More About Underwood
I don’t blame some of you for wondering what the heck I was thinking when I posted about the origins of the word otaku, the American known as Kevin Underwood who allegedly killed a young girl and the Japanese serial killer Miyazaki. You were thinking, okay, is Marie that desperate for material? I might have wondered the same thing if I were you.
But I just sort of had this hunch . . . Take a look at Huff’s Crime blog today.
Here, in Kevin’s own words, was one of his ambitions:
I realized today what I want to do. I want to open my own store. A Japanese store, sell Manga, and Anime, and toys and stuff from Japan, and all those fantastic Japanese snack products like Pocky. . . A real Otaku paradise.
The article then goes on to point out the similarities between Miyazaki and Underwood, which Japundit also did a few days ago. If you are a sensitive soul, I suggest you quit reading now.
Here is what Miyazaki did to his victims; it mirrors what Underwood allgedly did and was allegedly planning to continue to do to his:
Between 1988 and 1989, Miyazaki mutilated and killed four girls, ages four to seven; he then raped their corpses and ate portions of his third and fourth victims.
Huff goes on to speculate in a way that I was frankly too chicken to do on Japundit. In fact, I’m still too chicken to speculate, so I’m posting Huff’s words.
It is obvious from a brief read of any of Underwood’s online writing that he was literate and intelligent. How widely-read was he? Was he aware, even before the internet was easily accessed by a number of middle-class homes across the country, of the story of Tsutomu Miyazaki?
At least on the surface, there seem to be enough parallels between Kevin Underwood, what we know of him at the moment, and Miyazaki that it occurred to me for a moment that Underwood might have even studied Miyazaki.
And, for now, we still have to wait and see if any of this will be part of the Kevin Underwood story — or if it even deserves to be. Too soon to tell. There is much more in the Huff post that was not touched on here in Japundit, including a hair-raising chat Underwood supposedly had with an online friend about the young girl’s disappearance.
I do, finally, have to point out just one more part of Huff’s blog. Here is a bizarre protestation in the middle of what was otherwise a great bit of sleuthing.
It isn’t weird to like anime or manga, nor is it weird to be a japanophile (not that I think my friend is either weird or a “japanophile,” but he knows Japan and the Japanese very well). There is much about Japanese culture to be admired—the quote from my friend at the beginning of the blog entry tells you about one aspect of Japanese culture I have always liked—the societal rules governing civility. Imagine saying about anything American that “it’s the only [fill in the blank] in the U.S. where you can tell someone to fuck off and die and not have to bring them a fruit basket afterward.”
These lines in the middle of an otherwise intelligent post made me sort of feel as though Huff were protesting too much. If if turns out that Underwood was in fact partly inspired by Miyazaki, then so be it. But of course this wouldn’t turn out to be an indictment against all of Japan, any more than Miyazaki himself was reason enough to indict all things MASK.
Marie,
Good follow up. I’ve been in touch with Steve Huff by email and he knows about Japundit and your posts. He has probably been visiting and reading Japundit, too.
I posted this comment in his blog today, re his long and interesting post about the possible Japan connection to Underwood’s pathology:
Steve,
I don’t think it had anything to do with the Japanese murderers, but good investigating sleuthing Steve. I think the main things are:
1. major personality disorder (MPD)
2. going off the meds his doc had prescribed for his MPD
Period.
Underwood stopped his Japanese language blog in 2004, two years ago, and he was just studying nihongo as a language and he linked to some J-pop sites. In 2004. He went off his meds last, I think that is where the puzzle remains: what were the meds, Prozac? how long were they prescribed, beginning when, and why didn’t his mom and family and friends insist that he go back on the meds again. Someone was not wathing out for Kevin Underwood when he most needed it. Why?
I think nothing will come of this Japan connecttion. Nothing.
April 21st, 2006 at 12:20 amOn some of his blogs, Underwood described his moodswings and the problem of his meds. This explains alot, I think:
UNDERWOOD: “I guess part of the problem for me, is that I just have no tolerance for alcohol. I’m completely drunk after 3 or 4 beers. And being drunk is uncomfortable or painful for me. My face gets almost painfully warm after just two beers, and then I start getting a really bad headache. I’m usually in too much pain to get any enjoyment from being drunk.
That doesn’t stop me from getting drunk occasionally, usually when I’m depressed. Which is a bad idea, because pretty much every time I get drunk, I get depressed, whether I was depressed before I started or not. Pretty much every time I get drunk, I end up punching brick walls, or at least fighting the urge to punch things and freak out. Especially if I’m in a party situation where there’s more than two or three people around. Because I can’t handle the social interaction, and I get pissed off. Pissed off at myself for not being able to be social, and pissed off at the other people because they can, and pissed off at God for making me be this way. If there is a God. Pretty much the only time I believe in God is when I want to blame Him for something. Or, when I’m really depressed, to cry and beg him to make me better, to make whatever is wrong in my brain go away, so that I can live like a normal person.
That’s all I want in life, is to be able to live like a normal person.
I’ve been really bad again lately. I need to have the doctor write me a prescription for more Lexapro or something, and start taking that again. I wonder if they even still make Lexapro? I checked some of those online pharmacies, to see if I could get it cheaper from Canada or something, but none of them I’ve looked at have it. They have five or six other antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications, but not that one.”
UNQUOTE
What are the side effects of Lexapro? Anyone know?
