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Originally Posted by relentlessflame
So, unlimited sympathy for the victim (even if he claims otherwise), zero consideration for the accused perpetrators and accomplices (even if they claim otherwise), and no one has the right say anything differently unless they've been in the same situation. That sounds fair and balanced!
Well, why even have a conversation then; let's get straight to sentencing!
Seriously, I think a lot of us probably know what it's like to be bullied. It's a horrible thing and should never be condoned in any situation. If the allegations are true, then I definitely don't think what happened was appropriate. But I don't think we can pretend to know all the details of the situation and who all knew what when. You have to have at least some allowance for at least considering that there may be another side of the story for some of the people involved. That not everyone involved with this situation knew that the victim wasn't in on the joke, or that not everyone involved intended for this to be carried out in this manner. You have to at least allow some possibility for multiple points of view, or you're just being biased. It's so easy for us to feel sympathy for the victim and to believe that "there's no doubt" all the allegations are true because it seems awfully "truthy" (and because a lot of us know just how horrible it is to be bullied)... but I think that's just letting our emotions completely take over.
At the end of the day, we will never know all the details of all the situation surrounding this case. And in the end, it's not our fight -- it's up to the victim if he wants to pursue this case further and bring further attention to it. And in the end, people are getting all worked up about this one situation, but there are all sorts of situations like this that happen all the time, not to mention situations that are a heck of a lot more severe and troubling than a voice actor having his hopes crushed in public. We've all had our feelings hurt unfairly before; it wasn't right, and it may leave some scars, but he can move past this. I've got bullying scars too -- it became part of who I am, for better or worse. As bad as this situation appears to be, I think everyone should try to keep everything in perspective. We should save some of our rage for other things too.
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I think it goes beyond this incident to what it affects, although the emotional issue of bullying certain rises a more heated chain of thought.
Regardless of what judgement one may pass on this incident, it's probable that the anime may suffer due to this and I'm quite sure a lot of people want said anime to succeed and wouldn't want it hindered by an incident that has nothing to do with the anime itself. Can you imagine having writing the source of your life, and having it be associated with this incident through no fault of your own? Not to mention the collateral damage of those who weren't involved. I think it's reasonable to hope the parties involved to know how to play the proper PR game and try to make things easier, a certain degree of politics that makes it at least sound like everything is going well. Sadly, the net is the explosive factor.
Who knows. Maybe with the proper spinning and how everyone acts, it might actually turn out to something productive in the end to turn negative attention into good attention.
It's not an easy thing to do when public opinion is already heavily biased. But could they try harder? Is this the best way? I don't know. That's why people are discussing.
Plainly put, it's no longer solely about the parties involved unfortunately. It's just incredibly hard to appreciate how quickly things can get out of hand given our age of communication via the internet. As you can see, this goes far beyond a moralistic judgement on a detached event.