Japan has been rocked by an incident in Okinawa where a 20-year-old member of the US Marine Corps has been arrested for the murder of a 39-year-old local woman in a love hotel.
The body of Anna Yagi (屋宜杏奈) was discovered strangled to death in a hotel in Naha, where she lived. Lance Corporal Devin Jacob Ballard is alleged to have killed Yagi in the early hours of October 3, and stolen her wallet and backpack, and then fled the hotel before he was arrested on October 4.
The murder has sparked outrage in Japan, especially in Okinawa, which hosts the vast majority of US bases in Japan ...
On September 15, Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested 27-year-old hostess and influencer Rino Tazawa on suspicion of possession of cocaine.
Tazawa, who lives in plush Minato ward in Tokyo, is a highly successful hostess at the club Jungle Tokyo in Roppongi, where she is known as Rino Yamato. She claimed that she once earned ¥230 million for her club in her birthday month, and owns a Bentley Continental GT supposedly worth ¥28 million.
She was arrested with her boyfriend, a 28-year-old executive at a construction company, at her apartment. She is alleged to have had 0.4 grams of ...
It's a story that has generated widespread media coverage and shock this week because it's so rare for a sexual harassment or assault "cold case" to finally come to light. And it may set a precedent for similar cases.
On September 2, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education dismissed a 53-year-old male head teacher at a metropolitan high school in one of Tokyo's 23 wards for engaging in sexual acts with a female student from the high school where he was employed between 22 and 25 years ago.
According to the Board of Education, the head teacher engaged in sexual acts at his home with a ...
Is this the end of the streetwalker (tachinbo) phenomenon in Okubo Park? The area on the edge of Kabukicho, Shinjuku, in central Tokyo became notorious during and shortly after the pandemic for young women standing and waiting for men to solicit sex for as little as ¥10,000 a session.
It prompted a moral panic, driven by social media content and mainstream media reports, amid suggestions that most of the young women were doing it to fund their host club debts (at times directly pimped out by hosts) or pay for their expensive fandom (oshi).
Now Shueisha Online reports that the women have ...
Japan is inching toward a legal revision that would make it illegal to pay for sex.
As part of a review of the Anti-Prostitution Law, the Ministry of Justice presented a draft report based on prior discussions to an expert panel on August 24, according to the Asahi Shimbun.
The draft outlines a direction to expand the scope of offenses regarding solicitation. At present, solicitation is punishable only for the seller, but the revision would expand this to include the buyer. The proposed revisions would also raise the maximum fine. The ministry is coordinating plans to finalize the report in ...
A Malaysian national has been arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department in Shibuya, Tokyo, on suspicion of stealing cash from a Japanese man after luring him to a hotel and serving him alcohol spiked with sleeping pills, rendering him unconscious.
"I thought the whole time that [he] was a woman," the victim said.
He accompanied the suspect to a hotel. But the woman was actually a long-haired man, who was filmed emerging from the police station with his head bowed. The police have named the suspect as 29-year-old Malaysian national Muhammad Shafiq bin Baharen.
The incident took ...
On August 3, Japan's National Police Agency announced that police nationwide during the first half of this year handled 123 cases of sexual deepfakes involving the manipulation of images of children under 18 using generative AI.
According to Jiji Press, this figure is double the 60 cases recorded during the same period last year, and exceeds the total of 114 cases for the entire previous year.
According to the National Police Agency, junior high school students accounted for the largest number of victims, with 79 cases. High school students accounted for 38 cases, elementary school students ...
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has conducted its first coordinated series of inspections on men's concept cafes in Tokyo's Kabukicho district. The inspections revealed illegal practices at 60% of establishments.
Between July 22 and July 23, police carried out simultaneous inspections at 20 men's concept cafes in Shinjuku's Kabukicho, central Tokyo, checking for valid business licenses.
Also known as concafes, concept cafes provide an experience based on a specific theme through costumes and decor. The staff are generally either all men or women. In the same way that a girls' bar ...
A 54-year-old Japanese man has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl after giving her alcohol at a karaoke establishment in Tokyo.
The suspect, Naomichi Moribe, is accused of giving alcohol to the 15-year-old girl, sexually assaulting her, and filming the incident on his smartphone at a karaoke bar in Tokyo this past May.
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Moribe allegedly sent messages promising to "help" the junior high school student second grader after she posted about her troubles on social media. He invited her to go to karaoke with ...
On July 10, Nemuro Police Station in Hokkaido announced that a man in his forties had been defrauded of approximately ¥3.96 million in a scam involving sperm donation.
According to the police, the incident began on July 2 when a woman claiming to be a fashion designer followed the man on social media and initiated a conversation via the messenger app LINE. She hinted at romantic interest, telling him that "I want to meet you." This led the man to trust her, reports NTV.
The woman also apparently sent a nude photo of herself. "My husband is gay, so we can't have children, and I'm in a bind ...
