonist is suffering trauma from the divorce of her parents. She uses a hatchet to kill her enemies.”

That’s a great message to send, isn’t it? And its fans cite Higurashi (”When They Cry”) as a kewl show about “killer lolis.” Loli refers to lolita, meaning a very young and sexually active girl, inspired by the perverse and notorious novel Lolita written in 1955 by Vladimir Nabakov.

I have discovered through researching this article that there are a number of fans of this disturbing series beyond Japan’s borders. In fact, English speaking fans from all over the world were collectively crying about not being able to get their violence fix when a recent episode didn’t air (due to the axe murder).

How can this be? Hardly anyone outside of Japan has any reason to learn Japanese. Further investigation revealed an underground distribution network. Read on.

Anime and “Fansubbing”

It turns out that there are a group of criminals, known euphemistically as “fansubbers” who routinely pirate hentai (perverted) and ecchi (adult) anime when it airs in Japan. Computer files containing the captured video, known by insiders as raws, appear on illicit websites immediately after broadcast.

Fansubbers quickly translate the dialogue into English and add subtitles using computer software. They then release this dangerous material, without permission, to the world on numerous clandestine websites which hungry anime fans (including lots of impressionable children) enthusiastically download and watch secretively.

An objectionable show can air in Japan and be available as a fansub (fan subtitled video) within 24 hours! Using “file sharing” (piracy) software such as BitTorrent (or BT), these fansubbed anime episodes can be downloaded in less than an hour. That’s a pretty impressive turnaround.

It can take months for a legitimate American company to clean up and redub offensive raw anime into a form more suitable for western audiences. But anime fans want “pure” and uncut material that would otherwise never be allowed to be viewed outside of the perverted otaku subculture in Japan.

The reason this is important is that children have access to this material and may be collecting it and watching it without their parents’ knowledge. And for good reason. Anime often contains graphic sex, intense violence and rampant perversion involving young pre-teen girls. These cartoons are not suitable for children.

Check your child’s computer for anime and anime terms, TODAY. Your child could become an otaku, a furry and even a murderer if not a sexual deviant. Don’t let it happen to you!

The Otaku (obsessive anime fan) Problem

Otakus are not harmless geeks. Even the Japanese people look down on these losers who are mostly segregated to Akihabara/Akiba, also known as the otaku mecca. A number of otaku in Japan have turned to rape and murder as an outlet for their perversions. Many of these deviants are not able to interact with normal people and often develop obsessive and unnatural desires and interests.

Case in point: Tsutomu Miyazaki, the otaku murderer. He was inspired in part by the Japanese snuff film series Guinea Pig and reenacted some of the repulsive acts depicted in “Flower of Flesh and Blood.”

WARNING: do not follow the Guinea Pig links above unless you have a strong stomach and no sense of empathy.

Conclusion

I hope this information, while not related to politics in general and Sam Brownback in particular, is useful to those of you with children and husbands who may find themselves seduced by anime. It may look cute or like kiddie cartoons, but there is sickness just below the surface. Like internet pornography, Japanese anime can be addictive and destructive.

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List of useful terms from this article:

• anime (ann-ee-may) – Japanese animation (Japanimation)
• Comiket (commie-keht), CM – Comic Market, an annual gathering of otaku and doujin artists in Tokyo, Japan
• doujin (dough-jin) – amateur self-published works (esp. manga, novels, computer games, etc.)
• ecchi (etch-ee) – lewd or naughty, shorthand for hentai (ecchi means h, the first letter in the word hentai)
• fansub (fan-sub) – anime video with Japanese dialogue and unauthorized English subtitles made by fans and available for download
• file sharing – euphemism for software piracy (including music and video files)
• furry (fur-ee) – perverts who enjoy dressing up in furry costumes (similar to Disneyland mascots) and having sex with modified stuffed animals
• hentai (hen-tie), hen, H – sexually perverted, weird
• loli (lolly), lolita – young girl (4-12), usually in a sexual context
• otaku (o-tah-koo) – obsessive anime and manga fan, usually a geeky loner, isolated from the world and human contact
• manga (mang-gah) – Japanese comic books

Further Reading

• Who Is an Otaku? a recent article in The Daily Yomiuri
• Figure Moe Zoku (Action figure gang of budding fetishists), a term coined by Japanese journalist Akihiro Otani, who understands better than anyone else that otaku are potential criminals, based on several high profile crimes perpetrated by these misfits.

Update: The third anime-inspired crime occurred today!

a 15 year old student at a private high school in Kagawa Prefecture attacked a classmate with a 16.5 cm wide-bladed knife

Update 2: Another anime/manga related murder. But since it happened in Belgium nobody will notice, and if they do, they won’t really care much about it.

La Dernière Heure…reports that two identical messages linked to the Death Note manga were left near severed body parts that were discovered Friday afternoon in the forest of Belgium’s Duden Park. According to the newspaper, the two paper sheets both say “Watashi wa Kira dess,” an apparent misspelling of the Japanese phrase “Watashi wa Kira desu,” or “I am Kira (Killer).” This is a catchphrase from writer Tsugumi Ooba and artist Takeshi Obata’s Death Note suspense manga series, in which a high school boy discovers a notebook which allows him to kill people by writing their names in it.

Update 3: Higurashi’s 13th episode has aired and I viewed it as promised in the comment thread. I said I would apologize if fewer than three people were killed in the episode which was chosen entirely at random. I win.

NOTE: Do not read the next paragraph if you don’t want me to spoil it for you.

The body count: 5 children were bloodily gunned down in cold blood by a crazed girl/woman who really seemed to enjoy her work, 1 young girl was gutted like a fish, in a crimson splash of blood, while still alive, and a village of 2,000 residents were rounded up and gassed to death. A number of people were tasered, hit with a bat or struck by a rather large axe/cleaver. But it’s not violent! On the bright side Rena, the infamous axe/cleaver girl used the blunt edge of her blade this time. But it didn’t help her much in the end.

Make no mistake: this show is NOT for children. It’s probably not even suitable for adults. Just like Dokoro-chan, featuring an “angel” who clubs her friend to death, Higurashi is a show to be avoided at all costs.

Update 4: You can sample this series, Higurashi Naku no Koro ni for yourself, if you are curious, starting from episode 1 of the first series, which aired last year. It is in Japanese with English subtitles. I don’t recommend this for children, so if you are under 21, don’t click the link.

Update 5: Anime also appears to encourage gang activity. The image to the right was sent in by a reader. Notice how the young lady is flashing gang signs? Apparently she is a huge anime and “say-you” fan. Those signs are similar to the ones you’d find in the hood.
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See also: A B4B Christmas warning about the Nintendo DS , a report on furries, and watch for the upcoming B4B Investigation into the evil inherent in video games. For now, see this expose on Video Game Perversion. It will chill you to your soul.

– Psycheout