TOKYOMANGO

Get your hand-printed limited edition TokyoMango t-shirt now (2 weeks only)

My friend Ben and I made a test run of TokyoMango t-shirts on Saturday. They're really nice, do you want one? If so, you can buy one here. Below are the details:

- All shirts are 100% cotton.
- Each t-shirt will be hand-silk screened by me and Ben on his Yudu machine. The shirt logo was custom-designed by Ben. Mango design courtesy of my web designer James.
- The Women's tees come in a t-shirt style (pistacio and white) and a spaghetti strap ribbed tank (yellow).
- The Men's tees come in orange and white. In the pic above, Ben is actually accidentally wearing a girl's tee, but you get the idea... the sleeves will be more manly on the one you get.
- You can choose a custom colored tee for $25. Just shoot me an email with your preference after you place the order.
- The sizes tend to run a little big (except for the tanktops). They might shrink in the wash.
- Some of you will receive a free surprise Japanese toy or gadget with your t-shirt! I'm just gonna randomly stick them into bags, so keep an eye out.
- We're taking orders over the next two weeks only, at least for this first printing. They'll ship at the end of those two weeks, when Ben & I will silkscreen them by hand.
- Last day to order is Monday, October 5th.

UPDATE: T-shirts are no longer for sale. Maybe we'll do another round sometime!

Man arrested for prank calling the cops 12,300 times

A 61-year old Shiga man was arrested yesterday for calling 110 (the Japanese equivalent of 911) over 12,000 times in a span of nine months. It's not clear why he did this or what he claimed to be calling for, but he was ultimately charged with obstruction of duty. Apparently, the police had someone go to his house four times to personally request that he stop, but the prank calling continued. What a pain in the butt.

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Woman killed after warning neighbor about feeding stray cats

A 64-year old woman in Chiba was stabbed to death after warning her neighbor, 70-year old Kiichi Hayashi, against feeding stray cats. Hayashi is being held for murder; this is the humble defense he offered the police:

I got angry when I was warned about the cats.

That's all.
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Man burns down house after loss of Gundam toys

This past weekend, a 29-year old man named Yoshifumi Takabe burned down the large two-story house in Kobe that he shared with his mom. It was a suspected suicide & murder attempt based on the fact that his mother had thrown away his collection of Gundam figurines. At least that's what he told police when he was arrested on Sunday.

via Anime News Network

Mother arrested for leaving baby to die at an Internet cafe

A 23-year old woman named Mizuha Nagasue was arrested this week for leaving her baby to die in an Internet cafe in Shibuya. Nagasue was unemployed and homeless and had no idea what to do with her baby after she gave birth. At least that was the reason she gave police for the abandonment, which happened on Wednesday.

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xy4va3es56

Man and two sons to face trial for stealing 323 rice cookers

A 43-year old dad and his two sons, 20 and 17, are about to see their day in court for stealing 323 rice cookers, 70 electric screwdrivers, 56 electric drills, and 39 TVs from hardware and electronic superstores in and around Saitama Prefecture, just outside Tokyo, since July of 2008. They pawned most of their stolen goods and used the money for food, rent, and gambling.

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Father killed by abused mother and children

Sad story about a family that felt helpless at the hands of a violent father and ended up as killers. A 57-year old Hiroshima man was killed last Thursday by his wife and children. The mom, who was being violently abused at home, conspired with her 18-year old son and 15-year old daughter to catch their dad offguard and strangle him to death.

A couple of weeks earlier, cops responding to a call came to the house and shook their fingers at the dad, warning him that domestic violence is bad. Then they told the mom that they couldn't help her unless she filed an official police report. For whatever reason, she never filed the report and took justice into her own hands. The three weren't charged with murder because the autopsy came back ambiguous.

When questioned, the daughter said: "I feared that my entire family would be killed." The family also has two smaller kids, who were asleep when the dad died.

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Hotel workers find Marilyn Monroe's perfume in hidden chest

Some construction workers doing repairs in the basement of the Imperial Hotel found a bottle of Chanel No. 5 that they believe belonged to Marilyn Monroe. Apparnetly it was hidden in a faded cotton pillowcase in the VIP suite where Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had stayed in 1954, a couple weeks after they got married. The pillowcase was inside an old chest that supposedly held lots of items left behind by celebrities, like handkerchiefs with Frank Lloyd Wright's initials on it (he designed the hotel), Charlie Chaplin's walking stick, and Douglas MacArthur's pipe. In-teresting! I wonder whose idea it was to keep them all in a hidden chest, and why it was buried under construction until now.

