Japan Today Spotlight #5 | Why won’t Japan screen Shiori Ito’s ‘Black Box Diaries’?

Thanks for putting out the current status of the Black Box Diaries.

It's important for those both inside and outside Japan to get some background on this.

The gross injustice that Shiori Ito has had served upon her in addition to her original traumatic experience, needs to be displayed in the open, while at the same time drawing attention to the powerful protective forces that operate here in order to cover over any negative reporting.

No doubt at all that part of those "protective forces" can be found in the politically aligned world especially those close to ex prime minister Abe whose biographer Noriyuki Yamaguchi was the rapist.

Freedom of the Press is not so free in Japan which is why it's world ranking is so low.

Because freedom of press and the freedom of speach it's an illusion here.

Japan only promotes positive propaganda, and even the most minor criticism, even if constructive, is met with instant cenzorship, same as the downvotting on this forum.

Because many feel it paints Japan overall in a bad light, instead of being more like Shogun. They can't ask, "What do you love about Japan?" in a movie such as this. The movie would FORCE them to look at a topic they wish to keep their heads in the sand on. Usually, when a Japanese movie even reaches the Oscars, you never hear the end of it (or a foreign movie with a Japanese actor for that matter), but with this movie you don't hear a peep.

Finally, there is the obvious reason that the movie likely details the woman's rape by a very well-known figure in Japan and one who is connected to the highest politicians, ie., the people with the power to shut this down completely and keep it down.

As I have noted before, if she really wants people in Japan to actually see the movie, stream it on You Tube or some other media outlet, and do it for free!

Seems to me she is more interested in making money than actually getting her message out!

How Japan has suppressed past documentaries ("The Cove," "Oppenheimer")

→ How has Japan "suppressed" those documentaries? Those can be watched by anyone who is interested in them. Although "The Cove" is just cheap propaganda and not worth watching it.

Where people outside Japan can watch "Black Box Diaries"

→ Same as where people in Japan can watch it: Type the name of the movie followed by the word streaming into your search engine of choice and pick one of the many providers, including Rakuten, Apple, Prime and MS.

@DanteKH

"Because freedom of press and the freedom of speach it's an illusion here."

Freedom of speech / freedom of the press is a real thing in Japan. You can freely express your opinion without having to fear criminal punishment.

Now I personally think the world has had enough of this mew mew meetoo thing. I can understand that movie theaters are reluctant to screen a documentary that almost nobody wants to see. But since this is a free country, you are free to open up your own movie theater and screen the movie.

This is an important documentary and the host country especially should run it in theaters!

Yubaru & Trumpist -

The Japan Today Spotlight 5 video says it is difficult to stream in Japan because of restrictions due to regional licensing agreements.

They said this

"...As of now there is no official streaming service offering to show the film within Japan..."

So do you guys have some insider info re able to watch?

Please let us know - many want to see it.

And re enough of metoo movement.

I'd hazard a guess that it's just starting and millions in this country are, if not getting on board, certainly are broadly sympathizing with the cause.

Just talk to people - esp women. They'll tell you.

@browny: Unfortunately I can't post any links on this forum but a simple search of the documentary's title followed by the word streaming yields more than enough results. Hint: One of the results contains the word "dogwoof" in its URL. Mind you that all streaming options will cost you a few bucks - which leads me to believe that @Yubaru was right with his assumption that this girl is mostly interested in making money than actually getting a message out.

Trumpist123 - thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

Re making bucks. I doubt there's a pile of moolah coming Her way out of this.

The time and energy and own expenses to date would make the hourly pay rate pretty dismal imo.

Not to mention the abuse slurry that she has encountered on the way adding to the misery.

Very few documentaries are financially successful - even biggies.

I don't think BBD is going to change from this and be a sudden windfall.

A labor of Love to right the wrong.

@browny: Not saying that she's going for the big money with that documentary, but if she chose to make it available for free, there would be plenty of options, starting from services like YT, DailyMotion et al to hosting that stuff on her own server. I'm sure some of the world's meetoo advocates would happily spare a few bucks for server maintenance. You get the point. If her goal was to make her story available to as many people as possible, there are any ways to achieve this. This has nothing to do with censorship but a lot with her attitude.

