Aren't Japanese pranks sometimes just taking it too far?? (I would love to get some responses from Japanese people that can give me some insight of their culturec).
Recently I have seen some videos of Japanese practical pranks that were broadcast on Japanese TV. The thing that really struck me, and quite frankly offended me, was the seemingly CRUELTY brought upon the involuntarily and often random victims of the prank. I believe there is a fine line between a funny prank and a cruel assault, and some of the following examples in my mind really passed this line by far.
Some of these pranks really scare the snot out of people, but so intensely that it's not unreasonable to assume that it might risk in causing a heart failure to whom is not in the best medical condition, or cause long lasting psychological scars like post-traumatic stress disorder that might really hurt one's quality of life, or just great deal of humiliation.
For example one prank showed a staged event of a gunman shooting dead other people in the room and taking the terrified victim as hostage:
http://www.snotr.com/video/5462/Cruel_Japanese_Prank_ShowAnother one showed an elevator prank in which the electricity and lights went off (scary enough for me), and when they returned, a scary "ghost" appeared in the elevator as if out of nowhere, and then terrorized the victim and scared him to panic (and sobbing in one case):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py5QVtk1xAIHere's another example of waking up a sleeping man by launching him on a rocket to a few hundred meters in the air:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPWZnYlF3ug Other pranks just seem to humiliate and violate the victims, like dropping unsuspecting men nude in public or making a man fall to a hole in the floor into a pool of water on a stage in front of a crowd of people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnciH4B6kWchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tirhQrbDe5Yhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaAC1GnQS0Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uUNQoUCHIY Other than that some of these pranks seem a little risky, physically speaking, like in this flipping chair prank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tirhQrbDe5Y, looks like a great way to break one's neckc
Another thing that annoys me about these pranks, is that it seems it gives a great laugh to the viewers, watching the victim scared to death, crying, screaming, humiliated and what notc The enjoyment of another person's trauma or humiliation I find disturbing. I guess it's human's nature to laugh at other's misfortune (although I've never been a fan of this, maybe I'm a little too sensitive), but to this extent - I think it's really too much.
Cruel pranks are perpetrated all the time all over the world, but it's another thing to broadcast one's humiliating moments to potentially millions of viewers and giving it legitimacy as a TV show for the amusement of the public. I wonder if they even ask their victims' permission to air this.
I think if such pranks were done for example in the US or Europe it would prompt many victims to sue the pranksters (justifiably I might add), and many viewers will feel about it more of an assault, rather than just a funny prank.
Maybe assault for the amusement of others is just legitimate in Japan?
Or maybe they don't find it as cruel as I do?