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[Rubidium]

I just watched the first episode of Ketsuekigata Kun.
It's an anime about four blood types in everyday situations.
I've seen comics about them before, and the first episode is an adaptation of the comic showing their feelings for females.
You want to watch? Go for it.

[Reelya]

I always like to check these apocryphal statements and compare them to other countries to see if it's really high, or just the perception is that it's high (that could be a result of the specific country focusing a lot of news on the topic).

The Japanese 15-24 suicide rate is about 15 deaths per 100,000 people. This is higher than the 10 deaths per 100,000 people for the same age bracket in the USA, but not a whole lot higher than the college-age death rate in USA, which is about 12.5 deaths per 100,000 people.

Additionally, about 2000 15-24 year olds in Japan kill themselves per year (the first link, above paragraph), but only 1000 highschool and college students did so. Japan has a highschool enrolment rate of 94% and a college enrolment rate of 60%. Since the bulk of people in this age-bracket are students, and the total suicides for students vs non-students is almost identical, it's clear that being a student is not a good predictor of Japanese youth suicide.

This is a really weird mangling of statistics to try and make your point.  Japan's child suicide rate is very high and there's a massive spike after vacations end.  It's true that there's also a massive suicide problem among young people who are forced to drop out of education as well, but that doesn't somehow imply there isn't a problem.

18000 over 40 years (from your link) is 450 per year. America has 10000 suicides of 15-24 year olds per year.

My point wasn't that there's no problem: suicide is clearly always a problem. My point was that singling out Japan for youth suicide specifically, and not actually comparing that to the same statistics for other nations isn't a good argument.

Suicide in Japan is a huge public policy debate. The college-age suicide rate in America is actually very close to the 15-24 suicide rate in Japan. It's just that nobody's talking about it so it's not a "problem".

Also, a high year for Japan was ~250 highschool students committing suicide (and that was quite a spike over the norm). There are 778 universities in Japan, so there are easily several thousand high schools. So we're talking maybe 1 suicide for each > 10 schools. Most schools would see 1 suicide a decade on average by that statistic.

That's less than 1 Japanese high school suicide per day. Meanwhile, 3 American college kids kill themselves every day. Don't hear anyone crying about that epidemic ...

[Cthulufaic]

Goddamnit, since the crunchyroll app for android is broken I have to use my microscopic iPhone 4 to watch muh animes.  Blugh.  Anyone see the new digimon show yet?

[Orange Wizard]

That's less than 1 Japanese high school suicide per day. Meanwhile, 3 American college kids kill themselves every day. Don't hear anyone crying about that epidemic ...

Japan has about 1/3rd of the population of the US, so per capita that's about the same.

[Furtuka]

Goddamnit, since the crunchyroll app for android is broken I have to use my microscopic iPhone 4 to watch muh animes.  Blugh.  Anyone see the new digimon show yet?

Yep! Twas great. Surprisingly well done animation for Toei. Though that's not really saying all too much. But it's Digimon so it kinda loops back around

Spoiler: Can't wait for the next one (click to show/hide)

Megas incoming! Also hai Imperialdramon.

BTW: New Gundam Thunderbolt Trailer out. IT KEEPS LOOKING MORE AND MORE PRETTY

[Leafsnail]

50% higher is actually a huge difference.  I don't even understand what point you are trying to make by comparing absolute numbers in two very differently sized nations and in two completely different categories.

[Reelya]

Hey, now. I went out of my way to look up comparable rates for the same phenomena with the exact same definitions.

But like I said, college spikes up the suicide rate, not high schools. And that is true in both USA and Japan. Let's go for some more detailed and specific data. I found some better data for comparison: http://www.oecd.org/els/family/48968307.pdf

Source: OECD. Measurement: suicides in 15-19 age bracket, graphed from 1990 to 2008. So, a good source and a very specific measure that should give a good representation of highschool suicide rates in the comparative countries of USA vs Japan.

in 1990, Japan had a rate of 4.0, and America had a rate of 11.0. So Japan had around 35% of the American teen suicide rate back then. By 2008, Japan's rate rose to 8.0 and America's fell to 7.0. So the Japanese rate was 14% higher than America for 2008. But take a look at 2005, and the American rate was also 8.0, same as 2008 Japan. So, a teen in 2008 Japan was just as likely to kill themselves as a teen in 2005 America. That doesn't sound like enough of a trend to say anything specific about the Japanese school system systematically causing suicides (especially since it was even more strict 20 years ago and had a very low rate).

So until 1990, Japan had a low rate, and America had a high rate, but by about 2005 those rates had equalized. Since it's down in America, nobody is particularly concerned - things got better! - so nobody is ringing the alarm bells. But in Japan since it was rare before, but now it's more common, people are alarmed and writing tons of articles trying to find a reason why. Blaming something that didn't actually change over time - the school system - for the increased rate doesn't sound like a satisfactory answer.

