bizarre crime strikes back!

back by popular demand (or something -- i dunno, my previous hanzai post got the most page views yet for this blog, so-- ), it's bizarre japanese crimes!

there have been a whole string of new incidents going on around japan, like this morning for example, there was a report on TV that started a little like this:

"it looked like money was raining down from the sky!"

last night at osaka station, what appeared to be yen notes came down from the skies by the hundreds, and while people gathered to claim their fortune, they quickly realized that it was NOT indeed money that was falling -- it was actually photographs. hundreds of them.

so what were they pictures of? you might ask.

a high school boy sitting in the priority seating area of a train, taking up another half of a seat. 

a man smoking inside a train station (stations are non-smoking).

simply put, the pictures were of various types meiwaku koui, a.k.a. people being assholes (okay, that might be a really loose translation but...) we're talking like smoking in non-smoking areas, looking at your phone while walking (and bumping into people because you're not paying attention), taking up more seats than you need on a crowded train, talking loudly on your phone on trains and buses -- stuff that is a nuisance to others.

lately there has been a rise in something called sarashi, which means like exposing someone or something. what it means in this context, however, is posting pictures of actual people being assholes online and then bashing them. actually not only pictures, but video too. there was a case where a guy saw a young mother scream at her crying kid before kicking them in the head in the middle of a train station -- really messed up, and really deserving of not just an internet bashing, but an arrest, but here's the thing -- the guy taking the video sees the crime happening and while filming, mind you, casually says, "i'mma call the police" which prompts the mom to grab her kid by the hand and take off, but the guy filming is the ONLY ONE out of the entire busy station that says ANYTHING to the mom. i don't know how you can stand by and watch blatant child abuse happen.

now i'm all for putting assholes in their place, but... not sure that the problem is really solved just because you put a picture or video up on the net along with your own two-cents. i mean fighting assholes by being an asshole is very much in character with the internet, but...you could just say something then and there. i guess it does provide evidence for cases like child abuse, but i digress.

this osaka station picture thing is like real life sarashi -- actual photos being flung out into the real world for people to see. but it's not like this really solves anything -- it was just sort of creepy. so far there have been no arrests made nor suspects found, and one can only speculate at their motives but...it seems more like a waste of money on printing costs than anything else.

last but not least -- a 38 year old man was arrested for strangling stray cats and beating them against the pavement. when the police stopped him, there were 4 or 5 dead cats in the basket on his bike, and he's also believed to be involved in the death of some 40 or so stray cats who had been fed poisoned cat food. the sick fucker had a pet cat at home too. seriously cannot stand this kind of animal abuse -- i hope someone bashes his face into concrete before strangling him to death too. you see a lot of stray cat cruelty from mutilation to murder. there are about 4 stray cats in my neighborhood -- all of which i've never seen cause a problem, in fact, everyone sorta takes care of them. i mean, they have just as much a right to live as everyone else, right? come on humans, get it together.