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Desperate job-hunting woman arrested for 2ch bomb threat against NTT

A 22-year old slightly crazy woman was arrested for posting a message on 2channel that threatened to blow up an office building belonging to Nippon Telephone and Telgraph's staffing agency if she wasn't hired for a job. Satomi Hachisu had gone there on February 12 to interview and take a test for a part-time position. Later that night, she started a thread on 2ch that read:

"If Satomi Hachi(dot), who came for an interview today isn't hired, then the NTT Solco building will be blown up."

Hachiya has been unemployed for over a year now; she was getting desperate, I guess. Of course, NTT was able to track down where the listing was posted from—hello, lady, this is NTT, the telephone company! She was promptly locked up, and of course, not hired.

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Iowa senator urgest AIG execs to commit suicide Japanese-style

Charles Grassley is a Republican Iowa senator, and he's angry. Angry at AIG execs for paying themselves $165 million in bonuses even after the federal bailout; something even Prez Obama opposes. Instead of trying to paraphrase, let me just quote him:

...the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them if they'd follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I'm sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide before they make any apology.

Hmmm. Okay. Later, the guy's spokesperson explained that Grassley didn't actually want the AIG peeps to commit suicide; he simply wanted them to take responsibility. But he still maintained that the Japanese have a tendency to commit suicide.

There's a major distinction that Grassley should be aware of here—Japanese execs who fuck up kill themselves when they feel that their shame is too heavy for them to carry on living; in the AIG case, clearly the execs are acting completely shameless even after all the screwing up they did.

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Basketball coach forces teenagers to behead two pigeons

Weird news of the day: a middle school basketball coach was fired after it became clear that he forced two kids to behead a pair of pigeons that were getting in the way of practice in December. The dead pigeons were found floating in a pond on campus; when questioned, the coach admitted that it was his doing. He must be a really scary coach. The kids are still traumatized and the pigeons are still headless.

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Colonel Sanders found in Osaka River, will break 24-year old baseball curse

In 1985, a group of excited Hanshin Tigers baseball fans stole a Colonel Sanders statue from a Kentucky Fried Chicken and threw it in Osaka's Dotonbori River. Sanders was wearing star hitter Randy Bass' uniform at the time, and the fans did it to celebrate the Tigers' championship. Bad move. The Tigers haven't won a title since, causing frustrated fans to call this the Curse of the Colonel Sanders.

The awesome news is that, earlier this week, Colonel Sanders miraculously appeared near the riverbank. He was missing his arms and legs, but investigators found those nearby, too, and put him back together again. Randy Bass, who has since returned to the US and is now a Democratic senator from Oklahoma, says:

"Now that they’ve found the Colonel, the curse is over and it’s time to put your money on the Tigers."

(Thanks, Hans!)

Castle in Ehime for sale on Yahoo! Auction

What's the most elaborate thing you can buy in an online auction? Probably this 15+ million dollar castle in Ehime Prefecture. It's being sold, surrounding forest and all, because the owners are stricken by the shitty economy. The only caveat: it used to be a love hotel until five years ago. But hey, if that doesn't bother you, this is your chance to have your very own 30 bedroom home in the mountains of Matsuyama, which is very close to a hot spring. Bidding starts tomorrow and goes through the 26th.

Link (Japanese)
(Thanks, Alyssa!)

Fire station catches on fire

Talk about bad cooking and fire safety skills. A fire station in Japan was set on fire by an absent minded firefighter who left the cooking stove on when he responded to a call. It took ten fire trucks from another fire station to put out the fire. A Nagoya fire department official apologized and said they are considering eating take out instead. Seriously guys, stick to combini food from now on. (by Emily Co)

Link (Thanks, Vatche!)

