Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.
crime (Page 61)
It’s an excuse so implausible that it sounds like something straight out of the plot of an adult video, but a dentist in Japan’s Mie Prefecture was arrested earlier this week after fondling a young woman’s chest in the back room of his surgery while claiming that doing so would help fix her misaligned teeth.
The hostesses of Tokyo’s red-light districts can rest easier tonight, knowing that their Jimmy Choos and Louboutins are safe. Police arrested 28-year-old Sho Sato for a rash of shoe thefts from clubs across the capital and neighboring Kanagawa and Saitama Prefectures.
Sato admitted to the charges, saying the pleasure of stealing was his—ahem!—sole reason for taking the shoes.
How would you react to being beaten up while living in a foreign country by an assailant spewing racial hatred? While most of us may be more interested in revenge, a Japanese software developer and longtime resident of Germany recently showed how to set aside anger to make the world a better place. Instead of dwelling on the attack, the Japanese man bought ad space in a Berlin subway station to ask his attacker to work on a translation project together. Click below to find out what made this Japanese man want to reach out to the man that gave him a black eye!
A man from Japan’s Gunma Prefecture is facing legal action on the grounds of copyright infringement after uploading Studio Ghibli’s 2013 animated film Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises in the West) to a public website in July and November last year, the Yomiuri Online reports. When questioned, the accused individual remarked that he uploaded the film “to be popular”, proving once again that crime, especially the dumb kind, does not pay.
When you think about it, there really aren’t that many situations in which it’s OK to smash food into someone else’s face. I racked my brain, and could only come up with the following two:
1. You’re a pie-throwing extra in a Three Stooges movie.
2. You and your spouse share the same slapstick sense of humor, and want to smush a slice of wedding cake into each other’s’ faces at your reception.
You know what doesn’t make the list? Scalding someone’s mug with piping-hot tofu, especially if you’re a high-ranking police officer.
One of the odder problems you run into living in Japan is how to throw large things away. Say you’ve just bought a new bicycle, for example. In many countries you could find a charity to donate it to, or perhaps a relative or friend of a friend who’s just starting college or a career.
Japan’s predominantly middle-class society and general dislike of used durable goods means you’re unlikely to find someone willing to take your old bike off your hands, though. Trash collectors won’t haul off something that big unless you shell out an additional fee, either. In some cases, people will simply abandon their bike somewhere, such as a back alley or deserted parking lot.
Or, apparently, in a lake in one of Tokyo’s most beloved parks.
The Japan Mother’s Society, as the name implies, is a non-government organization committed to providing information and support to assist Japanese women with the difficulties of raising children in our modern age. Along with consultation and events designed to raise awareness about parenting issues, the organization has also been involved in volunteer activities helping to bring a little joy and levity to the children of families who have lost their homes due to earthquakes or other natural disasters.
Surprisingly, Shinji Morimatsu, the head of the Japan Mother’s Association, is not a mother, nor even a woman. Adding to the incongruity is the fact that the 49-year-old Morimatsu now stands accused of being a wife beater.
Pickpockets are famous for their nimble fingers, but the drawback of that approach is that they have to actually get close enough to get their grubby fingers in your pockets. Unless, of course, the pickpockets are using chopsticks to grab the goods. Or at least they are trying to…
In a strange story out of Hyogo Prefecture, a man has been arrested for squirting an unwanted, creamy white liquid onto an unsuspecting high school girl. And while the substance in question isn’t as disgusting as it could have been, it’s still pretty gross.
For years now, Japan has been beset by cases of ore ore sagi (“hey-it’s-me” scam). This is where the scammer contacts a (usually elderly) person claiming to be or know their child or relative. They then explain that they need money for an emergency and provide an account for the victim to transfer their money to, which sadly they often do.
These perpetrators can be difficult to catch, but sometimes a person’s force of habit can help make the police’s job that much easier. Take the case of one suspect named Akio Kanazawa, for example.
At about 6:00am on 26 December, a young woman was walking down a street in Nakano, Tokyo. Suddenly, she was confronted by a man brandishing a knife and threatening, “Get out all your money and nothing will happen.”
The woman in her 20s complied and passed over 3,000 yen (US$30). You’d think the crime would be nearly complete, but in a truly Columbo-like moment the woman had just one more thing to ask the mugger.
In the middle of this month, 41-year-old Kazunori Terashima must have felt some sense of satisfaction as his bankbook showed a transfer of 350 yen (US$3.33) from the Saitama Public Safety Commission. After struggling against the police for two and a half years over an improper traffic stop he had finally won his inalienable right to clean his ear in traffic.
Japan has an unspoken problem with homelessness in its cities. It’s not uncommon to see tent cities along the edges of recreational parks or to see leather-skinned men sleeping on newspapers around the train stations. These people are largely ignored by the public and will keep to themselves unless provoked by some means. The vast majority do not even beg.
Unfortunately, the problem of poverty is not the only issue that these people face. Mental illness is not uncommon amongst the homeless, and the combination of hungry people and unstable mental states can lead to some especially unfortunate circumstances.
It’s all happening on Asia’s trains this week, isn’t it? According to Southeast Asian news sources, a man dressed in “samurai” garb faces up to five years in prison and “flogging” after jumping the ticket gate and then brandishing a full-length samurai sword on board a busy subway train on Monday this week.
On 12 October, 2012 a plastic container was left on the second floor in the gymnasium of Tokyo’s Jochi University (aka Sophia University), one of Japan’s most prestigious schools and alma mater of Tadatoshi Fujimaki the writer of the hit manga series Kuroko’s Basketball (aka The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays).
Inside the container was a liquid capable of releasing poisonous hydrogen sulphide. Attached was a note which read, “I hate Fujimaki.”
With so many cool toys coming to stores this year, it is hard to believe kids would be so bored that they create a game where the “players” score points for each real-world stranger they render unconscious. But two recent attacks in Kobe and Osaka are making Japanese netizens scared that the so-called “Knockout Game,” which has been widely reported in American media, has now landed on Japanese streets. Some academics are concerned that this is just another sign of America’s “society of violence” importing itself to Japan.
On 28 November, Osaka Prefectural Police announced the arrest of 65-year-old Kiyomasa Shimabukuro for crimes including theft. According to police, the suspect confessed adding, “I never worked. I lived off stolen money.”
It’s been three years since the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster swallowed up whole cities and caused one of the worst nuclear power disasters in history. For much of the world the devastating event is a distant memory – except for people in California who, for some reason, to this day think swimming in the ocean is going to give them three eyes or four boobs or something.
But for many living near the crippled Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant, like the inmates at a Kagoshima City prison located within the nuclear evacuation zone, the Tohoku earthquake and the persistent effects of the subsequent nuclear disaster altered their lives forever; so says a former inmate who is formally suing TEPCO for emotional distress.
In Japan where guns are an incredibly rare sight, toy guns and replicas can often look like the real thing. So when a teacher at a middle school in Fukuoka Prefecture confiscated what they thought was a fake gun from a student, the teacher handled the “toy” with very little care, and ended up accidentally discharging it in the staff room.
On 22 November a 35-year-old man who taught at an Otsu City elementary school resigned after it came to light that he unlawfully entered the women’s restroom of Shiga University. However, according to the scant details of this case it appears this might just be a case of being in the absolute worst place at the wrong time.
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