Headline News

Gaijin Smash Original Content
Did you know I share a birthday with Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes? Granted, he’s got a few hundred years on me, but I still think that’s pretty cool. Partly because like Mr. Rooney, I also have a penchant for finding the silly and absurd in today’s news stories.
I try to keep up with what’s happening back home by reading news online. A lot of it shows me that things haven’t changed much – murders, robberies, people still getting sued over the silliest of matters. Occasionally, I come across something that blows my mind – like Fried Coca Cola. Holy Quadruple Bypass Batman, who the hell thought up Fried Coke? And why would any sane human being want to ingest it? I think I just lost five years off my life by even thinking about the idea of deep-frying Coca Cola.
Of course, news in Japan can be interesting too. When it’s not about how hot it is (or in the winter, how cold) or what people are eating for lunch. And no, I’m not talking about Wai Wai news either. Y’see, Wai Wai is a part of the Mainichi News’s English Website. Because Mainichi is a respectable Japanese newspaper, people tend to take stories that come from Wai Wai news seriously. I remember there was a big fuss over the story about Japanese moms giving their own sons blowjobs to help motivate them in school (how would this motivate a young boy to do anything other than gouge his own eyes out and go live in a cave?). What most people don’t realize though is that Wai Wai is simply an English translation of stories that run in Japanese tabloids (which are usually geared towards men). So these stories have all the credibility of the National Enquirer.
If you can get past Wai Wai, there are plenty of valid news stories on the Mainichi website. If you read enough though, you’ll start to think that Wai Wai is the sane part of the site. I took the liberty of saving a few of my favorite articles that have appeared on the Mainichi News website lately.* Here’s one…

A heavily indebted man has been arrested for helping his family to gas themselves in a suicide pact, police said.
Yoshiaki Eguchi, 63, admitted to the allegations during questioning. “We had no chance of repaying our debts, so we decided to die together, but I couldn’t do it,” he was quoted as telling investigators.
Eguchi burned charcoal at their apartment in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, in an attempt to gas his 63-year-old wife, their 34-year-old son and 37-year-old daughter, and himself to death in a suicide pact, investigators said.
His wife and son died of carbon monoxide poisoning. His daughter is alive, but in critical condition.
Eguchi subsequently regained consciousness, and contacted an acquaintance last Tuesday after slashing his left wrist.
Eguchi owes financial institutions a total of 4.65 million yen in debts, according to investigators. (Mainichi)

This really, really sucks, doesn’t it? I mean, you’re a 63 year old guy whose life sucks so much, that not only do you have to end it, but take your family along with you. That in itself is pretty bad, but then the poor guy fails to commit suicide not once, but TWICE. And THEN he gets arrested.
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They say there’s no irony in Japan. I beg to differ.

Tobu Railway’s anti-molestation campaign soured after employee molests passenger
IRUMA, Saitama — A senior railway worker has been arrested for molesting a woman on a train operated by his employer, police said.
Tomio Momiyama, a 50-year-old supervisor at Tobu Railway Co.’s Shiki train depot in Saitama Prefecture, is accused of violating a prefectural anti-nuisance ordinance. He denied the allegations during questioning, investigators said.
The incident occurred while Tobu Railway, the operator of a major railway network in the Kanto region, is in the middle of a massive campaign for preventing molestation on trains.
Momiyama fondled a 24-year-old beautician’s thighs on a semi-express train over a 15-minute period late Thursday night while the train was traveling between Kasumigaseki and Tsurugashima stations on the Tojo Line in Saitama Prefecture, investigators said.
The woman and another passenger overpowered Momiyama and handed him over to police officers after the train stopped at Tsurugashima. (Mainichi)

What gets me about this story though, is how he was able to get away with the fondling for a whole 15 minutes. If it had been an American woman, about .7 seconds into the act he’d be laid flat by a knee to the groin. And then he would also be arrested on assault charges for attacking the woman’s knee with his groin. How do you not know you’re getting felt up for a whole 15 minutes?! “Hmm, that feels like an old dude fondling my thigh. …But, I could be wrong. Here, let me wait it out for 15 minutes.” Or maybe it was more like, “Goddamn, some old dude is feeling up my thigh…but I haven’t been touched this good in years. Well, it is against the law…but I’ll give him fifteen minutes before I powerbomb him.”
You know what though, I have to give the girl the benefit of the doubt. Trains packed like sardines are quite infamous in Japan. I thought I’d been on a few packed trains in Osaka, but then I rode on the Yamanote in Tokyo one evening. No, no, no. For the first time in my life, I knew how all my toys felt when I used to stuff them in the closet to the point where the door wouldn’t even close (He-Man: “Goddammit Megatron, get your foot outta my thong…”). Gaijin Perimeter or whatever went all out the window. I was in contact with no less than 11 people, 7 of whom I’m pretty sure I had sexual relations of some kind with. Some woman could come up to me and present a halfling baby and say it was mine, and if she was on the Yamanote that night I’d have no way of denying the possibility.
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Say, how much is a little girl’s sanity worth anyway?

