Japanese Events

[SeijiSensei]

We have threads for Japanese politics and culture, but none where other news stories about Japan might be posted, so I've started this thread for that purpose.

I begin with this video from the NY Times showing the eruption of the Sakurajima volcano on Kyushu.

http://nyti.ms/23Ozqe8

The Times notes the volcano is just thirty miles from a nuclear power plant, but the volcano is on an island, and the plant on the opposite side of the adjacent peninsula. It doesn't seem to be much of a threat to the plant. Kagoshima, a city of 600,000 people, is right across the bay from the volcano, though the biggest threat to them is probably wind-blown ash.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Yeah, I saw the video of that eruption on the other day. That was quite intense.

[TinyRedLeaf]

Japanese mum made daughter eat 30 pet goldfish

Tokyo (Feb 17, Wed): A Japanese mother forced her teenage daughter to eat more than 30 of her pet goldfish as a punishment, police and media alleged, as the country grapples with a record number of child-abuse cases.

Yuko Ogata and her boyfriend, Takeshi Egami, made the girl eat the dead fish in June, police told AFP on Wednesday.

They have both been arrested.

The police added that the daughter was allegedly abused on a daily basis.

Local media said the couple, who live in Fukuoka prefecture in southwestern Japan, killed the fish by pouring detergent into their tank.

The girl was then forced to eat more than 30 of the fish one by one, according to the Nippon Television Network.

No damage to the daughter's health has been reported, according to local media.

Ogata and Egami were reportedly indicted last year for tying the daughter to a bed with rope, punching her in the face, and burning her tongue with a lit cigarette.

The latest arrest was their fifth since last year in relation to abuse of the child, reports said.

The case is just the latest in a string of such shocking incidents in Japan.

Last month, a three-year-old girl died after her mother deliberately poured boiling water on her, causing serious burns to her face.

Police arrested the mother and her boyfriend for negligence in caring for a child.

AFP

Just about a month ago, I compiled some information on the rising trend of child abuse in Japan. I posted them on the Boku Dake ga Inai Machi thread.

Here are the details:

(1)
I've discovered to my surprise that Japan did not start keeping a record of the number of abuse cases handled by child consultation centres nationwide until 1990.^[1]

According to Health Ministry data, there were 1,101 cases of abuse, nationwide, in 1990.^[1] By 1999, the number has increased by more than 10 times to 11,631.

In 2000, there 17,725 cases. And by 2009, there were 44,211 cases.^[2] The most recent news article I could find on the subject reported 46,468 cases in 2012, citing Health Ministry figures.^[3]

(2)
It wasn't until 2000 that the Japanese government codified a law to prevent child abuse.^[1] That law defined four categories of child abuse: physical, psychological, sexual or neglect. The same legislation also obliges a third party to report any signs of such abuse to welfare authorities.

Meaning to say, it wasn't until 2000 that it became a legal requirement to report potential signs of child abuse.

The New York Times reported: "Traditionally, the [Japanese] police rarely investigated accusations of child abuse or wife beating, believing these were issues best left to the head of the household — meaning the father or grandfather. Authorities are now struggling to figure out when and how to intervene."^[4]

The same NYT article related a heartbreaking story of a grandmother who fought for several years to take over the custody of her maternal granddaughter from the girl's abusive mother and stepfather.

The NYT reported: "Japan has tried to keep its family structure relatively intact with laws that give enormous authority to the family. The trade-off has been that abused children are sometimes trapped with abusive parents because authorities do not want to interfere."

For example, when the granddaughter first tried to run away from home, "with the help of a teacher, school director and a police official, she was kept for a few days at the local child-consultation centre. But she was returned home when her mother and stepfather demanded her back".

There were further attempts to run away, with one child centre where the girl took shelter recommending that she should not be returned home. But since it had no legal authority to keep her, the mother was again able to collect the girl.

(3)
Officials are not entirely sure how much of the spike in abuse cases can be attributed to greater awareness, thanks partly to better media coverage of individual cases. But at least one expert believes that improvements in the reporting of cases alone cannot account for the huge increase in abuse.

Professor Satoru Nishizawa, a clinical social worker who edits the Japanese Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect, said: "The increase of more complicated and pathological cases may reflect the deterioration of childcare in Japanese families."^[5]

Child advocates point to a number of other murky, societal factors: from Japan's two-decade-long economic stagnation, to the increasing numbers of divorces and re-marriages, and lack of support and affordable childcare for single mothers.^[2][4]

(4)
Meanwhile, one research paper noted that "a particular characteristic of child abuse in Japan is the extremely low proportion of sexual abuse cases reported... The proportion of sexual abuse cases is very low, at approximately 3 per cent".^[6] The paper said comparable data from the United States and other Asian countries suggest that the incidence of physical and sexual abuse to be roughly equal.