Calculator contest to see who can calculate the fastest

This might be the geekiest competition in the world, but damn those calculating hands are fast! The 12th quick calculator calculation contest welcomed 263 participants young and old, male and female. Not sure what the merits of winning such a competition are. Guaranteed job as a cashier? Number-cruncher for life?

via Japan Probe

Man takes drug exam while pretending to be his son

A 54-year old Tokyo father was caught taking a pharmaceutical licensing exam while pretending to be his son. He put glasses on and straightened his hair, but he wasn't fooling nobody—the exam administrators quickly realized that he was too old to be the guy on the ID card and called the cops.

The guy confessed—apparently, he himself had this license already, ran a company that distributes meds, and wanted his son to be eligible to work alongside him. I guess he didn't have the balls to tell him that, though, because the son claimed he knew nothing about this plan.

I love the audacity of people who think they can get away with stuff like this.

Link (Thanks, Jess!)

Man generates electricity from low-grade coal using principles of tempura

53-year old Takuo Shigehisa made headlines today when he discovered how to turn Indonesian brown coal into a viable source of electricity by using "tempura technology." He discovered the technique back in 1993 when he was trying to reduce water content from brown coal; when he deep-fried it in kerosene (in his kitchen at home, much to the dismay of his wife and kids), the coal turned crispy and reusable. He brought the idea to Kobe Steel, and the company then built a pilot project in Indonesia. Today, a real coal plant is being built in Satui, a village in southern Indonesia, founded on the principles of Shigehisa's love for tempura.

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Japanese man lives in Mexico's airport for no reason

Hiroshi Nohara is a mini-celebrity in Mexico City. Why? The Japanese traveler visited Mexico City, and then, on September 2, headed to the airport to fly home but never flew home. He's been living in Terminal 1 of Benito Juarez airport ever since, surviving off of fast-food donations. Apparently, neither Mexican nor Japanese authorities can make him leave until his visa expires in March. He's been there for nearly three months now—the media caught on, and now he's regularly asked for autographs and has even been on Mexican TV. When asked why he's doing this, he said:

"I don't understand why I'm here. I don't have a reason."

Apparently, airport vendors have been giving him clothes and mugs to carry when he's on TV to promote their brands. An interesting twist on the concept of free promo swag!

Link (Thanks, Mark!)

 

Man avoids bunny rabbit, spends three days in a valley

Satoru Takeda, a 58-year old unemployed Gifu man, spend three days without food in a valley off of a mountain road after swerving to avoid running over a bunny rabbit. He was injured, and it was cold, and he couldn't get back up the cliff to seek help, so he just stayed in his car until Day 3. When cops finally discovered him, they found another car in the same valley, with a dead guy inside.

I don't really know why I'm posting this—I guess the idea of a random little bunny rabbit creating such extreme hardship for a well-intended man somehow caught my attention.

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Serial purse snatcher caught after 11 years

Tomoki Matsuyama, 32, is a master purse snatcher. Since 1997, he is thought to have stolen 1,025 purses in Saitama prefecture with a total of 79 million yen in them. That means he started when he was 21! He's jobless and has no fixed address, but he did carefully log each theft in a little notebook so that he could avoid hitting up the same spots when cops might be on the lookout for him. Seriously wow. He finally got caught and is now on trial for robbery, inflicting bodily in jury, and theft.

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Man Arrested for Keeping Poisonous Snakes in his House

About a month ago, a 41-year old port worker named Nobukazu Kashiwagi called an ambulance, claiming he had been bitten by a poisonous snake. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. When police searched his condo near Harajuku station, right in the heart of Tokyo, they found 51 poisonous snakes, including super-venomous cobras.

Apparently, the guy kept all the snakes in boxes. The one that bit him was a six-foot mamba from the African Savannah, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. Kashiwagi is inviolation of the Law Concerning the Protection and Control of Animals, and was promptly arrested after he recovered. Nobody knows why he had so many poisonous snakes in his house.

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Mysterious Grave Robber Steals Ashes from Urns

Every August, millions of Japanese go to their ancestors' graves in honor of the obon holiday, when spirits of the dead are said to come back to earth. It's also one of three major stretches where the whole country goes on vacation (the other two: Golden Week and New Years). This year, dozens of families were horrified to find that someone had stolen urns from under the gravestone. The victims were all women, and some of the urns had been replaced with ominous notes that said: "I have it." As in, I have the remains of your wife, your sister, or your mother. Ugh. What a sick-o.