Ex-cop’s 20-year sentence upheld for abducting, molesting 5 school girls
FUKUOKA — An appeal court on Monday upheld a 20-year prison term a lower court had handed down on a former police officer for abducting five elementary school girls and molesting the victims before freeing them.
The Fukuoka High Court dismissed an appeal filed by Hiroyuki Tomita, 27, a former Fukuoka Prefectural Police officer, against the ruling handed down by the Saga District Court.
“It was clear that he had a sexual desire for young girls, judging from the way he committed the crime,” the presiding judge said in handing down the ruling.
Tomita abducted five girls aged 7 to 10 in Fukuoka and Saga prefectures between May 2001 and February 2004, and molested them in his car before fleeing them, according to the ruling. (Mainichi)

Apparently, four years per girl. Who knew?
Oh, but my absolute favorite part is highlighted in bold. “It was clear that he had a sexual desire for young girls, judging from the way he committed the crime.” …Ya think? Wow, I’m glad we cleared THAT up. Say Mr. Judge, are there any other profound and insightful statements you’d like to make while we have you? “It is clear that it is raining today, as the sky is cloudy and raindrops are falling on my head.”
Fuck it, I’m in the wrong profession. Where do I sign up to be a judge in Japan? And I thought English teaching was brainless work. Pay me for this shit. “I’m going to sentence you, Mr. Momiyama, to four months of community service. It is clear that you have a sexual desire for the thighs of young beauticians riding trains.”
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This one is just bizarre.

IIDA, Nagano — An unemployed man was arrested Wednesday for strangling a woman he had got acquainted with through a suicide website, police said.
Junichiro Mine, 27, of Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, is accused of murdering Keiko Shimizu, 27, a resident of the Nagano Prefecture city of Matsumoto.
He has admitted to the allegations. Investigators are poised to conduct an autopsy on her body to determine the exact cause of her death.
At about 6 a.m. on Wednesday, local police received an emergency call from Mine reporting that he murdered a woman at a hotel in the Chuodori district of Iida. Officers rushed to the scene and found Shimizu lying dead. Mine was taken into custody after he admitted to having strangled her.
Investigators said Mine got acquainted with Shimizu through a suicide website and met her at the hotel, according to investigators. (Mainichi)

Really, you have to think about the sequence of events that had to happen here…
Man: *logs onto suicidegirls.co.jp or something* Hey, what’s up? A/S/L?
Girl: 27/W/Nagano. You?
Man: 27/M/Aichi. So, you want to kill yourself?
GIrl: Yeah, pretty much.
Man: That’s hot. I’ll totally help you.
Girl: Would you? That’d be great.
Some time later, at a hotel…
Man: Hi.
Girl: Hey.
Man: So, nice room huh?
Girl: Yeah, it is. Should we have sex or something beforehand?
Man: If you don’t mind, can we just get right to it?
Girl: Yeah, that’s fine.
Man: All right, here I come. *strangles girl* Ah, that was good. Well, now that that’s finished… *picks up a phone*
Police: Hello?
Man: Hey, you need to come down here. I just strangled a girl.
Police: …Excuse me?
Man: Yeah, I just strangled a girl. That’s murder, right? You need to come arrest me.
Police: Seriously? All right, well, hold on for a few minutes I guess.
Man: I’ll be here.
This is just bizarre, that’s all. People accuse me of making stuff up all the time about these stories of Japan, but honestly, you can’t make this shit up, you just can’t.
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Because people are still having sex and nothing seems to stop them.

Students who often use cell phone e-mail more likely to have sex: survey
Students who frequently use cell phones to send e-mail are more likely to have sex, a survey by the Japanese Association for Sex Education has found.
The survey on youth sex trends also found that girls outnumbered boys at junior high schools and high schools when it came to those with sexual experience.
The results showed that 63 percent of male university students and 62.2 percent of female university students had had a sexual experience. The corresponding figures at high schools were 26.6 percent of male students and 30.3 percent of female students. A total of 3.6 percent of boys at junior high schools and 4.2 percent of junior high school girls were found to have had sex.
Compared to the previous survey in 1999, cell phone use had risen sharply. In the previous survey, only about half of all male first-year high school students had cell phones, but in the latest survey the figure rose to over 90 percent. About 30 percent of first-year junior high school boys and 50 percent of first-year junior high school girls had cell phones.
The association split students into an “e-mail group” — students whose cell phone e-mail usage reached at least 20 e-mails a day — and “a computer group” of students who spent at least two hours using the Internet on computers on their days off.
An analysis of the e-mail and computer group users found that 58 percent of high school students in the e-mail group had had sex, compared with only 15 percent in the computer group. The figures for university students were 86 percent in the e-mail group and 61 percent in the computer group. Of these, 21 percent of high school students in the e-mail group said they had had sex with at least three partners, compared with only 5 percent in the computer group. For university students the figures were 47 percent in the e-mail group and 25 percent in the computer group.
The survey also found that high school students with cell phones were more likely to have kissed a partner the more they used cell phone e-mail, with only 20 percent of students who hardly ever used e-mail having kissed someone, compared with 80 percent of students whose cell phone e-mail usage reached at least 20 e-mails a day.
“E-mail leads to a strengthening and expansion of communication, which is probably why users are more sexually active,” said Masahito Takahashi, a professor at Yamaguchi University who analyzed the results. “On the other hand, it appears that using the Internet on computers often does not lead to sexual activity.”

