BEYOND TV SAFETY

—by Scott Frazier

"Violence among young people . . . is an aspect of their desire to create. They don't know how to use their energy creatively so they do the opposite and destroy."

—Anthony Burgess

From January to October of 1997, crimes committed by juveniles and young adults in Japan rose almost 200% from 1996. (This is an increase of almost 8 times of what it was when I first moved to Tokyo almost 11 years ago.) The police, government, and various social organizations are looking for causes and once again one of the fingers of blame is aimed at manga and anime. The police have just asked convenience stores to stop carrying adult magazines that might end up in the hands of minors. Every time there is an increase in problems amongst the youth of a nation the elders have pointed at comic books and other popular media as being a cause. Things sometime go to extremes, such as the creation of the Comics Code in the 50's in the US and the recent decision by some video rental chains in Chiba prefecture to no longer carry horror movies (as they believe them to be influencing the young in a purely negative way). As fans and defenders of what we enjoy, we immediately dismiss such ideas as being ridiculous but perhaps there is some inkling of the truth in there.
Over the past few months, I've been observing young people in Tokyo and thinking about social responsibility. The media has made much of the recent trends among the young towards being rude, selfish, aggressive, irresponsible and arrogant but I think this happens almost every generation (though perhaps not to the current extent). But where do these problems originate? There is no poverty, starvation or real drug problem in Japan. There are no gangs of teenagers with automatic weapons cruising around murdering people for the thrill of it. No welfare state. No communities made up of large groups of differing ethnic or religious backgrounds. Certainly there are growing economic tensions but the social tensions are more a vicious cycle than anything else. (Kids are seen as acting rude so they are treated with rudeness thus they become rude.) What feeds the fires of these problems? Popular media.
Tabloids, sensationalist magazines, low-quality news shows, "non-fiction" books, cheap salaryman drawn-for-a-buck manga and such have always been the outlets of choice for the panic mongers. Popular novels, normal newscasts and mainstream manga are not immune to these influences either. For better or for worse, in ways both small and large, they influence the people who encounter them. (We know that something as simple as a passing false mention of a toilet paper shortage on a variety show or in a newspaper can cause a real shortage due to ignorant panic.)
Anime and manga influence people as well. The stories that are told and the way the characters act and the way they talk are all imprinted on the mind of the reader/viewer. Sometimes it's only a single book or show that does it. Some people even publicly confirm this. A good recent example is the people who wrote articles in magazines and talked about how EVANGELION changed their lives. (Their lives must have been pretty darn meaningless beforehand...) Most people are not even near this extreme though. I can say for a fact that anime, in general, changed my life. After watching URUSEI YATSURA 2, I knew that I wanted to do this sort of thing as a job and started actively pursuing it. (OK, so I have a soft head.) Anime and manga can change lives and deeply influence people. It's not just children either. Most of the people watching anime are young, in Japan mostly between 8 and 22. They are as impressionable as children in ways.
Manga and anime are mirrors of society and culture. They reflect the hopes, fears, loves and feelings of those who create them and the world they live in. In the 70s and early 80s the most popular anime shows (outside of the eternal standards like DORAEMON, SAZAE-SAN, and so on) had much more heroic characters and more of a sense of hope than the shows we see today. They may have been grim at times, or even throughout the entire run, but the characters evolved and grew into more than what they started out to be. The coming of age story, the journey to becoming an adult, was very common. More recent stories seem much more focused on minor points. Characters may grow but not as much. They are more likely to resolve one small part of a relationship or to get a date than to become an adult. From a drawing standpoint, anime is much more beautiful than before but it seems to be an empty beauty all too often. We see more brain candy than wholesome storytelling. Great shows are still made but they are the exception and not the rule.
I am in no way whatsoever saying that the creators of such works should censor themselves (or be censored) but merely that they should be aware of what they are saying. They should be aware that they will have some impact, perhaps virtually unnoticeable, on the people who read that manga or watch that show. You would think most creators think about this even a little bit but it's all too rare. Too many just want to make "cool" things or just to make things that sell well. This is, of course, the same in every creative industry. (There are hack writers everywhere.) We should constantly be aware that this stuff is being watched by more than our circle of close friends and those who think exactly like us.
What, then, are our duties to the loyal fans? We, as an industry, need to keep creating rather than just processing existing ideas. There are fans who will only watch the same basic thing over and over and over again but they will eventually get interested in something new. There is nothing wrong with loving something that touches your heart or soul but demanding that others like it and continue to look at it, whether you are a creator or a fan, is wrong. The same goes doubly for companies who don't release anything new until the last penny has been squeezed out of some concept. There are timeless shows that never change and that each generation grows up with and there isn't anything wrong with that. The aforementioned DORAEMON and SAZAE-SAN and SESAME STREET and comics like PEANUTS and such are fine the way they are. The producers of shows that are basically mindless rehashes of the previous mindless shows that just came off the air should be executed though.
I'm not particularly into being "politically correct" but I do realize that I have a responsibility to my viewers to provide them with the best entertainment possible.