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Stalker Judge Arrested for Sending Weird Emails

What do you do when you work for the judiciary branch of the government and you find out that the person who has been sending you freaky stalker-ish emails was a judge? The guy in this pic, Yoshiharu Shimoyama, is a 55-year old judge at the Utsunomiiya District Court. He was convicted of sending over a dozen anonymous sexual emails to a twenty-something year old subordinate.

He must have defended his case pretty well, though, because he only got a six month sentence, and also got it suspended for two years. There is still a possibility that he might be impeached. I mean seriously, this guy presides over the district and family courts there. Would you really want some stalker weirdo dude deciding whether you should have custody of your kid? The Mainichi quotes the presiding judge over his case as saying: "It was a truly shameful crime that ran counter to the people's trust in judges and the judiciary."

Indeed.

Man Arrested for Stealing Electricity

A broke sweaty Kyushu man was arrested on Saturday for stealing electricity from his neighbor's house. His had been cut off, so he snuck onto the property next door and drew an extension cord from one of its outlets on Friday night. Then he plugged in his fan an cooled off for a few hours, and presumably fell asleep. Then the cops came the next morning after the neighbor noticed the cord.

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Drunk Man Dies under Bookstore Shutter

A Tokyo man died late into the night Saturday when a bookstore worker accidentally closed the storefront iron shutter on him. 51-year old Hideo Hiruma was found trapped between the shutter and the ground around 2am. I think he may have fallen asleep drunk under the store awning, and the storekeeper just closed the thing without looking, never suspecting that a human might be immediate underneath. A fair assumption under normal circumstances, I'd think. But people fall asleep in random places all the time late at night in Tokyo. The trains stop running anywhere between midnight and 1:30am, even on Saturdays, so people who get drunk, live far, don't have enough cash, and finish drinking at a half-assed hour have to somehow kill time until the first train starts up the next morning. I once called the cops from my cell phone at 2am because a guy was sleeping (passed out drunk) at a parking lot entrance in Meguro. Sooo dangerous.

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Restaurant Manager Dies from Overwork

Death from overwork. You hear about it, but I have actually never heard of a real case of this until now. A 32-year old manager at a branch of Denny's competitor Skylark in Saitama has been proclaimed officially dead from overwork by the local labor office. It's the first time a non-permanent employee has ever died of this cause. The victim, Takayuki Maezawa, worked more than 100 hours of overtime a month and was given way more responsibility than he was paid or recognized for. He had been working for Skylark since he was 15, first as a part-time worker.

Maezawa died in October of a brain hemorrhage induced while on the job.

The image shows a placard that reads: Death from overwork. Be careful not to work too much.

Link
Related story in The Economist

Scared Man Beats Chihuahua to Death on Sidewalk

Awful doggie news from Nagoya—a 44-year old Chihuahua-hater kicked another man's 4-month old, 2-kg puppy to death on a sidewalk on Sunday. The dog was being walked by its owner in the late afternoon. When questioned, the man said: "I was scared of the dog." WTF?? If anybody even tries to assault Ruby on the street, I will beat him to a pulp.

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Digg Bot Man Arrested

On June 28, a man in Nagasaki was caught with a DIY Digg bot in his house. The robotic arm dugg more than 3,000 stories in 2 days through sophisticated story detection mechanisms. You can see it at work in this video. I don't know why the commentator talks like a robot, too. It's a little strange. Also a little strange that it's illegal to make Digg bots. People rig Digg manually all the time. Besides, why do Japanese police care if he's violating Digg's user policy? I don't understand, but maybe I'm missing something.

via Pink Tentacle

Man in Dog Mask Robs Convenience Stores to Feed Pets

A 28-year old man was caught on tape while robbing convenience stores in Osaka in a dog mask. His motive? To feed his two dogs, five cats, five turtles, two snakes, and his fish tank full of tropical fish. The guy, Takaharu Kuwata, managed to get over $5,500 in total from three hold-ups before he was arrested in March. Kuwata was on welfare and he claims that the monthly checks he was getting weren't enough to pay for his pet expenses.

Now the guy is in police custody, and his pets were handed over to a local pet shop.

