General

Here’s a delightful little photograph I came across taken at the recent 2005 Amusement Expo.

Now I could make comments about playing with balls or scoring, but I won’t.

Instead, here’s another picture.

Ken Nakasuji was in the wrong place at the wrong time, as answering a knock on his door let in two gangsters who set about stabbing him in the chest and abdomen.

It turns out the Yakuza members were after a man resembling Nakasuji who lived in the same apartment building. Yet despite his misfortune, Nakasuji-san was lucky enough to blurt out his name and place of work in between knife thrusts, alerting his attackers of their mistake.

Realizing they had the wrong man, the gangsters showed a brief glimpse of their softer side. Knives were immediately put away, and one of the men said to Nakasuji, “Sorry, it was a mistake. You almost died.”

But just to show they weren’t complete pushovers, the gangster quickly added, “If you tell the police we will kill you.”

As the two Yakuza members were arrested on Thursday, it is to be hoped Nakasuji-san has moved. And I guess, is no longer Mr. Nakasuji.

It would appear that it’s not just adults that crave money, as over the weekend four elementary school students were caught trying to spend counterfeit cash.

But this wasn’t some innocent and childish mistake, with the kids turning up at a store with some badly photocopied notes. No, the youngsters in question had used a computer and scanner in an attempt to achieve passable forgeries. And rather than using the lower denomination 1,000 yen (5 pound) notes, they went for the biggest (10,000 yen) bills.

Unfortunately it seems their computer skills weren’t quite up to scratch, as whilst trying to use one of the forgeries in a stationary store, an employee spotted the bogus bill and alerted the police.

Although they are too young to face prosecution, the police have reported the kids to a child consultation centre. A place where they may soon be joined by more classmates, as it turns out that before being caught, the four forgers had passed out some of the bills to their friends

In a phenomenally acute case of comical incompetency, a knife-wielding criminal was arrested in Fukushima on Monday after unsuccessfully trying to hold up a police office.

Yoshimasa Yamada charged into the building and demanded money, only to find himself surrounded by policemen. Resulting in his prompt and ignominious arrest.

Unsurprisingly the 26-year-old robber has admitted to the allegations, and made no attempt to disguise his stupidity by saying, “I didn’t really care where I could go, but never dreamed I’d end up where I did.”

But perhaps to save Yamada-san some embarrassment, one police officer generously suggested that he may have targeted the nearby Japan Railways office, as “our uniforms look pretty similar to those used by JR, so he probably got us mixed up.”