Japan social media user held over $21,000 extortion to delete post
A Japanese social media personality has been arrested for allegedly extorting a man out of 3 million yen ($21,000) in exchange for removing his private details from the internet, Tokyo police said Monday.
Yuki Azuma, 29, who posts as Entertainer Orihara, is known for exposing apparent secrets of famous people on social media, according to the police.
He allegedly uploaded the personal information and headshot of a 30-year-old man to X, formerly Twitter, and extorted the money from him at a Tokyo restaurant in October last year.
Azuma hinted at further posts, telling the man he was considering releasing "everything," the police said.
He has remained silent about the allegations, they said.
Related coverage:
Man sent to prosecutors over naked trespassing, suspected in 20 cases
North Korean hacker group identified in theft of DMM Bitcoin assets
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Mainichi
28 minutes ago
- The Mainichi
Japan publisher sorry for column targeting people with foreign roots
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A Japanese publisher apologized Monday for running a column in its weekly magazine last month that was criticized as discriminatory toward people with foreign roots and for promoting xenophobia. In the column in the July 31 issue of "Shukan Shincho," published by Shinchosha, journalist Masayuki Takayama discussed naturalization and attacked author Ushio Fukazawa -- who is of Korean descent -- for speaking out against discriminatory attitudes in Japan. Shinchosha said in a statement, "We offer our sincerest apologies. We are acutely aware of, and take responsibility for, our shortcomings as a publisher." "We recognize that while 'freedom of speech and expression' is extremely important, the scope of that freedom varies depending on the subject matter and social context, and changes over time," the publisher added. At a press conference the same day, Fukazawa said, "I wonder how frightened people with foreign roots must feel." She added, "I hope Japan remains a country where people from diverse backgrounds can live with pride." Comments condemning the column from around 40 individuals, including novelist Natsuo Kirino and manga artist Akiko Higashimura, were also presented. In the column, Takayama also bashed model Kiko Mizuhara for accusing a producer in the Japanese film industry of sexual harassment, saying, "She was born to an American and a Korean, and has absolutely no connection or ties to a Japanese." "It's hard to accept someone using a Japanese name while sounding as if they are exposing Japan from the inside. Shouldn't they speak openly under a foreign name instead?" he wrote. Shinchosha previously suspended publication of its monthly magazine "Shincho 45" after it was lambasted in 2018 for running a contributing piece that used a derogatory term to describe the LGBT community.
Japan Today
2 hours ago
- Japan Today
Mighty Atom: How the A-bombs shaped Japanese popular culture
In the 80 years since the World War II attacks, stories of destruction and mutation have been fused with fears around natural disasters By Katie Forster and Kyoko Hasegawa From Godzilla's fiery atomic breath to post-apocalyptic anime and harrowing depictions of radiation sickness, the influence of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki runs deep in Japanese popular culture. In the 80 years since the World War II attacks, stories of destruction and mutation have been fused with fears around natural disasters and, more recently, the Fukushima crisis. Classic manga and anime series "Astro Boy" is called "Mighty Atom" in Japanese, while city-leveling explosions loom large in other titles such as "Akira", "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and "Attack on Titan". "Living through tremendous pain" and overcoming trauma is a recurrent theme in Japan's cultural output "that global audiences have found fascinating", said William Tsutsui, a history professor at Ottawa University. The U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 left around 140,000 people dead. It was followed days later by the bombing of Nagasaki that killed around 74,000 people. Some poetry "portrays the sheer terror of the atomic bomb at the moment it was dropped", but many novels and artworks address the topic indirectly, said author Yoko Tawada. "It's very difficult for the experience of the atomic bomb, which had never existed in history before, to find a place in the human heart as a memory," she told AFP. Tawada's 2014 book "The Emissary" focuses on the aftermath of an unspecified terrible event. She was inspired by connections between the atomic bombs, the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and "Minamata disease" -- mass mercury poisoning caused by industrial pollution in southwest Japan from the 1950s. The story "is less of a warning, and more a message to say: things may get bad, but we'll find a way to survive", Tawada said. Godzilla's skin Narratives reflecting Japan's complex relationship with nuclear technologies abound, but the most famous example