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Googled "Japan Unreported"

Is the media really suppressed there? I watched a documentary which said that the police are in cahoots with the local yakuza (for eg. the so called "raids" are pre-planned and staged and the media are informed about it before as if its a press conference).

It also seems that everyone there is more obsessed with looking perfect to avoid bringing "shame" so a large number of crimes go unreported. Sadly, this trend is somewhat (even strongly) followed by the people in power.

If their safety figures come from suppressing information and manipulating numbers then it kinda makes me doubt the whole "safest country in the world" thing, it would be more like "most hush hush place in the world where its a crime be a victim"
 
People can't read your mind. You need to link to the sources so people have some idea of what you're talking about and can respond to a shared set of information.
 
Is the media really suppressed there? I watched a documentary which said that the police are in cahoots with the local yakuza (for eg. the so called "raids" are pre-planned and staged and the media are informed about it before as if its a press conference).

It also seems that everyone there is more obsessed with looking perfect to avoid bringing "shame" so a large number of crimes go unreported. Sadly, this trend is somewhat (even strongly) followed by the people in power.

If their safety figures come from suppressing information and manipulating numbers then it kinda makes me doubt the whole "safest country in the world" thing, it would be more like "most hush hush place in the world where its a crime be a victim"

A few comments. The media is under tighter control than in most developed countries and quite a few developing countries. Japan is currently 61st in the Reporters without Borders freedom of journalism index; its rank plummeted after the Fukushima disaster when a lot of important information was sat on and has further declined since Abe took power. There is a long established kisha club system where only selected journalists are invited to news briefings by government and big organisations, which has been argued leads to a very tame press.
Anecdotally, it's possible to turn on the TV at 7am, flick though the morning shows and see exactly the same story being reported on each channel. Five minutes later, all the channels are focusing on the same different story...and so on. If that doesn't suggest choreographed news, then nothing does!

Are raids preplanned with the media tipped off in advance? Definitely! How else would every single TV channel have images of it? A very traditional set of images in a news story on corruption will show investigators trooping into the offices of a company then trooping out again carrying out cardboard boxes full of files. On every channel.

Is crime underreported and are the figures fudged? Very probably, although the underreporting of crime is not unique to Japan. I'm not convinced it's out of shame as you suggested. Could be that the victim is too busy, doesn't have the energy to make a fuss, or fears reprisals. I'll be interested in others' opinions on that.

Having said that, I've heard so little anecdotal evidence of crime from Japanese and non-Japanese people living here that whatever the actual statistics are, very few people are direct victims of criminal behaviour.
 
A local boy was found dead by the railroad tracks this summer I believe. I think it was two days after disappearing from a park. The entire thing has foul play written all over it. But it seems to me the cops are too lazy and incompetent to investigate, the press too lazy and incompetent and perhaps too stupid to see beyond the official report (death by exposure after getting lost), and the people too damned blind and selfish to really care, or too lazy to do anything about the situation.

In some ways, Japan has gotten the press it deserves.

Of course I can only speculate about how and how much the press is controlled, because without the press to tell me, I would need to dedicate all my free time to being an investigative reporter to find the truth, which as a White guy in Japan would be like trying to swim in quicksand.

I think Japan is still pretty safe though. You could only put a lid on it all so much.
 
I may have made the mistake of relying on acquaintances as sources of information about that incident. But I never watch Japanese TV and reading Japanese is a giant pain in the posterior for me. Better information is here:

松本市で殺人事件か-JR篠ノ井線の線路沿いに曹海想君の死体 | ニュース速報Japan

I hope they find the sick bustard responsible before he can strike again, and I hope they find an excuse to never let him out of confinement. Second to that, I hope the police get their freaking act together and stop harassing the people over bicycle registrations and other garbage that is pointless compared to protecting people from murder and abuse.
 
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I had a read of the article, the following points are of note:
  • The boy was visiting the park together with his father. He disappeared around noon in a window of just 1-2 minutes where his father wasn't paying attention to him. There were many other park visitors at the time, but no one reported seeing anything suspicious.
  • Police searches were done that same day (2014-08-18) until 8PM, and the next day. During that time the incident was reported on national TV, requesting any information that might help, but nothing useful came in. Only on the morning of the 20th was his body found by the railroad tracks (which were not protected by any fences or such), arms and legs badly damaged.
  • JR wasn't aware of any recent collision, but police found traces indicating as such on the train.
  • The article explicitly mentions that there is a possibility of murder (right in the title!), and that the police is not sure whether he was killed by the train impact or whether he was already dead before that. It doesn't even take a guess that he was probably killed by the train.

Looking on Google for the boy's name, there aren't many articles about the incident and they're all from the 19th and 20th - no followup. Was the police too lazy to continue the investigation? Did they continue and find a murderer, but kept quiet about it? Or did they earnestly continue the search, but didn't find anything despite their best efforts (every country has unsolved murder cases)? How could we tell?

Are raids preplanned with the media tipped off in advance? Definitely! How else would every single TV channel have images of it?
Through one channel collecting the images, and selling them to the other channels..?
 
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Through one channel collecting the images, and selling them to the other channels..?

Judging from the media scrum that they often show at such events, I suspect that each channel sends its own reporters.
 
This seems like a nice documentary!
A Life in Japan - Documentary
Although it does touch up upon how shoving things under the carpet to save face is something that is happening, its not what its all about, its also something that captures the beauty of Japan through the words of people like you and me ( explicitly expats ).

Its makes for a really nice watch!
 
This seems like a nice documentary!
A Life in Japan - Documentary
Although it does touch up upon how shoving things under the carpet to save face is something that is happening, its not what its all about, its also something that captures the beauty of Japan through the words of people like you and me ( explicitly expats ).

Its makes for a really nice watch!

A Life in Japan - Video Documentary | Japan Forum
https://np.reddit.com/r/japancirclejerk/comments/3908yk/just_内人_things_the_movie/

It is a cineturd if you ask me.
 
  • The article explicitly mentions that there is a possibility of murder (right in the title!), and that the police is not sure whether he was killed by the train impact or whether he was already dead before that. It doesn't even take a guess that he was probably killed by the train.

Here is the thing though: the train tracks are not far from the park. The park is top of a large hill. The tracks are at the bottom. People live next to the tracks. They searched for two days. How did they miss the boy if he had been a corpse for any length of time? What was his estimated time and date of death? How long does it really take to rule out murder?

One of the hells of life is that it is hard to see the significance of WASN'T said, and even harder to realize that what wasn't said, isn't there but should be. Part of that is the press rarely following up.

Our view of the world is full of gaps the size and form of black holes. Its damned hard to get a good handle on what is really going on.
 
It is a cineturd if you ask me.

I like it Nevertheless!!

btw the reddit post you linked me seems really informative. On semi-quoting how someone there described Japan (sic) "the weaboos who think its their wonderland vs the nightmare for someone actually living there"

I think the reddit post( with another linked to it) paints a nice picture of the realities there. Also nice to know you're a redditor!
 
I like it Nevertheless!!

btw the reddit post you linked me seems really informative. On semi-quoting how someone there described Japan (sic) "the weaboos who think its their wonderland vs the nightmare for someone actually living there"

I think the reddit post( with another linked to it) paints a nice picture of the realities there. Also nice to know you're a redditor!

Past tense. I left.
 
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