TOKYOMANGO

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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Yakuza-Turned-Christian Minister Speaks Out

Hiroyuki Suzuki was in the yakuza for nearly two decades. Now he's a Christian minister in Chiba who wears tattoos on his arms and gets death threats on his church telephone. Al-Jazeera reports. (via Japan Probe)

Mochi Deaths

Every year, on New Years Day, a handful of Japanese people die eating mochi. Mochi = sticky rice cakes, most often eaten with either red bean, kinako, or soy sauce and nori. If you don't chew well enough, it can get stuck in your throat and obstruct breathing.

It's a persistent national problem that the country somehow hasn't figured out how to fix.

This year's count: 5

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Defense Minister Fears Alien Attack

Defense minister Shigeru Ishiba is scared. Not of North Korean missiles or terrorist attacks. He's scared of alien invasions.

While he made it clear that this was his own fear and not that of his ministry, he went on and on about it in a very random tangent at a press conference completely unrelated to aliens. We deployed the self-defense forces when Godzilla attacked the country in the movie, he said, so why not do the same for an alien attack?

"There are no grounds for us to deny that there are unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and some life-form that controls them," he told the press last week. If they descended, saying 'People of the Earth, let's make friends,' it would not be considered an urgent, unjust attack on our country. And there is another issue of how can we convey our intentions if we don't understand what they are saying. We should consider various possibilities. There is no need at all to do this as the defence ministry, but I want to consider what to do by myself."

 

Link (Thanks, Kenji!)

Boy Dies When Head Gets Trapped By Mattress

In a freak accident earlier this month, a 4-year old boy died when his head got stuck behind a reclining bed. When reps from the National Consumer Affairs Center went to the house to investigate, they found that the mattress moved without even touching the Recline button. Dangerous!

The father found his kid with his neck wedged between the mattress and headboard (see diagram to the left) on December 9th.

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"First" White Geisha Not Really First, Will No Doubt Write A Book Anyway

This is Sayuki, who claims to be the first officially white Geisha girl. She started work in Asakusa last week.

Actually, Sayuki is an Australian anthropologist with quite a pedigree—an MBA from Oxford, bragging rights for being the first white girl to enter Keio, film director credits at the BBC and National Geographic, and several books she authored.

Some blogs and news sites have been touting this as a breakthrough moment in the 400-year history of geishahood. Not me. I think "Sayuki" is a brillliant anthropologist who will no doubt write a book about her experiences in a couple years.

Sayuki.net via 3Yen

UPDATE: Actually, Sayuki is NOT the first foreigner/white geisha. As reader Jenn points out, Liza Dalby did this decades ago, as a geisha named Ichigiku. Pics here. (Thanks, Jenn!)

Japanese Men Sit and Pee to Please Wives

The Mainichi reports that 40% of men in Japan sit down to pee instead of relieving themselves urinal-style. Apparently, the trend is more prevalent among younger men, which is kinda surprising. But even more surprising to me is the fact that the surveyors (toiletmakers at Matsushita Electric) attribute this trend to women telling their partners to do so. Why? Because if you've ever lived with a guy, you know that male pee splatter is a pain in the ass to clean. Sometimes it ends up on the floors and walls. Disgusting.

Three years ago, Matsushita Electric noticed this trend and actually started designing toilets with larger holes.

Ocean's 13 Wannabe Teens Arrested

Several weeks ago, a team of Tokyo teens decided they loved Ocean's 13 so much that they wanted to be just like the characters in the Hollywood movie. So they put on some cool clothes, stole a station wagon, picked a few pockets, and planned a grand getaway to Hokkaido.

When they were arrested recently, the four boys told the police: "We wanted to look really cool like the guys in the movie."

Sorry, kids. No matter how hard you try, you will probably never look like Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Matt Damon. Nice try.

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Fake Injury Cosplay Popular Among Geek Girls

These days, otaku don't just like cute girls--they like their girls bandaged, eye-patched, and otherwise naked. This relatively recent Akiba fetish is dubbed "kegadoru"—think "kega" (injury) and idol—and has made its way into cosplay circles nationwide. It's actually not a bad idea for a Halloween costume.

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Couple Weds at Ramen Theme Park

This happy couple tied the knot at a ramen theme park in Hokkaido. Couple reasons for this. One, because the groom's dad is the manager of the park. Second, to quote the groom:

"We want our marriage to be as long and endless as a noodle and stay as hot as the broth in which noodles are served."

Sooo romantic! Anyone want to take a guess at what they served at the banquet?

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