JAPAN-MEDIA: No Longer Funny, Cartoons Are Serious and Dangerous

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Aug 6 1997 (IPS) - On Saturday evenings, millions of Japanese children are glued to the television screen watching the top-rated series ‘Sailor Moon R’.

One among a dizzying array of animated television programmes for children, the series, which has been running for more than six years, features a group of mini-skirted, high school girls who fall in love with handsome young men.

Nothing much that can be wrong there. Except that these girls have a penchant, and the power, to turn their enemies into bloody mincemeat when they want.

At their disposal are sophisticated technology such as laser guns and special magnetic rings that strike terror in the heart of anyone who dares cross their path.

The formula has fetched the show’s producer, Bandai, millions of yen, and is a tribute to the commercial success of Japanese animation. Industry estimates put the world animation market at around 3.1 billion U.S. dollars annually, with Japan holding 60 percent of the total.

Japanese cartoons have scored special success in Asia, where Sailor Moon and many other shows are featured regularly in countries such as Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore.

But amid the huge success of Japanese animation that holds local and overseas audiences spellbound is a growing public clamour for a re-evaluation of this entertainment form .

Experts and parents are worried about the effects on the youth of such programmes, which are not only unreal but take a casual attitude to violence.

“Japanese children are exposed to too much violence and sex on television shows and this must be curbed,” explained Minako Taguchi, a 41-year-old mother of three. “But there are no laws in Japan to protect kids from such trash.”

Taguchi’s comments echo a rising concern in Japan, where rising juvenile crime has turned the spotlight on the heavy dose of cartoons that critics say have influenced children negatively.

Last month’s arrest of a 14-year-old boy in Kobe who strangled and beheaded an elementary pupil and said he had gotten ideas from television, set off another attack on the content of Japanese animation.

The suspect, who left the head of his victim by the wall of his school with a note stuffed in the mouth warning that he would strike again, told police he planned much of the murder after watching videos featuring gruesome murder scenes and reading crime books.

The beheading, the 14-year-old said, was a ritual and part of an occult ceremony. Some people have remarked that Japanese animation indeed often contains stories that include such ceremonies.

Worried, the Japanese government has called for a serious re- examination of children’s animation films.

Analysts, meanwhile, point to worrisome trends in youth crimes. The Justice Ministry reported that 4,208 minors were sent to correction centres in 1996. Of that number, 24 were charged with murder.

While there is no direct evidence linking juvenile crime to violence on Japanese television, critics contend that studies on this relationship have yet to be carried out on a wide scale.

Cartoon producers acknowledge there is a large dose of sex and violence in most Japanese comics and television shows, but say linking this to juvenila crime is too hasty a conclusion to make.

A spokesman for the Commercial Broadcast Workers Union said that while Japanese laws call for restraint in the scale of violence and sex shown in animated programmes for children, there are no clear stipulations and no penalty imposed in case of violations.

“It is up to each producer to set himself a limit because we respect the media’s freedom,” said the spokesman, Kohei Toyama.

But he added that for the first time, the union is organising a research to address the criticism that there is too much violence and sex in children’s films and television shows.

The brutality of the Kobe crime has also prompted calls for a new juvenile criminal code, which covers youths from 14 to 19 years of age. Under Japanese laws, which stipulate that minors under 16 years are not subject to punishments meted out to adult offenders, the Kobe suspect would receive a three-year prison sentence for his crime.

The boy has also confessed to killing another girl earlier.

Akio Harda, chief of the Justice Ministry’s criminal affairs bureau, told reporters his office would solicit comments from the public calling for stricter punishments of minors.

But this worries child specialists, who say this does not address the roots of the problem of youth violence.

“There is no doubt that Japanese children face a very different world today compared to their parents,” explained Tamotsu Zengoku, an expert on Japan’s education system.

“But before we enact stricter penalties on child criminals, the government must tackle the serious problems that actually give rise to the increase in crime,” he added.

Along with other child experts, Zengoku says society needs to become less stressful for children.

“For that purpose, government officials must change the current education system, which focuses on exams rather than the spiritual development of the child. There must also be a reexamination of parent-child relationships, which have deteriorated badly,” explained Sumiyoshi Kondo, director of the privately-run Children’s research Institute.

In the meantime, Zengoku says the government can begin with stricter controls on violence and sex in animated programmes for children.

Said Zengoku: “Japan has yet to develop laws that control violence and sex in children’s cartoons, a situation that makes it unique compared to other developed countries.”