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Japanese National Police Investigating Games
Gamasutra reports that, like here in the states, Japanese games are coming under increased scrutiny by law-enforcement and politicians. From the article: "Japan's National Police Agency is currently investigating the effects playing video games and watching anime have on children. Currently being led by former deputy governor of Tokyo, Yutaka Takehana, the police-sponsored group met on April 10 in Tokyo to discuss topics such as violent video games and sexual content on the internet."
Yay! First comment!
Really, I'm surprised something like this didn't happen sooner; I wonder if any part has to do with making Japanise sites and games more "US-friendly?"
How to enable garbage collection on a system without protected memory: #define malloc() ((void *) rand())
Due to a misunderstanding, massive ammounts of bleach have been pulled from store shelves due to a recent ban passed down from the tokyo police.
I am full of goo... black evil goo
Why the hell didn't they investigate BEFORE I watched Speed Racer and Gigantor?!?
I've been scarred for life!
The latest Slashdot meme.
Thank God somebody is doing something about these violent videogames! Thanks to violent videogames, I've murdered 0 people, and am on a degenerative track to murder another 0 more by the end of my gaming life.
In summary, it's all personal responsibility:
Remember, here in the U.S.A, we have reached a new age.
NOBODY is responsible for their own actions.
Remember that.
Holy shit! I killed somebody! Bob made me do it!
Bob: Joe made me do it!
Joe: I blame the media!
Media: Videogames.
Videogames: Personal responsibility?
Personal Responsibility:
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
...that the japan police are having alot of fun 'investigating' the effects video games have on players. Specifically testing to see what impact a 3 hour, 4 player, smash brothers melee session has on player.
I hope that the one and only conclusion reached is that the censorship needs to be removed from depictions of naughty bits.
I can dream, can't I?
The Japanese are viewed by many Americans as all lovers of anime, video games, and all the other "pop" culture things that we love to import from them. However, the truth is much different.
Anime & video games in Japan is largely split into two different groups:
1) For kids and shown on public TV.
2) For geeks and loners and shown on subscription channels and direct to video shows.
The average adult attitude about adults that spend a lot of time watching anime & video games is very dim thanks to widely publicized crimes by loners over the past two decades. These isolated incidents are basically the equivalent of the D&D killings in the 80s, Columbine, etc. over here and have resulted in a very similar attitude in the Japanese public about the otaku. While there's little religious fundamentalist opposition to the fan service, porn, and violence in adult targetted anime, the mainstream public still views it as unseemly and regards fans with suspicion.
I'm personally surprised they haven't launched an investigation sooner.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Because we all know the world was peaceful and tolerant before PONG started the downfall of civilization.
meh
Don't the Japanese National Police have bigger problems to deal with.
You do realize that if it's not from Japan, it's not anime, right? It's pretty hard to watch non-imported anime in the US :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
At least there's one criminal who is willing to accept personal responsibility.
That's just because he saw some once, and is now a little dumber for having done so.
R RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
AAAAAAAAAAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRR
It will be interesting to see some findings. In America, gamers accept as fact that games have no effect on our personal willingness to commit violence, based on common sense (not studies).
Are the people doing the "examination" unbiased enough to find significant, new data that clearly shows one way or the other? And if so, can that data be found true here in the US as well? Keep us posted...
Do NOT censor my tentacles.... But I bet they will.
Granted some japanese porn still has closeups wich results in one big censored screen but it is offset by the absolutly weird stuff the companies like Soft in Demand come up with.
For instance their Deep Kiss series is totally hot yet has no censorship. Because it doesn't have any nudity. Thats right. Porn with no nudity. ONLY in Japan!
On a more serious note. A lot of japanese porn seems to obsess with rape. Offcourse the only way I know about it is because westerners share it via torrents so it is hardly limited to the west BUT I can imagine that someone in japan is worried about it.
In the game section too there are plenty of rape games. Games the make GTA seem very tame indeed.
The problem is that even if these violent games do have an effect on people what are you going to do? Plenty of stuff affects people badly. Religion is one. Just check all the holy wars we have and been having. Lots of people get in trouble because of alcohol as well.
Yet do we ban religion or booze? No.
We accept the price of some people being unable to deal with it as worth paying so the majority can maintain their freedom.
Then again alcohol is moderated and the church (at least in the west) is kept on a tight leash. Perhaps it is time to accept that games should be controlled as well. You know with like an age limit system so violent/sexual games can only be legally bought by people of the right age.
Oh that already exists?
Part of me is horrified by the notion of restricting free speech. Just replace "game" with "book" and most people would be very upset if you started banning fiction based on content.
On the other hand, what kind of person plays a rape sim anyway? Well me offcourse, else how would I know about them, but only once and then I just stayed the fuck away. Still I am not likely to rape in real life (oh okay since I am a nerd even a teenage girl could beat me up) even after playing.
In europe the driving license laws are being upgraded to be the same across the EU. One of the changes is that now all the countries will have a limit as to what class of motorcycle you can drive depending on your age (and a bit on how much experience you got).
It is in reaction to the "problem" of young people getting on powerfull bikes and killing themselves.