[Tack]

ToraDora

... The last episode can happily be skipped.

[JoshuaFH]

This discussion relating Japan's suicide rate to the rest of the modern world's is really interesting, but I feel it has veered very decisively away from the topic of anime, so I'm gonna have to ask that you take it outside.

[Furtuka]

Apparently Berserk has finally gotten off the boat!

[Haspen]

Apparently Berserk has finally gotten off the boat!

Nooo waaaay.

[Flying Dice]

Apparently Berserk has finally gotten off the boat!

Nooo waaaay.

Man, for a while there I was thinking it had turned into NC-18 One Piece.

[IronyOwl]

Apparently Berserk has finally gotten off the boat!

Nooo waaaay.

Man, for a while there I was thinking it had turned into NC-18 One Piece.

I really need to get back into that. Though Berserk One Piece Edition would be... just kind of hyper-brutal pirates, actually.


In the meantime, I've been reading Tokyo Ghoul. Enjoying it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than I thought I would. I was originally avoiding it because I thought it was just some dumb gorefest thing, then checked it out anyway because the idea of a bunch of mutant freaks battling it out sounded like it could be dumb fun. Turns out it's neither; it's got its dumb shoneny elements, in particular faceless mooks or unimportant people getting gibbed instantly in ways that make you wonder why showing up was ever a good idea, but it's otherwise much more plot and character heavy than I was expecting. They even make and explore a Kafka parallel early on, focused as they are on our MC's feelings.

Also got back to (re) reading T-REX na Kanojo. My god, I remembered it being adorable, but I had forgotten how adorable the side characters were also. I'm glad that it's apparently still ongoing. :3

[Spehss _]

Reading Fukushuu Kyoushitsu, "Revenge Classroom".

It's enjoyable. In an edgy sorta way. Kinda like Death Note, but without the whole supernatural notebook of death or becoming a god of a new world, and if Light was a girl and universally hated by her classmates and had to brain-scheme ways to get revenge on them using their own faults and crimes against them rather than kill 'em all with heart attacks.

[Furtuka]

Huh apparently the Gundam Wing: Frozen Teardrop LN serial finally finished. I both dread and look forward to the inevitable adaptation/spinoff of it, if only to see the insanity with my own eyes.

For those who don't know, it's a sequel to Wing written by its director with the intend of jumpstarting some Wing sequel expanded universe thing with the goal of leading up to a new animated production in the AC timeline. The thing is however... it seems that the director broke into Hideo Kojima's vault of extra crazyness and chugged it all down in one gulp before writing it.

Spoiler: Featuring such things as... (click to show/hide)

Heero being woken up from Cryosleep on Mars decades after Wing and being assigned to kill Relena because if she dies by any way other than being killed by him nanomachines will kill everyone on Mars.

Deadbeat dad Duo who after marrying Hilde, fell into debt, saddled Hilde with all the debt, and then divorced her to go adventure around Mars on a motorcycle.

A new Gundam team composed of Duo's son Duo Jr, Katherine Winner, a female clone of Quatre, Trowa Phobos, a guy who looks exactly like Trowa and has the same code name but is apparently completely unrelated to him, and Wufei. Who is just Wufei.

Mobile Suit nanomachine shenanigans! Heero pilots a Gundam called the Snow White that wields a crossbow shaped Buster Rifle that comes with a set of cartridges called The Seven Dwarves that use nanomachines to do stuff like shoot firey birds and tornados and other elemental shenanigans. The Gundam Warlock, which dual wields scythes and uses nanomachines to create illusions like giant bats and spontaneously making the full moon appear. The Gundam Prometheus, which has a giant gatling gun that's almost as big as it is and is shaped like an ornate cross. The Gundam Sherazade, which apparently moves like a bellydancer and has a rainbow colored anti-nanomachine cloak. And the Epyon White. Which is just a recolored Epyon with more guns and a third head. (Which translates to it having an extra leg strapped onto the side of its arm while in MS mode.

Speaking of MS, how can there be anything to fight against if the end of Endless Waltz said Mobile Suits were never seen again? The answer is that Mars made a new type of mech called Mars Suits instead. Yes really.

Trieze has a half brother named Van/Vinght Khushrenada who pilots a black version of the Wing Zero.

Also the original Epyon is still around and it piloted by a hologram copy of Zechs.

Meanwhile the actual Zechs is running around in a Tallgeese that has Wings and a Halo and nanomachine thingies.

Did I mention that when Heero was in training before Wing they made a clone of him for some reason? And that the one featured in Frozen Teardrop might actually be the clone who has been implanted with Heero's memories while the original one runs around in the background? For some reason.