Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Don't Anime Characters Go To Therapy?
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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That might be your experience, but for many others in the US it's not. I discuss therapy with my friends all the time. Many of us have mental health issues and take anti-depressants, but not all. I've talked very openly with people who have not had issues or been in therapy, and at one point arranged a leave of absence with my (very understanding) employer over my depression. It's something of an overstatement to say it's never discussed seriously between any people. Granted, it could be my age group; we tend to be in the mid-20s to early 30s. This isn't to say the US doesn't have massive issues with dealing with mental health or providing services, but you're obfuscating the main point, which is how mental illness is viewed and dealt with in Japan. The reality is that mental health services in Japan are very much behind other countries. Possibly as a byproduct of therapy not being a real option for most people--and apparently, many of those services being poor to begin with--you don't see it presented in anime. |
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Pretty sure mental health isn't examined much even in the West. We seem to just go the way of medicating our way out of it, which doesn't seem to work all that much either.
Also in S:G 0 airing now, Okabe is seeing a therapist. Often in a family/group oriented society it is contended that being with your group is treatment enough. There's also this idea of Identity. I remember when my therapist was about to put me on medication and I stopped going entirely. At some point my mental defects are part of who I am and I don't need to scrub them away. I think being accepting or not of these conditions plays into it. We treat it like "Oh you have a problem, clearly you must be broken." They treat it like "Oh you have a problem, but that's who you are." I can see drawbacks and perks to each outlook. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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I think it is worth mentioning:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/comical-psychosomatic-medicine I was very puzzled when I saw it, it attempts to be comical (with average success at best) but it talks about real issues. I wondered who would sponsor such a series and in the final episode it becomes clear, the whole idea is to help japanese get therapy by demystifying psychology. |
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myskaros
 Posts: 598 Location: J-Novel Club |
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You are absolutely correct. I think I conveyed my point poorly; I just meant that, even if it's stereotyped and completely separate from reality, Americans at least have an idea of what therapy is and how it goes that can be shortcutted in media portrayals to jump straight to the act of receiving therapy. If Japan doesn't already have this internalization, it could be cumbersome to depict without spending excessive time setting up the scenario to make sense for their viewers. |
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RestLessone
Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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Oh, sorry, I was trying to agree with you! You bring up an interesting point. When I see therapy on-screen I don't immediately think about what it is/how it works/etc., while that may be different for a person in Japan. I was more commenting on how people seem to think therapy in a show would be boring, but it's all based on the preconception of what therapy looks like. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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This is a bit of a segway, but I've heard that in South Korea, therapy is not routinely sought out because your medical record is often readily available to your employer, and it's seen as a bit of a red flag if you're marked for therapy.
On the other hand, the Korean drama Solomon's Perjury on Netflix showed a group of high schoolers getting 'counseling' from a police detective after one of their classmates committed suicide, so I'm not sure if this is more of a generational issue or if the laws regarding minors and counseling and schools are more stringent than for gainfully employed adults. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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I wasn't thrilled by Comical Psyho medicine. It seemed well intended, but too often resorted to crude humour & stereotyping (unsurprising, really, given its short episode runtime & baby's first mental illness approach to the subject). A better series, imo is Kuuchuu Buranko (Give Kenji Nakamura more work, Japan. He's one of the best you've got). It starts off looking like it will just be a lot of crude humour & stereotyping, but is actually a very earnest & well constructed (by anime comedy standards, anyway) exploration of mental health problems in modern Japan. The humour is much more of the type that people use to cope with their problems rather than jokes made at the expense of people with them. Last edited by Lemonchest on Wed Apr 25, 2018 1:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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FireChick
 Subscriber Posts: 2390 Location: United States |
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Oh wow! My question actually got answered here. Yay! First Answerman spotlight! But yeah, it's honestly kinda sad that people who genuinely need help are either denied it or told not to get help because they're considered "bad" or "weak" or shouldn't bother other people with their problems. Yeah, like any kind of mental illness is some kind of character flaw that can easily be resolved by telling us to "get over it" or "stop whining." I'm autistic, and while I've been relatively well off in turns of receiving support, others I know aren't so lucky. In fact, one of my favorite manga of all time, With The Light, often shows an autistic kid being shunned by others who claim he does bad things just because his mother didn't discipline him correctly or yell at the mother for not doing enough and leave it at that, not even trying to figure out why the behavior is happening. It's not just limited to Japan, either. There are lots of people everywhere who don't really understand mental illness, especially the fact that it's not something you can tell someone to get over. Telling someone to try harder and get over their mental illness is like telling someone to make a cake without being given the recipe or ingredients. It's not possible without support.
