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Last month a 40-something man, who we’ll call Taro (not his real name), was spending the first Saturday night of March in Tokyo’s Akabane Park. His quiet evening, though, was suddenly interrupted when two men, neither of whom Taro had ever seen before, approached him while one of them shouted, “What the hell do you think you’re doing to my woman?”
It was obviously a rhetorical question, but it was also an impossible one. That’s because Taro wasn’t talking to, touching, or looking at any woman at the time. He wasn’t even interacting with another human being. He was feeding a stray cat.
But before Taro’s brain had time to process the information, the two men switched topics away from feline chivalry and instead demanded “Give us your money!” and began punching him in the face. After the attackers tore away his drawstring bag, Taro ran, but when the muggers realized that the only thing inside, a shuincho (a book of blank pages on which visitors to shrines and temples stamp commemorative seals) wasn’t of any monetary value, the younger of the two thieves began chasing after him.
Luckily Taro was able to outrun his pursuer and took refuge in a nearby supermarket, from where he called the police and reported the crime. Last Thursday, officers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Akabane precinct arrested 21-year-old Hiroki Nakamura (seen in the video below) and his accused 19-year-old accomplice (whose name has been withheld as he was arrested one day before the age of legal adulthood was lowered from 20 to 18 in Japan).
Though Nakamura is denying involvement in the attack, the 19-year-old has admitted, “We did it because we wanted money.” In most aspects, it sounds like a pretty straightforward case… except for the “What do you think you’re doing to my woman?” reference to a cat part.
Twitter commenters, though, have a couple of theories as to what it all might mean.
“Explanation: Dude is dating a cat.”
“Maybe his girlfriend was a human woman, but she’s been reincarnated as a cat.”
“The cats’ two boyfriends have been taken into custody.”
“So the guy is a cat who got cursed and turned into a human, right?”
“Gotta watch out for those tricky cats that can transform into people.”
Barring the supernatural, there really only seem to be two possible explanations. One is that the muggers are, by whatever deluded logic, extremely possessive of one of the strays that lives in the neighborhood.
The other, and more likely scenario, is that shouting “What are you doing to my woman?” was a tactic meant to startle Taro enough to keep him from running away, and also to keep passersby from coming to his aid. Verbal and physical confrontations are both pretty rare in Japan, but it’s also a country where people don’t like to stick their noses in other people’s personal business. Creating an atmosphere of an argument between someone and the guy he thinks just disrespected his girlfriend would probably cause other people to keep their distance long enough to steal a wallet or bag without any interference.
The police say another man was recently mugged in the same park by two attackers, and are investigating the possibility that Nakamura and the 19-year-old were involved in that incident as well. The cat, meanwhile, is not believed to have been an active participant in either plot, and its romantic status remains unconfirmed.
Source: Asa Tele News via Yahoo! Japan News via Hachima Kiko, FNN Prime Online, Twitter
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- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2022/04/04/what-the-hell-are-you-doing-to-my-woman-attacker-asks-man-feeding-stray-cat-in-tokyo-park/
29 Comments
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Antiquesaving
The mugging aside.
Why withhold "Taro's" name, he admitted to break the law also!
Feeding stray cats in the parks in Kita-ku is a local offense with a monetary penalty.
These people that feed stray cats should be forced to clean up the damage these cats do pay extra medical insurance premiums to cover the cort of those that get sick from the diseases these cats spread.
They should pay an environmental damage tax as should any cat owner that lets their little killing machine run free outside.
Note to all rabies is present in Japan the primary carrier are bats.
Unlike other countries Japan still believes because it is call 狂犬病 Roughly mad dog disease) that only Dogs are a danger.
There for dogs must be on a restraint and vaccinated.
Cats are killing machines and will kill anything they can this includes the occasional bat and stray cats as well as domestic cats are not vaccinated for rabies or most other diseases they can transfer to humans.
So dont feed stray cats and dont let your cat out it is also not nice to your neighbour, I and most of my neighbours are tired of picking up cat excrement on our property, the smell doesn't go away the darn screeching all night when one cat's in heat is too much.
lostrune2
nekomimi
ReynardFox
Clearly the dude’s girlfriend was hit by a truck and isekai’d into the body of a cat, so the dude needed the shuincho so that he could offer them up to the Grand Demon King in order to get his girlfriend’s soul safely back into her body and is anyone writing this down, cuz I think I struck anime gold.
kaimycahl
Could have been a very catastrophic event
Fighto!
