Just outside the West Exit of JR Nishi Kawaguchi Station in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture sits one of Japan’s most notorious red-light districts. Nishi Kawaguchi boasts bars, “pink salons” and various other establishments in the commercial sex (fuzoku) trade.
In March 2016, one of its buildings was the scene of the murder of Tatsunari Ito, age 24. A total of seven persons participated in the lynching of Ito over his misappropriation of a mobile telephone and suspected swindling of customers at the bar that employed him, Hawaiian Bar Lapule.
After the arrests, weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun ran several stories on the case, including one covering the victim and the bar where the incident took place.
The building housing Lapule and the establishment itself are considered quite mysterious, one worker in the area tells the magazine.
“The building that [Lapule] was in was famous for being frequented by gangsters,” the source says. “The yakuza around here are the Sumiyoshi-kai, but over the past 10 years or so, yakuza from the west have gradually started to move in as well. There’s a sauna in the building that is full of tattooed gangsters, and there’s also an illegal massage parlour where Chinese women offer handjobs. A ‘happening bar‘ in the basement was once raided.”
Lapule was supposedly a Hawaiian bar, but what was it really like?
“I’ve heard rumors that it was just a bar in name,” the source continues, “and was actually an underground casino, or a brothel, or something like that. That’s how little anyone knows about it, and it has a slightly scary image.”
In the scant media coverage of the incident, Ito was described as an “employee” at Lapule. Yet it is a more complicated picture. In this second installment of a four-part series from The Tokyo Reporter editorial team (part one is here), Ito is seen as more of a man with a troubled background who wound up running with the wrong crowd in Kawaguchi.
“He wasn’t the kind of kid who would suddenly run away”
At the time of the incident, Ito was living alone in a small apartment in Tokyo. According to local residents, he was “a good young man who always greeted people properly.” He also “would offer to carry heavy items for elderly people in the neighborhood.”
His stay in the residence began in 2015. But after about two or three months, he disappeared, according to weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun (Nov. 2021). After he got behind in his rent, the landlord, worried, went to look into his residence. Upon arrival, the front door was unlocked and open. There was no bedding inside. There was only a light rug and a paper bag full of belongings.
“He wasn’t the kind of kid who would suddenly run away,” a person living in the area says, “and he always went to work in Kawaguchi at night, so we were worried that he had gotten into trouble. Or maybe he was so busy that he hardly ever went home.”
In fact, Ito had become entrenched at the bottom of a crime ring active in Kawaguchi. All seven of the people arrested for the assault on Ito in 2016 were more or less members of this group.
“The leaders were [the aforementioned yakuza] Shimada and Junya Motohashi,” a person familiar with the matter says. “They called each other ‘brothers.'”
Motohashi owned Lapule. He also ran a scouting company for cabaret clubs and adult entertainment establishments. He was strict with those who worked for him.
“He said a lot of unreasonable things,” the same person continues. “[His underlings] got irritated. The rest of the arrested were all young people in their 20s at the time. There was a clear relationship of master and servant in this group, with Shimada and Motohashi giving orders and the people below, including Ito, carrying them out.”
The group made a living by committing crimes on a daily basis. Their area of activity was centered in Saitama and extended to the downtown areas of Tokyo.
“They committed fraud, such as telephone fraud, burglary and robbery,” the same source says. “They also got involved in drug pushing. These crimes were committed by multiple people under the direction of the ringleader. The younger ones were mainly errand boys. The ringleader took 90 percent of the money they made, and the underlings who carried out the crimes only got about 10 percent. Even so, they couldn’t go against their elders. They were a pretty unscrupulous group.”
“Somehow reform himself”
How then did a person “who greets people properly” become involved with this group? For the answer, Bunshun turned to an elderly man whom Ito relied on.
The man tells the magazine about Ito’s life.
“He was struggling to somehow reform himself,” the man says. “He had a complicated family background, so I was like a father to him when I met him about 10 years ago through the Mormon church. I wasn’t a Mormon, but he was an avid church attendee. Apparently, when he was short of money, he happened to meet an American Mormon in his 20s who treated him to curry rice, which was what prompted him to join.
“He was an avid participant in religious activities, and even did manual labor and odd jobs that people didn’t like. The wife of the head of the district where he lived liked him so much that she said, “I want him to study abroad in America someday.'”
But, according to the man, Ito “did things like a yakuza” before joining Mormonism.
“He was a street vendor, managing festival stalls, and collecting loan shark debts in Shinjuku,” he continues. “But one time, while collecting loan shark debts, he forced one of his clients to [sell] his daughter [into prostitution]. The client’s wife committed suicide due to the pain. It must have been a huge shock to [Ito]. So he left the organization and apparently attempted suicide himself. That’s probably why he turned to the Mormons for help.”
The man met Ito at a Mormon church, and Ito grew close to him. Soon after they met, they began sharing their personal stories.
“He came to my house many times. He would say things like, ‘I have no parents, I was abandoned,’ ‘I was raised by the yakuza from a young age and barely went to high school,’ ‘I’ve had sex with many women but I didn’t know love,’ ‘When I was a teenager, my yakuza comrade took me to the Philippines.'”
“He couldn’t break the path of evil”
The man tells Bunshun that Ito was a very honest and friendly guy, which caused him to feel sorry for him when he found out about his circumstances.
“I volunteered to be his father. I even became his guarantor when he signed contracts that were necessary for his life,” he says.
Ito was said to have been very active in his religious activities, but something happened that led to him being kicked out of the sect. Mormonism prohibits premarital relationships, and his relationship with a divorced woman five years his senior was discovered.
“He was expelled when he was 21 or 22 years old,” continues the man. “After that, he went back to his bad ways and started working at the bar in Kawaguchi. I was worried and I contacted him. ‘Are you doing fine?’ I asked. But he said, ‘I have the ability to know whether I’m a bad guy, so I’m fine.’ But I never heard from him again.”
The man says the situation is unfortunate.
“But I was prepared for it,” he says. “I heard from the police [in the spring of 2021] that [Ito] was missing. So, I thought he might not be here anymore.
“I wanted him to experience a normal, ordinary happiness. He never talked about dreams or anything like that. He was so focused on living in the present that his perspective was narrow. What was the point of his 24 years of life? He had a complicated family life, he didn’t go to school, I can’t help but feel sorry for him.”
The man then muttered to the magazine, “He couldn’t break the path of evil.”
The players > The victim > The smartphones > The witnesses > The verdict
