Hey guys and girls on Ask Japanese this is CathyCat greetings from
Tokyo and today we're going to talk about female stalkers here in Japan
[Trigger warning: Stalking]
Number one is the "air travel stalker" there was a gentleman he wasn't even in the entertainment
industry but he put a lot of his information on social media: facebook,a twitter and such he looked
kind of handsome so when he was posting he did get quite a few likes and he caught the attention of
her certain lady... now this lady was what they call a net stalker which means she wasn't physically
stalking him but she was stalking him on all his social media posts quite intensely
and she you know liked the pictures of this businessman's lunch where he was going what he was
doing it was generally just about his normal life she was a big fan of him so one day this happened
The businessman was about to fly out to Okinawa so the only thing he did is he took a picture outside
his airplane window off the plane and just wrote in the comments "i'm gonna leave on a business trip now"a
then he turned off his phone for two hours and enjoyed his flight..... the 40 year old lady who
loved his post had often commented with nice comments and he was a kind person and has often
responded to her because she was very very kind but this time... what happened when he arrived...
When he arrived in Okinawa she suddenly sent him a message "Welcome to Okinawa" even though he had not
posted where he was going and that kind of shocked him... as you know in Japan there are loads of types
of otakus and there were some plane fans so the lady took the picture showed it to the plane fans
and said "hey what kind of plane is this? what type of plane is this? where does this usually fly? when
does it leave?" and the plane fans were really happy that she took so much interest in their hobby
and explained it all in detail to her... and with these details she could find out what type of
plane it was where it was leaving from even the flight schedule and which gate it would arrive in
Okinawa... and they figured all of this out by the type of wing where the sun was standing how the
shadow was falling and the time that the picture was taken... and that way she could figure out all
the details and knew where he was going when he was going to be arriving and such and this is
actually becoming a big problem for female idols here in Japan when they post what they're doing
where they're going because the male stalkers here go into that much detail to find out where
they are and where they're going....
So with simple posts such as airplanes and trains you actually
need to be super careful here in Japan where you're going because other people might find out
Number two the "bunny boiler ex-girlfriend" now one girl split up with her partner uh or he probably
split up with her but she couldn't let him go so he tried to get rid of her by canceling his
social media accounts because she would stalk it on then but she still found a way to find him. How?
Before she had actually attacked all his social media was generally overstalking loads
of messages and also spamming all his profiles which led to the poor guy to decide to cancel
and delete all his social media and start new again... and she still found him how did she do it?
Now guess with me how did she find him: A by ab idol girl B by an idol group C by an idol company or D
by an idol company girl group staff member....
and the answer is all of them all of them all of them all
of them because the ex-boyfriend was a great fan of a certain idol group and no matter how many
times he would delete his normal accounts he would go and follow that idol girl in that idol group
sooner or later on their accounts... so whenever he made a new account he'd generally be sure
to follow the idol girl the group in general the staff and such so he would get all the
information about his favorite idol group but what his ex-girlfriend did is she knew that sooner or
later he would follow all those accounts and then she'd check all of the accounts for new profiles
that would follow... now that idol girl, his favorite idol has around 10k followers which means
out of 10k followers she would go through them and check them all to find a profile
and match it with the other accounts to make sure that could be him and then she'd appear
all over again on his social media... finding her Ex amounts 10k followers of that idol group
that's some serious effort and let's be honest girl that's just a waste of time let him go
The 100 yen marriage... now in Japan there are 100 yen
stores which are like an equivalent to a dollar store or a euro store and they sell
all kinds of convenient items there in the 100 yen store anything from household goods
to sweets and treats you can find a lot of cool stuff I personally love strolling around in them
you can even find some cat toys and similar foods cat foods, as well in the 100 yen store
but you can also find one very unique item that you can only get in Japan
and that's a Hanko a name stamp which means on
that stamp there will usually be the kanji letters of a certain Japanese
surname.... usually surnames those ones are used to then sign important documents so for example
if it's Tanaka you can go buy yourself a Tanaka stamp usually you're supposed to buy them at the
expensive printing places and make your own that's very very unique but some people don't
have the time and just go into the 100 yen store and buy themselves the Tanaka stamp right there
only for 100 yen and those ones then in red ink are used to sign documents instead of a signature
So for example if you sign a document for the post office if you sign a document for your
current area where you're living all of this you will need a stamp to sign those documents instead
of a signature signature is a western thing and in Japan again is the hanko stamp that you use
on the documents... stamp... when you get a parcel you stamp it ,when you go to your company and you get
your payout you have to say "okay I got my payout" you stamp it, when you go and go to the city hall
to register your address, you stamp it, these stamps you use for a lot of things also for
opening a bank account, loads of things without a stamp here you cannot survive... and in order
to marry someone you also have to stamp that document ...marry?... there was a case when the lady and
the gentleman got married a couple of years ago and actually the guy did not know he was married
until he got some forms from the government sent to him... she made it possible for them to
get married without him knowing... she first went out and about and got official marriage papers
then she went to a hundred yen store and bought a name stamp a Hanko (the ones that I mentioned ) at
the hundred yen store with his name and her name and then in the end she wrote both on that paper
her name and his name and stamped them with the stamps... the guy only found out that he was married
by the time he already got papers from the city hall so it went through as an official marriage
registration and his face must have been something like...
