----- Original Message ----- From: "JC Helary" <helary at eskimo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 2:07 AM Subject: Re: Imperial Pokemon
> Funny, i had a meeting last night about this problem... the thing that was
on
> tv all over the country is the seijin ceremony that happened in Takamatsu,
the
> city where i live. Takamatsu in the biggest city (300,000 h) in a quite
> conservative prefecture (Kagawa, 1,000,000 h) were other cities (Zentsuji
and
> Kannonji) have seen similar problems this year.
>
> The politician is Takamatsu mayor, not pelted with eggs but under cracker
fire
> by a group of 5 kids, the car outside the ceremony hall is said to be an
> unregistered extreme right car and the violence was in the hall mostly
> directed at journalists.
Thanks for clearing up my wrong impressions. One nice thing about this medium.
> about violence in japan, there is a movie starring Kitano Takeshi called
> Battle Royale, where a class of junior hs students is put in a situation
> where the students have to kill each other to gratuate (the subtitle is
'hey,
> have you ever killed one of your classmate ?') the book was first a novel.
of
> course when the movie was out, there was a lot of noise in the political
world
> about censoring it etc. it did not happen.
I had heard of this film and was intrigued by its end, where the survivors band together and kill the adult sponsors of the bloody contest. But in connection with this film, is is accurate to characterize _official society_ as being unusually concerned about the "bad behavior" of the current generation? That's the impression I am getting from various sources, but this could be wrong as well.
> violence here is everywhere, in
> fact it is totally part of the socialization process, from the very early
days
> of primary school. physical violence starts in club activities (junior
high)
> but psychological violence starts earlier, with the strict hierarchy that
is
> set between different age classes, elders have the right to say what they
want
> to youngers (even with only a 1 year difference). the language used for
sempai
> (anyone that is at least one year older than you) has to be polite to the
> extent that some of my university mates say it is difficult to make
friends
> with sempais.
But what I am interested in is latent violence, and my sense is that much of it is siphoned of into fantasyland. There is some of that in the U.S., but violence is more often directly expressed into the social environment - even the violent fantasies of Hollywood are more cathartic release than sublimation here.
> anyway, anything that is interpreted as anti-traditional here has to be
seen
> first through an anti-establishment filter, tradition in japan is much
more
> than rigid ceremonies.
This would seem to suggest that the "anti-traditional" is immediately percieved as political.
-Brad Mayer
Oakland, CA
> jc helary
>