Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed below represent the opinions of the article’s author. The following work does not necessarily represent the views of the Synergy: Journal of Contemporary Asian Studies.
Keywords: The Snow White Murder Case, crime fiction, social media, Japan, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
Abstract: The 2015 Japanese crime thriller film The Snow White Murder Case (TSWMC) provides many insights into contemporary Japan’s thorny relationship with social media. The first part of this paper argues that trauma theory explains the harsh depiction of social media in TSWMC. Social media use and misuse during Japan’s past, specifically in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, is re-experienced through the film. The second part of this paper examines how TSWMC uses elements of crime and detective fiction to give its audience an eye-opening perspective into the dark side of social media, and how the accelerated, unrestrained spread of false information through sites such as Twitter has damaging, real-world implications for the lives of users and non-users alike. Moreover, this paper will analyze how the strong presence of the camera(s) in interview scenes throughout TSWMC points to widespread anxiety of being surveilled at all times, both in and outside of the workplace.
Crime and detective fiction first arrived in Japan as an imported film genre. Foreign detective stories were translated and first featured in Shinseinen (新青年, New Youth), a youth magazine that solidified and popularized the genre in Japan. Later, domestic writers contributed to the genre by creating stories that mirrored Japan’s anxieties regarding identity and anonymity, gender roles, sexuality, and authenticity. The use of genre as a structure to explore deeper, underlying societal fears and problems has been a well-utilized strategy throughout Japanese crime and detective literature and film. One way this technique is employed is through the use of tropes that audiences would consider key or very recognizable within the genre. In the plot, these tropes can be used to create new themes and unpack existing ones that may have been previously explored. For example, the investigative technique of tailing (bikō) appeared frequently in interwar Japanese detective fiction, often serving as a central element in many stories.[1] This fascination with tailing had a basis in public anxieties over changing living conditions in urban areas, especially in Tokyo. In her novel Murder Most Modern: Detective Fiction and Japanese Culture, Sari Kawana notes that survival in an increasingly urbanized and unfamiliar space entailed uncovering the many secrets of others while closely guarding one’s own. Sari argues that the frequent appearance and practice of tailing in detective fiction symbolized the widespread desire among interwar Japanese urbanites to obtain information about others without being detected.
Fast forward to the year 2017, and one finds Japan grappling with a different set of experiences with regards to human connection and non-connection. The first part of this paper argues that trauma theory can be used to explain the harsh depiction of social media in the 2015 Japanese crime thriller film The Snow White Murder Case (TSWMC). Social media use and misuse during Japan’s past, specifically in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, is re-experienced through the film. The second part of this paper examines how TSWMC uses elements of crime and detective fiction to give its audience an eye-opening perspective into the dark side of social media, and how the accelerated, unrestrained spread of false information through sites such as Twitter has damaging, real-world implications for the lives of users and non-users alike. Moreover, this paper will analyze how the strong presence of the camera(s) in interview scenes throughout TSWMC points to a widespread anxiety of being surveilled at all times, both in and outside of the workplace.
Overall, TSWMC portrays social media in a highly negative light. This perception of the dark side of social media is a reflection of past social media misuse in Japan, particularly pertaining to the way vital information was mishandled during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) emergency that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake. The use of trauma theory to examine the ways in which Japan’s past informs more recent films is not new. In his essay “The post-Aum films of Kurosawa Kiyoshi,” Marc Yamada uses trauma theory to examine the way Japan’s radical past is re-experienced through the films made by Japanese director Kurosawa Kiyoshi in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yamada asserts that the failure of Japan’s radical movements in the 1960s and early 1970s, followed by the Tokyo subway gassings in 1995, are connected to deep-seated social dissatisfactions among the activist generation and the violence that results from extremism.
The tsunami waves caused by the earthquake destroyed the diesel backup power systems at the FDNPP, which led to the sequential meltdown and explosions of nuclear reactors in the days following the earthquake. Residents living in the vicinity of the FDNPP had to evacuate during and after the accident in March 2011. Several systems had been previously implemented by governmental agencies to assist in the effective evacuation of residents in such situations. One of these systems is called the Development of the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI). SPEEDI was initiated after a nuclear power plant accident that took place at the United States Three-Mile Island nuclear reactor in 1979. The Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute had begun the development of SPEEDI in 1980. The system cost more than 10 billion Yen over the course of its improvement and development.
