A Tragedy of an Elementary School Student
Contents
Ⅰ. Introduction: An Unprecedented Murder Case by a Schoolgirl
Ⅱ. Families of the Victim and Wrongdoer
A. The Victim Satomi’s Family
B. Schoolgirl A’s Family
Ⅲ. The Mass Media
A.
B. Schoolgirl A’s Hope to be a Novelist
C. TV Dramas
Ⅰ.
Introduction: An Unprecedented Murder Case by a
Schoolgirl
A news-shattering event in which an 11-year-old schoolgirl murdered a 12-year-old a
schoolgirl with a cutter, severing her carotid artery, occurred at a small-scale
elementary school in
was Satomi Mitarai, whose father, Kyoji Mitarai (45 years old), was the manager of the
shock on account of the two peculiar characteristics: the cruelty of the act above all and
the fact that the victim’s father was a journalist of a famous Japanese newspaper.
The event happened during
lunch time, “Kyushoku-No-Jikan.” In
schoolchildren in public high school eat the same meal provided by the government,
although their parents share the cost. When a class teacher, Yoshinori Murasato
(35 years old), noticed that two schoolgirls were missing from the classroom at about
her teacher and classmates stained with blood. She said to them, “This is not my blood!”
When the teacher shook her, asking for details, she pointed toward a study room, which
was not under school control and which anyone at that school could enter. In the study
room, the schoolteacher found Satomi Mitarai lying on the floor. About a liter of blood
was spilt around her. He was so confused that he tried to stop the bleeding from Satomi’s
left hand without noticing the injuries to her neck. After another schoolteacher carried
the body to the school infirmary, a school nurse took her pulse but discovered the victim
was dead. Most of the schoolteachers were in shock.
In connection with the peculiar characteristic, the Ministry of Education, Science,
Culture and Sports stated that there was no precedent for a murder case where one
schoolgirl murdered another schoolgirl at school. As the Ministry said, this event had
some extremely important implications which cannot be avoided. There are complicated
circumstances behind the event, such as education, the families, media, school education
and the local community. Analyzing the dark part of the wrongdoer’s spirit and her
motives for murder will help us to avoid similar events in the future.
Ⅱ.
Families of the Victim and Wrongdoer
In the murder case of Satomi Mitarai, her father met the press before he had full
information about the incident feeling responsibility to his occupation as a journalist.
In the interview, he not only referred to his daughter but also his self-reflections on
his way of bringing her up. As a result, much information about the victim was made
public. Watching the father’s interview, the writer felt what a man of integrity the
victim’s father was.
When such serious incidents caused by young people happen, the writer always feels
a kind of contradiction about the standards regarding the privacy of wrongdoers versus
victims. Although the name, picture and the parents’ occupation of the victims always
appear in newspapers or on TV, most information about the wrongdoers is not announced
in order to respect their privacy. To sum up, a victim of a serious incident such as a
murder case is exposed to double damage, which is that a family member was killed and
their privacy was violated.
A. The Victim Satomi’s
Family
The minimum information regarding the victim in protecting her privacy should be
introduced here so as to understand the incident better. Ryoji Mitarai, the father, graduated
from
As mentioned above, Ryoji Mitarai is still an active journalist. He lived with two sons, one
attends a university and the other is a junior high student and Satomi. He married his wife
in
1983, but she died from cancer
three years ago, so he was transferred to the
in order to support his family in 2002. Unexpectedly, the shocking incident happened here
in
B. Schoolgirl A’s Family
The information of the wrongdoer’s family is not as clear as that of the victim. (The writer
will call the wrongdoer Schoolgirl A anonymously.) As mentioned above, Schoolgirl A has
not been identified. According to her lawyers, her 45-year-old father said that his daughter
was cheerful and had been brought up without any troubles. Can it this really be so? Is it
normal for an 11-year-old girl to kill a classmate? It is the very recognition of the father
that should be brought into question.
