Japanese politician accused of papakatsu with 18-year-old

Papakatsu, the buzzword that refers to compensated dating for sugar daddies, is in the news again.

Takeru Yoshikawa, a politician with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has been accused of drinking with an 18-year-old girl.

House of Representatives member Yoshikawa, who is 40 but frankly looks a but older (perhaps it’s the jowls), has a wife and two daughters. He was photographed arriving with the girl at a high-end hotel in the Odaiba bay district of Tokyo in late May.

According to the scoop in News Post Seven (that includes 46 pictures!), he and the girl arrived, checked in, and then went up to a room on one of the expensive floors.

Yoshikawa was first elected in 2012. He then lost in 2014 and 2017, but gained a seat when he stepped in after an LDP lawmaker resigned over a sex scandal involving a 16-year-old girl. Ironically, Yoshikawa might also be forced to resign over a sex scandal, though we are pretty certain that many of Japan’s Diet members (who are very well paid and not subject to as much scrutiny as they should) lead similar lives with the hostesses of Ginza or papakatsu with other much younger women.

He has apparently developed a reputation for the booze and ladies. According to unnamed sources mentioned in the article, he likes to do papakatsu with models and “Minato ward girls.”

News Post Seven stalked him from the Diet to a Korean BBQ restaurant, where he met a woman in a private room. The reporter got snatches of the conversation through the door.

“Can you drink alcohol? Something sweet? You’re a student, right? I’m keen on 18-year-olds. You wanna be my girlfriend?”

Yoshikawa then allegedly began to boast about his salary, which includes very generous “expenses.” “I have so much money, I can’t use it all! I want to play with someone I can trust.”

The reporter wasn’t able to hear the teenager but later saw that her glass was empty. In fact, this is the point that might sink Yoshikawa: not papakatsu per se, but drinking with someone underage (though the age of majority recently dropped to 18 in Japan, the drinking age remains 20).

The reporter then tracked them as they took a taxi from the restaurant to the Odaiba district and the hotel, where they checked in and spent an hour before returning. They took another taxi and the girl was let out at a station in central Tokyo. Yoshikawa continued on in the taxi to his official accommodation in Akasaka.

News Post Seven claims to have tracked down the 18-year-old, who is apparently a student at a famous private college.

After some initial reticence, the girl explained what happened at the hotel.

She was given ¥40,000 with the nominal reason that they would “go to a bar,” but this was the hotel. She claims she was “inexperienced” and that it was she who was wrong to go to the hotel with him.

Yoshikawa ordered room service and then took off his clothes. He asked the teenager to show him her breasts and then began to jerk off while watching her.

When contacted for comment by News Post Seven, Yoshikawa initially claimed to have been in his accommodation at the time of the date. When contacted again with more details about the scoop, he denied going to the restaurant and hotel with the girl. Contacted yet again, he changed his story: he was checking in and, by chance, met the girl in the elevator. He says they never went into the hotel room together but just walked around together looking for somewhere to eat. He says he believed the girl was 20 and denied paying her any money.