April 21st, 2006 at 12:37 amJust some background info. And then I’m off this post. [I think when the forensics team finishes their report, this drug lexapro is going to seen as a major factor in the crime].
US Brand Name: Lexapro
Other Brand Names: Cipralex (UK, Ireland and various European countries)
Generic Name: escitalopram oxalate
Class: Antidepressant, specifically SSRI.
FDA Approved Use: Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Off-Label Uses: Panic, Bipolar Depression, ADD/ADHD, OCD, Chronic Fatigue…
April 21st, 2006 at 12:45 amLast one, promise:
QUOTE
Underwood said one of his main interests was the online role-playing game “Kingdom of Loathing,” in which stick figures battle one another.
In September 2004, he wrote that his depression deepened after several months without taking the medication Lexapro, an antidepressant also used in the treatment of anxiety disorders.
“For example, my fantasies are just getting weirder and weirder. Dangerously weird,” he wrote. “If people knew the kinds of things I think about anymore, I’d probably be locked away. No probably about it, I know I would be.”
UNQUOTE
April 21st, 2006 at 1:00 amAha! There’s the real culprit! Anime is a red herring! Kingdom of loathing will twist you into a cruel beast in a human guise.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:19 amHow much “moe” is there to say on this??
April 21st, 2006 at 6:46 amSo where’s the cute little Unchi-kun in all of this…?
April 21st, 2006 at 8:14 amProbaly “pooped” off to “Toto-land” (groan).
April 21st, 2006 at 8:30 amSteve Huff gave me permission to pass on this note he wrote in response to reading some the posts here at Japundit. He wrote:
QUOTE: from Steve Huff’s email:
Thanks for that Japundit link.
About the “protesting too much” — may be a mis-read of what I was trying to fend off. See, here, I get a lot of overly-reactive bullshit from people who just don’t read as closely as the person who made that post at japundit.com. I have actually read commentary that interpreted my pointing out my personal perception of Underwood having dark, shark-like eyes as my meaning that his dark eyes must have meant he was a psycho. I mean, WTF??? That was someone who simply was overlaying their own weird trip on my words. So what the japundit poster was thinking was me protesting too much was really just me saying, look, don’t get confused, dear reader — I am not saying anything Japanese was to blame for Underwood’s actions. If you read back in my blog, you will see I frequently try to aim directly for what I think the real issue is and clear away the bullshit.
Another example would be MySpace.com. The media here has jumped all over that, as if MYSPACE itself were somehow the problem. People are the problem. People want to defend or excuse or rationalize their behaviors in a way that removes the responsibility from their shoulders, a great deal of the time. So hey, if an underage girl is raped by a guy she met on MySpace, let’s make MySpace look bad, when the real problem is inside that rapist’s head.
Same here. That Miyazaki made Japanese go after otaku was remarkable to me — it sounds like it was the Japanese doing exactly what Americans do — looking everywhere but the source of the problem — the criminal.
I wasn’t protesting too much. I was anticipating exactly what may have happened — that my bringing up Sagawa or Miyazaki at all would be interpreted as somehow blaming manga, anime, hentai for Underwood’s problem. Nope. Underwood would probably like to tell people that too, but that would be the same as Ted Bundy’s final supercilious interview with Dr. James Dobson, a right-winger evangelist — Bundy, to the end, took no responsibility for his actions, but blamed them on porn.
If Underwood had some sort of knowledge of Miyazaki in particular, I don’t think it was a matter of him emulating the killer — it was a matter of him looking across the ocean and saying, gee, that guy is a lot like me. He started identifying with Miyazaki.
People use things that resonate with their own madness, whatever that is. I fully understand it’s about the killer’s perception, not the culture, or the art form, or whatever. That probably wasn’t clear in my blog entry, or you wouldn’t have responded as you did.
The Japanese connection is only important in understanding what an intelligent and well-read psychopath like Underwood sought out to enhance his fantasy life.
My 8-year-old son is a remarkably gifted artist, and his favorite subjects are anime and manga. I can’t even go there about blaming the art form, because then I’d start looking askance at my boy, and I won’t do that. Pass this on to japundit for me if you would, as I tried to comment, but it took me to japundit.com’s wordpress sign-in page.
Thanks!
Steve
April 21st, 2006 at 1:25 pmWatch out Crayon Shin-chan - you’re next!!..
April 21st, 2006 at 1:34 pmAnd those other 2 corrupters of young minds!!:- Chibi Mariko-chan & Doraemon,..Helter Skelter..Manson/.. Uncle Tom Cobbly and all!!
April 21st, 2006 at 2:06 pmThanks for passing that along, Danny.
Given how intelligent Steve Huff’s posts are, it never would have occurred to me to accuse him of maligning Japan, anime or the Internet for that matter! But of course I can see that the media or others might do so — we still read about “video games causing violence” in the mainstream press, for example, even though there isn’t any concrete proof that this is the case. As a result, I can of course see why he would feel the need to put in a disclaimer.
I would agree that the manga angle is interesting because it relates to how well read Underwood is. It is also interesting to me personally because, like all things, the spread of Japanese culture will also naturally include the spread of darker elements — or at least an awareness of Japan’s darker elements. You can’t have only the best and most positive elements of any culture moving along; the bad always ends up going along with the good.
April 21st, 2006 at 4:38 pm