Alex comments

Came to say the same thing, MumbaiRocks!. Glad the woman was rightly arrested for stalking, but I find it interesting that when the stalker is a man, the police just shake their heads at it and say "shouga nai" while doing nothing. And then we hear about another innocent victim murdered by their stalker. Why is that?

I fully believe that people insisting on going maskless in crowded, indoor spaces are behind part of this rise in COVID deaths. Everyone has mostly gone back to normal in their lives, which is not a bad thing. But it's really very easy to put on a mask when you're about to board a crowded rush-hour train, or go to a tiny doctor's office with no ventilation. I've seen a lot of elderly people on the train who look fully stressed-out when they see maskless people not only board the crowded train, but sit down beside them in the priority seats area - y'know, where the people most likely to be immuno-compromised would be. The selfishness of some in this city is utterly astonishing. We can do our part to save lives, and it's really asking very little of us.

MoonrakerJan. 10  07:12 am JST

It sometimes seems like the biggest risk factor for a premature death is to have family.

Agreed, Moonraker. It seems like Japan is a safe country - unless you are family.

Lock 'em both up! The old woman who was so ready to throw other women under the bus, and her son, who was so willing to throw her under the bus after asking her to do it. I don't know who is more pathetic between the two of them, but perhaps it is the son for being nearly in his 40s, jobless and living with his mother, and perverted enough to involve her in his sex crimes.

girl_in_tokyoToday  07:16 am JST

Japan is such a safety country for women.

Yup. And no doubt the downvoters, assuming they understood your sarcasm, are not women.

Hope this guy goes to jail for a long time, but I know hope is different from reality.

JimToday  06:04 pm JST

The people who are downplaying the severity of the high number of infections and death for the past few weeks are the ones who are bound to get infected soon and may even die…be careful what you wish for! Covid is a serious problem and you shouldn’t act like fools by downplaying its impact! Yes, we all need to work and get on with life and we can do this easily through precautions. There is no need to downplay the seriousness of covid!

Agreed, Jim.

toraToday  04:47 pm JST

The "mental clinics" in Japan are nothing more than medicine dispensaries

This is very true. Worst mental healthcare I've seen in a developed country.

No one can blame the mother if she felt hopeless and suicidal - we don't live in a very kind world at all. However, to kill her two children as well? Why not just take yourself out? Let your kids live, for goodness' sake! It's hard to feel bad for this person when she deliberately killed two children along with her, instead of just killing herself. May the children rest in peace. Such unbearably sad news.

The train I was on today was crowded with travelers going home for New Year's (understandably), but in just three stops, five of the people who got on at my crowded train door alone did not bother to put on a mask. I saw an elderly lady shaking her head at some of these people, too, especially the one who sat down right beside her. Very irritating. Not wearing a mask outdoors is understandable. Not wearing a mask on a crowded train is just plain rude - and potentially dangerous, if the record-high number of deaths is any indication.

This is horrifically depressing. Within one day, three news stories in a row:

"Man arrested for killing 66-year-old father after argument"

Dec. 26  04:25 pm JST  

"Man arrested over murder of 3 family members in Saitama Prefecture"

Dec. 26  11:40 am JST  

"31-year-old man arrested over murder of grandmother"

Dec. 26 06:00 am JST

To be fair, the murderer in the middle story did not murder his own family, but still horrific news, of course. This world is utterly depressing.

The number of people defending the perp's behavior is not surprising, but it is very depressing. A comment defending the crime so long as the teenager is 17, or 18, or 19 years old? If some older woman you don't know and are completely unattracted to followed you home in her car, stopped the car, came up to you, and asked you to show her your underwear, would you not feel like you have just been sexually harassed? Especially if you are still a teenager yourself? Shame on the people defending this.

Sorry, but mask-wearing on crowded public transport should be mandatory. You can take it off when you're out of the train - but when you're on, it's the very least you can do to show some courtesy to your co-riders.

nandakandamandaDec. 16  07:05 pm JST

No one has asked what the mother could have done to her to make her consider murdering her for it.

I'm sorry, but what the mother possibly "could have done" means very little in a case where the perpetrator decided to practice murdering on innocent people first. The fact that this girl thought nothing of the lives of those she attacked, saw them only as practice dummies for her main goal, says far more about the girl herself than anything her parents "could have done" to her.

I mean, it's genuinely too little, too late. Not too long before this article was posted, I had distinctly noticed that even afternoon weekday hours are starting to look more and more like rush hour. You'll be hard-pressed to get a seat on the train, unless you're willing to push some poor defenseless person who got in line before you. There are already far too many people in Tokyo, and while I dream of moving out of the city (as someone who was born and raised in the countryside), you will have to create a number of rewarding career opportunities away from Tokyo to make that even feasible. It's already getting harder and harder to survive with the average salary in an increasingly expensive country.

This lady: "I didn't intend to kill him."

Also this lady: -stabs him-

Not to condone what these three have done, but I find it interesting that it is demanded that they be brought back to Japan for trial for theft, whereas meanwhile the recently-deceased psycho-cannibalistic-murderer Issei Sagawa, who murdered, raped, and ate a Dutch woman while he was in France, got to come back to Japan and live out the rest of his life without any penalty whatsoever - heck, as a celebrity, even!

Well, what led to the alleged choking?

...Are you seriously asking that question? As in, can you think of any justifiable reason that someone should be choking another person? Especially when that someone is a military-trained adult male, choking a teenage female?

