Comments by "redfish337" (@redfish337) on "VICE News" channel.

  1. Wait, these are official subs? I just looked her up because Sukawa seemed really strange, and, as it sounded like, her name is Natsumi Ishikawa, not Natsumi Sukawa. %^#%ing lazy to get an interviewee's name wrong.
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  2. Well, they were loaded questions by someone who probably got an interview under the pretense of giving positive exposure but already had his mind made up that this was a hit job. She had to answer diplomatically and did a good job.
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  3. It is actually illegal. Most of this which is just talking isn't though. I only mean the really serious stuff. Japan has a two tier system. It's illegal up to 16/18 depending on jurisdiction, just a lesser charge (but still with jailtime). Nevertheless I'll agree with your sentiment on why they make these videos.
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  4. And that's why this documentary conflating the idol group with enjo kousai is such a joke. Not that there's no room for abuse, but having it here is ridiculous. Probably why it seems to have been mostly cut. This sort of idol group fan is going to shows multiple times a week. Instead of going out drinking with co-workers and or bosses in order to brown nose. Between the shows they go out for food- after shows they get food or drinks together. They plan stuff together, chat, chill. During performances they have choreographed cheers and actions. It's a voluntary community of buddies. This is part of what it means to be a fan at a group at this level. And of course the typical J-idol style is of lower quality- where you're supposed to see them develop. In perfectionistic Japanese society where everyone says "do your best" but they really mean more "don't make things hard for me". After getting browbeat all day for small mistakes they can go watch a group where at least as far as the idol-fan culture is concerned, it actually values "doing your best" and mistakes and flubs can just be laughed at as spice of life. I mean, it's not really good for your country's future if your society is causing people to avoid committed relationships. But a lot of these things ignore that the real relationships in idol fandom are the friendships formed between fans. Something they may otherwise be lacking had they just kept going to nomikai every night.
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  5. It's not unchecked capitalism. It's a bit of the opposite of China. China runs a communist/socialist regime but by and large for the sake of economic advantage capitalism is allowed if not encouraged to run rampant and doesn't really check it unless something like the milk formula scandal happens. It's still communist though because it has tendrils in those businesses and can stop them whenever it likes. Japan is ostensibly capitalist but the companies themselves run things with a more socialist bent. In white collar work everyone bottom to top has to agree on ^$%$ing every stupid little thing by way of an agreement system. You stamp your approval, pass it up to the next tier. If it gets stamps it goes up. People spend a lot of time at work doing nothing. It's a seniority system rather than a competence system. Your company takes care of you and you're supposed to stay with it forever- changing companies drops you to the bottom of the totem pole again. Oh, and people get moved around from division to division or branch to branch every spring instead of let people get skilled at something. It's extremely inefficient. Their way of doing business should be extremely bothersome to a capitalist.
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  6. The age of consent is 13 but it's still illegal until 16/18. Consent doesn't mean legality. You can see this in the USA alcohol law. You're an adult at 18, but there are still additional laws in place that push the age up past that. If you're an adult able to go to war you really should be able to buy a beer.
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  7. Huh? Parents want their kids to get a real job. Idol groups don't make a lot of money. For most of them they're doing it as a part time job while doing school. Sometimes they'll keep doing it afterward for a few years. It's okay money to support yourself if you have no dependents. Parents want their kids to focus on studying while a student, and then get a real job so they can support them when they get older. They usually aren't all that supportive of them joining pop groups, but do indeed have to sign off on idol group participation. The rest of this video which is the part that has to do with illegal stuff doesn't have parental permission. It's runaways. Or the disconnected- their parents are drunks or workaholics or otherwise absent. Or maybe they have good parents but they want extra spending money so they do that stuff on the side without telling anyone. Parents aren't getting the money.
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  8. There are 10000 female idol fans. They're called idols. And they have their own events at night. And if their events align they'll chat in the dressing room and take a FREE selfie as a fellow idol, rather than pay 10-20 USD for a polaroid that a fan would be stuck doing.
