Without spending a single soldier, a gun, a gun, or a single pawn, with just a piece of paper, can the world be chaotic and the social order collapse? The answer is YES.

The name of this magical piece of paper is called the Threatening Letter.

Recently, the existence of threatening letters has been widely concerned by comic fans, and it is still thanks to "Kuroko's Basketball". In fact, this is not the first time that "Kuroko's Basketball" has received threatening letters, as early as 2012, "Black Basket" was greatly affected by the frequent receipt of threatening messengers; In October 2013, with the launch of the second season of the "Black Basket" anime, threatening letters made a comeback, and supermarkets, video stores, and trade shows were all affected by different events.

What is surprising is that, on the one hand, the prisoner (or his imitator) is still at large after two years without the police doing anything; On the one hand, the Japanese police and event organizers may find it difficult for fans to accept the forbearance and retreat in the face of threatening letters. What's going on with the threatening letter in "Black Basket"? Why do offenders succeed again and again? Is "Black and Blue" the only victim of the intimidation letter incident in the anime circle in recent years? What kind of impact will this have on the anime industry in the future? In this issue of "World Wind", we will focus on the intimidation letter incident.

Black butterfly effect

In the autumn of 2012, Toyama High School in Tokyo received a letter with hydrogen sulfide powder in it. At the same time, Sophia University received the same letter.

The content of the letter is about Tadashi Fujimaki, the author of "Kuroko's Basketball", and Toyama High School and Sophia University are the high schools and universities he attended, respectively. The "Black Basket" Intimidation Letter Incident, which has continued to this day and caused a sensation in the anime circle, has begun.

Ordinary beginnings and extraordinary developments

For the anime circle, it is not too new for authors to receive threatening letters. In April of the same year, the author of the "My Sister" series, light novelist Fushimi Tsukasa received several death emails. Aoi Aoi, a 32-year-old vagrant, sent 10 threatening emails to Fushimi on the grounds that "the author insulted my favorite character in the novel", and he was later arrested by the police. So after the incident of Tadashi Fujimaki receiving a threatening letter broke out, the fans did not react too violently, and the police quickly opened a case and began to investigate.

No one thought that the police investigation would be like a stone sinking into the sea and there would be no progress, and the threatening letter incident in "Black Basket" was just the beginning.

At the end of October 2012, the Sapporo Convention Center received threatening letters for the "Black Basket" event to be held in January 2014, and at that time, more than 10 places across Japan had been threatened.

In November 2012, Shueisha's annual event, JumpFesta Autumn 2013, also received threatening letters, and officials had to take down the booths and counters of "Black Basket" due to safety concerns, and some other on-site events about "Black Basket" were also forced to cancel. At the same time, the identity of the prisoner is also full of suspicions. The suspect who signed "Death in mourning clothes" left this passage on 2CH: "One of the reasons for doing this is that I hate Tadashi Fujimaki, an alumnus of Sophia University and a current manga artist. I'm going to take one of his qiē! "The suspect seems to be well aware of Fujimaki's past, and has all of the recent activities of "Black Basket", and it seems that it is only a matter of time before the case is solved - strangely, it is this case that seems to have a lot of evidence, but it has never been solved, and the threatening letter incident has become more and more intense.

In December 2012, C83, Japan's largest doujin exhibition, was also targeted for intimidation. Although in the end, the official decision was made to carry out the work under increased security, but the sale of a qiē fandom and related performances of "Black Basket" were banned. The Japanese police also said that if any items related to "Black Basket" appear at the venue, it may irritate the prisoners, and I hope everyone will cooperate. Visitors' belongings will be checked on the day and people will be encouraged to contact the staff if something is wrong.

In fact, nothing happened at the exhibition site in this series - this series includes 91 places across Japan, and the police still have not solved the case. At the same time, imitators appeared.

Intimidation letter imitators

In January 2013, the Hokkaido Oriental Touhou Project's "Oriental Kamii Festival" was suspended due to threatening letters. The reason for the suspension is the same as above - because of the receipt of threatening letters, the activity will be suspended at the request of the precinct police station and also for security reasons. The content of the threatening letter is directed at the Oriental Project, and Oriental fans are called to pay attention.

Since then, another event in the East, the Red Devil Township Character Center fandom event "Red Moon Banquet", has also been canceled. Although the organizers did not explicitly state that they had received threatening letters, they still made people think about it.

stage a comeback

After that, the incident of "Black Basket" threatening letters subsided for a long time. It wasn't until October 15, 2013, that 711, Japan's largest convenience store chain, received a threatening letter claiming that toxic snacks had been mixed into Black Basket related cookies. Since then, the goods and exhibitions related to "Black Basket" have been frequently intimidated, from supermarkets to audio-visual rental stores, and the prisoners even arrogantly submitted letters to major Japanese media. In October 2013 alone, more than 250 threatening letters were received across Japan. As of the launch of this issue, the Japanese police are still at a loss for what to do.

Shueisha - make a fortune in a muffled voice

Looking back on the entire incident above, the intimidation letter incident of "Black Basket" can be described as endless, and it looks like the momentum is huge, and all parties have been greatly impacted. However, when we look closely, we hardly see the official shadow of Shueisha.

