Kanae Kijima enters Saitama court for ‘black widow’ murder trial

“I know this sounds rude but my son (Yoshiyuki Oide) said it’s acceptable because you can get fed up with a beautiful lady in three days but you can also get used to an ugly one in three days.”

The mother was referring to her son’s relationship with Kanae Kijima, 37, who, reports weekly tabloid Shukan Jitsuwa (Feb. 2), is on trial at Saitama District Court for the murder of three men she met through matchmaking sites, including Oide.

The body of Oide, a 41-year-old company employee from Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward, and a charcoal burner were discovered inside a rented car in Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture on August 6, 2009. Investigators found that he had been defrauded by Kijima for roughly 5 million yen. An autopsy revealed that he had died of carbon-monoxide poisoning and that his body contained the remains of sleeping pills. Kijima was seen with him the day before his corpse was located.

On January 10, when she entered a not-guilty plea, Kijima appeared in the courtroom wearing a blue-knit cardigan, beige skirt, and black stockings. After she was arrested, tabloids speculated on how such an outwardly unattractive woman could have duped so many men into starting intimate relationships. Read more

Sendai swings: Secondary budget boosts Rolex sales, sex shop openings

“At the end of December, we sold a Piaget watch costing 2.4 million yen,” says a 78-year-old male owner of a long-running watch store. “Since last summer, each day we have been selling an average of five Rolexes, ranging in price from a half-million to 1.5 million yen. The last time we had such a rush was during the bubble two decades ago.”

Indeed, a surprising claim in the current economic climate, but then again maybe not when one learns the shop is located in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tohoku region to be impacted by last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake.

Shukan Jitsuwa (Jan. 5) says the boom is due to the government’s second supplementary budget to reconstruct stricken areas.

“We see about five Rolex watches in the ballpark of one million yen sold a day,” says the 55-year-old head of the jewelry section at a Sendai department store. “Diamonds and high-end, gold-made accessories, which can be easily converted into cash, top our sales. This section has tripled yearly sales compared to last year.” Read more

Hit-and-run case turns into multiple murders in Chiba

After the body of construction worker Akinori Kuwayama, 21, was discovered on a road in Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture on June 10, Chiba prefectural police believed it to be a simple case of hit and run.

However, reports weekly tabloid Shukan Jitsuwa (Jan. 5), developments from December are pointing to Kuwayama being a victim in a multiple murder case.

According to police, the corpse of Kuwayama was found six kilometers from his home, which is where he is believed to have been killed. Investigators subsequently used evidence found at the scene to determine which car struck him.

The vehicle’s owner is Kiyokazu Akimoto, a 42-year-old male under prosecution over a separate incident that resulted in bodily harm to a woman. Investigators announced on December 8 that they had questioned Akimoto over Kuwayama’s death. “Kuwayama-san jumped in front of me,” he said. “It was unreasonable thinking at the time, but I decided to dump his body in a different location.” Read more

60-year sentence for serial rapes in Shizuoka possibly a Japan first

On November 30, a most unusual prison sentence of 60 years was handed down by the Numazu branch of the Shizuoka District Court to Takashi Ozawa, who raped and assaulted nine women in Mishima City and other areas over a period of nine years.

Weekly tabloid Shukan Jitsuwa (Dec. 22) sets about determining why such a length was decided for Ozawa, 35, considering a revised law from 2004 limits imprisonment for rape to a maximum of 30 years.

“Prior to the current court case (November), he had been found guilty of theft, in March 2009,” says a reporter specializing in legal affairs. “The timing of that case was such that it created a separation within the time period of the rape crimes. Therefore, he couldn’t be tried as one case.”

Specifically, five cases occurred between 2001 and the date of his conviction for theft; four others cases took place after. The court broke the crimes into two groups and issued a sentence of 60 years in total. Read more

Noisy gay orgy in Shinjuku prompts raid by the cops

On the evening of October 29, a squad of officers from the Shinjuku Police Station raided a men’s club in Shinjuku 1-chome and arrested its operator, one employee, and three customers — who had been caught cavorting bare-ass naked or nearly naked — on charges of obscene behavior in public or abetting such behavior.

Shinjuku 1-chome borders on 2-chome, home to Tokyo’s largest hangout for gays.

Shukan Jitsuwa (Dec. 1) reports that at the time of the police raid, some 25 patrons were on the premises.

The club, named “Destruction,” had been in business since 1997 and was well known in the trade as a place where gay men went to seek companionship.

“The club’s on the second floor of an office building,” a local news reporter tells the magazine. “There are about 20 private cubicles closed off by curtains and one large room. There are peepholes for looking into the cubicles. Most of the customers prance around completely naked or nearly so, and if you brush up against another customer, that’s likely to lead to some action.” Read more

Japan times: Cut-up cops send sword-wielding slimeball to jail

At the age of 20, pachinko shop employee Munemitsu Takahashi (a pseudonym) decided to quit his job. By age 28, he had not worked for eight years.

