Friday, November 9, 2007

So does this mean shows like CSI would never fly in Japan?

According to this article in The LA Times, it's possible hundreds of murder cases have been unsolved in Japan, because autopsies are performed on only 11% of bodies that are found dead. And it's 6% in the Aichi prefecture, where a young man was declared to have died from "heart disease," even though he was found covered in bruises, lesions , broken bones and burns. [After a lot of media coverage the dorm prefect confessed to beating him and is now facing charges.]

This also means Japan's notoriously high suicide rate could be misspoken. Interestingly, the article points out that autopsy as a practice was introduced by Americans during post-War occupation, which is why we know about the Tuberculosis pandemic that was previously brushed off as a general consequence of defeat and ensuing shortage of basic necessities.

So much for deductive reasoning.
link

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never fear! CSI, CSI NY, and CSI Miami are all thriving on cable TV. (Not to mention House, Bones and the other icky gooey shows... all of which I faithfully watch.) The lack of autopsies is a shock to the local populace as well as in the US.
It's like the whole society is coming out of the woodwork, not just autopsies...

ill iterate said...

That's good there are autopsy shows in Japan, and that the dearth of corpse pathology is shocking to natives. I smell a med school manga in all this...

Anonymous said...

That comment was probably more insightful than the quotes from your Chilean poet or your Japanese fabulist. There is already a TV show that is slightly House-ish, without the icky gooey. And, by the way, the best Japanese dramas (the ones that are the least bad) are originally manga. So the solution is to let the manga writers run the country. Obviously.