The implication is that there may be a lot more cases of sexual abuse of children — usually girls^[1] — that are not being reported, due to "low social awareness of the need to protect children when sexual abuse is discovered".^[6]

(5)
It should be stressed that the increase in abuse cases must be seen in a broader context.

The OECD, for example, "has found measures of child welfare in Japan to be way ahead of the United States, in areas like material well-being, education, housing and environment, and health and safety".^[5]

So, in general, children are well-taken care of in Japan.

It should also be noted that some child-consultation officials now believe that their approach to investigation may be causing more harm than good.^[7]

The Japan Times reported: "In most cases when officials visit a home, they find little or no hint of trouble and no signs of child abuse. Parents often are shocked that they had been suspected of abuse, with some even bursting into tears or abruptly cutting ties with neighbours".

This prompted one official to say: "Let's tell [the parents] that we want to help, and that we're not here to judge."


REFERENCES
========
[1] Waking up to child abuse, The Japan Times, (Sept 13, 2014)

[2] Japan sees alarming rise in child abuse, CNN, (Feb 15, 2011)

[3] Child abuse rate at a record high, The Japan Times, (Sept 26, 2015)

[4] Japan admitting, and fighting, child abuse, The New York Times, (Aug 15, 1999)

[5] Record child abuse where you'd least expect it, OZY, (June 8, 2015)

[6] Child abuse in Japan: Current problems and future perspectives, Makiko Okuyama, Japan Medical Association Journal, (Nov/Dec 2006)

[7] Child consultations centres to be spared routine cases, to focus on serious abuse, The Japan Times, (Nov 30, 2015)

[SeijiSensei]

Five arrests in a year? And the child continues to placed back home with these monsters? That's negligence on a grand scale.

[KiraYamatoFan]

That's not only negligence by the system. From a human standpoint, it is purely gross incompetence from the people who supposedly are in a position to protect those vulnerable children.

[Psyco Diver]

Sad thing the US and UK did the same thing decades ago for years, the progress is slow but eventually Japan will be doing the same, for better or for worse (CPS while a important service, they have also done more than good on occasion unfortunately)

[TinyRedLeaf]

Japanese man plants thousands of pink flowers to get people to visit blind wife

Shintomi, Miyazaki (Feb 19, Fri): All Mr Toshiyuki Kuroki, 86, wanted to do was to make his 79-year-old wife Yasuko, who became blind at the age of 52, happy again.

Married for 30 years, the elderly couple lived on a 3.3 sq m dairy farm in Shintomi town in Miyazaki prefecture, Japan, and tended to a herd of 60 cows everyday.

But Mrs Kuroki suddenly encountered a problem with her eyes, and became blind within a week, according to Rocket News 24.

The couple had hoped to take a trip around Japan when they retired.

Devastated that they could not fulfil that dream due to her blindness, Mrs Kuroki shut herself away from the world and cooped herself in the house.

One day, Mr Kuroki chanced upon a pink shibazakura flower, also known as moss phlox, in the garden, which smelled as good as it looked.

He thought that by having more blooms, his wife would be able to enjoy the scent, and people might come to visit the garden and that would make her feel better.

Mr Kuroki then spent the next two years creating the foundation for the garden, until a sea of bright pink flowers eventually surrounded their house.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/aVXpBqj67BY

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

More than two decades later, the garden has drawn visitors from surrounding towns and prefectures.

Up to 7,000 people would visit the garden every year from late March to April, when the flowers are in full bloom, to enjoy the pretty sight and learn more about the love story behind it.

It seems Mr Kuroki's idea was a success.

ROCKETNEWS24

[gdpetti]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Five arrests in a year? And the child continues to placed back home with these monsters? That's negligence on a grand scale.

Reminds me of a kid in school back around '79-'81 who kept trying to run away from school here in the Midwest, USA.... kept being sent back... older sister sexually abused later died just after graduating high school of cancer... interesting watching the popular girls in my class reaction of sorrow, but so ironic because it was them mocking/laughing etc at her for years before that due to her looks... and that boy, in my grade, I think finally committed suicide.. having trouble remembering as he wasn't in any of my classes by high school... and I mostly remember him in middle school... with 'issues' in school as well as at home... feeling 'under attack' everywhere... seemingly like Kayo here... until that kid stepped in.

That was before all the more recent 'child protective serivices' routines got started, but is it any better? Now, the state seems to relish taking kids away, not from these obvious cases, but the opposite, from even regular homes, if the parents won't sign off on giving their kids vaccinations or other standardized treatment for any illness, even if that illness turns out to be a lie they made up... and like the asset confiscation problem these days, the authorities take first and then it's up to the 'owner' or parent to try and get them back. One problem is the type of people attracted to management in these govt jobs seem totally corrupt... and the entire system is increasingly full of them, from these agencies serving as feeders for the 'homes' or the same in the jail system, now privatized and promised a yearly profit.. etc. Greed. Power.