Because of the informational, pedagogical and social value of documentaries, Japanese TV has always avoided them for obvious political reasons (they can really rock the boat of the upholders of the status quo), the exception being bromide travelogues and animal and Nature docs featuring pandas and koalas shown and repeated ad nauseam. A democracy can be measured by the documentaries it allows, which means many people in Japan remain egregiously un-/ underinformed.

Trumpist123Today  02:42 pm JST

@browny: Not saying that she's going for the big money with that documentary, but if she chose to make it available for free, there would be plenty of options, starting from services like YT, DailyMotion et al to hosting that stuff on her own server. I'm sure some of the world's meetoo advocates would happily spare a few bucks for server maintenance. You get the point. If her goal was to make her story available to as many people as possible, there are any ways to achieve this. This has nothing to do with censorship but a lot with her attitude.

It is already available on many platforms that the Japanese have (amazon prime, Ululu, rakuten...) The problem is that it is blocked in Japan. If it is made available on youtube it will perhaps also be blocked for Japan. Only available with VPN like in China :)

@Volsi: Japan is one of very few countries - if not the only country in the world - where there are no blocked sites. If you can't open them, you might be behind a proxy which doesn't allow access to certain sites but I can guarantee you that every single website can be accessed - at least that is the case with OCN but I suppose that other providers will be quite similar if you didn't opt to be using their filtering DNS servers (some do provide them but no one forces you to use them).

If you are complaining that most streaming services do use some form of geo-blocking (no, this is not censorship but it has to do with licensing) then you should bring this up at their respective platform. Again, the rights holder does not agree to releasing their work under a CC license - if they did, it would be available to watch on many more platforms.

And now since you don't want to create a Prime US/UK account (cause it'll cost you extra, right?), nor do you want to buy physical media from abroad (for the same reason, obviously), your only choice is pirating the stuff that you are after.

And as a last good advice: Don't shell out on VPN services since the issue here is not circumventing access restrictions but it's a mere licensing issue.

The japanese govt, media (including Japan Today) and the public, wilfully ignored Johnnys Jimusho sexual abuses of young children and young adults for literally decades. This is the context that the situation of the Black Box Diaries needs to be understood in.

I heard an interview on NPR about this yesterday... She's a brave woman.

Because Japan is not a free country.

> YubaruToday  11:36 am JST

> Seems to me she is more interested in making money than actually getting her message out!

Evidence please.

Didn't think so.

Trumpist123Today  02:42 pm JST

@browny: Not saying that she's going for the big money with that documentary, but if she chose to make it available for free, there would be plenty of options, starting from services like YT, DailyMotion et al to hosting that stuff on her own server. I'm sure some of the world's meetoo advocates would happily spare a few bucks for server maintenance. You get the point. If her goal was to make her story available to as many people as possible, there are any ways to achieve this. This has nothing to do with censorship but a lot with her attitude.

Do you think she made this by herself in her bedroom or something?!

What makes you think she has any control over the production and pubcilation of this film?

YubaruToday  11:36 am JST

As I have noted before, if she really wants people in Japan to actually see the movie, stream it on You Tube or some other media outlet, and do it for free!

Seems to me she is more interested in making money than actually getting her message out!

I know this might be hard for you to comprehend Yubaru, but some people's motivations are beyond financial gain.

I know, crazy, right!?

As I have noted before, if she really wants people in Japan to actually see the movie, stream it on You Tube or some other media outlet, and do it for free!

But if she really wants people in Japan to watch it she needs to make an anime version.

@Homibay Biscoine

Do you think she made this by herself in her bedroom or something?!

Obviously not. If she was that talented, she wouldn't be whining about why she can't publish her work. She would just do so within a matter of hours.

What makes you think she has any control over the production and pubcilation of this film?

I don't know who owns the rights to the work. But if they want to make it available across the globe (including Japan) then they should go ahead and do so. There's nothing stopping them to do so in a legal or technical way. Unless, of course, she (or the copyright owners) have marketed it exclusively to certain networks who geo-block their content (not only this documentary but also other content).