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  9. And since this gets thrown around without context all the time, I'll remind you that IT IS STILL JAIL TIME until they are 16. Or even 18, there in Tokyo. By the Western concept of age of consent, the age of consent in Tokyo is 18. Japan uses a different paradigm for age of consent, so they list it as 13. You can see this where I'm from, where the aoc is 18, but they give a bunch of allowed exceptions down to 13, below which pretty much everything is illegal. Japan lists it as 13 as the point in which some exceptions are then allowed, up to age 16/18/20 after which restrictions are lifted. De facto, it's pretty much the same thing.
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  10. Tsunami hit Japan in 2011. 20,000 died. Tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004 (87% Muslim) 130,000-170,000 died.
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  11. Intimate relations with those under 16 in all of Japan... and 18 in many areas including Tokyo, is a crime. Penalty is jail time. From 13 to 16 they consent... to a crime. They just use a different definition there. By Western standards the AoC is 18 in Tokyo. But that's just because the Western definition of AoC is stupid and isn't what it says it is. If it was, then all the teenagers intimate with other teenagers would need to be prosecuted and that just plain isn't done.
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  12.  @peterpq12  They aren't exposing a ring of anything. They are indeed making people abroad aware that some of this stuff exists. But they're mostly virtue signalling. They didn't dig in. No one is going to prison. No one is exposed. Moreover, they're breaking Japanese laws and cultural norms to listen to a guy talk to a girl about her teeth whitening procedure. looool It's like they're too afraid to piss off anyone dangerous so they just spray and pray with any contacts they had and did a lot of missing. I still take big issue with using the idol group as the thumbnail for this. Idol groups have no dating policies that Westerners hate and I still think the primary reason for this at the underground level is to strongly dissuade them from thinking about compensated dating sort of things with fans. They can just fire them. (Because the polaroids pay for almost everything, such as practice rooms, rental fees, the music itself, recording, the girls only get something like a 20-30% cut), so if an omega whale that would spend $20000 could bypass this and just give her money directly... well, that's tempting. So they just say they'll fire them immediately if they so much as look like they're dating. I don't know how someone could watch this and think it's woke. Protecting girls should be part of right wing agenda too. But it is weak journalism. They could and should have done a lot better. They rather put the idol group as their thumbnail than kick the hornet's nest. Because the hornet's nest is probably yakuza. Maybe even NK in some cases. So this was safer... and they wasted their platform of 15M views not actually exposing some people who should be in jail.
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  13. The simplest data is wkipedia, which was last updated 3 years after this and 4 years ago. At that time they were 21-29... so ignoring member changes, they would have been 18-26 at the time and 21 on average.
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  14. @Mandi Pudding Because it is. It just actually means closer what it says it means there. Here in California it's "18" but the way it's actually enforced is very similar. Here in the USA you're considered an adult at age 18. But what simple thing can you still not do? Drink. Why not? Cuz that's the law. Japan's aoc is based on the age they think someone is actually CAPABLE of consent. But for societal reasons doesn't want adults being intimate with under 16/18s, so has additional laws in place to make that illegal. If California adopted Japan's definition of aoc and applied it to itself, it'd have millions of cases of sexual assault to investigate. As even though it lists 18 it doesn't really care about 16 with 17, etc. Heck, Hollywood glorifies that.
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  15. He attacked them on purpose. But he wasn't a fan. He was unemployed and resentful that people were getting paid to sing and dance. He didn't know who was who in the group- otherwise he should have attacked someone who was actually making big money.
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  16.  @AlexSmith-ky4eg  So, when are you supposed to retire from music you like? I'd still go to a show with Kaori Iida (38). But she quit 14 years ago. So then next up would be Takahashi Ai (33). She quit 8 years ago. Well, to be frank, I mostly moved on past Morning Musume, but many have not- I still like a lot of their older stuff though. Next up, Shinoda Mariko (33)... but that didn't last long. Quickly moved on to Kojima Haruna (31) before settling on Katayama Haruka (29). AKB has lots of members- it took a little while. She quit 5 years ago, so then on to Nakamura Mariko (26 next week). She quit 2 years ago. And as far as AKB is concerned, it's currently Iwatate Saho (25). But I eventually fell out of the mainstream, so actually went on to Negishi Ai (27), and with her quitting last year it's now on to Shimizu Riko (22). Did I lose loyalty? No. That's called oshihen and is frowned upon. THEY QUIT. And then as a fan of the SCENE, you move on to the next. It's no amazing thing. When Kobe Bryant quit, did his fans just stop watching the NBA? Lakers sucked long enough that many people even jumped off the bandwagon. Some people were indeed JUST Kobe fans, but most people LIKE a sport, a team AND a player. I've occasionally rooted for different teams but I still like the sport. Everyone who played when I first started watching the NBA is RETIRED. But I'm still a fan of the sport, of some teams more than others, some current players, AND some retired players.
