![]() ![]() In appearance, he bears some resemblance to the plastic Troll dolls of yesteryear, and in his demeanor, especially in his brawls with the press, he is like the most formidable internet troll made flesh-rarely losing a battle or getting rattled. Suga figures in this story, as in many others in Japanese politics, as a likely go-between. Physically unprepossessing, he is famed for his sarcasm, quick wit, and ability to keep cool. Fixit-Cabinet Spokesman Yoshihide Suga is about as close to the prime minister as white on rice, as they say in some parts of the United States. He is beloved not only by Prime Minister Abe, but also by Japan’s right wing for an infamous article he penned which appeared to dismiss the sufferings of “the comfort women” who were enslaved to sexually service Japanese soldiers during WWII. The Alleged Rapist-The wiry Yamaguchi, taking the Bill Cosby approach, insists that he is innocent and anything that happened was consensual, even though there is ample proof that Shiori was only semi-conscious if, indeed, she was conscious at all. ![]() The Alleged Victim-Shiori, whose calm anger and direct account of events the press has found more than compelling, and whose case may well have helped force the Japanese parliament to revise the country’s horribly antiquated laws on sexual assault. It’s quite a cast of characters that show up in this human drama, and it may help to have a program to keep them straight. It is not surprising that the opposition party and Japan’s media are reporting the possibility of a cover-up or, at a minimum, gross interference in the rape investigation. That was exactly what happened.Īnd that is where the story takes a major political twist. I’ve just been told I’m being taken off the case, as well. ![]() Like a scene out of a movie, the detective who had at first reluctantly taken her case but had become her advocate told her over the phone, “He’s walking past us. She filed charges with the Tokyo Metropolitan Takanawa Police who investigated the case diligently and even obtained an arrest warrant for Yamaguchi, only to be stopped by an order from a high-ranking bureaucrat right as they were set to arrest him at Narita Airport. She had dinner and drinks with him before losing consciousness. Shiori claims that on April 4, 2015, Yamaguchi, the journalist closest to Prime Minister Abe, and a former Washington, D.C., bureau chief for the Japanese television network TBS, raped her while she was unconscious at the Sheraton Miyako Hotel. ![]() In a country where fewer than 10 percent of rape victims ever file a report, it is rare for victims to speak out and even rarer for them to show their faces. In accordance with the wishes of her relatives, she has kept her family name out of the papers. The story became national news on May 29 when a 28-year-old journalist named Shiori held a press conference at the Tokyo District Court as she sought to reopen the closed investigation into her case. Even a senior member of Abe’s own Liberal Democratic Party says, “There is nothing this administration wouldn’t do to crush its enemies and reward its pals.”īut new allegations have raised the possibility that the administration may have gone so far as to quash a rape investigation on behalf of a close friend of Abe: the dapper, hipster-bearded broadcast journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi, who also penned two laudatory books on the prime minister. Haruo later runs into Sachi at the park, but he has yet to find out the truth about her.TOKYO-Japan’s ruling coalition, headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has been mired in scandal for several weeks amid allegations Abe personally bent the law or broke it to benefit his political cronies and friends. He decides to track down that other man, who runs a bakery with his wife and daughter Sachi. Haruo, who had committed murder 9 years earlier to earn the money for Mariko's medical treatment, is shocked and angered. When Haruo visits the next day, he learns that his old girlfriend Mariko was living with another man, but later died of illness. With nothing left, he spends the night at a net cafe, and he manages to look up his old friend from his yakuza days. With nine years worth of prison gratuities in hand, he stops at a restaurant to enjoy a good meal, but all of his money ends up being stolen.
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