One night in May, a man dressed in a ski cap, mask, and leather jacket walked into a branch of Japanese convenience store Family Mart in the town of Kanie, Aichi Prefecture. He walked up to the register, where the store’s 27-year-old manager was working, and pointed a knife at her saying “I’m a Vietnamese. Money! Money!”
The robbery attempt ended unsuccessfully, with the man running away without obtaining any cash and the manager, thankfully, unharmed. Still, no one likes getting a bladed instrument pointed at them while they’re just trying to do their job, and following an investigation the police last week caught the would-be robber, a 21-year-old man named Yuto Watanabe, who has admitted to the charges.
▼ The store where the attempted robbery took place
If that name doesn’t sound particularly Vietnamese to you, it’s because it’s not. Watanabe, an unemployed resident of the neighboring prefecture Mie, is a Japanese citizen, and apparently he thought that by declaring himself to be Vietnamese he could throw any post-robbery investigation off his tracks.
It’s a deplorable tactic, and also one that was extremely poorly implemented. For starters, while there are, of course, cultural differences between people of different nations, nowhere on earth will you find a country whose people verbally announce their nationality when trying to knock over a convenience store. Second, in trying to sell his act, Watanabe used broken Japanese in order to make himself sound less like a native speaker, saying “Jibun wa Betonamujin” instead of the more natural “Watashi wa Betonamujin” to mean “I’m Vietnamese.”
This unnatural use of jibun instead of watashi to mean “I” is often seen in entertainment media to make a speaker sound more foreign, since the exact reason watashi is more natural in this case is a matter of somewhat subtle nuance that’s a little tricky to explain in concrete terms. But while you’ll see uses of jibun like this in manga and video games, what you’re unlikely to find is an actual learner of Japanese as a second language saying “Jibun ha Betonamujin.” Every person who studies Japanese learns watashi long before they learn jibun, and “I’m Vietnamese/American/Thai/etc.,” using the natural watashi, is one of the first sentences any student of the language learns how to say in Japanese.
In addition to his false flag operation, Watanabe has two prior arrests on his record, one for suspicion of burglary at a different Aichi convenience store.
Source: Tokai TV via Yahoo! Japan News via Hachima Kiko
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© SoraNews24
39 Comments
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Albert
Unemployed and gets still arrested than indeed he is an idiot.
But what is troubling is that he tries to point the finger to foreigners especially Vietnamese. If he was not arrested maybe people may think "again those foreigners".
igfklin
If you are going to pretend to be a foreigner, you should say, "I am Japanese".
A Vietnamese person would never say, "I am Vietnamese".
Hiro
What a idiot. He should have learnt to say a few vietnamese words instead of declaring a different nationality.
Speed
Should've told him to say "I'm Vietnamese," in Vietnamese. Guaranteed silence.
Luddite
I’m a thieving xenophobe! Money, money!
William77
This is how strong the propaganda is,to demonize vietnamese people.
In fact the real criminals are a lot of their employees which makes them work for many extra hours and treat them like slaves.
These are the real criminals,and it happen to be Japanese.
William Bjornson
This isn't the same guy who tried to rob a store with a fire extinguisher a while back, is it? Sounds about the same level of mentality. BAD BOYS! Watcha gonna do?...well, laugh mostly...
Alan Harrison
A cheap little clown.
But unfortunatly, because he is Japanese, the culture will make excuses for him (with the usual self denial) but if he was Vietamese he would be hauled over the coals.
Paul
Not very intelligent is he!
shogun36
tiền bạc 'Đụ má !!!
It isn’t that hard, Yuto.
But then again, absolutely NO ONE would say “I’m a (any nationality)” and then try to rob someone.
Get a job, punk. Quit wasting everyone’s time.
Ken
Pointing at gaijin whenever anything out of the ordinary happens has long been a tradition here.eg.when a Japanese national is arrested with illegal drugs,all they need to say is that they got them from a gaijin on the streets and they would be let off with a slap on the wrist.Naming a Japanese would mean that he/she would have to take them to the Japanese pusher/dealer.
Meanwhile,the J cops would raid the named streets and harass any gaijin they come across.
Michael Machida
Because he is Japanese, the general public and the media will just applaud him for this act due to the fact that he did his best.
He is, Japanese.
OMG!
Garigarikun
So why did he run off with no money? Maybe the store clerk was actually vietnamese and called him on his bluff.
Sanjinosebleed
Holding the door when brains were being handed out??
factchecker
He's a grade A scumbag actually.
geronimo2006
Send him to jail...in Vietnam!
Pacific Saury
It seems there IS one person tho.
NOMINATION
There are many Vietnamese living in Aichi/Mie. I have only met one out of the many that actually spoke Japanese but I know many value their experience being in Japan way too much to commit a stupid crime.
gaijintraveller
The reason for saying that he was Vietnamese was to put the police on the wrong track. The police, of course, would be happy to believe the thief was a gaijin. They even used to use pictures of gaijin in their take-care posters.
Pukey2
Oh dear. Not a very bright one there. And it's not the first time a wajin has attempted to 'pass off' as a foreigner to commit a crime.
He should have an extra year of jail-time just for being stupid.
Zaphod
That was his idea of a disguise? Another candidate for "dumbest criminal of the day".
NCIS Reruns
The police should accept him at his word and deport him.
Iron Lad
I agree, send him to Vietnam's jails.
Yubaru
Japanese style Darwinism at work!
Sven Asai
Not so ‘crazy’ or seldom as you might think. In other countries the suspects often leave their purses, phones, driver licenses, ID cards and so on. Even more easily to catch and pick up them at their homes afterwards. So this one here is crazy, but still not on top of the list. lol
Mocheake
Jibun was baka!
funkymofo
Haha, nice.
Mark
No Problem, send him to Vietnam, let's see if he will try trash like this.
AramaTaihenNoYouDidnt
With 2 priors - he's still an "amateur". Now faces all accounts plus defamation. It's only a matter of time for the Vietnamese association and/or embassy to press charges as well.
Scorpion
He should have just said "I am British"!
Rob-3
I know, right? He's got his disguise (ski cap and mask), a (sort of) perfected fake-ish accent to make them think I'm Vietnamese and a weapon to show how serious I am. What could go wrong?!?
I'm glad that no-one got hurt and they caught the person.
Gaijinjland
Common sense says, statistically, Japanese commit the majority of crimes in Japan. Fact.
Gaijinjland
Dumb ass haha. If he needed money so bad he should have just applied for a baito at Family Mart. They will hire anyone, no questions asked.
wowyz
starpunk
This reminds so much of a skit on the Carol Burnett show where this bandit has a finger thru his sweatshirt pocket and tries to rob a store run by a Romanian immigrant and he can't even say, 'Stickup!' in Romanian. The clerk had to inform the would-be robber what the right words were!
Sometimes truth is funnier than comedy, LOFL. This joker sure made a fool of himself. Big Dummy.
sir_bentley28
And this is how foreigners of all races gets a bad rap!