The biggest entertainment world scandal in Japan of late has been the allegations of past sexual assault made against one of the nation's most famous comedians, Hitoshi Matsumoto.
The reports first emerged in a tabloid magazine in late December and have continued to unfold. At first, Matsumoto, his agency (Yoshimoto Kogyo), and broadcasters ignored or gave the report a minimal denial, and colleagues offered on-air support, but more revelations are still trickling out in further articles, and 60-year-old Matsumoto has now withdrawn from his television commitments, nominally so he can pursue a ...
The cops are meant to be the ones protecting us and taking down the bad guys, right?
Not always, it seems. Yesterday, Japanese media reported on a female police officer who has been arrested for impersonating a man in a "romance fraud" to get money.
The 25-year-old Yurina Otani is a cop in Osaka but moonlighted as a fraudster, it is alleged.
She apparently pretended to be a Canadian male doctor on social media and even an actual Japanese fashion model from July to August. Well, that certainly trumps a Nigerian prince.
By constructing stories about needing money for "patients in Yemen," ...
While the Japanese mainstream media and social media seems obsessed right now with young women reduced to prostituting themselves in Okubo Park, Kabukicho, allegedly over host club debts, people in Yokohama are apparently upset over a "surge" in trans sex workers.
Before the pandemic, the Asahi reports, just two male prostitutes were detained in 2019. But several male prostitutes presenting as women have been arrested since May this year by Kanagawa police.
The suspects are from Thailand, the Philippines, and Peru. Cameras were installed the monitor the activities on the streets and police ...
The surge in streetwalkers at Okubo Park near Kabukicho, Shinjuku's red-light district, has prompted a media panic over the last year or so, not least because the women seem very young.
A lot of media reports have indicated that the women are doing sex work to pay off debts or fund their trips to host clubs. The latter have been demonized by the media and politicians of late, and lawmakers are trying to target "malicious clubs" that trap vulnerable women in a spiral of debt.
The streetwalkers are also perhaps not as freelance as you might think, as one case indicates.
A 27-year-old ...
A 43-year-old man has been arrested at a hot spring facility in the Mie city of Kuwana for entering the women-only bathing area.
The man, who is described in media reports as unemployed, is from Kasugai in Aichi.
According to police, the man is suspected of sneaking into the women's baths at around 8:30 pm on November 13.
A female customer alerted a member of staff, who confirmed that a man was washing himself in the female bathing area, and then called the cops.
However, the story then becomes complicated because the man told police: "I'm a woman inside, so I can't understand at all ...
We recently wrote about the frankly shocking papakatsu compensated dating fraud perpetuated by a woman to fund her trips to host clubs.
It shows many things, not least the extraordinary lengths some women will go to to feed their addiction to host clubs.
This issue has drawn attention of late, with host clubs seen as more exploitative than hostess clubs. Host clubs have developed an image as an ecosystem that preys on vulnerable women and with a financial structure that leads to debt, whereby women are encouraged to rack up huge bills that they pay later.
Many of the women who go to host ...
The gentrification of Kabukicho, which has turned the main strip and square into a cleaner, more tourist-friendly place, has not changed the fundamental nature of the district. Just turn a corner and you'll find blowjob parlors and host or hostess clubs galore, not to mention Shinjuku's massive love hotel area right behind.
The dark side of Kabukicho, which gets its name from an unfulfilled plan in the postwar years to build a kabuki theater in the neighborhood, reared its head over the weekend -- in two very unpleasant scenes.
A few weeks ago, someone was thankfully prevented from jumping ...
Papakatsu is the new "sugar daddy" genre of compensated dating. For some, it's an easy way for guys who are middle aged or older with some money to have sex with younger women.
For others, it's a way to fall victim to crime.
In May, a man was almost murdered by woman who looked in reality very different from the cute lady in the pictures she put online.
Now comes a fresh cautionary tale. A 25-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of fraud. According to media reports, the host-addicted Mai Watanabe is accused of swindling three men out of ¥156 million through a romance scam.
She ...
The crackdown on happening bars and clubs in Tokyo sadly continues. Even, as in this case, if they have been around for years.
Such venues are places for swinging and tend to be members-only, though this is usually bypassed by making people members when they pay a fee at the entrance.
The legal issue comes with public indecency, since people are engaged in sexual activities in a place accessible to the public like a bar or club. A way to circumvent the law against indecent exposure is to have private playrooms.
The happening bar was 9259 in Shinjuku, which made a nominal claim at being a ...
If you ever worry that your kink is weird or a problem, or might land you in trouble one day, spare a thought for this guy.
A 32-year-old man from Kobe was arrested recently for trying to abduct a female junior high school student. Why? It's perhaps not what you expect: the company employee wanted her to step on his body.
Atsushi Yamamoto and the student met in a local park. "I'll pay you several thousand yen for stepping on my body," he told her. They got in his car and he paid her in cash. The act then allegedly took place in a parking lot near a train station between around midnight on ...
