I Wish Comics

[Zindura]

To kick off the debate forums, I'll start with something inane.

I loathe Beyblade. To me, Beyblade is a symbol of the apathy of Japanese youth. Under mounting pressure to succeed and distinguish themselves from a highly populated society, Beyblade has enslaved them with the mindset of laissez-faire.

Did you know that there is an amazing phenomena occuring in Japan today? Many isolated cases of Japanese teenagers have been known to shut themselves up in their rooms and refuse to come out, due to the pressure in their schools and such. This is one part of this rant that I'm not making up; my philosophy teacher at CCA, knowing I'm into Japan, brought this up and informed me of it. A link for info on this issue is right here, if you'd only click on this piece of text that isn't colored blue or anything and doesn't even look like a link, but is.

Though gambling and other fateful forms of recreational activity have been popular for the lack of effort and high associated with them, Beyblade is a clear attempt to condition children to this Hedonistic and fruitless lifestyle. You simply consume the best components from your local Wal-mart, and "Let er' rip!". THEY MUST BE STOPPED.

[David]

Have I ever told you I love your avatar? Is that from the original Prince of Persia?

I have said time and again that the biggest problem in Japan is that they forget they're all humans, not robots. America is bad enough when it comes to schooling, our solution to ANYTHING even if it's not a problem in the first place, is to add more homework and tests. My 10 year old brother is coming home with hours of homework, he had an incredibly long project to do over Christmas break, and he's learning things now that I learned in later years of middle school. This trend has been prevalent for a while, but it's accelerating. Does this mean we're becoming more educated? HELL NO, the national average is still decreasing! The board of education and school directors seem to think it's the kids that are the problem "with their cell phones and 'mp3s'," teachers and students seem to be the only ones sane enough to see how crazy this is.

But Japan? That takes crazy to a whole new level. At least they have a summer break these days, but most clubs have mandatory summer meetings (and yes, you have to join a club). In addition, most colleges only take applications from the most prestigeous high schools, which have applications of their own and will often only take those with a certain score achieved in cram school, which can start as early as 2nd grade! And they are actually taken off guard by this?! It's not only expecting too much of the poor kids, it's sapping them of the enjoyment they can get out of early life, hope for achieving their dreams, it's forcing them into one way of life and crushing their spirits. And if anyone thinks that doesn't matter, allow me to tell you what I mean by "spirit." If your house exploded, shrapnel launched into your leg so you couldn't walk, but somehow managed to survive though losing all of your posessions, you'd have one hope: your family is away on vacation, they're still alive. Then you get a message saying they died in a plane crash. There, your spirit has been annihilated, perhaps temporarily if your will is strong enough and you have support. That's what I mean by spirit, a certain hope and zest for life, the stuff that drives you to do what you will despite dissent from others. The boy that was mentioned early on didn't go hermetic because of the bully, that was simply the final shove--he couldn't stand it anymore.

And I'll fix the text eventually, Just give me time. I can't access the FTP, so I can't update the site.

EDIT: This is from a Japanese Hikikomori counsellor, this sums up exactly what I mean.

"Japanese society is not capable of accepting people with
different attitudes so the lives of the people who are
slightly different are very hard. If you drop out there is
nowhere to go so the only place you can feel comfortable
is in your house as a hikikomori."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/programmes/correspondent/transcr ipts/2334893.txt


American society has it good, even though standards are still unfairly imposed, we're closer to a nice balance--that balance being between the structured, rigid society of Japan and the free-for-all that is Amsterdam.
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Can't paint, no sir, so skill, no how.

[Zindura]

Actually, it's from the old game "Karateka" for Apple and Commodore.

A game, coincidentally, created by the same man who did Prince of Persia. I think Jordan Mechner made this, like, right before he made Prince of Persia. It's pretty much the same game, just less interesting and with fewer puzzles.

So, yeah. I suppose this thread is a discussion on Japanese society and upcoming youth in an increasingly competitive environment.