One of the ways Takahashi supported himself, reports Shukan Jitsuwa (Dec. 8), was to befriend females via the Internet and, while feigning to be the president of a real estate firm, find creative ways to swindle them.

One of Takahashi’s victims was a 28-year-old woman we’ll call Reiko. The magazine describes the tale you are about to read as resembling “the scenario of a low-budget horror film.” Read on.

The sly Takahashi, who lived in a part of Japan relatively far from where Reiko resided, managed to keep his hooks in her for seven years. At one point in their relationship, when Takahashi was age 24, he was sentenced to a prison term. Before going behind bars he sent her an email.

“I have decided to undergo an operation,” he wrote. “It might be some time before I can write to you again — maybe even a year or longer. Please wait for me.” Read more

Tokyo area massage parlors providing supplementary sexual services subject to shutdown

It would seem that the hammer has begun to fall upon fuzoku services that exist inside what is considered to be a legal grey zone. Take the arrests of August 22, suggests Shukan Jitsuwa (Sep. 15) — in which Kanagawa prefectural police took the managing directors of the Kawasaki Sweet and Kawasaki Emoda massage parlors into custody for violating the nationwide adult-entertainment law.

Each salon offers private rooms and a body-washing service, which has become common over the last two years, says a writer who covers the fuzoku, or commercial sex, trade.

“A girl in a swimsuit will wash each male customer’s body, but without rendering sexual services,” the source explains. “Since these shops can operate in areas that prohibit commercial sex operations, this business plan was quickly adopted nationwide.”

However, the girls at these parlors up the intimacy ante by pressing their breasts against the bodies of clients. Read more

Dateline Tokyo: Lesbian love services in demand by guyless gals game to get it on

“These days it’s not rare at all to see two women going into a room together,” a maid at a Tokyo love hotel tells Shukan Jitsuwa (Aug. 18). “I’ve been at this job for 15 years. About five years ago, I noticed that more women started coming here together. The numbers picked up after our management instituted a ‘ladies’ day,’ offering a 30 percent discount, which we do twice a month. On those days, from noon onwards the place is filled to capacity with paired off housewives or university students.”

But, the reporter wonders, how can you know if the women are using the rooms for sex?

“When I clean out the waste receptacles there are always some telltale signs,” the maid replies. “Things like discarded tissue paper with some clear fluid having a sweet and sour scent. Some have pubic hairs clinging to it. And from time to time I’m surprised when they leave behind a vibrator.

“These days, with men falling out of favor, I guess it’s expected that more women will want to pleasure one another. And unlike sex with men, which is over once they have ejaculated, women can keep going to enjoy themselves endlessly,” the maid says. Read more

1,000 women, 100 encounters, 1 arrest: Kyushu’s nampa ‘king’ nabbed

After recently covering the arrest of the science teacher in Tokyo’s Kodaira City who drugged and molested 99 females, Shukan Jitsuwa (July 28) reports on a man who can top that figure by exactly one.

On June 4, the “king of nampa,” Taira Hashiguchi, 34, was arrested in Fukuoka’s Hakata Ward for child prostitution violations. After a 16-year-old girl filed a complaint regarding Higashiguchi, whose nickname is a tribute to his ability to pick up women, officers from Fukuoka’s Higashi Police Department took him into custody.

“After having sex at a hotel with the girl, he allegedly hit her over a money problem,” says a local beat writer. “He was arrested for battery, and the cops wound up finding provocative and illegal images on his mobile phone and personal computer. They were able to identify one middle school girl and another eight girls from high school. He took shots of three of them while engaged in actual sex acts. This led to an additional citation.”

He boasts to have approached 1,000 women and succeeded with 100. Read more

Tokyo junior high school teacher arrested after drugging, filming 99 females

“You must be pregnant, and I will tell all.”

That phrase is certainly not something to be uttered by a junior high school teacher, but that was what 56-year-old Yuji Kurimoto, who was taken into custody on June 28 by officers from the Higashi Yamato Police Department, used to threaten multiple girls after he drugged them and committed obscene acts, reports weekly tabloid Shukan Jitsuwa (July 21).

Kurimoto, a teacher at Ritsujosui Middle School in Tokyo’s Kodaira City, was arrested for violating the welfare of minors. His downfall began after this message on his website caught the attention of a 15-year-old girl: “I am Hiro, 32 years old. Want to meet up in the city for 80,000 yen?”

They rendezvoused at a hotel in Tokyo’s Kabukicho red-light district on May 6. He filmed the subsequent sexual encounter.

“Kurimoto used the prospect of fat cash to appeal to a young girl and asked her to meet up,” a local beat writer tells the tabloid. “But after she refused, he sent 100 emails to her over a span of two days. Once the girl became emotionally drained, he said he would stop if she would agree to send a photo of herself topless. Once she agreed with the request, he then threatened her by saying he would distribute it.” Read more

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