Woof.

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Man Mauled to Death by his Own Dog

A 57-year old Fukuoka man was mauled to death by his pet Tosa dog on Monday morning. The dog was being kept in a cage outside the house. It was a 4-year old, 110-lb male. The man's octogenarian dad entered the cage to try to rescue him, and construction workers nearby heard the commotion and called the cops, but it was too late.

I didn't know much about the Tosa until now. Also called the sumo dog, this rare breed is native to Japan and best known as fighting dogs. Some countries, like the UK and New Zealand, have restrictions/bans against their import.

I can't decide how I feel about this. I mean, it's awful—but I can never immediately blame the dog. I spent hours one day reading about the SF dog mauling incident in 2001. It seems pretty obvious that the dog didn't just decide to go bad one day. Also, do you ever watch The Dog Whisperer or read his book? Cesar Milan claims he's rehabilitated every single dog he's treated (I think it was over a thousand!) except for two. They usually go bad because of bad parenting. I don't know enough about this Tosa case to make a judgment, but my condolences go out to the guy's family, and to the dog's family (I presume they put him down).

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Lucky Farmer Finds 21-Leaf Clover in His Garden

A lucky farmer in Iwate found this 21-leaf clover in his garden.

Pink Tentacle reports:

Obara, a former food crop researcher, has been conducting independent research on clovers in his garden for over 50 years. He first became interested in clover mutations after discovering an unusual patch of 4-leaf clovers in 1951. Since then, Obara has been crossbreeding the plants in his garden to research the genes associated with leaf count, color, pattern and size.

The guy is planning to file a Guinness world record app for this clover. He already holds the current record with a 18-leaf one he found on his property years ago.

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Man Gets Surgery, Finds Old Towel In His Spleen

A 49-year old man underwent surgery because of a pain in his spleen. Doctors believed he had a tumor. But when they took the thing out, they found that it was a 25-year old surgical towel that had been left there in 1983 when the guy had an operation to treat an ulcer.

The hospital responsible for the painful towel is Asahi General Hospital in Chiba. The towel was crumpled up into the size and shape of a softball when surgeons at the other hospital discovered it. Ouch.

(Thanks, Walter!)

Customs Official Loses a Bag of Weed in Random Passenger's Bag

Some lucky traveler got 142 grams of marijuana from the Japanese government recently, when customs officials put a bag inside a random passenger's luggage and their drug-detecting dog failed to find it. When the dog came back pot-less, the customs official who hid it realized that he had forgotten which bag he put it in.

142 grams of weed is worth about $10,000 in Japan, according to the CBC. Obviously, the customs official wasn't supposed to put the incriminating drugs inside a random person's bag.

You can get in serious trouble for possession of marijuana in Japan.

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Homeless Lady Lived in a Guy's Closet for 1 Year

A man who obviously doesn't clean out his stuff that often found a 58-year old homeless woman residing in his closet. She had been there for an entire year, and he didn't know until he noticed that food was missing from his fridge.

Japanese closets usually have two layers—a top shelf and a bottom shelf. They're deliberately made to be deep and dark so you can store blankets and mattresses inside. (Traditionally, Japanese sleep on mattresses on the floor; they put them away during the day to make space.) When he finally became suspicious, the guy put security cameras in his house and had timed images sent to his cell phone. He saw movement in the middle of the day, so he called the cops. But they didn't find any evidence of a break-in. MSNBC quotes investigators as saying:

“We searched the house ... checking everywhere someone could possibly hide. When we slid open the shelf closet, there she was, nervously curled up on her side."

I wonder where the poor lady will go next. Maybe she can hide in his bathtub.

(Thanks, Brian & Jason!)

Man Arrested for Spraying Teenage Girls with Soy Sauce

A 22-year old weirdo named Kenichi Ogawa was arrested today for squirting soy sauce on high school girls with a water pistol. His reason? He was stressed out, he says. We don't know a whole lot more at this time, but we do know that the guy got on his motorcycle in the late afternoon, rolled up next to a 17-year old girl who was on her way home from school, and pelleted her back with soy spray before getting caught.

