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INTEREST: Report Linking Russian Suicides with Anime Criticized


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VLOXY



Joined: 07 Jan 2008
Posts: 41
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:11 pm Reply with quote
Words and numbers kill. BAN THE ALPHABET AND MATH!
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050795



Joined: 27 Mar 2009
Posts: 230
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:11 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
"For young children, I think Japanese late-night anime is no good. But really, something like Dragon Ball or One Piece might be OK. Naruto might be questionable."


Yeah that makes since Naruto is like WAY worse for kids then Dragon Ball and One Piece. Laughing

But really I have a feeling that family and school had more to do with it then anime. Serious depression can hit anyone at any time; good grads and a good family doesn’t atomically make you immune to it. Their deaths are unfortunate, but blaming anime isn't going to help pervert further suicides from happening.
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blarg01



Joined: 11 Apr 2010
Posts: 70
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:20 pm Reply with quote
It's always the answer here in NA, too. Put the blame on something else than what's happening at home/with the kid(s).
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:21 pm Reply with quote
Wonder if this lady has a book going on sale at Amazon... Laughing


Anyway. Yep, total bullcrap. Move along people, nothing to say here.
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Surrender Artist



Joined: 01 May 2011
Posts: 3264
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:24 pm Reply with quote
Things like this are always such idiocy. Even if some entertainment can be linked very clearly to the death, the underlying susceptibility of the person to suicide makes it a matter of what the victim latched onto, not the thing itself. These people are troubled and could have latched onto anything. Meanwhile, everybody else are enjoying these things without feeling driven to kill themselves. When society latches onto these things, it's chiefly about finding an easily targeted, straightforward explanation for things and only superficially about the problem itself. The real problems are almost certainly deeper, harder to understand and more difficult to address structural ones; those aren't things that humans are well suited to confronting, so they blame isolated subcultures that are convenient to stereotype rather than looking toward the larger, common culture that they are a part of.

Doctor Mahovskaya's concept of anime also seems distorted, to say the least. I'd sooner attribute the suicides to things like seasonal affective disorder and the social or economic stresses inherent in living in Russia.


Last edited by Surrender Artist on Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:27 pm; edited 2 times in total
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:25 pm Reply with quote
The blame is always placed on something - anything - other than the society, parents, teachers, and friends of these unfortunate young people.

Mark Gosdin
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Orange Hollow



Joined: 02 Jun 2010
Posts: 66
Location: Krasnoyarsk, Russia
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:28 pm Reply with quote
Facepalm. When I see what is shown on mainstream russian tv that's when I wanna commit suicide. Believe me, it's much worse than any most horrible anime.
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Banjo



Joined: 13 Dec 2010
Posts: 779
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:29 pm Reply with quote
if you like anime so much then you will want to live to watch more, not kill yourself Laughing
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Cecilthedarkknight_234



Joined: 02 Apr 2011
Posts: 3819
Location: Louisville, KY
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:38 pm Reply with quote
no it's not the stress of needing to succeed, if you fail then your nothing mentality these families impose on there kids. Oh just pass the buck as usual because parents don't want any blame.

I am sure some of the kids where not from families like this, however it's werid it's all high end families with money etc. I'm sure these is something else going on here but of course we will never know.. that lid will never be lifted off the cat-box.
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jojothepunisher



Joined: 04 Sep 2007
Posts: 799
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:48 pm Reply with quote
I AM SO TIRED OF SEEING EVERYONE BLAMING ANIME WHENEVER SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS. STOP RUNNING AWAY FROM YOUR PROBLEM AND FACE IT YOURSELF RUSSIA!
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stararnold



Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 227
Location: LaSalle, Quebec, Canada
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:55 pm Reply with quote
Banjo wrote:
if you like anime so much then you will want to live to watch more, not kill yourself Laughing
That's exactly what I was thinking, Banjo.

If Russia is trying to link anime to suicide so hard, the only possible connection would be if to say those kids killed themselves because they felt that Japanese animation jumped the shark and that they did not want to head towards a future where they'd feel that newer anime wern't as good as what they used to watch. Insane perhaps, but it's a possible speculation. As for me, unlike those suicidal idiots, I'll want to stay alive to see more anime, even if I find some anime aren't as fun as others.

The dumbest remark I have ever heard from this article is when referring to anime as a blur on the line between virtual culture and the real world. Come on. Anime is just as virtual as any form of fictional entertainment (like manga, American comic books, and American animation for instance), and anyone who can't tell what's real or not is an idiot.
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Tabriz_Gate



Joined: 08 Feb 2012
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:12 pm Reply with quote
My condolences to their families.

Now, I can imagine the Russian parents that doesn't know anything about anime, or to be specific, what the anime their kids are watching, is about, forbidding their kids watching anime and thinking "" I just save him/her" ... I can't stop relating this to the story of the pigeon that close its eyes and thought "there you go! the cat is gone"
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Kit-Tsukasa



Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 930
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:16 pm Reply with quote
My guess is the people who liked anime were found and are thus "bullied" for their "odd interest" to point where they were driven to suicide.

Anime is generally not culturally accepted anywhere and so people who have interest in this tend to have to fend for themselves or keep it secret.

Sounds far-fetched but it's not like this issue is uncommon either. Very few people can straight up admit to their "friends" and peers that they like anime/j-pop over everything else, including activities that are the heart of a country's culture (e.g. football and reality shows in the US)
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:56 pm Reply with quote
My condolences to these children, their families and friends.

Many people around the world still don't seem to understand that depression and mental illness are real, deadly diseases, rather than "being lazy" or "lack of motivation" or just plain "crazy." The amount of willful ignorance about suicide, even among so-called mental health professionals and doctors is disturbing. Although their have been studies showing that exposing young children to extremely violent or sexual situations via television, movies, even the news can cause PTSD symptoms that reflect children who face real violence and abuse in their lives, mental illnesses are generally not caused by watching too much TV or playing violent video games.

There are a variety of chemical, genetic, sociological and other complicated factors that can aggravate mental illnesses in children. People do not wake up one day deciding to kill themselves, and there are so many ways to help kids who are vulnerable to suicide.

Were there any sudden mood changes? Were they seeking help? Were proper medications made available to them?

I can't believe a doctor, of all people, would spread even more ignorance and blame about a serious illness.

i don't know what the mental health system is like in Russia, but the fact that anyone is trying to oversimplify a disease by blaming anime is disturbing.
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Ryu Shoji



Joined: 15 Jul 2009
Posts: 671
Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 3:39 pm Reply with quote
I agree with the remark of "I've never seen an anime like that!" in regards to the comment about girls killing each other as a sign of their never ending friendship. If K-On! had ended like that, it would have been a dark twist though xD.

The thing is, of course the media are going to make scapegoats - especially something that's foreign, to distract from problems closer to home.
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