The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) was responsible for the overall administration of SPEEDI, such that it could be quickly activated to predict the approximate range and density of radioactive contamination in the air, and to give an approximation of the level of radioactive dosage in the event of an emergency. The predictions of SPEEDI are meant to help policymakers determine the appropriate scale of evacuation, and inform their decision-making on possible escape routes for residents to lower the chances of additional exposure to high levels of radiation. The calculation results can also be used to decide how and when to distribute iodide tablets, which serve to prevent the accumulation of Iodine-131 in the thyroid gland, a notable health risk stemming from overexposure to radiation.
The Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness of Japan indicated that in the event of an emergency, SPEEDI results were to supply the government and various municipalities with detailed information about the possible radiological fallout from said accident. This information was also to be shared publicly with Japan’s citizens to prevent unnecessary exposure to radiation. During the immediate hours and days that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake and the FDNPP accident, the government did not release SPEEDI’s calculations to the public. The government also failed to plan evacuations based on SPEEDI recommendations. This resulted in the evacuation of a significant number of citizens in the northwest direction, towards the highest levels of radioactive contamination.
After the FDNPP incident, social media usage changed significantly in Japan. Many Japanese citizens who used social media and the Internet to search for information on radioactive contamination during the incident no longer fully trusted announcements made by the government or the mass media.[2] After March 2011, mass media became a reference, as citizens tried to find other sources of information such as Twitter and other global social media sites. Citizens realized that in order to protect themselves and ensure the well-being of their families, they needed to obtain information that was unavailable in traditional Japanese media. Social media was the fastest, most convenient source of such information. TSWMC can be construed as a reaction to this new approach to mining information. This film serves as a reminder that social media is also filled with false rumours and inaccurate information that can easily spread like wildfire.
The film TSWMC is based on Minato Kanae’s novel of the same name. The film’s opening shot reveals the viciously-stabbed, bloody body of a beautiful young woman. Tweets from Twitter are superimposed over the scene, revealing the online reactions of other Japanese citizens to the murder and giving the audience details about the scene of the crime. Kana Risako, one of the victim’s co-workers, is questioned by the police off-screen. After the interview, she calls her school friend Akahoshi Yuji, a low-level part-time television news journalist who spends the majority of his time reviewing ramen shops on Twitter under the alias “Red_Star.” Yuji reveals the name of the victim: Miki Noriko. Noriko worked for Hinode, a cosmetics manufacturer known for its “Snow White” beauty soap. Over the course of his conversation with Risako, Yuji realizes that covering Noriko’s case could be a possible career-maker. Their second conversation with Risako, this time filmed, points Yuji towards the shy and plain-looking Miki Shirono as a likely suspect. Yuji proceeds to interview Shirono’s co-workers, parents, childhood friends, and classmates. The audience learns that on the night of the murder, after the farewell dinner for her retiring colleague Mayama, Shirono had given Noriko a ride home. Shirono was last seen running off to catch an express train to Tokyo, which marked her disappearance. Rumours about Shirono’s alleged jealousy of Noriko’s beauty and success, alongside more rumours about her alleged responsibility for the recent chain of petty thievery in the office, all seemed to contribute toward Shirono’s guilt. For the majority of TSWMC, the audience is “sutured” on to Yuji’s point-of-view, gaining new revelations into the case as he does. In a way, Yuji acts as a stand-in for the audience, since the questions he asks of his interviewees help unearth the clues that the audience needs to piece the truth together.
From the moment the audience meets Yuji, it is clear that there is little filtration between his thoughts and his tweets. During his phone call with Risako, he live-tweets teasing bits of information, claiming that he “knows the victim” and that “victim’s name is… can’t make it public!” without a second thought. The way Yuji uses his Twitter account is reminiscent of Japan’s blogging culture from 1999 to the early 2000s. During this time period, blogs were often veritable diaries of people’s everyday lives, or food and book reviews. Authors of personal blogs commonly wrote under pen names, similar to how Yuji uses the pseudonym “Red_Star” to protect his identity. Under an alias, Yuji’s anonymity is assured. Thus, he is able to garner pleasure from the reactions his tweets invoke without suffering any damage to his personal reputation, as his tweets begin to provoke questions of ethical journalism and the protection of suspects’ identities.
