Thesis S.O.S. Japanese culture & violence (in film)

Thesis S.O.S. Japanese culture & violence (in film)

I came across thiswonderful site again whilst browsing for references and data for my thesis. I'm a 23-yr old advertising & design student living in Gent/Brussels and currently on the lookout for interesting info about Japanese culture.
My main theme is the strange paradox of Japan as a -at first notion- pacifist society and the opposing, very extreme violence which is so apparent in a considerable part of their cinematography (wether it is realistic Battle Royale violence or ghost stories like Ju-on). Another point of grave (pun intended) importance is the rise of hikikomori and otaku. It is the purpose to describe in a rudimentary form the japanese social structure and customs (done) and then delve into the Japanese cinema (among to-be-reviewed gilms: Suicide Club, Battle Royale, Ringu, Audition, Visitor Q, ...). The main social aienation themes must be included in the reviews and backed up by empiric data (which I don't seem to come across!)

I was wondering if any of you have good sources for facts and statistics/figures which might enrich my current and future writing?
Any help would be incredibly appreciated (urls, images, recommended reading etc) since I have a relatively tight deadline and a bit of a fragmented memory.

I'd recommend reading the novel Battle Royale, which develops certain points more explicitly (and I don't mean the violent parts ).

Are you going to look at the Otaku Murderer (Tsutomo Miyazaki) at all? You can probably check wikipedia "otaku murderer" for info on that. It's certainly not typical empirical evidence, but it is empirical evidence nontheless.

Here is a little tidbit about the legislature trying to regulate violent manga. There's not too much there, but it might be a good jumping-off point.

You might take a look at what some filmmakers have to say in some of the invterviews at Midnight Eye.

A google search for "violence in japan" brought up this article, as well as others about youth violence and domestic violence.

Google also gave me this article about atomization and otaku.

I remembered there being an article about this in the Boston Globe some time ago. I found it here, but you have to purchase the article to read the whole thing.

I don't know that I would point out Japan as a pacifistic society. I think that of greater importance is that it is known to be a very polite society (See how-to-bow.com).

Weelll... the thing is, violent cinema exists in all of the developed countries. However japan seems to have a quite different film industry structure that allows more unusual and experimental work to flourish. There seem to be less interference by executives and other bureaucrats in the creative process (well, there still exist some)

So I'd also check up how the japanese film industry differs from other countries.
I second PeachHipGirl's viewpoint that it's not the pacifistic aspect but the politeness that you should be interested in. I see no connection between being pacifistic and not making violent films. Being pacifistic is just a country's foreign policy, not an indicator of how "violent" the people are.

Social alienation is interesting, and should absolutely be explored.
I would also read up on the japanese school system - it is quite amazing how hard on the students it is.. There is a LOT of pressure on the students, so a number just give up and become delinquents. Others try to escape into games, fiction(anime/manga/films), and so on.. including violent matters.
The film Blue Spring(reviewed here, quite easy to find in Europe) will give you an extremist depiction of how japanese schools are like and could be interesting to watch. Just remember that it's fiction.. however it does have a kernel of truth. From most films/anime that I've seen that deals with schools, delinquents are a very common occurence and the pressure on the students is very heavy.

However I kind of doubt the hikikomori angle - that's also a quite extremist viewpoint. They don't make films and are frankly a very small minority. Also a quite recent occurance - japanese films were violent long before they appeared. No, the problem is in the whole society. Even the art films are more violent than their western counterparts.. Most japanese are probably the same as us westerners - the "cool" kids watch the more violent films.

Talking with the midnighteye people would be a good idea, they're very knowledgeable about the japanese film industry. If I recall correctly, one or two of them live in Belgium or maybe the Netherlands.

Hope this helps! Sorry, I have no links or references.. check your university library, they usually have good resources for empirical data.. but you've probably already done so

you could check out the book Speed Tribes by Karl Greenfeld - he has lived in Tokyo and has a good insight to what is happening in Japan in different subcultures etc.
available at amazon.