Osaka man arrested for pimping Japanese woman to brothel in Washington
February 14, 2025
/ Tadashi Anahori
Tokyo Metropolitan Police have announced the arrest on February 10 of a 40-year-old man from Osaka on charges of violating an employment law while acting as a go-between for an American brothels and a woman he scouted on the street for sex work.
The man is of no fixed employ and Korean nationality (probably nothing of note about that -- Ikuno, the area of Osaka where he is from, has the largest number of Korean Japanese, who often nominally retain South Korean citizenship).
Man is accused of conspiring with others between February and April 2023 to pimp and introduce a woman in her twenties ...
Tokyo brothel for foreign tourists raided by police
February 5, 2025
/ Tadashi Anahori
Police have raided a brothel that offered services to foreign tourists, arresting seven for violating the prostitution law.
The establishment in Kabukicho, central Tokyo, provided Japanese sex workers for overseas visitors.
Police proudly showed the fruits of their efforts to reporters on February 4, which included English-language information ("Our shop provides Japanese-style service by Japanese girl. The service content may differ from that in your home country"), multiple phones, and cash in sixteen currencies.
The 54-year-old Japanese manager and other arrested six members of staff ...
Former politician receives suspended sentence for sexually assaulting 12-year-old girl
February 4, 2025
/ Tadashi Anahori
A month ago, we wrote about the trial of former House of Representatives member Tamotsu Shiiki underway at Tokyo District Court, accused of sexually assaulting a junior high school first grader in a karaoke parlor in Kabukicho.
Shiiki's excuse was that he "didn't ejaculate." He also tried to claim that he was trying to help the 12-year-old in August last year. "I wanted to do something for her because she was a runaway. She was looking for someone to talk to." This claim rather falls down when we consider that Shiiki went to buy personal lubricant before taking the student to the karaoke ...
76-year-old fortune teller with nine wives dies before sentencing
January 22, 2025
/ Tadashi Anahori
Last year, we reported on the strange case of the Japanese guy with four "wives." The situation seemed straight out of a manga and yet it was true.
In that case, the man and his harem were all relatively young. But age didn't stop another man.
The 76-year-old Hirohito Shibuya lived with nine wives in Higashiyamato, a suburb of Tokyo. Technically speaking, since polygamy is illegal in Japan, eight of the women were his ex-wives and he was only married to one of them.
Three of his children with the women also lived at the residence.
Shibuya was found dead on Sunday of an apparent suicide, ...
Fisherman arrested for taking thousands of photos of women at beaches with infrared camera
January 17, 2025
/ Tadashi Anahori
Police in Hyogo Prefecture have arrested a fisherman on suspicion of illegally filming women at local beaches.
The 53-year-old has admitted to using an infrared filter on a camera to take images of women in swimwear.
According to a police announcement on January 15, Norimasa Miyake allegedly took photos of eight women in swimwear between July 2023 and July last year. The women were aged from their teens to their forties, and were taking part in swimming and running events at beaches in Akashi and Minamiawaji in Hyogo, and Tamano in neighboring Okayama.
Police were tipped off to his ...
More than half of women and 15% of men in Tokyo have experienced groping
January 13, 2025
/ Tadashi Anahori
In Tokyo, we always see signage warning to be on the lookout for chikan (train groping) at stations and inside carriages. The government and police frequently issue awareness and prevention campaigns. We see videos on social media of passengers detaining a perpetrator or of suspects fleeing dangerously across the rails between platforms. And of course, there's no missing the presence of women-only carriages on most lines during rush hour periods.
But how common actually is chikan groping in Japan?
According to one new survey, it's very common: more than half of women in Tokyo have ...
“I didn’t ejaculate”: Former politician justifies sexual assault on Kabukicho runaway
January 3, 2025
/ Tadashi Anahori
The trial of former House of Representatives member Tamotsu Shiiki got underway at Tokyo District Court on December 24. He is standing trial for sexual assault of a junior high school first grader in August last year, having picked the runaway up in Kabukicho -- one of many such so-called Toyoko kids in the Shinjuku district -- and taken her to a nearby karaoke place knowing that she was underage.
At the karaoke parlor, the member of staff was concerned, because Shiiki and the 12-year-old girl did not seem to be a father and daughter. They asked for a name and phone number, and Shiiki gave a ...
Man arrested for posing as female AI character to sell dating advice
December 17, 2024
/ Tadashi Anahori
It's become normal now to see social media avatars and advertising images created with AI technology. But when does this become a problem? And when is it criminal?
At present, most of the images look a bit cheap and exaggerated, and are often easy to spot.
But they are still alluring, it seems, since a 33-year-old man in Osaka called Kaiga Yokota has been arrested for creating an overly realistic female character.
The issue is that he posed as this character, Miru Nanase, attracting followers on social media (to the tune of 90,000 on Twitter/X). So far so harmless, but Yokota's real intent ...
Former porn star Rei Chinatsu arrested for romance scam
December 6, 2024
/ Tadashi Anahori
Former Japanese porn star Rei Chinatsu (千夏麗) has been arrested for an alleged romance scam with a man she met through social media.
The 26-year-old has appeared in several adult video releases, with 12 titles currently listed on Fanza, Japan's largest online porn retailer, though this includes anthology-type releases with footage from multiple performers' previous releases. Most of her releases have a schoolgirl theme and seem to date from 2019. Her other performer name was Nozomi Nakase.
She is not currently active as a professional performer, it seems.
The allegation is that ...
West Japan’s largest strip club in Osaka raided by police for public indecency
November 22, 2024
/ Tadashi Anahori
Back in 2019, we lamented the (fortunately temporary) closure of Osaka's red-light district Tobita Shinchi in a bid to stave off a crackdown by the authorities ahead of the G-20 summit. (Because the 2020 Olympics ended up being held in 2021 and with basically no visitors, the Tokyo Games ultimately did not involve as much of a crackdown on porn and sex services as expected.
There's nothing we hate more than hypocrisy and trying to hide what society is truly like, but Osaka is at it again.
With next year's expo fast approaching, Osaka police have raided a strip club called the Toyo Show ...