Eventually, Yuji gets the opportunity to make a news segment about the case. He uses footage from his interviews with Shirono’s co-workers, but the final cut construes uncertainties (such as the lack of clarity regarding who is the true culprit of petty thefts at Hinode) as explicit evidence of Shirono’s guilt. The news segment sets the internet further ablaze. Though Shrirono is only referred to as Ms. S in the news segment, Twitter users interested in the case quickly figured out her identity. Shirono becomes demonized by various posters, as a matsuri – “festival” of flaming”—erupts on Twitter.[3]
Throughout his interviews, Yuji is only able to get small parts of the full story from each participant. Often, these snippets are distorted, details wrongly remembered or told without the full context. For example, Risako tells Yuji that she accidentally dropped Shirono’s treasured mug one day in the office. Risako notes that the mug had a big “S” on it, and wonders out loud if the letter perhaps stood for Shinoyama, the section head of the office. According to Risako, he and Shirono were dating before Shinoyama began dating Noriko. Risako attributed Shirono’s anger over the shattered mug to her jealousy towards Noriko for being in a relationship with Shinoyama. It is not until the audience reaches the end of the film that Shirono’s testimony of events is finally provided on screen. The audience learns that throughout the trials, she has been forced to endure the fact that Shirono took great comfort in listening to the music of the Serizawa Brothers, and that the “S” on the mug stood for the band’s name. In fact, Shirono was not angry over the fact that Noriko was with Shinoyama – she was disheartened that a symbol of long-time comfort had been broken. As first-time viewers, the audience has no background knowledge of Shirono nor Noriko. Thus, everything the audience knows about the two characters initially comes from information provided by other characters. What is known and unknown is a pivotal theme throughout the movie, and it does not take viewers long to realize that most interviewees are telling very one-sided stories, distorting the truth, and pushing the audience toward false conclusions.
Interviews with friends, family, and colleagues of suspects— common in the genre of crime and detective fiction—play a central role in TSWMC by contributing to the plot’s non-linear storytelling and placing the audience in the position of a detective. Parts of the interview scenes are shot using a film camera, allowing the visual quality (lighting, colour, contrast, etc.) of the shots to remain consistent with scenes from the start of the film.
The presence of Yuji’s camera is always painfully evident in each interview scene (see figure 1). Other interviews in the film were shot using a personal camera that Yuji carries around. The differences in visual quality and angle between the film camera and Yuji’s camera make it easy to differentiate between the two perspectives in each interview scene (see figure 2 and 3).
Figure 1: Yuji interviews Risako in her apartment. This is an example of the “film camera” shot.
Figure 2: Yuji interviews Mi-Chan, one of Shirono’s co-workers. This shot was captured by the “film camera.”
Figure 3: Yuji interviews Mi-Chan, one of Shirono’s co-workers. This shot was captured by the “personal camera” Yuji carries.
At the start of the interviews, Risako expresses her discomfort with being filmed, and Shinoyama tells Yuji to turn the camera off. In both cases, Yuji carries on filming (see figure 4).
Figure 4: Yuji interviews Shinoyama. His “personal camera” is still on, though Shinoyama does not realize it.
The intrusive nature of Yuji’s personal camera mirrors a Japanese society weighed down by the anxieties of constant surveillance by peers, an example of which is the Japanese workplace. Many employees in Japan believe that their value is measured by their loyalty to the workplace, which is quantified by the number of hours they work. Employees also adjust their work hours according to the number of hours worked by their co-workers. In a demerit-focused workplace, leaving earlier than other co-workers is a cause for shame. This attitude has given rise to a phenomenon called karoshi, or death by overwork.
Later in the movie, Yuji interviews Shirono’s childhood friend, Tanimura Yuko. More tech-savvy than Shinoyama, Yuko refuses to talk until Yuji’s personal camera is turned off. This move translates to a powerful statement. Yuko, bullied mercilessly when she was younger for having a name that could be read as Tako (octopus), is refusing to let another person control the narrative she plans to tell. She is unwilling to speak on tape the way other interviewees have, both on Yuji’s cameras and in the videos posted on social media pages. In doing so, Yuko is setting herself apart by symbolically removing herself from a society where citizens seek to exploit one another’s flaws and weaknesses in order to elevate their own status.