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  17. And as I must repeat over and over... it's STILL ILLEGAL after aoc in Japan. All the way until 18 there in Tokyo. By the Western definition, aoc would likely be listed as 18 for Japan. That's because the Western definition of it is stupid. Consent can be given in Japan at 13, but the consent is to an illegal act, until she is 18 (If the other person is over 18, though being under isn't necessarily safe either) So while saying the aoc is 13 is technically true, it's also true to say that a lot of Japanese people live in mansions. I lived in a mansion in Japan. Because mansion basically just means "apartment big enough to be suitable for a family" in Japan. Gotta make sure the terminology used in different places isn't describing different things.
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  18. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass to figure out ages in 2015... There's probably a way to figure out the exact date, but I'll just say winter/early spring 2015. Here are the birthdates of people active at that point: 1998年3月15日 16-17 depending on exact filming date 1997年6月26日 17 1997年1月28日 17-18 1996年6月15日 18 1995年7月20日 19 1993年10月16日 21 1993年3月25日 21-22 1992年11月5日 22 Their company has this as their current audition policy... which is typical, but I'll just cut and paste. 未成年者は保護者の方の承認が必要です。 Minors require consent of a guardian to audition. Girl he talked to was the 6/15 one, 18 years old at the time. The 6/26 one who was 17 is still in the group, and is now 24. All the other current members are new since this video was filmed, and are 23, 23, 20, 19, 18. This is all publicly available because... it's a serious well known group as far as underground idol groups go, selling albums nationally and with a fairly well maintained wikipedia page. The 16-17 girl eventually got hired to a high profile position in a very high profile group and now has 189K followers on twitter. It's just a girl group.
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  19. And still illegal. With jail time.
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  20. Youtube likes to pretend that censoring everything makes the elephants disappear. You can't actually have an honest, respectful conversation about that here.
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  21. ​ @notgiven3971  ​ You think reporter guy who comes gives a crap about your buts? The details? The nuance? You watch anime and some creeps watch anime, therefore you are a creep. That's the biased reasoning of these sorts of documentaries. Oh, you're not a creep? You understand some anime has objectionable stuff but otherwise may be good... you actually object to some of that stuff? Okay, great, I hear you. I agree. Lots of anime isn't even objectionable at all. But you're talking to me here. Does typical reporter guy give a crap? They already told him he has a story to tell- people who watch anime are creeps. And there's of course no shortage of creeps who watch anime and creepy anime. Easy story. And totally misrepresents anyone who likes anime for any other reason.
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  22. It's been a long time. Unfortunately people still come here. So I'll repeat again. Lots of bad stuff happens. But the pop group is just a pop group. While they might have a place as a jumping off point in your video, using them as the thumbnail in your video that otherwise mostly focuses on real problems of underage trafficking, etc, is slanderous.
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  23. And it's still illegal, with jail time, until 16 or 18, depending on jurisdiction (and 18 in that particular jurisdiction, to be clear) In practice it's very similar enforcement to where I live, where it's ostensibly 18 but the government doesn't actually care unless it's over and under 18s, and usually by significant margin. One is "13"... the other is "18".... the enforcement is basically the same. Don't get caught up parroting the meaningless number- it's still jail time until 16/18.
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  24. It's locally determined. So it's 18 there in Tokyo and the penalty is something like 1 year of jail. And 16 or 18 everywhere else in Japan. 13 is when the "federal" government gets involved and starts handing out the longer sentences.
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  25. Most of what is actually shown is legal. (They have a discussion about some illegal things throughout) Illegal is girl at 11 minutes. They really hurt the case they're trying to make when they put the idol group in this. Also, the recording at 10 minutes is illegal, but I digress.
