VBS.TV // THE NEW PBS
BY CASSADY DIXON
For those of you who haven't caught on yet, then posthaste, check out VBS.tv. From the people behind Vice Magazine, and backed by MTV, VBS is a groundbreaking online video channel that offers incredibly fascinating content, albeit a tad on the queasy side sometimes. Their recent sit-down with convicted murderer, cannibal and free man Issei Sagawa, part of their "VBS Meets" series, is no exception.
Check it out HERE.
Sagawa is a Japanese man who, while studying in Paris in the 1980s, went ahead and killed and, uhm, ate one of his fellow students. The French held him in a mental hospital before he was extradited back to Japan. There, a team of doctors deemed the scholar “sane, but evil.” This, along with lost paperwork on the French side, led to Sagawa being a free citizen to this day in Japan, where he retains significant pop culture credibility. It’s an insane story with many, uhm, yeah, tasty layers. Not for the cowardly or squeamish.
And that’s just the beginning of VBS’s output. They have short docs on everything from the narcotics-funded film industry in Mexico and rock music scene in Iran to behind the scenes guides to Liberia and even North Korea. Somehow the correspondents manage to get in and dive into the nitty gritty. Yes, they actually got into North Korea, and legally on top of it all.
It’s free. It’s educational. It just might scare you a little bit. Take the plunge into the new PBS.