Sacred Haven of Debauchery

A 10-year-old schoolboy hanged himself in the yard of his house after watching the Japanese anime "Elven Song." The horrific incident in Saki, Crimea, occurred in the middle of the day, an hour and a half after the boy returned from school. As Irina Bessarab, an employee of the press service of the Saki city police department, clarified to "Segodnya," he was watching the cartoon at home on DVD with his 12-year-old sister. The police suspect that the anime's violent plot was what prompted the child to take this unthinkable step.

The anime series "Elven Song," about mutants with supernatural abilities, is indeed very violent: it contains scenes of violence, including sexual violence, and scenes of suicide. "In that cartoon, there was a scene where the hero-child's mother dies, and he hangs himself," Irina explains. "After watching this story, the boy went outside to play, and half an hour later, his sister came out into the yard and saw her lifeless brother already hanging in a noose made of clothesline rope on a tree." As the police told us, it is difficult to find an explanation for this absurd incident, since the calm boy grew up in normal conditions and was not under the supervision of a psychiatrist. According to neighbors, there were no serious conflicts in the family; the children's mother works at a local rural school. Their father died five years ago.