The visual/fictional world affecting our society.

I wasn't sure if you people heard of a recent incident that occurred in Russia, where a young Russian teen has committed suicide after watching an episode where his favorite character Uchida Itachi has died. Here's a link for more info: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2226324/Russian-teen-leaps-apartment-block-seeing-favourite-Japanese-cartoon-character-die-television.html.
Some of you may think this is hilarious. A young teenage boy committed his own death after his favorite character has died. How about an older event where a young girl reenacted a scene from School Days? Here's a link: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-09-19/last-school-days-episode-preempted-by-real-life-crime. This girl killed her entire family based off an anime scene.

Here's what I'm getting at here:

"He didn't know what was reality and what was fiction anymore."-- Father of the Russian teen that committed suicide.

That quote drove me into writing up this thread. Some people are obsessed with character up to the point where they're willing to throw away all morals/rules/aspects of human society away for several or perhaps one fictional character. What exactly drives them to be this dedicated to a fictional story/character? It can't be just be obsession. There has to be some other factor in this. Most of us are devoted gamers/manga readers/ anime watchers and etc, exposed to various characters that we feel in love with, exposed to many things that doesn't normally happen in an everyday real life. Most of us could hardly give a damn if Itachi dies or if there's a gruesome scene that scares the living shit out of you or if there's this insanely adorable more girl character that you love. Yes, some of us may be emotionally moved by such scenes but would any of you be willing to fall deeply in love with any of it? So deep that your life is dedicated to a fictional character's actions and events? Deep enough that the character's should influence your actions?

Most would say no because they have much to live for, despite having a crappy job or shitty life because they want to live their own lives. Our lives aren't scripted by some deity (To religious people: stay out of this topic). We make our own decision and choices and take responsibility for what comes afterwards. We live and continue to live based on our logic, thought, and reasoning. However, some people aforementioned in the beginning confused their logic and thinking into fiction, a false world where it is planned, scripted and then played out.

There are shut-ins and truants, closing their lives away from the world outside their world. What's is there to occupy them? MMOs, games, anime, books, manga or whatever inside hobbies there could be that only involves his/her bedroom. The act of self-isolation is the entity that drives us into finding something that doesn't involve anyone but yourself. No one can understand you because you are living your own world where fictional characters are your life and your life is absorbed in fiction.

That's basically my take on fiction affecting our society based on the aforementioned events.

What are your thoughts about the fictional/visual world affecting reality to the extremes such as these situations?

A show would never dictate my actions. Namely, because it's fiction and it's likely A: Impossible to replicate IRL, therefore it has no sensual meaning. Or in the case of the School days murder, it's B:Illegal, and even if there was 'ectasy' if you will from carrying out the act, there's the 4 X 8 Cube Box called a Prison Cell that I'd sooner slit my own throat in hirikiri than see myself in it.

But I do understand why some people are tied to the anime world/fictional/visual world, perhaps not to the noted extremes. But, why we're tied. This world is stagnate. No, really, the advent of the Computers was about in the 90's, give or take a few years. Cell Phones became the norm from 2000-2004. So, if we're really kind here(and for the record, I don't see cell phones as that 'amazing'), its been 8 years since any kind of technological improvement.

I mean, when we saw movies such as Star Wars, we thought to ourselves: In the 21st century, we'll get there. The 21st century has come and gone, and we're still not where we wanna be. My thought process is that I want to see a New World. I want to see a technological revolution that amazes me. I want to see something that'll take me out of the stale, boring, predictable 'reality' we've come to know.

Not to those extremes obviously, but I think what propels the thought is how pathetic our planet is from a social standpoint.

If you ask me, anyone who enters that realm needs help*, and the parents need to take parenting classes for allowing their child to reach that point. I've lived with video games in my life for a very long time, yet I've never believed they are anything but fiction. The kid needed to go out, make some friends. Of course, there's likely a chance that his schoolmates were bullying and/or isolating him, meaning he may have believed he could only make friends in a fictional world.

* Not "professional" help unless it's a medical reason. It seems like his parents neglected him or didn't try hard enough to include him in their life. He's a teenager, yes, but parental interaction is still good. Although if he entered Sakamoto territory (up to and including violent threats without medical reason) then he deserved to die.

With this kind of topic I think the various forms of the fictional, visual and fantasy world should be taken into account so we can see how influenced society really is by it because there's various influences that reach different extents. I won't go off on a tangent too much but I just want to mention the issue of 'image' first before I get onto the Naruto case.