Emergence of the police state... step by step here in the States, the West and it is the usual pattern in any empire. It's interesting to see that Japan isn't any different... like most data from the govt., you have to understand if and how manipulated it is... and with child abuse cases, how much longer, if any, will they even be reported by the state media like NHK? They now have to serve the govt as a mouthpiece and cannot speak ill of the emperor and his lack of clothes... to use that old analogy. Any responsible reporter with a conscious is being 'let go', so any complacent types will remain, same as here in the States, no one gets a job unless they've been 'vetted' on their way up the ladder, same with policians, judges, etc... Germany had a reporter come out about this last year... speaking how it has been this way for a long time... here in the States, after WW2, everyone was on the same 'page'... only needing to be pointed to a new enemy, which was the USSR at the time, now it's 'terrorists', who seem to show up everywhere our covert ops and later regular troops are looking to operate. CIA latter called it Operation Mockingbird I think it was... typical false flag ops throughout history. Japan, under Abe, is trying to bring back the old system, same as Erdo the Idiot is attempting in Turkey, et al... and we complain about authoritarian leaders only when they aren't working for us... even Saddam couldn't understand why he was targeted, as he was working for us for decades, since Ike... Saddam didn't understand the game was changing.. the psychopaths had finished taking over and ponerizing the entire system. [ Political Ponerology]

This is a good anime... the creators can bring in all kinds of social commentary as long as it doesn't become too noticed in the state media monitors and the show's ratings remain high... though shows can get pulled even if they are... but usually that happens in the development process... which is why some topics never get the light of day. So far, this one is a whodunit, with some scifi elements brought in and social issues used to give the characters impetus to action. Nice to see some good stuff and not the usual kind.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by gdpetti

if the parents won't sign off on giving their kids vaccinations or other standardized treatment for any illness, even if that illness turns out to be a lie they made up...

Listen, you're entitled to your own opinions and there are plenty of things wrong with everybodies government, but vaccinations aren't one of them. They're important and neccessary.

[TinyRedLeaf]

It's official: Japan's population is shrinking

Tokyo (Feb 26, Fri): Japan's population has fallen by nearly one million, according to its latest five-yearly census. It's the first decline since official records began in the 1920s.

The country lost 947,345 people — more than the population of San Francisco — between 2010 and 2015.

The decline of 0.7 per cent to 127.1 million has been predicted by the government annually, but the new statistics confirm the trend.

Only eight prefectures, including the capital Tokyo, saw a population increase, national broadcaster NHK reported. The remaining 39 all saw declines.

Rural areas, especially, are emptying out. Fukushima, the site of the nuclear disaster in 2011, was among the worst hit prefectures. The entire Tohoku region in northern Japan, of which Fukushima is a part, saw a population decline of about 5 per cent.

Fukushima alone saw the largest drop of 115,000 people.


Looming crisis

The overall decline is an indication that — as the nation gets older, and with people having fewer babies at a later age — a demographic crisis is looming.

According to the United Nations, Japan's population is likely to shrink to 83 million by 2100, with 35 per cent of them older than 65. The rapidly ageing population has contributed to a stagnating economy and worries of increasing health costs.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made it a priority to prevent the population from declining to below 100 million. Experts, however, view that as virtually impossible.

That's because the Abe administration aims to raise the birth rate to 1.8 children per woman, from the current 1.4.

Moreover, Michael Cucek, an adjunct professor in the faculty of the social sciences at Waseda University, told the Guardian that to maintain a population of 100 million, Japan would require 2.1 births per woman.


That shrinking feeling

But Japan is far from alone here.

The UN has also estimated that a total of 48 countries will see their population decline by 2050.

Moldova is expected to lose more than half its population by 2100, the worst decline of anywhere in the world.

But Moldova is tiny. Japan is the third-largest economy in the world. It's a crucial trading partner for the United States and China. How exactly will its declining population affect the wider world?

Looks like we'll start finding out soon.

GUARDIAN, BBC, WASHINGTON POST

[AnimeFan188]

Robots and Foreigners Are Key for an Aging Japan:

"Policy under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is being shaped by an awareness
that Japan’s citizens are the oldest in the world. The government is doing
everything from promoting greater female participation in the workforce
to taking small steps toward welcoming more overseas workers in a
nation where foreign residents make up less than 2 percent of the
population. While Sawakami says he’s for selective opening of the border,
he’s betting on the machines."

See:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...japan-sawakami

[AnimeFan188]

The godmother of manga sex in Japan:

"A recent UN report weighed into a debate that provokes intense
controversy in Japan, by including manga in a list of content with violent
pornography. The BBC's Yuko Kato went to meet one of Japan's leading
female manga artists, Keiko Takemiya, seen as the woman who opened
the floodgates to sexually explicit manga.

