By Liudmila Saakian: Russia is swamped by a suicide wave among teenagers. Over the last ten days six school age kids voluntarily committed suicide. All of them were from good families and all did well at school. And what is more interesting, many of them were avid fans of Japanese anime. Can anime really provoke suicidal mood? What drives the generation of IPad and Twitter to end their lives? Olga Makhovskaya,
a leading specialist on children and teenage psychology talks about the influence of Japanese animation on unformed kid's psychic.«Of course anime by itself cannot be the cause of teenage suicides. But it is a visual art that attracts many teenagers and that intensifies all their feelings. And death, the heroics of death that is typical of the Japanese culture a lot more than other cultures, often serves as a measure of friendship or loyalty. To jump down from a high-rise together holding each other's hand – it is specifically typical of girls' behavior. Heroic adventures of girls, stories of inseparable friendship between girls – these are all anime stories. I know how much our kids like Japanese anime sometimes starting as early as at the age of 6. It is a whole subculture that despite varying story lines and styles all romanticizes death. And one cannot exclude indirect influence. Anime also erases borderline between reality and virtual culture. Sometimes virtual culture due to its graphic imagery appears to be brighter and richer than real life. Teenage suicides have one specific thing in common: they don't realize that it is the absolute end and that there will be nothing afterwards. They don't understand how irreversible death is. In their minds it is really just a transition to some other world...» Tags: Anime, Commentary, Society, World, Читать далее, Source: Voice of Russia.