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Lost Parrot Tells People His Name and Address

Dogs wear microchips filled with information that will help them find their way home. Lost parrots can just tell you where they are. When a woman found an African Gray parrot perched outside her window in a suburb of Tokyo, she called the authorities. They captured the parrot and put him in a local animal clinic.

There, the parrot decided he was tired of keeping quiet like he had at the police station. He started greeting people and singing children's songs to passersby. Then, 10 days later, he told someone, "My name is Yosuke Nakamura, and my address is XXXXXXX." Then he told someone else. Then he went on repeat and told everyone until they were convinced he was telling the truth. So they went to the address, and sure enough, the Nakamura household lived there and were mourning the loss of their parrot, Yosuke.

The Times of London reports:

It is still unclear why Yosuke refused to sing at the police station. “I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me,” Mr Uemura said.

His parents taught him well. African Grays are among the smartest birds on the planet. They have the cognitive ability of an average six year old human.

Conscientious Suicidal Couple Leave Toxic Gas Warning

A couple in Fukui prefecture committed suicide together in a car today. They mixed some chemicals to make hydrogen sulfide, and then released it in the car. The suicide pact was successful--they both died. The interesting thing was that they left a little note on the car window, facing out, that read: Caution! Toxic Gas.

Apparently, there were a few other instances of suicide by toxic gas recently, and in some, people nearby got sick from the fumes. This was a respectful way of making sure that nobody else but themselves got hurt.

 

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Actors Arrested for Filming Porn at McDonalds

A porn film crew was arrested at a McDonalds in Saitama Prefecture recently. Apparently, the director and three actors strolled in and just started filming in the restaurant. A suspicious customer followed them to their corner and then called the cops. The cops arrested the foursome for indecent exposure and obstruction of business.

I know it sounds strange, but I actually believe this story. When I was 18, I was walking home from driving school and I passed by a film crew shooting dirty school girl photos by the train tracks. I was like, hmmm. Interesting. But not surprised.

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Soccer Star Arrested for Stealing Women's Panties

A member of J-League soccer team Kashiwa Reysol was arrested this week for sneaking into a 21-year old woman's home and stealing her panties seven years ago. Why now? DNA results just came in.

On September 11, 2001, he snuck into the woman's house in Kobe and stole her panties and cell phone. He was 19 at the time—a minor in Japan—so his name hasn't been disclosed to the press.

Why a soccer superstar would need to steal panties is a big mystery. Kashiwa's male fans, at least, seem willing to strip down even without being asked to.

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Odd Fetishist Sprays Bleach Marks on Women's Bottoms

Okay, I know people have weird obsessions, but this one's a first. In Sapporo, a mystery man has been spraying liquid bleach onto women's crotch areas in subways and shopping centers, leaving them befuddled with embarrassed in public. In the last month, there have been 15 attacks--last year around this time, there were several dozen which came to an abrupt halt when the media started reporting on it.

One woman noticed a strange guy putting a spray can into his pocket at the train station, then discovered a white stain on her pants minutes later. Yet another was at a department store when the store clerk said to her, "Your pants changed color." She didn't see anyone suspicious, but maybe that's because she was busy shopping.

Nobody knows who has been doing this, but perhaps more importantly, we have no idea why.

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Garbagemen Find $100K, Turn it in to Cops

This is what an honest country Japan can be: garbage collectors found 10 million yen ($100K) in a discarded pot. Instead of keeping it for themselves, they contacted police and are now conducting a public search for its rightful owner.

Actually, they don't know it yet, but that cash was mine.

Cop Confiscates Porn, Makes Copies for Himself

A police superintendant in Chiba seized several tapes of uncensored porn from a retailer in Funabashi and ordered a subordinate to make copies so he could watch them at home. In Japan, porn has to be censored with digital mosaics covering genitals.

Apparently, the video copies were made at the police station in 2006. At the time, nobody said a word.

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Cop Got Free Sexy Massages while on Duty

Kazuzo Watanabe, a 57-year old Tokyo cop, was arrested for abusing his power by exchanging immunity from the law for free sexual services while on duty in Taito Ward. He was the guy in charge of monitoring the sex industry in the area.

In early October last year, Watanabe asked the woman, in her 30s and a massage shop operator, to come to the police station where he obtained her cellphone number on the pretext of examining her business activities, according to investigators.

