Photo at right is of Ichihashi, the murder suspect.
He was described as having plucked eyebrows in the style of the co-called chimpira, or ‘little pricks’, young men who affect the style of older yakuza gangsters and indulge in petty crime, and sometimes drug dealing. Police revealed yesterday that Mr Ichihashi had a criminal record for stealing a wallet containing 10,000 yen (44 pounds) in May 2004. (Click for full story in sidebar of the article.)
One other murderer, Hiroshi Maeue, was sentenced to death today for killing three people in 2005.
Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty, insisting he could pose the threat of a repeat offender because he cannot control his sexual urges triggered by seeing a person being strangled and suffering. (Story in The Japan Times)
Wonder if Maeue is a rape and torture manga fan like Ichihashi? And the non-Japanese in Japan are the dangerous ones?!
On a side note, everyone that I know, Japanese and others feel the same way about this guy and this incident---angry, and disgusted. However, I have read on the Internet posting from Japanese who want to claim that the crime increase in Japan, even among the Japanese, is due to western influence. The "pure Japan" crowd--Masahiko Fujiwara et al--will never admit any possible problems in Japanese society that are simply the problems of Japan, not foreign countries or people.
This murder will get a lot of coverage overseas, but there are plenty of murders in Japan that get none outside of the country. Japan is relatively safe, but it ain't some fairy tale land where you can abandon common sense like many seem to believe.
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