Don't be in vain and deal with real trouble

In the perception of ordinary comic fans, its popular works are so threatened, as the boss and backer, Shueisha should stand up and support his own son. But after looking at the whole incident, Shueisha rarely spoke out publicly on the one hand, and on the other hand, it did all the real things in a muffled voice - out of the second season? Go out! Printing a single book? Stamp! Even on October 4 of this year, the first edition of Volume 24 of "Black Basket" and Volume 6 of "Assassination Classroom" entered the million-point queue at the same time. Where is the slightest sign of being forced to bow your head and admit cowardice by a threatening letter?

Why did Shueisha do this? The author believes that there are two considerations.

For one, the scare letter is a great advertisement. For Shueisha, its body is a publishing, and the biggest cake of the outgoing publisher is always selling books. The original intention of the animation was for Shueisha.,Originally, it was to sell a few more copies for the promotion of the single book.,The cake in the pocket of the animation is far less big than the cake that sells the single book.。 And if we carefully consider the whole incident, the sales of the single book of "Black Basket" will basically not be affected in any way. You know, Shueisha's manga books are distributed to almost all supermarkets and convenience stores, and even if they are taken off the shelves for a while, they will be put on the shelves again in the future; Coupled with the increasingly developed online shopping channels, if "Black Basket" fans really want to buy books, they don't have to worry about not being able to buy them. In this regard, the sales of this year's comics of "Black Basket" are ironclad, although there are still a few weeks to go before the end of the 2013 annual sales list, "Black Basket" can already be confirmed to be among the top three on the annual list.

On the one hand, some people are tossing and turning blindly every day to advertise "Black Basket" in disguise, and on the other hand, it is an almost unshakable sales channel. The actions of Weirdo 801's face not only fail to shake Shueisha's fundamental interests, but may attract passers-by to buy books, which is simply a pie-in-the-sky thing.

Second, the image of "Black Basket" in this incident was not only not damaged, but it gained a bunch of sympathy cards. The strange man 801 face is such a tossing method, except for becoming the object of Qianfu's referent, I am afraid that there is no good material; And "Black Basket", as a victim, naturally won the sympathy of comic fans; The die-hard loyalists were even more provoked, and their rebellious psychology exploded, saying that they would stand up to the end.

Since there are many benefits no matter how you look at it, why not pretend to be deaf and dumb?

The initiator, what is the aftermath?

Shueisha made a happy count of money with a paralyzed face, but the life of a manga fan was not so good. Because no matter how you look at it, the "Black Basket" scare letter incident is a very bad demonstration, and it is always the comic fans who are scared. And Shueisha's feigning deafness is itself a concession. My father didn't insist, what do we insist on? Therefore, the only reaction we have seen from various exhibitions and sellers is to stop and remove from the shelves.

The attitude of the police is also very bad

In this series of threatening letter incidents, the attitude of the Japanese police and the event organizers can be summed up in one sentence: "Don't be afraid of 10,000, just in case". Once something really happens at the exhibition, I'm afraid no one can afford to bear this responsibility. With this in mind, we frequently see the words "the police ask for a stop" and "the police ask for cooperation".

The problem is that it is precisely because of the effect that the threat letter has been effective enough that the threat of "Black Basket" will continue to make frequent moves. From 91 letters in 2012 to 250 letters a month in October 2013, the prisoners did not have the slightest intention of giving in or repenting, and the police and the organizers still gave in.

This undoubtedly sends a message that all it takes is a threatening letter and no evidence to stop the event.

This ** is too big.

No matter how good the work is, someone will be hacked, and in this sense, the compromise and concession to the offender is a demonstration and signal. We can foresee that if the "Black Basket" incident cannot be well resolved, such incidents will emerge in the anime circle in the future.

Standing and talking doesn't hurt your back, right? Who's to blame if something happens? How should we deal with such an incident?

You need to have faith in your own stick

The author believes that as long as it is open and transparent to users and at the same time strengthens vigilance, there is no need to blindly retreat.

It is quite advisable for the organizers to go public when they receive threatening letters rather than hide them and hide them until something happens. In the case of publicity, whether to opt out or stick to the event is up to each comic fan to judge. If you want to participate knowing the situation, you should take a certain amount of risk. Then again, why don't you take risks these days? Can you guarantee that you won't get scratched and bumped by your bike when you go out today?

At the same time, on-site security and security should also be strengthened. On the one hand, the police should conduct strict inspections of the items carried at the scene and the people entering the venue; On the other hand, the police should also speed up the cracking of cases. In the face of so much physical evidence and suspects who are at large on the Internet, it is unjustifiable to delay for one year without any progress.

The initiator, what is the aftermath? The effect is so obvious, "afterward" should be continuous! There is no reward for withdrawing from the offender, thinking that if the other party is a measured person, he will not commit crimes one after another.

epilogue

In April 2007, Kobayashi, a 21-year-old college student, put a homemade "explosive device" on the audio-visual grocery shelves of the Xidan Book Building due to the ban on the introduction of Japanese animation in the mainland, and threatened to blow up the subway, hoping to bring excellent foreign animation into the Chinese market. Although the explosive device was later proven not to explode, Kobayashi's show standing on the trial bench still appeared on the July issue of "Special Attention." Whatever the intentions of the intimidators, we should not compromise with them. There are endless news of choking people to death when eating, so why don't we eat!?