Musical: Go, Japanese Constitution by Aya Imaizumi
The story of this musical is based on a real story, one boy's suicide at Tsukui choritsu Nakano junior high school in 1994. In 1997, this incident became the subject of a musical called "Go, Japanese Constitution". The name of the boy was Hiroshi Hirano and he killed himself one and a half months after he moved to another school because the bullying toward him was so bad. The author of this article was also bullying him and her friends considered bullying Hiroshi as one of their pastimes. They drew doodles on his textbook, sent a fake love letter, ignored him, put butter on his desk, punched and kicked him. After all, Hiroshi consulted with his teacher and the teacher took a survey in his class, gave a warning to students for 15 minutes and talked to Hiroshi for 30 minutes. But on that evening, Hiroshi killed himself at home. Hiroshi's parents accused the school of their son's death, but the school denied the fact of bullying.
In 1997, when the musical was played, the author's feeling was complicated because she had to play the role, which made Hiroshi kill himself, in front of
his parents. Manabu Ito, a playwright, presented this incident from different aspects; students (those who were bullying), Hiroshi, school, and parents. As students were saying, for example, "Isn't there anything interesting to do?" "There's nothing fun to do here", "I'm about to get really angry," there was a phenomenon that many students got angry very easily, and were short-tempered. Having a strong identity, Hiroshi did not have any friends at school. Students thought that Hiroshi was different from others and they thought that Hiroshi was strange. That's why they did not try to be friends with him.
Bullying people who are in weak position, different from others, seems to represent the current society in which kids lose direction of their lives and
cannot find their interest under a lot of pressure from studying, cramming for school and parents. The adult society, having bullying and discrimination, is reflected on the children. The solution for bullying, violence and juvenile crime lies in the adult society.
Translated and modified from CPNN Tokyo by Saori Imaizumi
