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NEWS: Indonesian Child Dies After Reportedly Imitating Anime


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minakichan





PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:53 am Reply with quote
Before anyone starts screaming at the Indonesian government for being a bunch of censor-loving Fascists, I do want to say that they have a point. Despite our conceptions of Naruto (and the way that its fanbase sometimes acts), it's not a show for little kids. I don't think Naruto should be censored, but at the same time, how else do you prevent this kind of thing from occurring? Although fans might naively expect differently, even a model parent cannot understand and monitor every single thing their child sees. I don't know what I think the solution to this problem should be, but I do know that whatever it is, it's not as simple as anyone-- whether they be government, parents, or even fans-- believes.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 9902
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:56 am Reply with quote
So, if a murderer said "Hasta la vista, baby" before killing his victim, the governor of the State of California should apologize with his resignation.

Rolling Eyes

minakichan wrote:
Although fans might naively expect differently, even a model parent cannot understand and monitor every single thing their child sees.

That's how Mother Nature has been doing for billions of years: not every offspring can reach adulthood.
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DmonHiro





PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:06 pm Reply with quote
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of cartoon of Cartoon Networks "Power Zone". I watched Bird Man, Space Ghost, Centurions. On the italian channels I watched X-Men, Power Rangers, Batman.
Yet...I never tried to imitate the chracters. I never tried to fly out the window like Bird Man or jump through buildings like Batman.
So...it's all for the best. Cleaning up the gene pool is a lovely thing.
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bonbonsrus



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 1537
Location: Michigan, USA
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:10 pm Reply with quote
Wow, I would have been interested to hear more details of this.
I wonder how old this child was?
At first I thought, how does one strangle oneself?, but I guess you'd have to have some sort of help, and you usually hear about kids dying this was from trying to get a cheap thrill by cutting off oxygen, not usually anime or TV influenced.
This seems so bizarre.
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Samurai-with-glasses



Joined: 17 Aug 2005
Posts: 628
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:15 pm Reply with quote
minakichan wrote:
Before anyone starts screaming at the Indonesian government for being a bunch of censor-loving Fascists, I do want to say that they have a point. Despite our conceptions of Naruto (and the way that its fanbase sometimes acts), it's not a show for little kids. I don't think Naruto should be censored, but at the same time, how else do you prevent this kind of thing from occurring? Although fans might naively expect differently, even a model parent cannot understand and monitor every single thing their child sees. I don't know what I think the solution to this problem should be, but I do know that whatever it is, it's not as simple as anyone-- whether they be government, parents, or even fans-- believes.

...it is a show for kids.

#####

F-cking opportunists the lot of them, Southeast Asian politicians. I've been there myself, I know what's it about. The country's going to hell, corruption's rife, dictatorial government, and the politicians blamed the "decline of morality among youths." Rolling Eyes

F-ck them I say. Kid died. Accident. Tragedy. And?
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DonQuigleone



Joined: 31 May 2007
Posts: 154
Location: Dublin, Ireland
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:15 pm Reply with quote
How did it exactly happen? I mean this could just be a case of horseplay gone wrong (which happens pretty often, accidents DO happen), or a case of the kid just being really stupid, that said a lot also hinges on a how old he was, then again, most children aren't ever gonna actually intentionally strangle themselves so...
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fightncomet



Joined: 31 Jan 2007
Posts: 14
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:17 pm Reply with quote
I agree with DmonHiro.

I mean, come on. How many of us watched things like the Roadrunner and all those WB cartoons. Did any of us go running off hills expecting to live? Did any of us go out and starting hitting our friends on the head with frying pans thinking they won't actually get hurt?

I'm making a blanket statement here, but I think it's necessary. Many people try to blame so much on Movies, TV, Books, etc for people and children doing things that are dangerous. But isn't it really more a problem of raising your children and teaching them to use good judgment? This doesn't mean that censorship or banning books is the answer, either. It means that you should teach your kids not to imitate actions you see in fictional shows or movies.

At least that's what I think.
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braves



Joined: 29 Dec 2007
Posts: 2309
Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas)
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:21 pm Reply with quote
Needless to say that this kid wasn't so bright. I myself watched DBZ uncut when I was a kid, and I didn't try to imitate Goku by trying to fly out of my window, or send a ki blast in front of a moving car in an effort to make it stop. Rolling Eyes But, R.I.P. kid.



dormcat wrote:
So, if a murderer said "Hasta la vista, baby" before killing his victim, the governor of the State of California should apologize with his resignation.

LOL.
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ConanSan



Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 1818
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:25 pm Reply with quote
Course, on the oppostie end of the spectrum, where was the partents in all this?
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minakichan





PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:32 pm Reply with quote
Samurai-with-glasses wrote:
...it is a show for kids.


It is a show for kids, it is not a show for small children. The manga runs in Shounen Jump, not Coro Coro magazine.

The parents were at fault, but you can't say that it was 100% in their power to stop the kid from watching Naruto. Most children who have a TV in the house, has friends, or understand the Internet can eventually figure out how to GET MOAR NARUTOZ. Nowadays there are a lot of families in which both parents work, and not everyone can afford day-care, for example. (That's the situation I was in as a kid; if I really wanted to watch age-inappropriate movies, it would have been simple.) In such a situation, unless the parents lock him in a closet or something, there's still always a possibility.