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ChimeyChime
Posts: 63 |
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I can confirm that the therapy sessions shown in movies is laughably inaccurate (think it's safe to say at this point, since I've been to so many different therapists at this point) Never fails to make me chuckle and roll my eyes.
My therapist DOES have a couch, but that's the only similarity. And for the record, if you get a therapist that acts like an emotionless drone robot, it's time to find a different therapist. Anyway, this was an interesting question with an interesting answer. Very insightful. |
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Angel'sArcanum
 Posts: 303 Location: Toronto, Ontario |
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Crap, I was actually wrestling with the same question as well but forgot I could've submitted it to the column! Glad someone did though. It's been bothering me especially lately now that I came back to watching March Comes In Like A Lion, I really think a lot of the show would be sort of rendered moot if Rei just went to a therapist. Hell, I've had a lot of personal gripes with that show in general, especially getting on board with Rei's more esoteric (or at least, until his backstory slowly comes out) depression and feelings of "loneliness" when he's surrounded by so many positive figures in his life to help him. Then there's his "friend" telling that one shogi player to crush him in a match to prove some stupid point about getting to acknowledge the people around him while Rei was in such a bad place at the time and SHOULD'VE felt practically suicidal (at least, if I were in his shoes) after his loss, but then the show has more needless comedy interjections yet again and the writing just makes it so Rei just naturally comes out of his funk to buy food after a few days. I could not relate at all, and I was in a really bad place myself at the time I watched it just a little while back, so I put it off/am considering dropping it just because I was so repulsed at what his friend did to him, and his opponent didn't even try to console him or explain the background of the whole thing after, it was awful. Then it just tries to validate it by having Rei just "get over it" somehow, did not understand at all.
Meanwhile, I think Kiyoshi Kurosawa's film 'Tokyo Sonata' is a fantastic criticism of Japanese societal expectations and rituals, arguing for a more flexible and accepting attitude for how to lead a life and let opportunities grow. |
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#861208
Posts: 423 |
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This
It's the same in the West. I know from years and years of experience. Just the fact that Western therapies actively argue against changing your circumstances, since they think that changing circumstances will just make you uncomfortable and unstable, even though changing circumstances is the only thing that's helped me. But thank you for mentioning the cultural attitudes towards suicide thing. For two thousand years, Westerners have believed that if you commit suicide, regardless of the circumstances, you will go to Hell for eternity. And then Westerners who say they understand Japanese culture jump on the suicide rates thing as an example of how "the system fails you" as if they're coming from the same thing... I think that, in general, modern secular Westerners fail to realize how intensely they're influenced by Catholicism, and Puritanism, and pre-Christian Greek and Roman beliefs and practices. Those ideas have sort of flowed into Japan through Hollywood - and some Japanese (and other Eastern) ideas and tastes have flowed into the West through food, yoga, and people like Van Gogh - but there are so many areas of cultural difference that people don't even consider. .... I think, in general, people who give themselves a pat on the back for being "open" and "accepting" actually become more likely to make those kinds of errors. I think that's true in a lot of things. And that's not to say the Japanese view is better, or the Western. Neither is right, they're just different. If there is a "right" answer to anything, it's most likely something no culture can come up with on its own, and you have to understand a lot of different cultures to be able to reach it... |
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mc55
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I'm going to be really unpopular with some when I say this, but I do think that Japan is woefully behind the times on attitudes, treatments, and acceptance for the mentally ill, disabled, so on. With any culture, there are issues and problems. The West could learn a thing or two about how community works from the values of Japan and the wider area of Asia. Similarly, Japan and other countries could learn about accepting and helping the disabled and mentally ill among others from the West.