Rumours of Shirono’s guilt is rapidly transmitted throughout the internet. Twitter is a notable example, as a platform on which false stories can be communicated very quickly by retweeting other tweets without verification of the original source of information. TSWMC is a disturbing snapshot of the forms through which the democratization of truth and justice can take, with many users even calling for Shirono to die. TSWMC can also be interpreted as a snapshot of Japan’s national psyche. There is no doubt that Yuji is guilty of disseminating slanderous material, but the certainty of Shirono’s guilt was further propelled by the content of commenters’ posts and retweets. Rather than acknowledging their role in promoting a false narrative, Twitter users are quick to turn on Yuji (after discovering his identity) and turn him into a scapegoat, harassing and threatening him online in much the same way they did to Shirono. This type of “survival strategy”, where protecting oneself means bringing another down, is mirrored in Japanese society’s merit system. In his novel, Social Media and Civil Society in Japan, Muneo Kaigo takes note of a general rule observed most prominently in the career and life-determining entrance examination systems in Japan’s education system, arguing that Japan as a society is more “demerit focused” than “merit focused.”[4] In other words, citizens are scrutinized for mistakes and what they cannot do, rather than commended for what they can do. Under this societal atmosphere, criticizing or teasing others becomes a way to raise one’s own status.
The security of anonymity on Twitter explains a fundamental contradiction in the central argument of this paper. Japanese citizens are anxious about surveillance, yet, there are citizens like Yuji who are willing to post their innermost thoughts online for public viewing. The anonymity of Twitter provides an atmosphere in which users can bluntly discuss offensive material because nobody knows who is involved in the discussion. Without the concern of direct confrontation or a tarnished personal reputation, the stress stemming from perceived personal failings can be externalized onto anonymous internet figures, giving the harasser or slanderer an outlet for their frustration whilst leaving the trauma of cyberbullying to the online victims.
Cyberbullying depends on information and communication technologies to operate. The ambiguity around freedom of speech and communication in the virtual space has made it difficult to create rules to regulate online mediums.[5] This difficulty is further compounded by the plethora of users who use aliases rather than real names. TSWMC is a lesson about how quickly a life can be ruined by the lack of regulation and decency in digital spaces. Although the testimonies of Yuko and Shirono’s university friend Maetani Minori revealed the kind and caring soul that Shirono is, damage to Shirono’s reputation has already been wrought. Minori’s and Yuko’s testimonies were insufficient to curb the tide of hateful tweets and death wishes directed towards Shirono. In the end, Shirono is found innocent, but she does not escape from her experience of large-scale social rejection unscathed. Human brains react to social pain and pleasure in much the same way as they do to physical pain and pleasure.[6] Isolated from her friends, Shirono’s only external input of information regarding her self-worth since her disappearance comes from Internet communications. She feels as if there is no one on her side. After she finishes writing a letter, a testimony in the form of a suicide note, Shirono attempts suicide.
TSWMC provides an insightful perspective into the drawbacks of the democratization of information and truth, coupled with the rapid speed of transmission on social media platforms such as Twitter. The question of anonymity connects this theme with the film’s exploration of consensual and non-consensual surveillance and the question of anonymity. One can observe that anonymity serves as a security blanket until it is taken away, after which the user must face the consequences of his or her words and actions. In the same way that the mismanagement of the FDNPP crisis and the decision to hide vital information irrevocably damaged the reputation of Tokyo Electric Power Company and arguably the government in the eyes of Japanese citizens, Yuji’s sensationalist news segments and misleading tweets on Twitter forever damaged his personal and professional reputation.[7] Therefore, TSWMC reflects the evolution of social media usage in Japan, showing the deadly consequences of mishandled online information.
Given the fairly recent rise of social media and misinformation online, TSWMC merits further cinematic analysis. Questions of sexuality, supernaturalism in a modern setting, and other intriguing themes are interwoven into the film, and constitute insightful glimpses into modern Japan beyond this paper.
Sharon (Sheiran) Phu is a student at Yale University, class of 2019.
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