Anyone see this? I thought it was about Japanese girl bands like Shonen Knife etc. What a fool.
Very uncomfortable viewing.
Worth catching on iPlayer if you fancy a 😯 at Japanese culture.
Basically (if you’re wondering) the phenomenon that is Tokyo Idols – teenage girl groups dancing and playing children’s music, but followed by grown men (followed = obsessed over) . Shudder.

just watched it.

v v uncomfortable.

odd they didnt cover how much the girls make. Or at least if they did, I missed it.

Japanese culture is **** up. Watched that Hokasai documentry, I thought that wave picture was, like, from the 60’s or something, crazy.

Then there’s this stuff… 😯

Stacey Dooley did a programme a while back, really very disturbing

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04t0h2b

odd they didnt cover how much the girls make

Just that it’s a booming industry worth an estimated $1Bn per year. Another 😯

Japanese culture is **** up.
You can say that again!

Just that it’s a booming industry worth an estimated $1Bn per year

true.

But they also quoted there being 10,000 girls who identify as idols.

That 100k/girl will be spread over all sorts of economic activity from venues to merchandise and advertising etc. But you might assume a 30% margin for the girls wont be a huge leap in the dark.

How on earth a grown* man can drop 2-3k a month though, or go to 700 idol shows a year is utterly barking.

* arguable.

The girls are very closely guarded, girls who are voice artists on animé series also appear as bands, the fans are mostly otaku, who will follow them obsessively, as a result, their movements are kept very closely monitored and no details are released to any media.

emsz – Member
Japanese culture is **** up. Watched that Hokasai documentry, I thought that wave picture was, like, from the 60’s or something, crazy.

I’m not sure what Hokusai and his woodcut picture like ‘…wave’ has to do with its age, or modern-day Idols.
And while the obsessive behaviour of a load of sad inadequates with poor social skills looks odd to us, I find the American thing with mothers turning their little children into beauty queens is possibly even worse: Idols are mostly in their teens, not four, five or six year old children, barely more than babies.

How very bizarre …..

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/obituaries/14793723.Obituary___Alistair_Urquhart__POW_who_told_his_story_in_The_Forgotten_Highlander/

Japanese culture is **** up.

Because it is different that our ‘correct’ culture?

While other cultures are saying how the western culture is **** up.

It’s been a fascinating series of BBC 4 programming on the Japanese culture, very much enjoyed it.

The Storyville mentioned was yet another way to delve deeper into the living culture, more modern living culture. It’s one aspect that I knew happened, but one never really understood. Plenty of Japanese girl bands on YouTube to immerse yourself into, some are reasonably good musicians, most just wear clothing 11x smaller than acceptable and squeal. Not wholly surprised to find grown men obsessed with frilly pink dresses and eyes larger than sushi rolls, its a phenomenon built around anime cartoons from the late 60’s and ingrained in society ever since. Looking for dolls to cuddle and enjoy, objectify and pet. What us Europeans find uncomfortable, IMO, is it’s a very fine line to step into peado scenario. I didn’t catch any of that element though, did the programme focus on it ? I’ll have to watch it again.

But, have to say again it’s been a great series of very insightful information programs.

the American thing with mothers turning their little children into beauty queens is possibly even worse

I’m not sure what this has to do with idols, it’s just whataboutery. As far as I know (not studied in depth..) it’s not mainstream US culture and not followed by men in the same way.

it’s a very fine line to step into peado scenario. I didn’t catch any of that element though, did the programme focus on it

There were some definite references to it – the hand shaking being a seual thing, due to it being a forbidden practice until recently. They actually have to have guards on the girls moving the blokes away to stop them shaking hands for too long. Also one of the otaku said his feelings were very close to romantic feelings. For a girl 13/14 years old.

Japanese culture is **** up.

Meanwhile in Japan……….

“I just watched this documentary on Manchester culture called Three Girls, English culture is **** up”

Also one of the otaku said his feelings were very close to romantic feelings. For a girl 13/14 years old.

Lolita springs to mind, nothing new..

Lolita springs to mind, nothing new..

Nothing like it. Did you see the prog? Lolita was a novel about 1 bloke.

I just watched this documentary on Manchester culture called Three Girls

Again, nothing like it – are the happenings in Three Girls an accepted part of mainstream English culture?

the obsessive behaviour of a load of sad inadequates with poor social skills looks odd to us

Lolz. You read it here first.

japan is proper batshitmentalcrazy….. i want to go.

i find it insane that they are so pedantic with the way they act socially and be so good/creative/amazing at certain things – technology, arts, carpentry (i have my own set of Oire Nomis (chisels) and a japanese pull saw) and metal work to name but a few – and then be completey mental when it comes to their “popular” (or is that “pop”?) culture.

they seem to go from one extreme to the other.

bizarre place and despite never having been find it so intriguing.

i’ve done a few large jobs for a subsidary of Toyota and always found the Japanese to be a fun and interesting lot. There was one guy who loved to shake hands as that wasn’t the done thing in Japan. One girl who would always avoid eye contact out of respect.

