Made In Japan

Photo by Anna Lopriore

Any alarmist parent, religious leader, or pundit in America who thinks Quake and Marilyn Manson caused Columbine needs to move to Tokyo and spend some time with a few of the Japanese teens known as “hikikomori.”

Translated literally as “those who retreat,” hikikomori are the frighteningly logical extension of “otaku,” the buzzword for Japanese teens from last decade. While otaku (which basically means “nerd”) were obsessive specialists fixated on anything from manga to designer labels, they were also reasonably harmless. Their hobbies kept them occupied. Not so with hikikomori, who retreat from society into complete nothingness, holing themselves up in their bedrooms at their parents’ homes and doing anything to fill the hours. A hikikomori support website at www.tako.ne.jp has testimonials from recluses about their exciting days. Writes one, “I sleep until my eyes are about to rot. I see dreams.”

If it isn’t the classically repressive Japanese work and school system that’s forcing these kids inside, I’ll eat my copy of Resident Evil 3. That’s why you see so many Japanese tourists. It sucks at home. That’s also why when they decide to become rastas, for example, they grow seven-foot long dreads, tattoo “One Love” on their face and smoke joints the size of ping-pong tables. There’s no turning back.

One Japanese newspaper reports on a Tokyo school that had a chronic tardiness problem. Their solution was to violently slam the gates shut when the morning bell rang. The teachers in charge got so overzealous that one day they crushed and killed a female student. A few months later, only a few cities over, a teacher locked two mentally disabled students in a work shed for two days because she caught them smoking cigarettes. Both died of heat exhaustion. These are the things that Japanese students are dealing with while kids in other countries are stressing about getting a date for the prom. Is it any wonder that taking a day or maybe a couple of years off from life is an appealing idea to the hikikomori? There are thousands of them across Japan at this point.

While most hikikomori choose to stay online or absorbed in comic books, some get a bit more proactive in their opposition to culture. It seems to have a basis in the so-called “Otaku Murders” of 1988-89, in which Tsutomo Miyazaki abducted and murdered four girls, all around five years of age, in scenarios that were gruesomely inspired by his manga collection. Hikikomori kids, starting in the late 90s, picked up the murder habit with startling aplomb. The craziest thing about the crimes these teens commit is the total audacity of them. It’s a sure demonstration of the fact that they don’t give a fuck about getting caught.

Perhaps most famous is the teenage boy who hijacked a bus near Hiroshima in May 2000. Using a knife, he killed one and wounded five before the nineteen-hour ordeal was through. Then there’s the 17-year-old high school jock who snapped one day during practice. He attacked his team with the metal bat he happened to be holding, then jogged home and beat his mother to death with it. CNN reports on a 13-year-old who killed his teacher when she reprimanded him for being late, and a teenager who slashed a policeman in the face while trying to steal his gun.

One particularly disturbing case that was very popular in the Japanese media lately was the January 2000 rescue of a woman who had been held hostage for ten years. She was 9 years old when a 27-year-old man who had shut himself away as a teenager abducted her. The recluse came out just long enough to grab her while she was walking home from school. She was a prisoner in his house in Niigata until she was 19.

Apparently the trend has caught on and you don’t have to be a psycho hermit to hurt people in Japan anymore. Even kids who are comparatively well-adjusted socially are getting into violence and mayhem. There’s a relatively new crime wave in Japan called “oyaji-gari.” That means “hunting down older men.” A Japanese news site quotes a typical police report about two boys, aged 14 and 15, who beat a 33-year-old man to death using logs. According to police, the pair said that they “wanted to blow away their gloominess and needed some money to have fun.” They got away with 8 000 yen—about 65 dollars.

One major plus to oyaji-gari is that the victims usually keep their mouths shut. Not a lot of Japanese men can take the blow to their pride that it would be to admit to being mugged by a couple of kids.

In a sure sign that teen violence has infiltrated every corner of the Japanese cultural psyche, there is now a controversial movie about it. Battle Royale, made earlier this year, is the story of a ninth-grade class picked by lottery to massacre each other on a remote island. It’s sort of like Lord of the Flies crossed with Survivor. Set in near-future Tokyo (a place plagued by huge unemployment and a lackluster economy) the movie stars Japanese cinema icon Takeshi Kitano as the referee of the Battle Royale. The plot in short: Every year, an entire class is randomly picked to play Battle Royale, a game show in which every student is issued a weapon. Last kid standing wins and there can only be one winner. To assure their motivation to be killing machines, every player is hooked up with a tight little necklace that shocks them to death if they displease the judges. The film perfectly summarizes Japanese teen’s newly acquired taste for blood and the extreme competitiveness of the school system at the same time. Battle Royale was a huge box office and critical success.

Japanese citizens born after 1970 are often referred to as “new humans.” Unless Japan decides to renew its prescription for chill pills these “new humans” are going to continue their routine of PS2, comics, rama noodles and babies with their faces burnt off. After that they are only a plane ride away.