Last edited by minakichan on Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:37 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Flame-X



Joined: 06 Oct 2005
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:32 pm Reply with quote
HAHAHA!!! take that narutard!
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Time and Space



Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 167
Location: China
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:33 pm Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
So, if a murderer said "Hasta la vista, baby" before killing his victim, the governor of the State of California should apologize with his resignation.


Heh, that's perhaps the most ridiculous 'simile' I've ever read. Is that seriously your interpretation of this story? If so, wow, just wow.
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Richard J.



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis.
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:38 pm Reply with quote
fightncomet wrote:
Many people try to blame so much on Movies, TV, Books, etc for people and children doing things that are dangerous. But isn't it really more a problem of raising your children and teaching them to use good judgment? This doesn't mean that censorship or banning books is the answer, either. It means that you should teach your kids not to imitate actions you see in fictional shows or movies.
Let me give you a big "heck yeah!" for these words of wisdom.

When I was a kid, I grew up surrounded by firearms. Guns. Big, shiny, deadly weapons. With ammunition that I could easily get, load the weapons, and accidentally kill myself. Oddly, I'm still here. Want to know why?

Instead of making a big deal about staying away from the guns without explaining why (thus creating an irresistible mystery) my parents sat me down and explained everything to me about firearms, including the fact that they could render me dead. I never played with a gun in my whole life and still haven't. I never point them at others, I always treat them as if they are loaded, etc. Knowledge not mystery saves kids lives.

Years ago I saw a documentary on TV. Part of it was video from an experiment about different ways of raising children. Two kids were put into a room with a closet that had a gun in it on the top shelf. (Unloaded of course.) One child had been raised with a strict "never touch guns" approach and the other had been raised with a "here's how to safely handle guns but remember that they aren't toys" approach.

Guess which kid, with his mother watching the hidden camera feed, went and got a step ladder, got the gun, and started playing with it while the other sat playing with actual toys. Can you guess?

Now, this news story sounds more like a stupid accident than anything else. (I'm actually having trouble figuring out what part of Naruto could lead to self-strangulation.) But the fact is accidents are a hell of a lot less likely to happen when parents educate their children about the realities of life and death. If you know doing something might kill you, you're a lot less likely to do it. (And don't give me the "kids don't understand" bull. If they really didn't understand, every child under a certain age would try to fly, stop cars with their bear hands, etc. like characters in fictional stories.)

Also, I really hate politicians with their "this isn't necessary and look, someone died because of it!" mentality. A lot of kids die due to the stress of the public and private education system, probably a lot more than from comics, so why haven't you hypocrites shut down the schools? How many people die in traffic accidents, you don't see anyone outlawing cars. The real problem is that comics and other imaginative works get children to THINK and that scares politicians. People who think change the world.

The real story here is a child is dead because of bad luck or their own stupidity and a self-serving politican is trying to use that death to further his own agenda. It's sad and stupid and completely business as usual. Video games get it in the neck here most of the time.
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Whatocean



Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:38 pm Reply with quote
Well, I have to say a national media rating system is in order.
You know, T for Teen, M for Mature.
Everybody needs to break away from the thinking that, "Oh, it's animated. It must be OK for kids!"

Yes, nowadays, even animated content can have adult or violent themes in them, which I think is awesome. But I also believe that a great deal of responsibility has to come with media.

Yeah, the old Looney Tunes where cats, dogs, and even some humans fall off cliffs and get crushed under rocks are some of the most violent programming that kids watch. But Naruto and most other anime incorporate more interacting humans that look like actual people versus super-deformed American-style animation of people. Of course the kids can relate closer to anime and try to mimic what they do because they look like actual humans doing it. But aside from that...

People just love to scapegoat the creators of the artforms for making such outrageous content available in the first place. How about parents being accountable for what their children are being exposed to? If someone's child offs him/herself, it's 99% the parents' fault. Point blank: bad, lazy parenting.
If a child begins to curse, you can't yell at him/her off the bat. You have to question where the child learned the behavior and guide him/her towards socially correct behavior.

Honestly, these countless activists, home and abroad, that lobby to ban and censor anime make me sick. It's just a crusade to turn the world into a mindless Puritanical boredom hellhole.
If these people want to protect their kids so much, why don't they just do the right thing and be good, attentive parents, instead of sobbing to the government to ban the content and ruin it for everyone? Or at least have the producers implement the rating system to help parents control what the child can see and make better informed decisions on what their child should watch.


Last edited by Whatocean on Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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quartears



Joined: 27 May 2007
Posts: 46
PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:41 pm Reply with quote
people die all the time from stupid things. Naruto is a kid's show, for kids around 8 years old. I feel sorry for the kid, but this sort of thing happens all the time. Kids see stuff and they imitate it. However, censorship is still bad, it's up to parents to decided what their kids watch. The government needs to back out, when the government has too much power, then kids get taken away for mundane reasons like "suicidal poetry" from their mother. It really happens.
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