Tokyo Times

Photographs from a small group of islands

General

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Zebra crossing!

Police officers in Kumamoto had the unexpected job of trying to capture a runaway zebra on Tuesday.

The 2 metre long and 200 kilogram animal was being moved from Osaka’s Tennoji Zoo to Kumamoto Zoological Gardens, when the driver of the truck it was being carried in decided to have a rest. But unfortunately as he was taking a nap at the service station, the 9-year-old zebra smashed through the wood surrounding the load platform and made a spectacular bid for freedom.

Traffic police soon arrived on the scene, but the plucky beast evaded capture for an impressive 5 hours. In fact the pursuit only ended when the zebra was cornered in the service area’s toilets, and then unceremoniously shot with a tranquilizer dart.

Unfortunately reports didn’t say whether the animal had entered the toilets merely to hide, or was in fact so well trained that it went in there to do it’s, ahem, business. But either way, after such a gallant escape bid, the toilet area of some grimy service station isn’t the most dignified of places to be captured in.

A zoo official later said that it was very lucky the zebra didn’t run out onto the expressway, and also added this little pearl pf wisdom. “I think zebras become nervous in these situations because they normally grow up in the wild.”

You don’t say!

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The clearly unrepentant zebra yesterday

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Peer-to-peersecution

On Monday, the Kyoto District Prosecution Office filed charges against Mr. Isamu Kaneko. And seeing as he’s the man who developed Winny, the nation’s most widely used piece of file sharing software, the case could have a profound effect on how the whole file sharing issue is dealt with in Japan.

Kaneko-san released Winny for public use in April 2002, with the software designed to provide greater anonymity than that of WinMX. Which up until then had been the most popular piece of file sharing software in use.

When he was arrested last month, Kaneko (who is an assistant researcher at Tokyo University) was quite philosophical. As he commented that, “Basically, what I did clashes with the law, so it was almost inevitable that I was going to be arrested.” But now that he has been officially charged, the academic has understandably changed his stance somewhat. Both he and his lawyers are maintaining that he has no connection with users of the software, and in that sense his actions do not constitute supporting illegal file sharing.

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The fact however that one 19-year-old user of Winny has already been prosecuted for downloading games and films doesn’t bode well for Kaneko’s chances. And prosecutors are also claiming that Kaneko produced numerous updates for the program, despite knowing that it could be used illegally.

Yet perhaps Winny and its developer could well have steered clear of the courts but for a few incidents that occurred over the last year. In March, a virus swept through the program, and in doing so managed to pick up investigation records from a Kyoto Prefectural police officer’s computer. Eventually spreading them around the net. This isn’t the only case of such an occurrence, and as well as police records, some Self-Defense Force documents have now been seen by a much larger audience than they were originally intended for.

For such things to happen though, one has to presume that several police officers and at least one person from the Self-Defense Force had Winny installed on a machine they were using either at work, or for work. I wonder why? And what’s more, will they be prosecuted too if found guilty of downloading copyrighted material?

But like I said earlier, this case could have a huge impact on how file sharing is dealt with. And as a response, Japanese net users have already started collecting money to help Mr. Kaneko defend himself. Now that he has been officially charged, any such contributions could prove to be very helpful indeed.

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Golfing guile

Generally when it comes to fraud, its perpetrators don’t lack imagination. So it probably won’t surprise anyone to hear that a golfing hole-in-one swindle has recently been uncovered in Kumamoto Prefecture. And whilst the amount of money in question isn’t that huge, for a few pleasant and relaxing rounds of golf, 1.5 million yen (7,500 pounds) isn’t a bad haul.

As a bit of background information, it’s not uncommon for Japanese golfers to take out insurance. With good reason too, because in the event of nailing a hole-in-one or an albatross, the (un)lucky golfer is expected to buy their fellow playing partners expensive memorial gifts. With the emphasis placed very much on expensive.

It was this golf insurance that gave Messrs. Fujimto and Shigaki the idea for their great golfing scam. In August 2002, being a good friend and all that, Shigaki kindly dropped Fujimoto’s ball in the hole while an accompanying couple and the group’s caddy were looking for a ball. This generous gesture went down as a hole-in-one on Fujimoto’s card, and netted the pair a cool 750,000 Yen. Easy money it has to be said.

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Fujimoto celebrating another hole-in-one last week

But the police suspect that this wasn’t the pair’s first foray into golfing no good. As in June 2000, Shigaki is alleged to have hit a decidedly wayward shot and led the all too trusting caddie away with him to search for it. In the meantime, his sidekick Fujimoto picked up his own ball and casually dropped it into the hole. Which on the return of the caddie he claimed as an unprecedented albatross. A shot that netted another 750,000 yen.

How the police will eventually prove all this I don’t know, but I suspect the two men aren’t the first to adopt such a carefree approach to the rules of golf. After shooting a mind boggling 34 on his first ever round of golf, I suspect that the diminutive Kim Jong-Il might just have adjusted his own score card in a similar manner. Either that or beneath the famous bouffant and jumpsuit lies a sporting talent of the kind the world has never seen before.

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Pokemon, and on…

For anybody who thought (or indeed hoped) that the Pokemon phenomenon was at long last drawing to a close, I suggest you think again. As it seems that the brightly coloured beasties are far from finished. Quite the opposite in fact.

For starters it was announced last month that a Pokemon theme park will open next year along with the 2005 Aichi Expo. And to keep fans content until then, ANA has just unveiled a Pokemon jet.

Here’s a drawing of the aircraft’s paint job in all its glory.

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And here’s the equally gaudy real life version.

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Now I must say that I was really surprised when Pokemon really, ahem, took off. But now several years down the line there are games galore, mountains of merchandise, and a soon to be opened theme park.

Why?

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A grim fact

“Suicides that halt rush-hour trains carrying tens of thousands of passengers can result in the victim’s family being billed as much as 8 million yen. “

Karin Amemiya, author of “The Cost of Suicide.”

As if bereaving families don’t suffer enough without being handed a hefty bill to add to their woes.

Now it is rumoured that Japan Railways (the nation’s largest train operator) doesn’t actually charge the families. It says it does, and the families are asked to go along with the lie, but in reality no money is exchanged. The idea being that burdening their family with a huge debt will be enough to deter some people from taking such drastic action. Or rather cynically you could suggest that it will at least tempt them to jump in front of a train run by another operator. Perhaps the real motivation behind Japan Railway’s supposedly compassionate policy?

But like I said, this is only a rumour. As far as I’m aware, families are handed huge bills, and sadly they are expected to pay. And as the above quote says, this could be as much as 8 million yen. A massive amount of money.