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 ...
The singer, model, and TV personality Ricca Kanon shared intimate details on social media on August 31 about the issue of the casting couch in the Japanese entertainment industry.
The frequency of producers trying to pressure her to sleep with them has become so high that she announced that will no longer meet such people in person.
"I often receive requests for appearances (or messages posing as such) from TV program and commercial producers and creators. Please note that all future meetings regarding television projects will be conducted online."
She claims that "almost every time" she ...
Approximately 40% of women working in broadcasting in Japan said that they have received "sexual advances," according to a new survey.
A research team including the University of Tokyo Graduate School surveyed men and women who have worked in the broadcasting industry via email and other means, and found that around a significant number of women had received "sexual advances," and some had even been forced into sexual relations.
The open survey was conducted between May 2025 and January 2026, targeting people with experience working at a broadcasting station, regardless of employment status ...
Who watches the watchers?
While the regular cop in his koban substation on your local street corner seems like a friendly and useful member of the community (and for the most part, is), police officers are human beings, and so subject to temptation like the rest of us.
According to a report in the Yomiuri Shimbun, the National Police Agency announced on February 5 that the number of police officers and staff members nationwide who received disciplinary action last year rose to 337, an increase of 98 from the previous year, and the highest number in the past 10 years.
Of the 337 officers, ...
Sadly, we are now quite used to tales of sexual harassment in Japan and most other countries. These cases crop up a lot in the workplace, though also often in education, where there is a clear imbalance of power between the teacher and students, who are generally young and vulnerable.
And so we were both amused and confused when we read about a harassment case at a university that very much did not adhere to this format.
According to a March 21 report in the Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo District Court ruled that the forced resignation of a university professor over alleged sexual misconduct ...
We reported earlier this summer on the silly circus that was the Tokyo gubernatorial election, with a female candidate stripping off during her TV broadcast and another using pornographic posters that police ordered to be taken down.
One of the slightly more serious candidates, at least in terms of mainstream fame, was Toshio Tamogami, who finished fourth with 3.9% and around 270,000 votes.
The right-wing former Air Self-Defense Force general has stood for election several times, never winning public office but using the campaigns to maintain his profile and platform as a nationalist ...
The casting couch is one of the biggest open secrets in the Japanese entertainment world.
Abuse and sexual harassment of voice actors, fashion models, and gravure idols has recently gained a lot of attention.
The general acting world is also very belatedly having a sort of MeToo moment with the exposure of male sex predators. The director Hideo Sakaki, for instance, has just been arrested for the fourth time. On the other hand, perhaps we still have some ways to go: the director of the new film adaptation of manga Sensei's Pious Lie sparked headlines when he said he rejected the lead ...
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 ...
A retiring actress has complained that the mainstream media is ignoring the open secret that is the casting couch in the entertainment industry.
Though the sexual abuse that took place at Johnny's has now received the media attention it deserves after decades of silence, Misa Hayashi (林美佐) has said that there are still major issues of abuse in the industry.
In an interview with Daily Shincho, Hayashi relates how she was told to sleep with people when her DVD sales were poor. This was when she was working as a gravure idol in her twenties.
As we have noted in the past, the casting ...
Regular readers might remember Ayana Kobayashi, whose stunning gravure shoot we wrote about in 2019. It was notable because she did an alluring nude shoot with her butt and nipples on display despite being married (to a comedian).
She has since released a couple of DVDs.
It's perhaps because she's a bit of an outsider -- someone who came to mainstream gravure a bit late and already married with a child -- that she's freer to say certain things.
Now in her early thirties, Kobayashi recently made headlines with a blog entry in which she described her own experience with sexual ...
