Man pleads guilty to deadly 2009 arson attack at Osaka pachinko parlor

Man pleads guilty to deadly 2009 arson attack at Osaka pachinko parlor A 43-year-old man pleaded guilty Tuesday to setting fire to a pachinko parlor in Osaka in July 2009 that killed five people. Sunao Takami entered the guilty plea during the first session of his trial before a panel of three professional and six lay judges at the Osaka District Court. "It's true," Takami said when questioned by presiding Judge Makoto Wada after a prosecutor read the indictment charging him with arson and murder.
7 Sep With television entertainer Shinsuke Shimada revealing last month that he had ties to organized crime, Zakzak (Sep. 6) speculates that gravure idols (pin-up models often appearing in magazines and on variety shows) will soon find difficulties as police work to eradicate the underworld from the entertainment industry. Starting in October, new anti-gang legislation will prohibit ordinary citizens from doing business transactions with gangsters. Years ago, it was not unusual for organized crime groups, or boryokudan, to associate in public with enka and kabuki performers, but today that is no longer allowable. Nowadays the relations exist through offices that employ models. (Tokyo Reporter)
7 Sep An 81-year-old man who sexually abused two pre-teen girls visiting his home to take part in an English conversation group was sentenced on Sept.6 by the Tokyo District Court to 18 years imprisonment, a year longer than prosecutors had sought. Yasutomo Obana was found guilty of a number of charges, including rape resulting in injury. "You used your position to take advantage of the lack of sexual awareness and immature judgment ability on the part of the girls to carry out what was a foul crime," Presiding Judge Ikuo Toishi told Obana. Toishi praised the girls for their testimony in court and slammed Obana for his behavior. (majirox news)
7 Sep Kyoko Ogawa wore the brave face the world associated with Japan's tsunami survivors. The March 11 catastrophe washed away all her earthly possessions. She watched as her hotel burned to the ground in a gas explosion triggered by the tsunami; a hotel that had been in her family for generations. She was determined not to let the disaster break her. But after the elation of finding her son alive, the reality of losing her livelihood started to erode the calm facade. She was in turmoil. She was afraid to talk to other people about it because she knew everyone was suffering as much as her, if not more. (CNN)
6 Sep In mid-August, Tsuneko Iwakura was finally moved into temporary housing, after five moves in as many months since evacuating her home near a damaged nuclear plant. 'We hear we can stay here for at least two years, so we are now relieved,' said Iwakura, 78. She and her husband left their home in north-eastern Japan when the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Station started leaking radioactive material, only 5 kilometres away. When the magnitude-9 earthquake struck the area on March 11, Iwakura watched as the walls of her house cracked and tiles fell from the roof. (monstersandcritics.com)
6 Sep More than 30,000 fashionistas flocked to Japan's largest fashion event, the Tokyo Girl's Collection -- or TGC this weekend -- a bi-annual show that combines the country's top fashion brands with popular music acts. Now in its sixth year, the six hour show has established itself as the epicenter of Japan's "kawaii," or cute culture, a culture that has gained a global following in recent years. On Saturday, the Saitama Super Arena, just outside of Tokyo, looked more like a cross between a concert and circus than a fashion show. Popular models strutted their looks down the runway, as adoring fans screamed their names, while other show-goers crowded booths featuring everything from makeup to a foot massage. In between, the TGC stage featured a mini ballet performance, and an appearance by Cirque de Soleil. (ABC News)

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Head found in Osaka likely middle-aged male

OSAKA — A severed human head found at a park in the city of Osaka over the weekend in a suspected multiple murder case was of a man in his 40s or 50s who apparently died around June, a police examination has shown.

The head bore multiple wounds, but none appeared life-threatening, leaving the cause of death still unknown, police said.

The head and other body parts were found in three 18-liter metal containers, two of them in the city's Tennoji Ward on Sunday, and the third at a garbage collection site at an apartment complex in the city the following day.

The third metal container, from which a left ankle of possibly an adult woman was found, had been collected as garbage in the ward around Aug. 5 from the same area where the two other containers were later found.

A large label on the container bore the words "choline bitartrate" in Japanese, a chemical used to treat liver disease, police said Wednesday. Police are attempting to track the chemicals, which are only distributed to university laboratories and pharmaceutical companies.

The name of what is thought to be a pharmaceutical company also appeared on the label of one of the containers, according to the police.

Police say the remains, including a pair of hands and two right ankles, indicate there were at least two victims, whose identities remain unknown.

Judging from the cuts, several edged tools must have been used to dismember the bodies, according to the police.

A 41-year-old neighborhood man said he saw, one night in late July, a male in his 20s or 30s unload two containers from a whitish minivan in a parking lot near where one of the metal containers was later found.

The witness said that when he looked down at the car from his condominium, he saw a middle-aged woman in the passenger's seat and another person in the back seat.

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Another body part turns up in Osaka

OSAKA — Another human body part has been found in a suspected multiple murder case in Osaka, a left ankle in a container stored at a garbage disposal complex, police said.

The discovery of the ankle Monday added to the several dismembered parts of human bodies found in two similar 18-liter containers in Tennoji Ward the previous day.

Also Monday, a resident recounted seeing three people on a night in late July unloading two containers of similar size from a minivan in a parking lot near where one of the metal containers was found.

The ankle was found in a container that had been collected as garbage in the ward around Aug. 5, the police said, adding it could be paired with the smaller of two right ankles that were found Sunday morning in a container abandoned in a park's shrubbery.

The third container was collected from the trash site of a condominium near where another container with human remains was found, after a neighbor complained of the abandoned object on Aug. 3, according to the police.

The city, which had collected and stored the container without inspecting its contents, reported its possession to police on Monday, after reports of the discoveries of the other body parts.

Regarding the three suspicious people seen unloading two containers, the witness said it was a man likely in his 20s or 30s who was doing the unloading, and that a middle-aged woman was in the passenger's seat.

The previous discoveries included a decomposing human head and the two ankles. The head was wrapped in a newspaper dated 2006, the police said.

The container found Sunday afternoon in a residential area about 100 meters from the park reportedly contained a pair of hands of roughly equal size and bits of bones, including a pelvis.

The police said the size of the remains indicates they belong to an adult male and female and suggests at least two people may have been victims of a crime.

A 25-year-old woman who lives in the area said she saw two containers sitting side by side on a street around July 20. She also said that three or four days later she spotted a middle-aged man kicking the containers and murmuring, "Here, maybe."

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