The article goes on, but I doubt you care. I stopped it at my favorite part. Is this guy related to the judge from before, or what? “Using the internet on computers often does not lead to sexual activity.” Holy fucking shit, stop the presses! We got a hot one here! Obviously, this information must be spread around. I mean, there are countless kids sitting in front of their computers, deeply immersed in WoW/CS/whatever, who must surely be thinking “I need to get laid…but this elven maiden does not seem to want to emerge out of my computer screen and pleasure me. What must I do?!”
I guess wasting time on pointless and obvious studies is common in any country, even Japan.
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C’mon now. You can do better than this.

Gynecologist arrested for child prostitution claims he didn’t know her age
CHICHIBU, Saitama — A gynecologist has been arrested for paying a junior high school girl for sex, police said Friday.
Kazuhiro Sekiguchi, 59, director of the Sekiguchi Maternity Clinic in Chichibu, is accused of violating the Anti-Child Prostitution and Pornography Law. He admitted to having sex with the girl but denied knowing she was under 18 years old.
Sekiguchi paid 50,000 yen to the 15-year-old, third-year junior high school girl to have sex with him at a hotel in Saitama in August last year, investigators said. He met her through an online dating site. (Mainichi)

Now, I can tell the difference between a junior high school girl and a high school girl. After three years living here, it’s a pretty easy distinction to make. And I’m only a teacher. As a gynecologist, you have no freaking excuse. Either that, or we revoke your license for not knowing the difference between 15-year old and 18-year old pussy.
C’mon dude. Just own up to it. You wanted some 15-year old cooch. Japanese guys tend to like their women young, and disturbingly, that preference seems to be getting younger and younger as time passes. Moms, watch out for your cute kindergarten girls.
I will however cut this guy some slack…not because I want to, but not to do so would be hypocritical of me. I was walking to the train station once and I saw a girl from afar who I thought was hot. She was wearing a one piece skirt, and even though I was 100 meters away, I could tell she had big tits and nice shapely legs, something that’s kinda rare for Japanese women. As I got closer, I could see this knockout’s face…and I discovered she was a former student of mine! Recently graduated sannensei, which would make her 15, no older than 16.
Remembering the incident still makes me cry from time to time. I’ve been in Japan for far too long.
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Say, if a little girl’s sanity is worth about four years, how much is a little boy’s penis worth in Japan?

Woman who cut off her newborn son’s private parts handed 5-year prison term
SAKAI, Osaka — A woman accused of cutting off her newborn son’s private parts in 2004 was ordered Monday to spend five years behind bars.
The Sakai branch of the Osaka District Court convicted Shizue Tamura, 27, a resident of Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, of inflicting bodily injury.
“The way she committed the crime was unprecedented, inhumane and cruel,” Presiding Judge Masahiro Hosoi said as he handed down the ruling. Prosecutors had demanded an eight-year prison term.
The judge dismissed the defendant’s not-guilty plea, pointing out that only she and her son were at home at the time of the incident. However, he reduced her prison term to five years, considering her unhappy childhood and the fact that she was regularly abused by her common-law husband.
Tamura cut off part of the private parts of her second son, who was then 4 months old, at her home on March 1, 2004, leaving him with severe injuries that took seven months to heal and serious after-effects, according to the ruling.
The judge asserted that the defendant directed her anger with her common-law husband at her second son, pointing out that the man broke his promise to recognize her second son as his own son and to pay the costs of bringing up the victim. (Mainichi)

Apparently, five years. Sorry ladies, we win. In Japan at least, male private parts > little girl’s mental and emotional stability.
Notice though that we have yet another blockbuster judge in this case too. “Well, she may have John Bobbitt’ed her own son…but she had an unhappy childhood, and a lousy husband. Surely, we can feel some pity for her. I’m going to reduce the sentence.” Because, you know, all crimes aren’t so bad if you have a valid reason for doing so.
The real loser in all of this? The poor young boy. I can just imagine, 20 years from now…
Him: Well Yumiko, I’d like to invite you back to my place, but I just can’t.
Yumiko: Don’t you like me?
Him: No no, I do, it’s just…well…you see, my mom had an unhappy childhood, and dad was abusive, so I just can’t.
Yumiko: You mean, emotional scars?
Him: No…I mean I literally, just can’t. *pulls down pants*
Yumiko: ….Oh my God.
Him: It’s okay though, mom had a good reason for doing so.
I suppose I should consider myself lucky I only have young boys trying to grab my dick. Had I been born Japanese, there’s the risk that dear ‘ol mom might have chopped it right off while I was still in diapers. …This is the most fucked up thing ever. Japan: Where no penis will go unharmed.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it is clear from the rumbling in my stomach that I have a strong desire to eat some food.
*This has been an experimental editorial. If the response is positive enough, I’ll do one of these from time to time.