Our boss tested the limits of Tokyo’s most liberated neighbourhood and was detained by police.
Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ni-chome district is recognised as Japan’s most liberated and vibrant LGBTQ+ neighbourhood, and it’s an area that never sleeps, with an exciting vibe that lingers well into the morning. It’s a place where stories are born, myths are made…and our founder, Yoshio, was once almost arrested.
The incident occurred eight years ago, when Yoshio was coaxed into dressing up as Hentai Kamen (“Pervert Mask“) for an article by his subordinate P.K. Sanjun. With P.K. egging him on, Yoshio felt brave enough to walk out into the streets of Ni-chome as both of them bared their bodies in the minimal coverage of the character’s mankini body thong, but when they got close to the local police box, they were called inside and interrogated.
What conspired was a brush with the law that proved to be unnerving for both Yoshio and P.K., but the story has an untold side, involving what our reporter Seiji Nakazawa experienced when he was called in to assist with the matter.
On that day, Seiji was in the office, with only one other writer typing away on the other side of the room. The quietness of the room was suddenly interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing around midday, and when his colleague answered the phone, Seiji could tell she was turning pale just by the tone of her voice. Her mood shifted dramatically from the second word spoken and Seiji immediately knew this was no ordinary call. Turning to look at her, she briefly put the call on hold, placed her hand over the mouthpiece and said to him, in a hushed tone, “Yoshio just got caught!”
Seiji almost spat out his tea. What exactly does one do when your boss and founder of the business you work for gets caught? He’d never contemplated such a situation, but since he was the only senior member of the team in the office, it fell upon him to respond to the police request that someone “bring clothes to the police box“.
With anxious thoughts running through his head, Seiji brought a bundle of clothes to the police box, and inside, Yoshio and P.K. were standing. Not arrested, but apprehended and not allowed to leave.
Seiji entered the station with a deep apologetic bow, and as he came eye-to-eye with his colleagues, he saw that Yoshio looked solemn but P.K. seemed to have a cocky attitude, like a junior high student who’d been scolded by a teacher.
As the situation unfolded, Seiji felt that P.K. seemed to have put Yoshio in the lurch by pressuring him to walk the streets semi naked, but now, with some distance between the event, he decided to question Yoshio to find out how he really felt at the time.
He started his interrogation with the following question:
“When you were caught by the police, how did you feel?”
Yoshio: “At that time, I thought I had done nothing wrong at all. So I didn’t understand why I was being yelled at.”
“You didn’t intentionally expose your body to passersby?”
Yoshio: “No, not at all. I was careful to cover my private parts with tape, so I didn’t think I was actually naked.”
“How did you feel while you were at the police box?”
Yoshio: “There was anxiety and fear. I thought everything would be over if I got arrested.”
“Why did you decide to do what you did in the first place?
Yoshio: “Because P.K. suggested we do it.”
“So do you think you were set up?”
Yoshio: “Not really. As the boss, I should have stopped it. I caused trouble for many people.”
During police questioning, the officers actually threatened to escalate the situation by calling Yoshio’s boss, but when they asked them for their boss’s details, Yoshio surprised them with his reply:
“I am the boss”.
It was certainly a surprise to the officers, who ended up releasing him and P.K. with a warning. Still, it left a scar on the duo, and Seiji himself realised he too had unfinished feelings about it all. He’d long wanted to talk about the events of that day with Yoshio, but after fetching him from the police box, it became a sore point that neither of them were able to talk about comfortably.
After conducting his own informal questioning though, Seiji felt a sense of closure, and with Yoshio expressing regret over his actions on that day, and the effect it had on everyone around him, he seemed to find some closure on the matter too. It was a lesson learned in how not to overstep the mark with what police deem acceptable on the streets, and now they know where the line is, they’ve been careful to keep the crazy antics contained within the office and at our cheap countryside house instead.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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