BBC series

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvTyznaVoPk[/video]

although the guys in the film seemed to be aware that they were not experiencing real love, ther was to me something kinda sinister about the whole thing. can’t see it being seen as normal in the West if middle-aged men were idolising teenage girls, be that in public or in their own homes.

i find it insane that they are so pedantic with the way they act socially and be so good/creative/amazing at certain things – technology, arts, carpentry (i have my own set of Oire Nomis (chisels) and a japanese pull saw) and metal work to name but a few – and then be completey mental when it comes to their “popular” (or is that “pop”?) culture.

they seem to go from one extreme to the other.

Do you not see the direct parallels with obsessive behaviour?

I remember this one being a good watch

There are some strange strange elements to Japanese culture, many very dark indeed.

I once watched “Tracey does Tokyo”

When I was a kid there was a decent anime film about it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Blue)

The girl that left that bloke who then spent all his savings on going to 700 idol shows, she made the right decision…

hadn’t watched all of the prog earlier, only the first 20 mins….

but…. but….

“their selling point is they are not fully developed.

if they were older, they wouldn’t interest me”

WHGAT THE ACTUAL FEEJEEBUS! 😯

that is truly batshitcrazy. that has to be nonce territory.

i would hope that you would be put on the register for such comments.

Age of sexual consent is only 13 in Japan according to a quick Google search, the lowest of any developed country. With that considered I can see why this would be more readily accepted in popular culture in Japan. Didn’t watch the show btw.

To be fair, although the age of consent is indeed 13 at national level, prefectural law generally over-rides this with a higher age (e.g. 18 in Tokyo).

OK, so it’s “acceptable” that the men obssess over 13 year old girls. But the music they listen to and learn stupid dances/shoutalongs for!? Surely they should be imprisoned by banishment to a remote island somewhere for that behaviour!

Cheers for the link paton , one of the most fascinating books I`ve ever read The forgotten highlander.

Blimey, I’m left a bit with a combo of WTF and just overwhelming sadness really, you can see some of the fans have moments of clarity but it’s quickly lost.

On a slight sidenote (I haven’t watched this, and now won’t) all of the Storyville series I have watched has been very well done.

WOW! 😯
I watched this with a mixture of slack jawed WTFery and sadness. I remember being in Tokyo and being amazed at the used knicker machines and strange Manga in the corner shops and being shocked at that. But that was extremely vanilla compared to that Manga store in the programme.

Fascinating programme, and that interview with the paedo and kid doll at the end was just surreal. He was certifiable.

A useful insight and quite well done I thought.

Extremely shocking levels of cultural acceptance on the whole.

spent some time in Tokyo many years ago. As in about a 6 month secondment. spectrum of emotions and reactions to the whole culture range there. Some very admirable stuff. Some really quite uneasy feelings too.

In some respects it reminded me of the mid 1970’s pop culture in the US & UK and the increasing sexualisation of young girls, only in Japan it’s the girls who are performing on stage rather than the domineering males.

I once read [can’t remember where] that the sexualisation of young girls in the ’70s can be attributed in some way as a response to the rise of feminism in the ’60s – i.e. since men were starting to lose some of their patriarchal dominance over women a number of them were ‘transferring’ this to girls as they could still be ‘controlled’ and dominated without them challenging – which was a point made in the ‘Tokyo Girls’ program.

Agreed though – I thought the program was quite well done.

Not sure why though but some of the performance footage made me think that it was a weird, diametrically opposed version of the homo-eroticism of a Whitenake concert …

Just watched it all – found myself rooting for Rio to make a career out of it !

The blokes were all weird although it seemed to stop short of seemingly dangerous weirdness, just massively sad characters. Apart from the ones fixated with the 10 year olds.

Rio’s bike was nicely tricked out.

From one guys analysis we should count ourselves lucky that we didn’t get that culture and they had the sex pistols instead. Phew.

I have got a Hello Kitty passport somewhere from when I flew on that Hello Kitty plane that EVA air have – I had bad food poisoning so missed the full glory of it 🙁

Again, nothing like it – are the happenings in Three Girls an accepted part of mainstream English culture?

True, but then Britain First would have you believeing it was a mainstream part of someones culture. I’ve never met a Japanese paedophile either, so to assume it’s quite that mainstream is mabye just an easy stereotype.

For mainstream maybe take the Sun’s infamous countdown timer to a 15yr old Charlote Church becoming legal, or the Daily Mails sidebar or shame coverage or celeb’s kids. Dangerous thing this stereotyping lark.

Just watching this now. To quote Peter Kaye: “sweet baby Jesus and the orphans!”

But the guys seem like tragic losers rather than maybe the TV presenting sexual predators our own culture has nurtured.

It’s really really really *****ing weird though. Proper creepy and just massively wrong. Especially seeing as they’re saying it’s worth a few billion a year. Hardly a minority niche then?

Oh… and whoever is responsible for the typography on this needs taking outside and givien a proper shoeing! Sexual deviancy I can cope with. Cerese pink drop shadows to the upper right…. not so much