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In Russia, Anime (Supposedly) Kills You.
As a psychology enthusiast, this news really bothers me. Over the past couple of weeks, six Russian teenagers committed suicide. The thing was that these kids had the good life. So what happened? A well-renowned Russian child psychologist named Olga Makhovskaya, blames anime in an article published by “The Voice of Russia”.
Now why would she blame anime? One fact is that the teens had a history of watching anime. Olga proclaims that anime characters talk about death like it’s the greatest thing ever. She also says that the Japanese make a big deal about death. Olga even goes on to say that anime destroys the borderline between reality and fantasy and teens won’t be able to tell things apart because of that.
First off, what kind of anime is this psychologist talking about? Does she think that all the kids who died watched the entire run of Neon Genesis Evangelion and/or Puella Magi Madoka Magica? Even if they did, I doubt they wanted to kill themselves after watching those series. Another problem I have with Olga is she starts off with this statement, “Of course anime by itself cannot be the cause of teenage suicides” and then she goes off talking like it IS the cause. She also lost so much credibility to me when she said that anime destroys teens’ perceptions of reality. Isn’t extensive research supposed to be a huge requirement for a job as a psychologist?
You can read the article about the supposed link between anime and teen suicide in Russia here. Just another sad example of the West failing to understand anime and blaming serious problems on entertainment.
Perhaps what Olga should do is watch this amazing video of how anime inspires.
