Kyoto high school students detonate homemade explosives in public space

What's more stupid than doing something dumb? Posting the video of it on YouTube.

When I was about 14 me and a mate of mine made a pipe bomb with sugar and fertilizer. Placed in his parents (empty) garage, set the fuse and pulled the door down. Damn thing near blew the garage door clean off. We got in so much trouble over that. Never did it again but looking back it was a buzz. I can understand why these kids did this. Young and stupid before old and wise sort of thing.

SimondB

Young and stupid before old and wise sort of thing.

'Young and stupid' and LUCKY. You missed that key ingredient without which many don't get to the 'old and wise' part.

Blowing stuff up is good fun when you're young but setting off mini IEDs as people walk past is not cool lads!

Yeah, stupid & young same meaning, but how potentially dangerous if they don't stop them... No need to wait until someone dies or get hurt!!

This is the video→　http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffEuI6yKluA

Unless you lock down everything that could be conceivably used to make anything harmful, stuff like this is bound to happen. If kids weren't naturally curious, then we'd all be in big trouble.

Most kids played around with stuff like this, I know I did. Nobody tries to hurt anybody, and most of the time nobody gets hurt.

Getting into a huge tizzy because somebody "could have" gotten hurt is a waste of time.

Spend your time going after real criminals, people actually intending to do damage to life and property, not kids blowing up firecrackers.

gaijinfoJul. 04, 2013 - 10:18AM JST

If they had a remote detonator and detonated whatever they had as someone walked by then it was intentional and they should get in trouble. Even throwing fireworks at people is an offense and there are lots of young people here sufficiently detached to not realize what the hell they're doing.

@CrazyJoe

If that is indeed the explosive in question, I don't see what all the hoopla is. First of all, it wasn't "remotely detonated" as the article suggests. Looks as if someone lumped together a some black powder from some fire crackers, lit it, and threw out out into the middle of an empty street...big deal. But I doubt that is the actual video...

From another piece of footage, an explosion can be seen occurring right next to a passerby. It is thought that the youths used some sort of remote control to deliberately detonate the explosive from afar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_69o2Xxkdcs (long edition)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9Z0ef4_B8w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_69o2Xxkdcs

Ⅰ think THIS is the actual video

OH, 'It even caught the attention of Police' haha Setting off bombs caught their attention! I wonder if this is the next Generation of 'Sarin' terrorists? Nest line; 'WE have seven more hidden throughout the city!'' You have 24 hours...

Yeah, we used to target letterboxes with toilet roll bombs made from fireworks. It's probably a main part of the reason fireworks are illegal in Australia now.

Like many others, did this stuff too. We even tried making napalm. However, potato guns were the most fun...nothing like launching a spud 200 yards towards a concrete wall. That being said, we had plenty of wide open spaces to do this without endangering anyone but ourselves.

These kids are lucky not to live in New York City: Mayor Michael Bloomberg has asked the state governor to ban the sale of sparklers, which, according to city officials, could be used in "terrorist attacks." (As reported in the New York Post.)

I feel like buying a pack of bottle rockets at the local conbini to celebrate the Fourth. Ain't it great to live in a free country?

When I was about 14

You've never been 14 if you've not done something similar. They should be punished by their parents and teachers, just like we were in our days. That's not worth bothering the cops and media.

They threw a cherry bomb in the street, nothing new but in Japan it brings fear.

kids, especially boys, like fire and explosions, it is the way of the world.

I remember burning things and blowing things up when I was 12 or 13. The difference was, I didn't live in an urban area of millions, and we didn't blow the danged thing up in the middle of the street!

Agreed many of us went through this, but they have taken it a step too far letting a remote one off deliberately beside a woman passerby.

Funny and sad to see the copy-cat side of it, though. It reminds me of when Palestinian scarves and mufflers became an item of fashion in Japan a few years ago. They must have got their bomb-making ideas from news stories about Taliban, al-Qaida IEDs in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., or God forbid, from the internet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_69o2Xxkdcs (original video now pulled = old link bad)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tn9JDlvh24 (same video as before)

I've had my time with magnesium fused termite as well. At the eve of the experiment we were left with 10 cm deep hole burned in a concrete slab, filled with molten, almost boiling, white hot iron.

I've had my time with magnesium fused termite as well. At the eve of the experiment we were left with 10 cm deep hole burned in a concrete slab, filled with molten, almost boiling, white hot iron.

-Thermite

I analyzed the audio in the 30 second video with the pedestrian walking down a hillside. At 0:21 you can hear two simultaneous clicks exactly 180ms apart. The initial click produces a smaller peak than the release, but both clicks produce the same tone. Its characteristics are that of a button push, where pushing the button inset in a casing causes a click with a lower volume than the click produced from the release. At 0:24 you hear both clicks again exactly 180ms apart. Then the explosion.

They definitely had intention of hurting or scaring an innocent pedestrian. It's more likely the latter, as the placement of the bomb was off the beaten path hidden in the brush. However, the idea of crafting a bomb just to scare someone is a bit hard to believe.

"Blowing up Auntie" is the title of their video series, おばちゃん爆発.