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  26. There is such a thing as good and bad. And it's not like Japanese people approve of this- some of it is illegal afterall, and that Japanese woman has a company intending to help the girls out. Judgement can be made. There are at least 2 things people need to look out for though. First, a look at who's making the film, what they get out of making it, and if the way they filmed and edited it was proper. Included in this is a reminder that this is a heavily edited documentary, and that some of these crews do soft imperialism. And secondly, how the viewer's own culture and experience misframes the judgements made about other cultures. An example in this video is where they illegally record that guy at 10 minutes talking to the girl and are surprised that.... they're talking about dental work. And keep trying to ascribe bad motives to it because it seems incomprehensible to them that people would pay money for small talk. There's a dark underbelly of stuff going on that most Japanese would disapprove of if they wanted to dig, but somehow this video still got 13 million views by illegally recording a guy talking to a girl about her teeth whitening program.
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  27. While it might be impossible at a day long festival in summer.... by and large they don't smell. Twin Box smells like nothing. They freshen up after work, and usually again between the show and talking to anyone... and since most people in Japan don't even have the gene for body odor, it's plenty fine enough. The regular live houses have the smell of cigarette smoke, alcohol, piss and puke soaked into the walls and fresh clouds of cigarette smoke in the air so BO probably isn't even going to be noticeable. BTW, I have smelt some bad smelling otaku in Japan... but they were looking around at figures and stuff in Akihabara. The ones actually at a show smell like nothing or like febreze or something. =P
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  28. Correct. Because the 30 second google search won't tell you that it's still illegal past the age of consent. You still get to go to jail. You just get to have more jail if they're under the age of consent. It's a two tier system so just using the low number is misleading.
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  29. Overall, they're some of the nicest guys around. But sure, you can always smear the whole lot of them due to the inevitable creepers. In general most of the actual weird people can't afford the hobby. There's some trepidation when a group has a free event cuz then the unemployable weirdos come out of the woodwork. This is also why younger people and women are underrepresented at day to day lives. 30-50 something businessmen can afford 3000 yen 200 nights a year. Poor college kids can only make it to a few. (there are other reasons why women are underrepresented, but every single major live I've been to, at least one of the 6-8 seats around my seat was a girl).
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  30. That's actually a bit of a stereotype. It's high, but if you actually look at the numbers, it's pretty comparable to the USA and many European countries. 4 Lithuania 25.7 14 Ukraine 18.5 16 Latvia 17.2 22 Belgium 15.7 30 Japan 14.3 32 Sweden 13.8 34 United States 13.7 40 Iceland 13.3 48 France 12.1 So why the stereotype? They had a MAJOR economic downturn in 1992, resulting in at least 10 years of economic stagnation. In the same period between the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror and the Great Recession, much of the rest of the world was in fairly good shape economically, making Japan's numbers look bad by comparison. And they haven't been able to shake that reputation yet. That's not to say that there's nothing wrong with the society... just that their suicide rate of 104% of that of the USA and 91% of that of Belgium is high but not particularly notable.
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  31. If someone is going there they should probably pay more attention to the "not going to jail" age of 18 than getting too wrapped up with the aoc technically being 13.
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  32. If you've ever been to Japan it's clearly visible. Though it's a little easier to ignore. As a tangential example, the convenience stores have signs for say... タバコ /酒 . Even though I can READ, I don't easily latch on to the fact that the convenience stores are heavily advertising their cigarettes and alcohol, not the (relatively, for a convenience store) yummy take-out lunches and snack options that most foreigners think about when considering convenience stores in Japan. And that's a tame example of course. The red light districts are full of naughty signs. And some not so naughty euphemistic signs like the "free information centers" which are all over. But all that said, it also fails by conflating that idol group with the rest of this stuff. The JK stuff is riding that gray area line... probably illegal in many cases, but trying not to be so much as to draw attention. Lots of more or less runaways and "living at home but relationally "runaway" kids involved there such as that girl with the mother with mental issues. They you've got gray area but probably legal businesses. And THEN you have these sorts of idol groups. It's on the up and up. Minors need parental consent. There's red tape involved. The group promotes nationally to some extent so they draw attention to themselves. So everything has to be above board. Of course there's always opportunity for abuse, but it's pretty much slanderous to conflate them. So sure, there's a dark side. But these hit job style pieces where they come in with their foreign preconceptions means they often paint too wide of a brush. Sure, there may be some common cause in why they exist, but there's a difference between a maid saying a magic spell over your spaghetti and underage runaways doing sexual favors for money. And there's a difference in the clientele as well.
