Wrist cutting


So I noticed in Reject of Death, Tokyo Gore Police, and Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl that there is a lot of wrist cutting involved. Now I get the Ganguro scenes and the chinese professor scene, but what does the wrist cutting mean? Is this meant to be self depreciating humor?

I get it up, I get it up in the dark, I make her feel I'm not a holy man

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It's a sort of dark humour about suicide. Watch "Suicide Club" and that will explain it a lot more. Suicide rates being quite high in Japan, people sometimes have more of a darkly humorous attitude almost bordering on parody about suicide there. There are a lot of jokes/references to it, and since wrist cutting tends to be the most predominant manner in which teenagers try to commit suicide, this is why wrist cutting is used as a device in the films. It should also be noted that often it is the way used more than anything to cry for help and not an actual serious attempt, so this is also part of the reason why it gets parodied. I'm obviously generalizing but this can be seen in Japanese movies especially, and to a lesser degree in Korean movies as well. I can't think of a Western analogy off the top of my head, except for perhaps during the Second World War when Germans in particular became known for displaying a lot of dark humour about the war and particularly Allied bombings, one example being the joke "Berlin has become a city of warehouses...(punch line) where's my house where's my house!?"

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