Here we have someone who has denied the charges against them, but there is no "allegedly" in the article title before the crime - yet Japan Today often uses that word for crime articles even when the criminal has confessed to the crime. Why is it missing here? Guilty until proven innocent?

Also, I note that here is an elderly person who did not kill the elderly partner in her care. A partner she was not even married to any longer, and yet she was still taking care of him. Imagine that, and then think about all those other stories we have heard recently where the partner got "fed up" with caring for his elderly partner, and murdered them because of it. Shaking my head....

Since he was never punished in life for the horrors he committed, I hope that he will spend an eternity in the deepest, hottest circle of hell, forever roasting alive, while demons feast on his flesh over and over and over again. Let's see how that satiates his "obsession with cannibalism". It's genuinely sickening sometimes how far Japan will go to defend its own. This guy's actions, no matter what country he comes from, are beyond indefensible.

"Your honor, I only stabbed my wife several times - I didn't intend to kill her."

Yes, some elderly people can be supremely trying, but what right does that give a caregiver to literally beat up the person in his care? I have said this time and time again, but if you do not want to work in a profession where you are required to constantly care for others (literally, it is in the job title and job description), then don't take that job. If you know that you have little patience for other people, then don't take that job. I simply cannot understand how others can comment here saying things like, "Well, elderly people can be annoying," as if that in any way makes this behavior alright. We've seen this story enough times now that it seems quite clear something should be done about the hiring standards for caregivers. Because currently what they are giving to those in their care is the exact opposite - neglect, negligence, and outright abuse.

So because he "couldn't control his urges", that elementary school child will now have to suffer the consequences, i.e. the trauma of being sexually assaulted as a child.

That experience does not ever leave you. I speak as someone who experienced sexual assault as an elementary school student, too, by an older man whom I should have been able to trust.

There's only one solution to a situation like this, where an adult thinks the excuse of "I couldn't control myself" is a reasonable one (in any context, let alone when the victim is a child): cut off his bits. Yup, get rid of them. He'll never hurt a child ever again, and he also won't need to worry about his urges anymore. Sick pig.

I went out to see this eclipse having known it was coming for quite some time now. Went to a park area where a big concert was going on behind me, but there were lots of open, dark spaces for enjoying the eclipse, too. Most other people there seemed to be there for the concert itself, or for the park.

It felt like once a single person saw me just standing there watching the moon, it set off a chain reaction so that by the time I left the venue two hours later, most of the 100s of people there were just staring up at the moon! A rare event in the sky, and a rare event of comradery on earth, it was!

Agreed about the filler music / music just for selling an album, FizzBit. Movie scores are my favorite kind of music, so those movies that can't seem to produce their own scores to help tell the story and rely purely on pop music (and the fans of that pop music to boost movie ticket sales) will always lose me.

dagonToday  03:20 pm JST

His work scoring the battles in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is magnificent.

I knew I was forgetting to mention some other greats from him! The new Avatar movie and new Willow TV series will be released soon, but it's hard to imagine them without James Horner around to score them...

Most underrated composer is the late, great James Horner. Most people only know him for Titanic, but he has done the scores for Avatar, Braveheart, Legends of the Fall, An American Tail, Land Before Time, Willow, Jumanji, and the list truly goes on! That man knew EXACTLY how to capture all manner of emotions with the sound of a single instrument, a single chord, a single line of score. He was incredible.

> IchigoToday  09:19 am JST

More likely out of mutual love but still, a very difficult thing to agree to for both of them.

It might seem like a quick end to you, but to the handicapped person drowning it must have been a long and terrifying way to die. Until we know that the wife actually requested this specifically, I assume that the husband was completely in the wrong and "love" was not a factor.

BlacklabelToday  11:29 am JST

I simply hope that this was a merciful act not an evil one.

Agreed, Ichigo. Murder is still murder, and to go like that... And Blacklabel, I do not see how this could be considered a merciful act. Nor a "mercy killing". Someone who is confined to a wheelchair who has no hope of being able to even attempt to swim or save themselves, being left to drown by someone they love? One of the worst deaths in the world. I see no mercy here. Just complete sadness and a deep failing in humanity's moral compass.

And I don't care how many people are willing to justify this man's actions, because murder is never the answer. There are so many people worldwide who are forced to be (unpaid) caregivers to aging family members. They have enough compassion and sense to understand right from wrong. Getting "tired of it" is no excuse to murder someone who is forced to depend on you, who has no choice but to be left in your power. Shame on anyone defending this. I hope he rots in jail and that the deceased rests in peace now after that horrible way to go.

And people wonder why so few women actually report it to the police when they have been raped. When the people sworn to serve and protect you also happen to include rapists who abuse their power, why would you traumatise yourself further by going to them? Absolutely vile. But rapists are after power, so no surprises that they'd choose a job that provides them power over people. May he rot in jail.

A new generation of fragile, weak minded people entered the workforce, no surprise. Most of them are work shy and can't hack it when things get tough.

Nothing weak-minded about it, Joe. It's been known for years that people in Japan are overworked, hence the language even having a word for "death by overwork".

Despite getting an award for being one of the top employees in my company that very year, when I asked to take a one-week break due to severe stress, I was instantly fired. It may just be that I worked for one of the so-called "black companies", but I wonder if this policy is also being extended to foreign workers in Japan...