Image


Now onto the Naruto case and central topic of this thread.
A fictional character's death would never lead me to harming myself like that. Of course they can affect my emotions and that's true for everyone here that watches anime, whether their death upsets or shocks you or whether there's some epic fight that ups your adrenaline. But it shouldn't drive someone to a result like that boy's case, and it's the same for that Gaara case.

I think most people need a little bit of fantasy and escapism, not just to get away from problems for a little bit but simply because it's fun. But if it's going to make you kill yourself as a result of extreme attachment then you need to learn to distinguish between reality and fantasy. I don't think there's anything wrong with surrounding yourself with whatever your fantasies are when it's 'fantasy time' to whatever extent you want to - as long as you understand that fictional and scripted characters can't willingly, by themselves and without programming, control their state of mind and actions. This is obvious but what causes cases like this? There could be a number of background reasons that we don't know, the articles don't mention the boy's life other than this case. Maybe he needed that escape by thinking he could interact or be friends with the characters. We need more information than just a scapegoat to 'show' how bad TV influence and violence is so people can say "look, it's cartoons and films doing that".

There are many cases where people live in a place where reality is very, very cruel and that anime seemed like a way out of that reality.

The Russian boy found a character to whom he feels comfortable with and had a sort of addiction to Itachi Uchiha and saw him as a heroic figure, and losing him means losing his only thing that kept him going.

I don't blame the guy, Russia is really a cold country and he probably lived under a pressured life.

However I do agree that anime/manga is indeed affecting many people around the world and their sense of reality, who can blame them, people around us are fucked up as it is, and looking up to our figure seems comforting to many.

If our society would have concentrated more on love and teamwork in building a better community then I would be sure stuff like these would have been kept under a minimum.

Some people needs to learn a self control. Don't blame the anime, blame the guy who killed himself.
And it's true that we feel emotions whenever something happen in the anime that we watch, but don't let it affect your real life, what happened in Anime stays in there. Again, self control.

I would like to bring up a new extreme of visual/fantasy world affecting our societies: The dying dedication/attachment of an object that resembles a fictional character.

Namely these:


And along the picture, there's a guy that literally kisses the screen where Nakano Azusa's lip are supposed to be.

All in all, I am not trying to bash or ridicule these people who doing such things. I thought this might be an existing extreme that might influence the actions of isolating oneself from society and the real world.

What are your general thoughts of this kind of extremity?

this whole scapegoating crap really annoys me. it's just like back when they were trying to blame shit on video games. i remember some one making a joke about it by saying, "oh yeah, because what was that violent video game hitler used to play?"

How the fuck killing her father is interconnected with the last episode of school days? Way to misinform.

It is inevitable that a person MAY mix fantasy with reality. This may be compared to the concept of the true story of the movie "Inception"



The effects of a fictional world greatly depends on the person seeing it and how he judges it. If one treats fiction as a reality, he will have a connection to that fictional world and will lose the connection to the real world in the process while he continues to believe that fictional works MAY happen in real life.

But then, society has sometimes been fictional to the extent of some of their expectations for something fictional to happen in real life goes beyond the capabilities of elements of the real world (e.g. Evangelion in 2015 -- That's less than 3 years away from this day)

Ah yeah, and also how games like GTA and stuff were apparently "the cause" of kids being violent at school or something.

Tell me about it, when was the Gundam Series first introduced with Universal Century? Sometime in the 60's I believe? It's 2012 and we haven't even developed a freaking Zaku yet :D.

Similarly, VR Development has been pathetic. If animes/movies are going to infer some scientific improvement in RL Time, years or so from now they should actually attempt to make said improvements.

I agree there has to be another factor for someone to get that obsessed with a fictional character/universe like that kid did. Mental issues, severe emotional problems, something

It isn't complete scapegoating. There are studies out there that video games can have a significant effect on a person's way of thought and well being. In many Asian countries it is quite the social issue. In Japan for example, many people turn to video as a reality escape because of how severe the pressure of the social stigmas like success and honor are. In SK, many young people are finding it hard to differentiate the two because in SK technology and video games are basically integrated into your everyday life, regardless of choice. Environments like that will no doubt have some sort of effect on people's mental well being and behaviors, for better or worse.

good point. i hadn't considered those perspectives.

Crazy violent people will do crazy violent things, be it a bible in their hands or a Manga, or the the Sears Catalog.

What are we gonna do? ban Shakespeare?

To blame the Manga, drama or anything is silly, because its not the interaction with whatever they are imitating that set them off, its the fact that they are already have too many screws loose.