is Godzilla, a prehistoric creature awakened by U.S. hydrogen bomb testing in the Pacific. "We need monsters to give a face and form to abstract fears," said professor Tsutsui, author of the book "Godzilla on My Mind". "In the 1950s, Godzilla fulfilled that role for the Japanese -- with atomic energy, with radiation, with memories of the A-bombs." Many people who watched Godzilla rampage through Tokyo in the original 1954 film left theaters in tears, he said. And "it's said that the special effects people working on Godzilla modeled the monster's heavily furrowed skin after the keloid scars on the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." In the nearly 40 Godzilla movies released since, nuclear themes are present but often given less prominence, partly to appease American audiences, Tsutsui said. Even so, the series remains hugely popular, with 2016 megahit "Shin Godzilla" seen as a critique of Japan's response to the tsunami-triggered Fukushima disaster. 'Black Rain' "Black Rain", a 1965 novel by Masuji Ibuse about radiation sickness and discrimination, is one of Japan's best-known novels about the Hiroshima bombing. But the fact Ibuse was not an A-bomb survivor is part of a "big debate about who is permitted to write these stories", said Victoria Young of the University of Cambridge. "How we talk about or create literature out of real life is always going to be difficult," she said. "Are you allowed to write about it if you didn't directly experience it?" Nobel-winning author Kenzaburo Oe collected survivor accounts in "Hiroshima Notes", essays written on visits to the city in the 1960s. "He's confronting reality, but tries to approach it from a personal angle" including his relationship with his disabled son, said Tawada, who has lived in Germany for four decades after growing up in Japan. "The anti-war education I received sometimes gave the impression that Japan was solely a victim" in World War II, she said. "When it comes to the bombings, Japan was a victim -- no doubt" but "it's important to look at the bigger picture" including Japan's wartime atrocities, she said. As a child, illustrations of the nuclear bombings in contemporary picture books reminded her of depictions of hell in historical Japanese art. This "made me consider whether human civilization itself harbored inherent dangers", making atomic weapons feel less like "developments in technology, and more like something latent within humanity". © 2025 AFP
Japan Today
3 hours ago
- Japan Today
Bar event for sitting and spacing out opening in Tokyo; offers the luxury of doing nothing
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24 Tokyo's Boutto Suru Bar is set to welcome customers this month, but part of its name is a little misleading. When you hear 'bar,' you probably imagine a place that serves beer, wine, or cocktails, but the Boutto Suru Bar's menu consists of non-alcoholic beverages, coffee and tea. So you could make the argument that it should really be called the Boutto Suru Cafe. We'll give it a pass, though because the place is on much more solid ground with the Boutto Suru part of its name, since boutto suru is Japanese for 'space out,' and that's exactly the experience the Boutto Suru Bar is offering. A limited-time even hosted by art gallery Muun in downtown Tokyo's stylish Hiroo neighborhood, the Boutto Suru Bar says it hopes to provide visitors with 'a luxurious time of doing nothing and spacing out for an extended period of time.' Doing nothing, in this case, seems to mean doing nothing physically or mentally taxing, since each customer will be served a soothing cup of either Spacing Out Coffee or Spacing Out Herbal Tea to sip. You don't have to just stare at the walls, either, since the Boutto Suru Bar event is a collaboration between Muun and design studio Vitro, creators of the Dew relaxation lighting device. Image: PR Times Dew is modeled after** **senko hanabi, traditional string-shaped handheld fireworks that emit a soft shower of sparks and are nostalgic symbol of innocent summer fun in Japan. Instead of sparks, though, Dew uses drops of illuminated water, with the fluctuations as the light refracts through the liquid and illuminates ripples in the pool it falls into shown in testing to significantly reduce stress levels in those who watch the cycle. ▼ Dew demonstration video Because of the senko hanabi connection, Boutto Suru Bar will a one-day event held on August 7, Japan's 'Fireworks Day' quasi-holiday. There will be three seatings, at 6, 7, and 8 p.m., with one-drink-inclusive tickets priced at 1,500 yen and reservations available online here. Event information ぼーっとするバー / Boutto Suru Bar Venue: Muun / ミューン Address: Tokyo-to, Minato-ku, Minami Azabu 4-12-7 東京都港区南麻布４丁目１２−７ Reservations Source: PR Times Read more stories from SoraNews24. -- Crazy Tokyo bar rewards you with free drinks for accurate ax throwing, offers shuriken option -- Tokyo convenience store has full bar inside with Japanese whiskey, will smoke your combini snacks -- Japanese motor home is like a time machine to a bubble era Tokyo private bar, on sale now【Photos】 External Link © SoraNews24