He then allegedly visited the shop on the next day and forced her to give him a body massage without charge, threatening to otherwise take action against it.

Watanabe was busted because  a friend of the massage shop operator ratted him out to another police station. What a douche bag.

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Foot Odor Fetishist Caught with 27 Pairs of Boots

A hard core boot fetishist was arrested this week for stealing a pair of women's bootsfrom a sports club in Kitakyushu. They were cheap boots--less than $50--but when authorities went to his house, they found 26 other pairs of boots in his house and car. Wow! The guy's name is Kazuhiro Watanabe and he's 33 years old. This is what he told the cops about his unacceptable behavior:

I got excited when I smelled them and fantasized over what the women who wore them looked like.

I think he was more disappointed that the cops were going to confiscate his collection than he was about being arrested. Apparently it took him years to accumulate this many boots.

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Mother Hurls Two Boys and Herself Off A Balcony

A disturbed mother threw her two baby boys, aged three and six, off a balcony in Fujisawa yesterday before jumping to her own death in what police suspect is a murder-suicide.

That's pretty screwed up. She really didn't have to throw her kids off the balcony, too. I'd say that's pretty high up there on the evil scale.

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Company Offers Paid Time Off for Break Ups

A small women-only marketing firm in Tokyo is offering its employees heartbreak leave.

"Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick," the CEO says. She's the one who came up with the idea—it's scaled according to age, with staff 24 and younger getting one day a year, and those older than 30 getting up to three days of paid leave.

The reason?

"Women in their 20s can find their next love quickly, but it's tougher for women in their 30s, and their break-ups tend to be more serious."

Link (Thanks, Silicon Druid!)

Doctor Removes Baby's Ovary By Mistake

While operating on a baby girls' tumor, a doctor in Mie Prefecture accidentally took out one of her ovaries, too. The girl was just 9 months old, but she had a groin hernia. The doctor removed a bunch of stuff from her body--some tissue mass, the tumor, and--as they later found out--an ovary. The family forgave him. At least she still has one left.

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Beautician Molests Woman, Tells Her It'll Help Her Lose Weight

Molesters are sure good at coming up with creative storylines in order to put a woman in a vulnerable position. The manager at a beauty parlor in Sendai was arrested for molesting a woman. He had told her that if she stripped down naked and let him fondle her breasts, this would help her lose weight.

I don't know if the woman fell for it and complied, or if she was coerced. Apparently, the perpetrator had been causing all kinds of trouble with other women, too, and was also a shady businessman who used false advertising to get clients.

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Teacher and Bogeyman Get Away With Bad Behavior

Two stories on the Mainichi today about people who exploit their positions of authority to lay inappropriate hands on their subordinates. In the first, a 54-year old substitute teacher at an elementary school in Yokohama lined up all her students and slapped all of them on the cheek when just a handful refused to come back from recess.

In the second, a man dressed as a namahage—a Shinto bogeymen of sorts—molested   a group of female tourists while they were bathing. He burst into the bathing room drunk and fully costumed (he was hired by that resort to entertain tourists) and got his grope on.

For some reason, either ended up facing serious charges.
Not cool at all.

Newspaper Deliveryman Arrested for Stalking

A 57-year old newspaper delivery man for Asahi Shimbun named Osamu Sotozaki was arrested today for emailing photos of his penis to a 23-year old subscriber. He became infatuated with the girl when he went to her house to collect subscription money, looked up her info on the publication's database, and started emailing her non-stop on her mobile phone.

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Man Steals Crab, Attacks Security Guard

During the holiday food shopping rush, a 64-year old homeless man in Hokkaido—dubbed the "seafood samurai" by Mainichi Daily News—tried to steal a king crab from a supermarket when a suspicious security guard asked him what he was hiding in his jacket. In a drunken panic, the guy positioned the crab leg like a samurai sword and stabbed the guard in the Adam's apple.

Here's a description of the weapon:

The frozen crab, which measured 50 centimeters long and weighed two kilograms, had been imported from Russia and was priced at 10,000 yen. It was sold with its three walking legs on either side tied in bundles, forming firm faggots of pereiopods to joust with.

And a quote from the perpetrator:

I really wanted to eat crab.

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