TOKYO (TR) – A 26-year-old Japanese influencer who has built a massive online following by calling out everyday sexism is actively pursuing legal action against internet trolls who send her daily death threats.
Operating under the handle “Marin” (@Marin_Feminist), the creator uses short videos to dissect gender discrimination and sexual harassment in Japanese society. But her vocal stance has made her a prime target for a growing subculture of anti-feminists, reports Spa! (July 24).
“I get told to ‘die’ about 10 times a day,” Marin revealed in a recent interview. “For the most severe abuse, I always file disclosure requests to identify the users and pursue legal accountability.”
Midnight escape from an abusive home
Before battling online misogyny, Marin had to survive a household marred by physical and emotional violence.
Raised by a single mother with a volatile temper, Marin said she was routinely subjected to screaming, punching, and kicking. The breaking point came when she was 19. After stepping out to a convenience store at midnight to use a copy machine, she returned to find her mother in a fit of rage.
Her mother violently kicked her out the front door, locking her outside without her wallet or mobile phone. Marin was forced to seek help from an acquaintance working at a nearby convenience store. When the acquaintance accompanied her back to the house, her mother opened the door in her pajamas and immediately began to fake tears, claiming she had been “worried” and searching the neighborhood.
“The image of the ‘trusted, responsible mother’ died inside me at that moment,” Marin recalled. “I realized she was someone who cared more about saving face than maintaining my trust.”
Within a month, Marin and her older sister orchestrated a midnight escape (yonige) to flee the abusive household permanently.
A diagnosis and a new crusade
Marin’s transition into full-time online activism came after a severe health crisis. Bedridden for three months with fevers approaching 40 degrees Celsius, she was eventually diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease. Unable to work a traditional job, she turned her societal grievances into a digital career.
Today, her platform demands sweeping societal and legal reforms. Her primary targets: stricter punishments for sex crimes, the regulation of adult videos and AI-generated deepfakes, and the promotion of male mental health care to prevent isolation and solitary deaths.
Marin notes that Japan’s culture of minimizing sexual assault leaves many victims suffering in silence.
“Sex crimes are often downplayed and called mere ‘mischief,’ which not only blinds male perpetrators to the gravity of their actions but also makes it difficult for women to report the abuse to police,” she said. “DM after DM, I see women asking, ‘If I go to the police over something like this, will they even take me seriously?'”
“Final boss” of gender inequality
Despite being labeled a “man-hater” by her detractors, Marin insists her goal is simply gender equality. She is particularly critical of the rising “weak male” narrative in Japan, where men claim they are discriminated against due to initiatives like women-only train cars.
Marin dismisses these complaints, urging society to look at the root of the problem.
“I always tell people to look at the ‘final boss,'” she said. “The perspective of why women-only spaces had to exist in the first place is completely missing from their argument. They were created as a direct result of women being routinely groped and harassed on a daily basis.”