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  33.  @archanadandale238  I'm not Japanese. I'm not in Japan now. But I've lived there for about 2 years in the past, and have about another year's worth of time in addition to that. I say if you watch too many youtube videos you get too good... or too bad... of an impression of a place. Reality is usually a bit more balanced. Obviously I don't have as much time there as some people, but it's still enough time to see a fairly wide slice of things. And I still spend most of my time out of Japan so I'm not entrenched in their way of thinking or anything.
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  34. Great. what does that have to do with anything here?
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  35. It's allowed everywhere. In the case of Japan, probably the biggest issue is prosecutors are in competition with each other over super high conviction rates. It's like playing basketball if you're only willing to take 99% accuracy slam dunks. That's one reason they have a shot clock. On the other side, if your conviction rate is only 40% or something, that's probably a lot of innocent people you're harassing. And it's not just harassment because the court of public opinion will treat you as "maybe guilty" even if the charge was clearly fabricated in the case of stuff like this. Lots of harm done to innocent people. Nevertheless, if prosecutors are fighting for 98.4% conviction versus 99.2% conviction rates... they're only taking the slam dunks, so the stuff in this that is actually illegal can still hide in gray areas to dissuade prosecutors from wanting to take those fights.
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  36.  @AlexSmith-ky4eg  Of course it looks awkward. But the truth is the pink ticket fans are a much greater concern than the futowota. That is to say, the young teenager to mid-30 fans that would look like they belong at a show for teenagers to 33ish girls... are the troublemakers. They're the high assault risk... and contribute relatively little money. The 40-70 guys may make the audience look awkward, but are by comparison much better behaved... and put in waaay more cash. Mayu Tomita attacker was a 27 year old. AKB attacker was a 24 year old. One guy I saw banned from a group on twitter seemed to be about 19. Guy who threatened Mizuki Nana online was 32. Guy stalking the girl through the reflection in her eye was 26. Guys who assaulted the NGT member were 25. Death threats to Nogizaka members, age 25. Being a similar age, some of those younger guys are delusional. And it's the stage where people who didn't get good jobs are now pretty much in societal limbo. The older guys are aware that they are simply a group benefactor and member support. And to survive that long with such an expensive hobby means they generally have pretty decent jobs.
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  37. I'm not so sure they understand idol culture. There's obviously a spectrum, but while the stereotypical fan is a creeper, the TYPICAL fan is pretty similar to a fan of a sports team or perhaps professional wrestling or a band. Just because your favorite player quits by 35 doesn't mean you stop watching the sport. You still follow your team but pick a new favorite player. Nothing weird there. Actual creeper %... maybe 5%. However, many people got into the idol scene and never moved past it, even as their original favorites moved on. Nothing weird about that unless you're willing to stop watching your favorites sports as soon as it'd be "weird" if you ever got to have a meet and greet with them. It's not weird. Granny can meet Kobe Bryant, fangirl, and it not be weird. Yeah, there are some creepers, but for most people, it's not going to be weird.
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  38. No. They're both symptoms of the same problems.
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  39. Quality idols would do fine into at least their late 30s. Oshihen is considered bad form. This is quite easy to see with cutesy anisong singers and such. Yukari Tamura is doing quite fine with her cutesy act at 44. And the anisong idols like μ's have members who are about 34. Anisong and anisong idol are a little bit separate from some of the other idol genres, but it's not like they have any issue supporting them into their 30s and some cases 40s. They can milk it for all it's worth because their MAIN job is voice actress, which they can do indefinitely. Idols don't have that safety net and decide they need to focus on something with better long-term potential. And there's no lack of support for say, Furukawa Mirin, who is 33 and announced she's married. Still got her 200K followers. Kashiwagi Yuki remains one of the most popular AKB48 members at age 29. You move on when they quit. They quit when it makes sense for them to quit. Even if the company is making bank off of them there's the general cultural expectation that idol work is for people up to age 30 and you're supposed to switch to acting or modeling or singer-songwriting or producing or whatever after that. That's a cultural norm of sorts. The fans don't want them to quit. In many cases the company doesn't want them to quit. Maybe the members themselves don't want to quit. They just view it as work for young people and want to move onto something different.
