General Japanese Culture Thread

There's an interesting bit from FF XIV's own themes that I think you might find interesting:

"To live is to suffer. And in suffering find strength, purpose and hope." -Hydaelyn

Hydaelyn's philosophy is that life is worth the pain and sufferings we go through, and it is that reality that must be accepted to move forward in life.

It's contrasted with how Meteion believes the suffering in life is too cruel and that salvation lies in never being born at all.

Venat believes that the impermanence of life and struggles that result is beautiful, while the denial of it just leads to misery and resentment in Meteion and Amon, who would prefer a more perceived blissful fate in ending all life to end all suffering.

Edited by RedHunter543 on May 13th 2024 at 12:01:15 AM

Just found a video on the Japanese justice system… wow. That is unnerving. A 98% conviction rate and poor treatment in prison.

Please provide the link.

Post the vid link and provide a tl:dw summary. Links without any context are against site policy.

I thought I did give a summery.

Well it’s a YouTube short and it’s about an old man who was denied treatment for his while in prison.

https://youtube.com/shorts/g4v4ZpZqAoc?si=choIR2SCD17E_s5J

I... had figured all of that was well known by this point.

The police can also detain you for up to 23 days without a charge, and reguarly obtain confession through less then proper means....

And they America is tough on crime. Why is Japan that ruthless towards crime?

The USA at least presumes innocence before guilt.

In theory and on paper it is supposed to be like that in Japan too.

And here I thought stuff like Persona 5 was exaggerated…

Its a culture of not questioning the people with seniority and authority on a topic, to question a persons innocence is to call into question the police's ability to do there job.

Because surely if the police have already arrested you you must be guilty right? Police don't arrest innocent people...

They are not, if you have ever seen this ace autorney meme◊

Know there is some one on death row to this day, that is the literal embodyment of that meme, like it is without a doubt he is inocent, the ministry of justice knows as much which is why they keep delaying his execution....

But since they don't know who is actualy guilty then, on death row he remains.

I wish I could remember his name, but he was convicted of bank robbery..... and the proof was that he had a bunch of money he wouldn't explain to the cops.... who refused to say what he was being charged with, so he eventualy confessed figuring they knew how he had gotten the money.....

....

Which was drawing illegal porn.

Only to learn after that he was being charged with bank robery, and would be put on death row, because people died during it.

Edited by Imca on May 16th 2024 at 11:00:59 PM

The prosecution either takes the case or doesn't. And they nearly always take the latter if the case is far too difficult to prove innocence.

If you ever thought public defenders are a thankless job in the US, you haven't seen the Japanese one.

I've also heard that when the 23 days are up, the prosecution just gets another 23 days ad nauseam until their suspect confesses

That particular abuse would be new to me, but unsurprising.

Which is to say I havent personaly heard one but it tracks with general police abuse behavior.

This sounds like something from a dystopia novel satirizing the American justice system.

Well there is some diffrences, we have less police racisim resulting in getting shot.

And more police nepotism resulting in convicted murderers getting no sentance since "there dad is a cop, the family will take care of it"

How much of the above problems result from abuses of power by the police vs abuses of power by the prosecutors?

From what I have understood it's mostly an abuse of authority by the judges. (As a reminder for every one the Japanese Legal system uses Bench Trials not Jury Trials)

But I wouldnt be suprised if there was nudging from the police.

It's really complicated since there is a lot of stuff that is unspoken and those of us on the outside can only see the results sorry.

No wonder one of the Ace Attorney games revolved around a plan Phoenix Wright had to ultimately reform the Japanese justice system into a jury based one.

Yeaaa, though I will admit that even with the abuse there, I personaly have more faith in bench trials then Jury ones since it can be reasonably expected for a Judge to be a legal expert thenselfs and thus know more about nuance then a Jury.

But those cases still make me extremely mad and those that abuse there authority in such a way need a mechanism for reversal and to be booted out.

Though I'll remind you that in the USA at least we have the option for both. You can request a bench trial instead of a jury trial. The jury trial is just the default, given it's a constitutional right. But the defendant can waive that right and ask for a bench trial instead.

It's just usually not the option taken by defendants. Though if your lawyers' case hinges on extremely technical aspects of law, it's arguably the wiser option.

Edited by M84 on May 16th 2024 at 10:44:55 PM

Huh, I did not actualy know that.

Yea that works then.

An important qualifier is that it's something the defendant requests. The prosecution can't do it. The prosecution also can't object to it — it's all up to the defendant.

So, given the discourse regarding AC Shadows and what can count as a Samurai, can Samurai only count if they have a surname or not exactly?

Samurai are defined by having a lord to serve (samurai is a derivative of samura(f)u, to serve, and means 'one who serves'). I haven't seen much of the AC Shadows discourse and I'm not really interested in the game, but to use a Western parallel, just using a longsword doesn't make you a knight - there are layers of social relations and signifiers, class and status among them, that defines who "counts" and who doesn't. "Samurai" was an actual social class, after all.

So Yasuke probably doesn't count, no, but any mention of him sure brings out a suspicious amount of pedants.