According to Shukan Shincho (
hill, which is about thirty minutes by car from
downtown
seems to be very well-known around there. She
lives with her parents, a grandmother and
a
senior high school sister. Her mother, who is one year senior to her father,
works as a part-
timer, and her grandmother is vigorous enough that she can work. Although her father
previously worked at an insurance company, he suffered from a cerebral infarction about
seven years ago. However, he recovered from his condition, and he now works as a part-timer
at a company to serve small damp towels. He is from the Nishi-Izu region
of
In connection of the incident, Schoolgirl A was interested in mini-basketball and belonged
to the mini-basketball club in
reported that the club was so strong that it won a victory in a regional meet. Although
Schoolgirl A hoped to be a member of the club, her parents ordered her to quit the club in
December last year. Her parents made their daughter quit the club so that she could prepare
for the entrance exam of a private junior high school integrated with a high school. At the
end of December, Schoolgirl A said to the manager of the club crying, “I must quit the club
because my mother told me not to play basketball.” After that, her school life changed
suddenly. In particular, a feud between Schoolgirl A and her mother concerning the
mini-basketball club seems to have been one of the main causes of the murder case because
she wrote on her homepage on February 18, 2004 as follows, “Although all of us would say
that we wish to have been orphans, it is strange because my parents have died and they
have already disappeared from the world. … The time when I had a good time is impossible
to bring back. Even when I was scolded by my parents, it was fun.” Why did she write such
passages, as “My parents passed away” on her homepage? Her description gave the writer
a glimpse of her severe dissatisfaction toward her parents; in particular, her mother.
Although there seems to be certainly much information which is hidden, the passages on
the homepage may be an important clue to solve a
part of Schoolgirl A’s darkness.
Ⅲ. The
Mass Media
The mass media itself is neither positive nor negative, but neutral in its value judgments.
Sometimes TV is useful, and sometimes it is harmful to children. As a matter of course, excellent
programs should be recommended for children, but vulgar ones should not. Not only TV
programs but also movies and videos can be dangerous. In particular, horror movies are
extremely dangerous for children to watch, although movie critics assert that horror movies do
not cause people to commit crimes. Although this may be true of adults, it probably does not
apply to children. In fact, the schoolgirl who murdered Satomi directly imitated a technique of
murder which had been broadcast on a TV program a few days earlier. In addition, her favorite
book was “Battle Royale,” and she had borrowed its DVD a month before. “Battle Royale,” which
was made into a movie, received criticism because it must be extremely harmful to children.
The murder case in
ontributed to this vicious juvenile crime.
A. Battle
Royale
The movie “Battle Royale” was produced by the late Kinji Fukasaku (1935-2003) in 2003.
From the first, it was ill spoken of on account of its violent characteristics. The plot of the movie
is a death-game in which junior high students in the 50 classes arbitrarily chosen by the
imaginary
government of Daitoa Kyowakoku
(
in a block of a class to the end, and only a student who survived can return home. In the movie,
the scene of murder was extremely realistically depicted. For that reason, the problem of the
movie was taken up in a Diet session. Despite unfavorable criticism, “Battle Royale” was a great
box-office success because it gained a lot of publicity in the media, although people felt
misgivings about the violent aspects of the movie. People were anxious about bad influences
which it might have on young people.
However, a director Kinji Fukasaku, rejecting the criticism of his movie, bragged about
his view of movies in a TV interview, “How do you know what is a good movie when you haven’t
watched any good movies?” Indeed, what is a good movie? In order to explore this point, the
writer compared Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” with Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist.”
Judging from the comparison, you will understand what a good movie is. (If you want to read
the essay “Roman Polanski and Kinji Fukasaku,” please refer to the writer’s homepage:
Edmond-Club, http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~edmond/ .) At that time, Fukasaku believed that his
movie was a masterpiece, and some movie-critics stated that the violence of the movie would
not cause juvenile serious crimes. Their argument was that people who watched horror-movies
did not become criminals. However, it appears that “Battle Royale” encouraged the
schoolgirl A to murder her friend in the
put a novel she was writing, imitating “Battle Royale,” on her homepage. These facts show
we cannot deny that such movies, especially those which show children committing violence,
do lead to vicious juvenile crimes. (The English version of “Battle Royale” is Koushun Takami:
Battle Royale, translated from the Japanese by Yuji Oniki, VIZ. LLC, 1999)
B. Schoolgirl A’s Hope to be a
Novelist
Schoolgirl A’s hope was to be a novelist. Although she is only eleven years old, she wrote
some short novels. One of them was Sasebo-Koma-Wo-Mawashite (Spinning Sasebo Top).”
A character in the novel, a public schoolteacher in his forties pointed out that the more
intimate friends are, the ruder they become. The contents and style of the writing show
precociousness and even talent.
She wrote four essays, one of which was Murasaki-Dokuro-No-Noroi (Curse of the Purple
Skull) about an occult art, on her homepage, imitating Akuma-No-Juho-Zensho (A
Compendium of Devils’ Spells) [Hutami Shobo Inc.]. One sentence in the essay read,
“You should put horrible spells of the murasaki skull on enemies who have made a fool of
you if you want to manipulate them.”