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  40. ​ @caligulapontifex5759  Well, I might have missed as well. I think this video is the one mostly about the schoolgirls. There's another one that focuses on the idol group. I think conflating them is basically slander. But I still think the main point remains. Fans are loyal. The fans move on because the girls move on. And they move on because it makes sense. If you're in a shitty borderline legal establishment, all the more reason for it to make sense to move the heck out of there in a hurry.
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  41. Because the word you use actually refers to people who are about age 10 and younger who have not developed and using it to refer to high school girls (which is 3 years there, and therefore typically 16+) just weakens the term. So, no they are not that word. What some of this is may still be illegal and disturbing but by definition that word actually refers to much more terrible behavior.
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  42. ​ @CMDR_Lani  There are three different words that actually already exist that make the distinction based on developmental factors. IIRC, the UK raised the bar from 16 to 18 for AV just back in ~2003. Frankly, I think even older is better, but it shows it's pretty much just an arbitrary choice of number based on public sentiment. The clinical definition has a very clear cutoff point.
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  43. Music has nothing to do with this. Conflating the nationally promoting idol group with prostitution was entirely inappropriate. It actually split off a significant portion of that and put it in another video. Where it has 878 likes to 299 dislikes. Trying to make the girl group seem shady didn't go over so well.
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  44.  @hosermandeusl2468  I really don't know how that is related to your original sentiment and this video. Foreign press comes in for a week of filming or whatever. In order to justify expenses and their trip over and make sure they have at least some material, they ask permission in advance from totally legitimate businesses and groups. And then generally being hesitant to ACTUALLY poke into the hornet's nest (this, to it's credit, does actually oh so slightly touch on it), has very little actual material on the actual illegal goings-on and ends up stuck shading the legitimate businesses that hosted them.
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  45. It conflates perfectly above board stuff with some slightly sketchy stuff, and some illegal stuff. I can't think of an exact equivalent... but there'another video where they talk to the idol group at the beginning. It's kind of like going up to say a minor league cheerleader after a game and instead of asking her about her dance program or cheer.... they keep grilling her on why most of the people who watch them are male and then finish up by asking about child prostitution.
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  46. Yeah, because such people do exist. And they become the stereotype. But if you look at the whole crowd it's basically normal guys of all ages and just a few awkward looking people.
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  47. The only? thing wrong is the conflating. It's slanderous to the idol group who kindly let them in and allowed them to film and interview to conflate them with prostitution.
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  48. If you ignore the other laws that still make it illegal even with consent until 16 or 18.
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  49. It's still illegal over age 13. Like you know here in America you're an adult at 18 but you can't legally drink or smoke until 21. Draft your ass to go get shot at 18. Try you as an adult at 18. But you can't even get a beer until you're a super +3 adult. In that case, dumb. But still you should be well aware of this situation where a law imposes extra rules beyond status. Oh, you're an adult now, let's go to the bar and I'll buy you a beer! Except you can't. Because the bar doesn't care that you're an adult at 18- it cares that the law is 21. De facto, it's enforced fairly similarly to where I am in California... where the aoc is 18. One is 13 and the other is 18 but they're enforced similarly? Yeah, because there are a bunch of exceptions and stipulations in that range, and California lists the high number as their aoc (ie, if both are above this number you are safe) and Japan lists the low number (ie, if either is below this number you are going to get the book thrown at you).
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  50. It's illegal in Tokyo until 18. In some other places it's 16. It's just tiered so that it's a worse crime until the "age of consent" and a lesser crime from then until the "age of ACTUAL legality". You can have issues with that system. It's not perfect. But it's no better than one like my jurisdiction which says it's 18 but doesn't actually legally enforce it. Most of the high school kids doing it with each other are technically do so without consent if age of consent is 18. If the point is to prevent minors from being taken advantage of by adults, then make THAT the law. That's the only one being enforced anyway- no one is actually enforcing 18 as the age of consent or there'd be special victims out every time there's an underage pregnancy between high schoolers.
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