Why do so many Japanese movies/dramas revolve around a "fated to die" theme?

Question

You know from the beginning that the protagonist (or the protagonist's partner) will die. You watch the rest to see how the character copes with his/her illness impending death.

There are SO MANY examples of such Japanese movies and drama serials...

1. Some drama series about a family with a foster father who had terminal-stage cancer (I don't know the series' name; I watched it when I was 7)
2. "Crying Out Love, in the centre of the world" - girl dies from leukemia.
3. "One Litre of Tears" - girl dies from spinocerebellar ataxia.
4. Some movie about a middle-aged man, who discovers he has some fatal disorder, etc. (forgot name; watched parts of it between naps on a JAL flight)

And these are only the ones I've watched. There must be many more.

... Why so many productions around the idea of a "doomed character who copes"? Doesn't the theme get a bit depressing after a while?

Answer 1

Not only japanese, I think. Asian love it!! It moves asian, doesn't it?

"Oh, she's dying but I still be with her. I will do everything to save her. She's the one. She's my love. blah blah blah......"It's very touchy and sensitive and it's very great way to appeal the LOVE(Sad love is kinda romantic).

Yes, I would agree with you, It's a little depressing. That's how it
made people cry and remember it.

PS: Many famous drama from Japan and Korea mostly have some depressing scenes.
PS2: Don't you like japanese drama? I LOVE IT!!! ;)

Answer 2

I think its just a method to build tension. The Japanese have been known to use cut and paste methods and plot lines for such things.

For instance they used to use a technique in anime called paka-paka, which is a series of flashing red and green lights that affect the brain into involuntary stiffening on the muscles, thus building tension in people watching it. Until a particularly long clip of paka-paka in the anime Pokimon caused epileptic seizures which resulted in mass hysteria in Japan.

As such its similar to the plot lines templates of Hollywood, i.e. boy finds girl - boy falls in love with girl - boy loses girl - boy gets girl back - live happy ever after.

Also death isn't as much of a taboo in Japan as it is in the west so they see it as a useful way to invoke strong feelings in the audience.

Answer 3

It's just a catharsis.

Japanese work for over 10 hours a day. Most of the kids go to a cram school after school. We have so much stress. Seeing a sad drama relieves the stress. these phenomenon are called "catharsis".

Catharsis - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharsis

Answer 4

Generally speaking, Japanese folks figure it's not necessarily a bad thing to feel blue sometimes. It's much the same principle as blues music. It's just human to feel bad sometimes, so feel-bad stories allow people to feel their own humanity. Hence poor dumb Hachiko gets a statue and movie because he was just too clueless to realize his master wasn't going to be arriving at Shibuya anymore.

Answer 5

Japanese culture.