Also, she published
on her homepage
which consisted of more than 3000 words, referring to Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale.
The whole novel was reported in the Japanese
weekly Shukan-Gendai on
This short novel was just like an incomplete work, but its style and contents were
comparatively remarkable for her age. In writing this novel, however, she seemed to be
moving toward a real world of horror from the imaginary one.
The writer could not help being surprised at the titles of her essays: Sasebo-Koma-
Wo-Mawashite (Spinning Sasebo Top), Murasaki-Dokuro-No-Noroi (Curse of the Purple
Skull)
and
intuitively the modern people’s minds in a pathological state. Her unusual concentration
on bottomless and fearful matters was beyond the mental level of an eleven-year-old
schoolgirl. It might have been possible to say that she was almost “mad.” Please
remember Schoolgirl A’s hopes in the future now. She wanted to be a novelist. Her
extraordinary character might have helped her to become a novelist in her teens
because abnormality seems to be the main current of the recent literary world.
Hitomi Kanehara, who is a twenty-year-old woman, is a good example of a young
writer whose words are abnormal, and who has achieved recognition. She wrote
Hebi-Ni-Piasu (A Split Tongue and Pierced Earrings), and won the Akutagawa prize,
one of the most famous literary awards in
in which Rui, a 19-year-old woman part-time worker, meets a man, Ama, whose tongue
is split like a snake, so she also tries to imitate Ama by making the holes of her pierced
earrings larger. Despite the popularity of the novel, the writer found it extremely
unpleasant, so he read only a few passages at the beginning. Reading such literature
was a first experience for him. He felt how fearful this novel was. Although Ryu
Murakami, one of the selection members, praised it, the writer could not understand
the value of the novel at all.
In addition, it is strange that Kanehara’s negative experiences in her youth seem
to be selling points for her literature. She quit school in the fourth-grade. Later she
returned to school, but she left senior high in mid-course, and became a part-time
worker. Although she was an outsider, she succeeded in her life as a rising novelist
while she was young. Although such stories seem heroic, is her unusual biography
a model of success for young people? If Schoolgirl A had aimed to be another Hitomi
Kanehara, she would have fulfilled two points as a rising writer; one, she was
maladjusted, and two, the contents of her novel are almost beyond human
understanding. There are no signs that Schoogirl A imitated Hitomi Kanehara, but
she was influenced by Battle Royale, which is equally gruesome. Battle Royale
certainly did not set a good example for Schoolgirl A.
C. TV
Drams
The school board of
the murder case on
at the core of the matter; one was the influence of cruel scenes from horror novels;
another was the educational surroundings of the classroom where the incident
happened; and the last was the problems of Schoolgirl A’s family. The influence of
“cruel scenes” on a low-age bracket such as elementary school students is extremely
problematic. In this section the problem of influence from media is taking up.
The problem of movies or novels with cruelty in them is a reality which should not
be overlooked in a society where both young and old are affected by the mass media.
According to the interim report, it is clear that Schoolgirl A committed the murder
partly as a result of the influence from some horror movies. Not only novels and
movies but also TV dramas seem to have been one of the main causes of her crime.
In fact, a TV drama which had been broadcast a few days earlier, whose lead part was
played by Maki Mizuno (a popular Japanese actress), gave Schoolgirl A the hint to
kill a person with a cutter. The report by the school board of Nagasaki Prefecture
clearly wrote that Schoolgirl A cut at the victim’s neck, blindfolding her with her
left hand (Cf., Ibid., p. 12). This technique was similar to one which had been broadcast
in the said TV program. Schoolgirl A certainly imitated the manner of undertaking
the murder. After the program performed by Maki Muzuno was broadcast, some TV
programs where murder were depicted were canceled because of this murder case.
Although some people say that TV programs have no relation to murder cases,
Schoolgirl A’s murder case shows their opinions are not true. No one should make
light of bad influences from the media in cartoons, movies and novels. In particular,
it is the responsibility of adults to protect children from such harmful media. In
the case of Schoolgirl A, why did her parents allow her to watch a TV drama full of
grueling scenes of violence broadcast at 9 pm? Did she watch it alone or with her family?
Schoolgirl A murdered her classmate a few days later imitating the event in the TV
drama. Didn’t her parents notice her reaction to the program? If they had noticed they
might have known how to help her. To be more precise, Schoolgirl A’s parents must
have ignored that she was affected by horror movies and novels. Her parents should
have been conscious of how to protect their child from the harmful aspects of the mass
media.
Copyright (C) 2004 by Edmond N. Beard