Some readers may find some of the sexual details that follow disturbing."

See:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35714067

[andyjay729]

7.0 earthquake in Kumamoto. It was shallow, so it shook pretty hard.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...005iis#general

[AnimeFan188]

How Japan came to rank worse than Tanzania on press
freedom:

"The state of press freedom in Japan is now worse than that in
Tanzania, according to a new ranking from the non-profit group
Reporters Without Borders.

Japan came in 72nd of the 180 countries ranked in the group’s 2016
press freedom index, falling 11 places since last year.

Europe's media was deemed to have the most freedom this year, but
the situation has worsened significantly in most of the Asia-Pacific
region.

For Japan's journalists, things have taken a turn for the worse
relatively recently. Just six years ago, the country ranked 11th in the
world."

See:

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la...420-story.html

[AnimeFan188]

Mitsubishi Has Been Falsifying Fuel Economy
Numbers for 25 Years:

"For more than a quarter century, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. has been
falsifying its fuel economy numbers, the company’s president
acknowledged on Tuesday. Just how many vehicles have been affected
by that subterfuge, and whether any were sold in the U.S., may not be
known until the automaker completes an internal investigation.

For the moment, the focus is on about 468,000 Mitsubishi-made
vehicles sold in Japan through both the automaker’s own showrooms
and those of its partner, Nissan. It was the latter that called attention
to the problem earlier this month, when Nissan said it discovered
inconsistent fuel economy test data.

This is the latest in a series of scandals plaguing the troubled
Mitsubishi. The company was previously caught covering up safety
defects that were blamed for at least one death. And the mishandling
of its finances nearly led to its bankruptcy during the recession, until a
consortium of Japanese banks stepped in to bail the automaker out."

See:

http://www.thedrive.com/news/3190/br...s-for-25-years

[TinyRedLeaf]

Missing Japanese boy found alive in Hokkaido

Sapporo, Hokkaido (June 3, Fri): A boy missing in remote woods in Japan since Saturday (May 28), after being left alone by his parents as punishment, has been found alive and well.

Seven-year-old Yamato Tanooka was found in a military training base near Shikabe in Hokkaido, just a few kilometres from where he was left.

He was dressed in only a T-shirt and jeans, in an area where temperatures can dip as low as 9 deg Celsius (48.2 deg Farenheit) at night.

He had appparently been without food since he went missing, but he told police he found a tap from which he drank water.

Doctors at the hospital where he's being treated said he has only minor injuries.

Yamato's parents initially said he had got lost, but eventually admitted briefly abandoning him for throwing stones.

His father has apologised to his son and rescuers, saying "we went too far".

Takayuki Tanooka said: "I deeply apologise to people at his school, people in the rescue operation, and everybody for causing them trouble.

"I have poured all my love into my son, but from now on, I would want to do more, together with him. I would like to protect him while he grows up. Thank you very much."

The case has gripped Japan, sparking discussions about acceptable levels of discipline for children.

Police have said the parents could face charges for negligence.

BBC

[AnimeFan188]

Japanese Government Enlists Pirate Hunter to Track
Down Illegal Streams, Downloads:

"Starting next week, the Ministry will hire a specialist whose job will be
to find unlicensed, copyrighted videos on streaming and download sites
and evaluate possible damage to the rights holder. The specialist will look
for both anime and live-action videos."

See:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/inte...nloads/.103457

[scififan]

The cosplayer otoginekomu announced on her Twitter that she's married to manga artist Kōsuke Fujishima, because she has a baby in her belly. A lot of follow up comments appeared online: congratulation, rumors, etc.

Images

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[crazyidiot78]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

We have threads for Japanese politics and culture, but none where other news stories about Japan might be posted, so I've started this thread for that purpose.

I begin with this video from the NY Times showing the eruption of the Sakurajima volcano on Kyushu.

http://nyti.ms/23Ozqe8

The Times notes the volcano is just thirty miles from a nuclear power plant, but the volcano is on an island, and the plant on the opposite side of the adjacent peninsula. It doesn't seem to be much of a threat to the plant. Kagoshima, a city of 600,000 people, is right across the bay from the volcano, though the biggest threat to them is probably wind-blown ash.

very cool all I got to see when i was there back in 2013 was smoke from the main crater

[SeijiSensei]

Is Japan taking advantage of the post-Brexit weakness of the pound given the blockbuster purchase of ARM Holdings by Softbank? It only makes sense for Japanese businesses to look abroad for investment opportunities given both economic stagnation and demographic trends. As one commentator observed the other day on CNBC, the market for adult diapers in Japan now exceeds the market for baby diapers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/bu...igner-arm.html