Tsunami's after Japan earthquake.

[VenusEclipse]

Freaky. =( You can watch it live here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12710020

[LVUER]

I don't need to watch it there, it's everywhere on the news (and there's NHK). It's scary, fire and ruble everywhere. Earth quakes after earth quakes, and then tsunami... But let's look at the bright side, after such disaster, the death toll is pretty low. In my country, tsunami (and earth quake) like that kills hundreds (or even almost thousand) of people...EDIT: I take back what I said. I don't know if this is my local news errors or just because lack of updates, I look at the internet for the latest news and find that the victims number are quite high (and just keep rising). I really hope they are alright...

[Freelancer]

You know, I said this to my family. "If this was a movie you would say it was a ridiculous premise. A major earthquake hits and then a tsunami, and just when you think it's safe...A nuclear disaster occurs." Such a ridiculous premise would turn many people off, and many action and drama fans would flock to see it.
I can be a pretty heartless person, the saddest things shown on TV don't effect me at all, and even encountering them barely evoke a reaction. This however, has me shaken up. A part of me wonders if this is it for Japan... No more VNs, no more anime, no more manga, no more J-pop/J-Rock, no more Japanese language (The most severe blow of what I've named so far.) and I won't even talk about the people themselves.
I have a lot of anxiety about this...

[papillon]

Not to sound callous, but while it's bad, it's nowhere near that bad.

Japan's population is over a hundred million. They're expecting over ten thousand dead. That's awful, but it's a tiny fraction of the population of the country.

Far worse disasters have happened throughout history.

It may have strong negative effects on the country as their economy struggles to cope with the mess, but the country isn't going to disappear. However, it affects enough people that it may have a strong impact on the country's psyche as well... people who weren't directly affected will know people who were affected.

[J. Datie]

Yeah, Sendai, Miyagi alone has over 1 million people in it. Considering the 1703 Genroku earthquake and 1923 Great Kanto earthquake killed over 100,000 each, I'm sure Japan will pull through this, too.

[LVUER]

Although this sound heartless, this isn't going to affect Japan that much. The loss estimation is only about 10 million dollars (which is small for a country like Japan, though this is bad since Japan's economy is lumping right now). And the life loss is (probably) less than 5000 lives (only a small fraction from Japan's entire population).

Anime isn't going to disappear, so with toys, action figures, and the others, since Japan is still there... And lots of people make this kind of things. Heck, even there's no change in Tokyo's activity (just like there's nothing happened). I even just ordered some new toys online (meaning the business is already continuing like usual).

It's saddening, but it's not the end of Japan. Lives goes on... how cruel it may seem...

[Freelancer]

I'm not so worried about what the earthquake and tsunami did.
I'm more worried about all those nuclear plants... I don't entirely trust the experts and what the people are saying. (Plus I'm the kinda guy who automatically thinks it's the worst case scenario. Like I always say "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."

[PyTom]

The loss estimation is only about 10 million dollars

That seems absurdly low - they've written off two nuclear reactors, and those are a billion dollars each. A million dollars is only a few houses, and there are videos of hundreds of houses being washed away.

...

The $10 million estimate seems to be for the damage done by the Tsunamis that hit Hawaii and California only. I've seen the number $34 Billion thrown around for the damage to Japan - but I'd be surprised if that was anything more than a wild-ass guess at this point.

I expect Anime schedules to be disrupted for a few weeks, but then go back to mostly-usual. I wouldn't be surprised if several VN companies were hurt - but thats because they can be small, and based in more places.

[LVUER]

Perhaps the news I've watched only covers the damage by tsunami (only to building and such) and still haven't count damages by the reactors...

[Avaible]

I think the damage done is far greater than what they could estimate right now. Think about the aftereffects if chemicals reach the groundwater in large amounts - normal systems won't be able to purify the water this way.

I just hope this won't influence the elections for the next Tokyo governor too heavily. Ishihara (current governor of Tokyo) already said he thinks those catastrophes are "divine retribution" against the in his opinion rotten morals of the Japanese.
If he gets elected again it will definitively hurt Anime/Manga/Freedom of speech and the whole economy to do with that.

[LVUER]

While I agree that Japan's morals is degrading, I don't want anime/manga or other things to be banned or something. So I won't elect him if I am a Japanese...

[J. Datie]

I don't think that "they deserved it anyways" is really that great of an election tagline after something like this, but I suppose politics never make any sense anyways.

EDIT: As I though, he's got his own "Ishihara, be quiet" tag on Twitter.