All that she or the copyright owner needs to do is to publish the material under a CC (or similar) license and then there are thousands of ways to spread the thing. It's not that you couldn't download or stream it as it is right now, but then you could do so legally :)

I cannot believe what people are saying here. She's a journalist and a filmmaker, she did a movie about herself and what? she is now a money graber! So Michael Moore should stop making movies for the theaters and instead stream everything on youtube for free? Both are filmmakers it's obvious they will create movies for the theater, both know about how important is to have their movies screened on all the movie festivals especially those focused on documentaries, they got more coverage doing that than streaming on youtube.

Really it's like telling a musician to stop creating music about herself and selling it, like Eric Clapton creating a music about his son and the song became top 1, ask him to give the song for free?

pOcketMonsterFeb. 20  10:29 pm JST

I cannot believe what people are saying here. She's a journalist and a filmmaker, she did a movie about herself and what? she is now a money graber! So Michael Moore should stop making movies for the theaters and instead stream everything on youtube for free? Both are filmmakers it's obvious they will create movies for the theater, both know about how important is to have their movies screened on all the movie festivals especially those focused on documentaries, they got more coverage doing that than streaming on youtube.

Really it's like telling a musician to stop creating music about herself and selling it, like Eric Clapton creating a music about his son and the song became top 1, ask him to give the song for free?

You haven't been on here long, have you pocket? The comments in JT are often highly misogynistic.

Just check some of the reactions to news stories on crimes against women. I try to ignore them.

I finally broke down and watched a Japan Today Spotlight video because I am interested in Ms. Ito's story. Not commenting on the story, but I must say that I was less than impressed with this format. The constant breaking edits after every sentence makes it very difficult to watch. May I suggest a return to the podcast format? It's easily downloadable and the editing isn't nearly as visible or irritating. I won't be watching another one of these videos unless the topic is quite compelling.

Japan Today Spotlight covers the salient point well.

The accusations are directed against a respected prominent celebrity broadcaster, but also a politically well-connected journalist.

Which raises some very pertinent questions, 

This whole case became highly politicised.

Journalist and filmmaker Shiori Ito "Black Box Diaries", brings J sex assault laws into the full focus, unchanged since 1907.

The minimum sentence for sexual assault in some cases is in fact shorter that shoplifting

Look, when Ito spoke out, Ito took huge personal risks, especially the civil case

Because males in positions of power in most countries are allowed to rape women and get away with a slap on the wrist, if that. Just ask the creep in the White House. 23 counts and no punishment yet. Any more questions?

Japan trying to hide its dark side by blocking this!

I'm sure she is perfectly aware that she can put it on YouTube and lots of people will see it. The fight is obviously about the powers that be controlling what gets viewed, and what doesn't, meaning there isn't true freedom of the press here, and she isn't really allowed to tell her story because of the patriarchy and boys club controlling the show.

@Trumpist123

→ Same as where people in Japan can watch it: Type the name of the movie followed by the word streaming into your search engine of choice and pick one of the many providers, including Rakuten, Apple, Prime and MS.

I tried typing "black box diaries" in Google chrome. All that appeared were reviews of the movie.

By contrast, when I typed "the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", there were links to watch the series.

It seems that "black box diaries" is not so widely available. And I think this is what some of the commenters are referring to about the documentary not receiving attention.

It's simply because the copyright issues that appear in the film have not been cleared. It's a simple issue.

The privacy and confidentiality of witnesses and informants must be protected, but she used their footage and audio in the film without their consent.

One has to say that deciding that it's okay to screen that footage without their consent is problematic for a democratic nation.

Her human rights and her rights as a woman are completely irrelevant in this case.

As I have noted before, if she really wants people in Japan to actually see the movie, stream it on You Tube or some other media outlet, and do it for free!

Seems to me she is more interested in making money than actually getting her message out!

Yes, on top of getting raped and ridiculed, she shoud now work for free. Sounds fair...

Yubaru: "As I have noted before, if she really wants people in Japan to actually see the movie, stream it on You Tube or some other media outlet, and do it for free!"

It's probably been said since your post (I'm not going to read them all), but she could only offer it to said streaming services, and their Japan divisions would have the option of showing it or not. My guess is they would not be allowed.

I watched it on ok.ru/video