Two dropkicks destined to a life of being losers. Hope their stint in The Big House roughs them up. A lot.
Hopefully the victim and the stray cat are doing fine. Being mugged and bashed hy two thugs would take some getting over.
shogun36
What a KO-INKI-DINK, eh coppers? Can't add a minor arrest on your books, if possible. Gotta keep the numbers low............
BeerDeliveryGuy
That is a common misconception. Although the freedoms of “Castle Doctrine” and “stand your ground” that exist in the US don’t exist in Japan, the laws regarding self defense state that; one may respond with commensurate force if attacked, and may use the minimum amount of force necessary to restrain an attacker or prevent an attack on a third party.
The white knights looking to deal vigilante justice and respond physically to verbal attacks are usually the ones who perpetrate this misconception.
Also, the legal system tends to categorize striking as more violent than grappling/submission.
finally rich
This is a big problem in Japan, scammers everywhere just lurking around for an excuse to demand/extort peoples money. Reminds me of the mainland chinese 'atariya' looking for every opportunity to be 'ran over' by someone they might see as weak.
Tom San
Oyaji gag.
snowymountainhell
Still trying to sell this economically-driven and politically-contrived ‘ideal’, eh?
“Verbal and physical confrontations are both pretty rare in Japan” -Perhaps it should read “rarely reported” or “*rarely documented***” in Japan ?**
snowymountainhell
Poor guy. And the duo thought they’d get one more crime in before the junior loser met the age of majority.
NOMINATION
Ridiculous! Looks like The Purge in this case. You have one day to commit crimes as a "child" then be set free as a normie.
smithinjapan
Shows you how stupid the laws are regarding charging people as adults. "We can't charge him as an adult because he was one day shy of legally becoming one. Oh, yes, as of the next day he had been an adult for more than a year, but that one day means we cannot charge him any more than we could a one-day-old infant. Neither knows the difference between right and wrong. But yes, now he has known it for more than a year."
Simona Stanzani
a very charming Bakeneko gal, I guess ❤️
Rodney
Although I hate people who feed stray cats, two young guys punching a forty something stranger in the face and robbing him is not on.
seems nobody has money anymore. Both the violent thugs and the victim. Abenomics
Sheikh Yerboaby
These stories are the type that would fill up late night TV shows in the UK such as Tarrant on TV. Wacky Japan and the weirdos that live there....I have to say it was fun viewing.
Chico3
Okay! This is a new one for me. Great material for those in script and novel writing classes. All I can say is live and let live. Okayeeeee!
Sven Asai
Maybe it is becoming to make more sense if someone also checks where the victim was and what he did before sitting in the park feeding the stray cat. A few of you might get the obvious point and know why they chose the words and were attacking him.
ThonTaddeo
Headline aside, this is really not a funny story at all. A pair of violent criminals is using language calculated to prevent any possible Samaritans from assisting their victim.
And what's worse, their sense of entitlement is so strong that when they could only steal something of low value, instead of giving up and "taking the L", one of them chased after the man they had just violently attacked and robbed.
I hope this victim at least got his shuincho back intact and that the thugs didn't deface it.
purple_depressed_bacon
@BeerDeliveryGuy - it's known as objectophilia. I too remember watching a documentary about that woman who went to Paris to marry the Effiel Tower. It was a tad off if I'm to be honest.
Guess the idea of getting a job to earn wages was far too ludicrous a concept huh? I hope they met out some proper punishment for these two nuisances.
Aly Rustom
“Explanation: Dude is dating a cat.”
“Maybe his girlfriend was a human woman, but she’s been reincarnated as a cat.”
“The cats’ two boyfriends have been taken into custody.”
“So the guy is a cat who got cursed and turned into a human, right?”
“Gotta watch out for those tricky cats that can transform into people.”
Brilliant!!
The cat, meanwhile, is not believed to have been an active participant in either plot, and its romantic status remains unconfirmed.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
BeerDeliveryGuy
Well, the woman “married” to the Eiffel Tower and guy “married” to his Chevy and cheating with a Mercedes (not joking) might sympathize with this dude. There’s a scientific term that, I forgot, for individuals who feel a marital bond to non-humans and inanimate objects.
Michael Machida
As many of you say, Japan is a very safe country. On that note, this is crazy. Gotta be careful in Japan these days.
Hiro
Ok, the tittle of the article made me chuckle a lot. Even though the content of the article is different from what i though it was.