As I said above, the media participated heavily in the creation of the legend of Nevada. You can't just say "this is a terrible Japanese/Internet thing and we have nothing to do with it," when your own local news source is printing stories like this from halfway around the world:
The girls' teacher said she first noticed something was wrong when the two were missing, public broadcaster NHK reported. Then "Girl A" returned, smeared with blood.
Police said she confessed to the murder and said, sobbing, "I have done a bad thing." Authorities said they have not found a motive.
All signs pointed to a close friendship between the girls, who were in art class together, played basketball together, shared a group diary and passed notes on a home page bulletin board.
But Mitarai angered the girl when she wrote negative Internet messages about her appearance, the Kyodo News Agency reported. The girl told police she decided to kill Mitarai when a final message commented on her weight. That message came four days before the killing, the report said, citing defense lawyers and investigative sources.
In a closed-door session, judges at the Nagasaki prefecture Family Court ordered the girl to undergo counseling as part of a rehabilitation program at the facility in Tochigi prefecture, just north of Tokyo, a court official said on condition of anonymity.
In the Japanese press, of course, there have been many more stories.
There must be many children whose interpersonal skills are immature and who are prone to throwing tantrums. Still, that's a far cry from actually killing another human. What pushed the girl over the threshold? The court's report did not provide an answer.
A psychiatric test has found an 11-year-old girl who admitted to killing a classmate with a knife at a Nagasaki Prefecture primary school in June is suffering from no effects of any mental disorder, informed sources said Monday.
Satomi's father Kyoji said he had wanted to leave some form of evidence in the album that Satomi and the girl who killed her had existed in the same classroom.
"It's hard for me when students hold feelings of hatred toward the girl. That's because the crime was caused by a child who didn't know what to do with hatred," he said.
Fifteen students said they wanted "both photos," another 15 said, "only Satomi's photo" and one student said "neither."
While producing the album, school officials took extra care to prevent photos of the assailant from being leaked to outsiders.This is not being overly harsh-- rather, it infers that the school knows about Nevada's online "fan club".
They received the girl's photo on a CD and printed out the snapshots at the school. The CD was then destroyed, they said.