I am sorry to be blunt, but there is no way that the attitudes of perceiving mental health issues or other disabilities as bad are in any way morally, ethically, or pragmatically neutral. Such attitudes and the actions they lead to, a few of which were summarized in the answer and comments here, are cruel, will lead to more issues, and will rarely, if ever, work. I realize that it is a sensitive topic when criticizing another culture as it can seem like piling on and even racist (and more often than we'd like, is so). We don't want to do that, especially for a culture and country from which we derive much enjoyment and for which we have a fondness. But just as folks need to be wiling to criticize their own country when it is wrong, so they need to be willing to do so for others countries when they are wrong, no matter how fond we are of them. We should always make sure we avoid racism, piling on, and acting as if we are better than others if we have some area more in control and on the ball than they do. But that doesn't mean we avoid criticizing them and act like they are just dandy and no worse on anything. |
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 3950 |
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Very interesting question this week! I've only seen a few examples in manga of characters getting psychiatric help (Loveless and With The Light, respectively), and I've often wondered how someone with, say, autism or depression would be treated in Japan.
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kamui85
Posts: 267 |
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Ritsuka from Loveless seems to have a good relationship with his therapist. The girls from Black Rock Shooter also have some kind of relationship with their school therapist... thou in that case it turned out kind of bizarre.
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jdnation
Posts: 1998 |
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Most people who have mental health issues don't realize it.
Most who might suspect it, prefer not to seek help. Some that acknowledge they have a problem, are suspect of methodology and medicine (though some of this is justified, especially in the case of the easy-way-out pill-popping big-pharmaceutical corporate west). That's just how it is, whether by stigma, or because they are too busy with life, and also because therapy costs a significant amount of money that people don't have. There are charities and government institutions and religions like the Catholic Church who provide cheap or free counselling, though like most free/cheap services, you're on a waiting list and scheduling your life around it can be difficult because this also means explaining why to people at work or family when people prefer to keep it as private as possible. Of course the religious foundation of the west - Christianity - notably the Catholic Church - have condemned all acts of suicide. Most 'therapy' at the time was found through the aid of the clergy, and in the case of Catholicism - through the Sacrament of Confession and other spiritual counselling. Christianity also conforms people to the example of Christ, the suffering, crucified God, who encourages mankind to accept their sufferings and trials in life and move forward, leaving all things to be tried at the final Judgement, and to forgive others for what they do to us. This is backed up by the doctrine of Hell - a place way worse and eternal compared to the transitional time we might suffer on Earth. This naturally has made a very large long-lasting impact. However, the significantly post-Christian West today is now offering suicide via the phrase euthanasia for people with depression as a bogus 'health-care' option. It's cheaper than therapy after all, especially for nations with socialized medicine with an overtaxed system and poor management and politics. Unlike many parts of our body, there is no easy cure for mental issues or circumstances that make people depressed in their lives. There is a lot we do not know, and much of what we think we understand is reasonable conjecture. Japan, does have a suicide problem, but this is also due to a wider variety of issues than just the background cultural/religious formation, though that is not an insignificant factor. People also need spiritual metaphysical rationales to keep them going, for aside from materialists, even the Eastern traditions believe in the body and soul. Consumerism and competition and other social expectations might be getting overbearing. And just as religion plays a role, history also plays a role in how the Japanese see themselves, particularly following World War II and the atomic bomb. Such things irrevocably shattered a very proud nation. And we can even see this affecting the mindset of Germans as well. This often leads to the subconscious behaviour of casting yourself and society in an overly negative light and might restrain 'violent' passions such as anger and competitive aggression, particularly in men, that would be better expressed through healthy outlets like physical sports. It's a complicated affair. As far as its portrayal in anime, this would be difficult for narrative reasons. What we see in anime is often caricatures of reality. And frankly, considering most plots are of the fantastical nature, any actual counsellor would have most of our anime heroes and heroines institutionalized for believing in weird stuff. Now you could make an actual slice of life/realistic story about therapy and that would be fine. Heck maybe you could stretch it into a Blackjack kind of style... But psychological issues are usually tackled in other creative ways, such as what the Persona games do. Or rather our main characters overcome these things over the course of the plot itself. Much more interesting than sitting in front of a counsellor. And good stories thematically tie these things into the overall grand plot. |
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