From the few books I've read about Japanese society, it seems like society is split in two. On one hand you have the stiflingly rigid structure and traditions of old Japanese society, complete with pokey neighbors and slavery to your parents. On the other hand, you have western individualism and materialism that is taken to a whole new insanely Japanese level. I don't know which one is worse.

I havn't been keeping up with Japanese industry too much as of late, but I know it's not doing as well as it used to. I mean, that is to say it's still doing damn well, just not as much. I think I remember reading somewhere that Japan had excellent job security, insurance, and retirement plans. If so, I'd imagine it's getting increasingly difficult to get a job in an ever growing population.

And I just pulled a tick out of my head. Ew. It's all black and gooey...

Seriously, the world's population has increased by about 250% in the past 65 years, according to this highly reputable yet not-going-to-be-clicked-on census by the us government, due to the fact that links are hard to see in what Rianna calls "a sea of milk".

[David]

Having BEEN to Japan, and continuing to have interest in both it's pre and post-meiji states, I can tell you that those two differing cultures are both bad, mainly in that they don't mix well at all. Yes, they have a lot of Job security, even comic artists have it--that's weird, and the publishers often provide comic artists with a place to live (It sound like indentured servitude, but they get paid, and having a place to live in Japan is huge). Speaking of which, the entire country is an island, so knowing Manhattan and Hawaii, one can surely guess how expensive it is to live anywhere in Japan. My host family over there was considered well off by their standards, maybe a statistical middle class, and parts of their home had scrap metal for a roof.

Every expert says Japan's economy has had a steadily more aparrent decline over the years, it's still a hot topic of debate among the political circles. I think the biggest problem is the strictness of the society overall. A lot of people who see the kind of things that appear in animation and comics from Japan seem to think it's a den of violence and debauchery; interesting, considering that if entertainment was an accurate depiction of a society's mores and taboos, America would have a lot more terrorist threats than it does with our own Jack Bauer, apocalyptic prophecies coming to pass and being cancelled in the first week, talking, cross-dressing rabbits obsessed with doctors, and buff jackasses in tights claiming to stand for justice. Japan is weird, for certain, but a lot of this stems from the suffocating atmosphere of the society itself. There's actually another phobia specific to Japan (with a name that escapes me at the moment) of being "insulting by being too polite." It sounds ludicrous from a western standpoint, and that's because it is. That fear stems from the fact that there are so many social guidelines in place that many Japanese people are aware of how fake politeness feels in Japan.

Now I need to start working o the site some mor, if I can actually get a hold of Carissa...
_________________
Can't paint, no sir, so skill, no how.

[Rianna]

Japan has serious social conflicts and an overwhelming identity crisis going on, especially when you consider what this country has been through historically. They were one of the earliest highly-structured civilizations with a very advanced and specific culture (the language itself reflects a lot of this to me: Hiragana and Katakana, the two phonetic alphabets, are unlike any other system outside of other pacific-island nations, wheras the verb/noun/adjective system is Kanji, borrowed from Chinese characters and adapted into the completely different grammatic structure of Japanese. There is a strong Chinese influence in Japan, but they are still definitely distinct thanks to their isolated geographic location). These were not a primitive people, despite their heavy cultural dependence on religion (The Emperor being a decendent of the shinto god Amaterasu, etc), and they had their own rules. Then western society makes its breakthrough, introducing it's one great truth of Capitalism. Nearly complete cultural revolution over a period of decades, the final blows being struck with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and you have a nation completely shaken from its base. The way they ended up rebuilding replaced gods with money and honor with politeness, and... Well, is it hard to see why youth questioning their role in such a society would want to get away?

I actually didn't mean to write all of that, I meant to just comment on the bizzare, paranoia-inspiring captions underneath the seemingly random pictures in that article. I mean... Damn.

[David]

[Theabschuch]

theres smart youth and theres stupid youth, exactly the same as every other generation

i do alot of assisting teaching now adays and some kids are unbelivably stupid, but at the same time some of them are incredibly bright and sharp minded