Update on the Indonesian kid’s Naruto suicide
Picture courtesy of Dark DiamondMy previous post, which was paraphrased by ANN, had apparently incited a thread discussion. A related news in The Jakarta Post (which is now expired) had created a somehow false and misguided assumption about the Indonesian government, which I’ve commented upon.
Another interesting thing to note is that the Indonesian channel that airs Naruto, Global TV, has recently changed the Naruto rating from PG to T, presumably because of that particular incident. It still airs Naruto at the same time slot though, which is 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm, an ironically prime-time hour in Indonesia.
Seeming want to catch up with the incident's latest news too, another TV station in Indonesia, Indosiar, has recently decided to air exactly the same Naruto on Sunday mornings. (Remember that Indonesia isn't a Christian country, thus every shows that air on Sundays indeed have high ratings amongst children).
This Indonesian anime forum, which is also hotly discussing the Naruto kiddie's death, has one person nicknamed fadillah46 who wrote:
"The kid is well known to amongst his neighbours to love acting as Naruto"
Anyway, in the forum discussion there are several interesting titbits by people in that thread which are worth reading:
Mr Vince wrote: These articles [referring to this blog and the JakPost link] are written poorly, and as a result most of the people here seem to think the kid was intentionally stangling [sic] himself.
What I think about it: I don’t recall having said that the kid was intentionally strangling himself. It was unintentional. This guy should’ve read properly before making comment like that.
Shadowrun20XX wrote: As for anyone in Naruto,causing harm to themselves would be spoiler[Hidan of the Akatsuki,and his,self sacrifice style jutsu.] He is the only one that came to mind.But that's still far from being animated.
What I think about it: Good point. I only watched around the first 40 episodes of Naruto at most, thus I’m not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint exactly which scene had encouraged that suicide. It might have not been Uzumaki Naruto whom he was imitating after all, it could also be other characters in that anime.
Ojamajo LimePie wrote: What it sounds like to me is that the poor kid commited suicide and the adults are looking for an easy scapegoat. Rather than investigate what was going on in the kid's life, perhaps family trouble or schoolyard bullying, they say "Hey, he watched that Naruto show. Let's blame it on the cartoon!" Of course, the kid isn't around anymore to tell them Naruto isn't the cause of his suicide.
What I think about it: The suicide took place in a poor community of Semarang. The case wouldn’t have had hit the news if it was purely a scapegoat.
