Ninja Gaiden: Depressing Scapegoat

by Chris Greenhough { Mar 25th 2008 at 9:00PM }

Poor old Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword isn't having the best of times in Japan right now. Having shifted a criminally low 4,000 units in its first day on sale, the game is now having the crusty finger of blame pointed in its direction over a high-profile murder in the country. On March 19th, 24-year-old suspect Masahiro Kanagawa went on a horrific stabbing spree through his home town of Tsuchiura, killing one 27-year-old man, and wounding eight others.

We obviously can't explain what motivated Kanagawa, so hey, thank goodness for the news media, which has already nailed down the root cause of this young man's madness -- and it's all to do with that evil Ninja Gaiden game! Take that, professional psychologists and behavioral experts!

The above screenshot, captured by the My Games News Flash blog, was taken from a report by Japanese network Fuji TV. The blue and white text at the bottom knowingly points out that Kanagawa was arrested with a copy of Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword nestling at the bottom of his bag, implying that its presence there was somehow deeply meaningful. You'll all recognize the image, of course.

We seriously don't know what's more depressing about this: Fuji TV's gross over-simplification of what is a complex catastrophe, or the fact that this kind of lazy scapegoating passes as journalism pretty much anywhere in the world. Can we not all just move to the Moon or something? I call shotgun.

Gallery: Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword

[Via Kotaku]

Tags: action, controversy, dragon-sword, japan, media, murder, ninja-gaiden, team-ninja, tecmo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jhongerkong @ Mar 25th 2008 9:26PM

The funny thing is that Kanagawa did the stabbing before Ninja Gaiden came out. Guess the Japanese media are just as dumb as American media.

CJC @ Mar 25th 2008 9:53PM

Hey, sometimes a guy just has to flip out and kill people.

Foodie_Monster @ Mar 25th 2008 10:44PM

Well, that's a shame. I've been playing the game a bit and while it's not my personal cup of tea, it's definitely something that every DS owner should at least try. It sucks that this random (and awful) event happened with this timing, as it'll probably hurt the sales of this game in a way it will tank in the Japanese market. Let's just hope that it does well this week in the US so that Tecmo/Team Ninja don't feel it as badly.

Jacksons @ Mar 26th 2008 3:03AM

The daily news has turned into such a pathetic manifestation of blame, money and poor ethics. Sacrificing credibility to increase ratings, it's so damned sad.

Nigeria: Cody ChesnuTT Defense Force @ Mar 26th 2008 6:38AM

Journalism has fallen so low, it's embarrassing. I'm not even surprised by the reaction of the Japanese media in this instance: I expect it. I expect misinformation. What a sad situation.

And all the old media groups wonder why their ratings/circulations are tumbling.