to void that marriage he actually had to
file an official lawsuit and it wasn't really that easy to cancel that marriage right away
those type of fake marriage registrations happen actually quite a lot in Japan and not only to guys
also to girls especially to idols there's a lot of fans who kind of try to marry their idol and
then the agencies have to crack them down and file lawsuits against that happening so just a hundred
yen and you could be married to your favorite ido
don't do it
those type of fake paper marriages
have become such a big problem especially with illegal immigration and similar things like that
that now more and more places are stopping to use the name stamp the Hankos as a system and actually
checking into the credentials if there's the right passport and the right ID and things like
that but that was a problem a couple of years ago that they're working on cracking down now
Stalking through lost and found... now we talked about it before the Japanese people are very very
very very kind and generally not so much stuff gets stolen meaning if someone drops an item
people generally put it up somewhere for you to find or they bring it all the way over to
the police box where they hand it in let them know how they handed it in and then sooner or
later the police box if you go there they might be able they might have your wallet
they might have your phone they might have your watch there... keys, cameras, wallets, bags all these
kind of things if they get dropped or left or lost sometimes you will either find them near
where they were found somewhere put up or at a post box sometimes you're even supposed to if you find
money on the street in Japan just like that you're supposed to actually go to the police box and
hand that in let them know where you found it so hopefully it can go back to where it belongs to
A few years ago there was this talk about twitter about how that lost and found system can however
unfortunately be used to stalk a person how though? now what has happened a couple of times
in Japan is that someone abuses the system of lost and found to actually stalk another person
one of these cases or generally a case is... imagine you drop your wallet
and you can't find it for a while and then you go back and you was really glad your wallet is still
there ...actually there's all the money still in the wallet so you want to show your appreciation
to the person who found your wallet right? In Japan if you hand in items at the police box there's
usually an option to give a certain percentage of the money in the wallet that was found back to the
person who found it, so actually you can tick that box or there's another box you can take and say
"I don't want your money but it'd be nice if I got a call from you to say thanks for finding it"
and that form if you fill that one in... if you fill that one in you actually get the address or the
telephone number of the person who found it so you can personally contact them and say thanks
there have been some very rare stalking cases where a person phones the other persons to
say "thank you" and show their gratitude for finding their item and then the person on the other line
it's like "oh this voice so amazing I fall in love with you" yeah that has apparently
happened and led to some stalking situations in Japan but that one's
super rare... that has however led to some people thinking twice whether they say I pay you money
or whether they say I actually give you a call to say thanks so that's another thing people
have become a little bit more careful about but generally generally that shouldn't happen
So those were a couple of bizarre stalking incidents that happened here in Japan that kind
of made the news in the news or even on twitter and we thought we'd let you guys know if you're
curious about things about Japan don't forget guys we do more and more videos here every week on the
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socials in the description box and i'll see you hopefully soon for another adventure here from Tokyo...bye!