It was horrifying. A young man with chemically curled hair and hipster glasses dumped the mummified body on the apartment floor. The 22-year-old girl was wrapped countless times in Saran wrap.
A pair of guitars were in the corner, next to a home entertainment setup, with a TV and game consoles. "Yeah!" the guy with glasses exclaimed. "This wrapping is amazing! She can't breathe."
The 22 year-old girl was apparently smashed drunk. Or was she?
The guy with glasses poked a hole with a fork. But as time passed, the girl's body got hotter and hotter. "Maybe she's gonna die," the guy in glasses said.
Then the girl seemed to stop moving, so the guy got a box cutter and cut her out. The girl was limp and didn't respond when the guy in glasses repeatedly slapped her in the face. "You still alive?" he asked and asked.
The clip originally appeared on a live-feed on Nico Nico Douga, the popular Japanese video site. It was apparently a fake, with the guy confessing over Twitter that the whole thing was acting and staged. It was designed to arouse attention. In Japan, it's just arousing rage.
Netizen after netizen on 2ch pointed out that this crossed the line, and that the police could consider this attempted murder. Some netizens were even pissed that the clip ended up on YouTube, complaining that it will be fodder for Westerners to hate Japan—without understanding what the hell was going on.
Netizens over at 2ch did their internet detective work and turned up the glasses guy's Twitter account and his Facebook account—both of which were supposedly spammed by Japanese netizens. People were pissed. "If I knew where this glasses motherfucker was," wrote one Japanese YouTube user, "I'd go kill him right now." Over at Ore Teki no Game Sokuhou@Jin, some commenters debated if the guy should be arrested or die. No wonder the dude deleted all his accounts.
Granted, there are people who enjoy these sorts of activities in their bedroom—and perhaps both of the participants in this Nico Nico incident were consenting adults. It was the whole bravado, and the feeling that, while the consenting adults were in on the ruse, the internet viewing public was not.
These types of outrageous incidents are becoming increasingly common on NicoNico. Earlier this year, a guitar-humping girl dressed up as Gatchaman and set off fireworks indoors, which lead to the police showing up. Earlier this month, a man tried to set people on fire during a live Nico Nico event.
During Sony's pre-Tokyo Game Show press conference, Nico Nico Douga's arrival on the PS Vita was one of the big announcements. If videos continue being outrageous, that could lead to consequences, such as greater moderation. Nico Nico Live is "live", so there's an element of unpredictability. As one Japanese commenter jokingly wrote, "If this is the kind of Nico Nico content available on the PS Vita, then I'm definitely getting a PS Vita."
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(Top photo: ニコニコ動画)
You can contact Brian Ashcraft, the author of this post, at bashcraft@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.