Strangely it is not much of a problem. First of all the accidents are rare since powerfull bikes are very very expensive and very hard to drive when drunk (you fall over wich is embarrising but rarely lethal).
The accidents that do happen are solo. Meaning the idiot eh sorry young biker kills himself and noone else. So who gives a hit. Evolution in action.
Yet to curb this limited problem personal freedom is sacrificed. Yet powerfull cars are not limited. Yet these do cause far more deaths often NOT of the young driver causing the accident.
Strange eh. Cars driving by the majority are unregulated, motor cycles NOT being driving by the majority are regulated.
Games make people violent. This is a fact.
Soccer matches make lots more people violent. So violent city centers have to be closed off by the police as soccer fans rampage through the streets.
Games played by a "minority" are regulated. Soccer watched by a majority is not.
I am getting a HUGE flash of insight here. Could it be that politcians are only intrested in regulating/banning stuff that is NOT seen to be enjoyed by a majority?
Perhaps not, it is too simple BUT I do think that going after games is too easy an answer. Not that I got an answer. Live is a bitch.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Do you consider Gennedy Tartakovsky to be Japanese?
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I dunno, how are they going to crack down a whole genere of games? Or I guess they don't find ecchina koto very bad. Or are they only cracking down on GTA-like violence.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
Everyday millions of Manga Comics are sold. On 20 people, 15 are reading and at least 5 of those are reading Mangas. Thats an everyday thing. And those Mangas reach from ... to ... (put in your own ideas). So it can happen that the guy next to you reads a nice tentakel manga. Quite funny actually (from a western point of view).
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
... I really can't take them so serious anymore. [warning, freaky midi music, official goverment page] http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/sikumi/pipo/pi po.htm
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
Actually, I consider him to be someone I had never heard of before I read your comment. And none of the films he's involved with are anime however entertaining they may be.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You do realize that anime is merely the romanized word for animation, or animeshon, right? Got to love western society furthering the nihonjinron.
You must be new here.
It goes a-little somethin' like this:
KANEDA! TETSUO! KAANEEDAA! TEETSUUOOO! KAAAANEEEEDAAAAA!
While I do understand that, it doesn't change the fact that the definition of the word today is understood to be japanese animation. That has been true at the very least as long as I've been aware of anime, which has been since I was about ten or eleven. Granted, that's not an amazingly long time ago, and anime was around before I was, but that doesn't change anything.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
ignorant bastard: Astro Boy
I've downloaded a dozen or so random first episodes of anime over the past couple days, and their ecchi content was rather high.... It seems wrong this stuff is probably shown normally on TV....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
So Lolita is a Russian novel?
I wish I could live in a universe that is approximately the space between my ears.
to say Japanese Anime / Animation is to mean that it is animation from Japan. Anime is merely animation. I suspect you have bought fully into the concept that the culture of Japan owns a drawing style. That is invented tradition and is buying into the nihonjinron.
So it can happen that the guy next to you reads a nice tentakel manga. Quite funny actually (from a western point of view).
I deliberately didn't mention manga because it's treated differently -- supposedly, anyway. I'm beginning to suspect that that's another Western myth about Japan too.
I didn't see more than about four people reading manga on public transit when I was there for three weeks back in 2000, and I never saw anyone doing anything with porn except in the creepy otaku shops in Akihabara. I suspect that while manga is more respected there than comics here that it's not nearly as respected as you might think (with the same sort of prohibitions against enjoying frivolous kid's entertainment and fetishized adult products), and I'm absolutely positive that anyone reading porn in public would be just as ostracized there as here.
The Japanese do love to read in public, but it's almost always novels, newspapers, and text messages as far as I could tell from my time in Sendai with a couple of weekends in Tokyo.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Well, I might add that I live here in Japan for more than three years and I tride the train to work everyday. I live in an average area, which means I have all the average japanese people around me and manga is treated equal. Nobody will look strange if someone is reading it. Yes its true, that the manga readers are more younger people (20ish) and more lower educated people (eg not working as "salery man"). But they are there, and they are not so little.
True is, that most japanese people read normal books. I would say good 70% to 75% are doing this. The rest is reading any kind of newspaper or Manga. You see newspaper readers mostly in the morning, journals mostly in the evening, but you see that rare. Most manga readers in the morning are young salery man. In the evening I can't say, I see less, but going home is different than going to work.
But let me tell you, it might be _very_ different depending where people live. If someone stayes in Roppongi or similar areas, you will see none, or almost no manga readers at all. If you live more outside, where the average japanese person is living, this whole thing is very different. Thats just my guess to that.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
The fact that people are looking for causes for crime does not mean that those who commit the crime aren't responsible.
The more adult and ecchi shows are typically shown on A) subscription channels and B) shown at 2am in the morning. Think of what is on Cinemax after midnight.
Japanese Police force should investigate and root out the yakuza that have infiltrated every aspect of their community first. Yakuza has power in japan ranging in a spectrum of fields from fast food stands to big corporations, and politics. They are a much more harmful factor than any anime or video game could ever be. At least, kids do not have semi automatic weapons en masse.
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