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The body of a man was discovered earlier today on a gate-ball (a game similar to croquet) lawn in the city of Urayasu, Chiba prefecture, just miles from the Tokyo Disneyland resort.

At 7:05 a.m. local time, police received a phone call saying that a man believed to be in his 50s had been found lying face-up on the ground near a storage shed at the gate-ball field.

In an even more dramatic twist to this sad tale, the man is reported to have been holding a handgun in his right hand.

Police arrived just minutes after the call, but pronounced the man dead on the scene, having suffered what is believed to be a gunshot to the right side of his head.

Urayasu City Police say that they are working to identify the man and that, with no competing evidence found thus far, the man likely committed suicide.

Firearms are illegal in Japan, with even armed police surrendering their weapons while off duty. And although suicide rates in Japan are comparatively high, gun-related deaths are incredibly rare, let alone suicides involving firearms.

We’ll have more on the story as it becomes available.

▼Urayasu city is located on the north side of Tokyo Bay

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Source: Yahoo! Japan News  Title image Map image via Google Maps