Tuesday, August 3, 2010

The Tokyo Reporter - Japan's Best, er, Weirdest News...

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Let me introduce you to the Tokyo Reporter. Tokyo Reporter is, in my opinion, the best place to find out the weird news on Japan. Why? Because the Tokyo Reporter doesn't report on the news from some idiot foreigner's point of view. Tokyo Reporter is run by my friend, and old Japan hand, Brett Bull and Brett doesn't make silly assumptions about what the Japanese do.

Shukkan Jitsuwa (Weekly True Story)

Brett allows the Japanese to report for themselves the bizarre goings-on in Japan through some of the biggest Japanese weeklies and gossip magazines. Tokyo Reporter expertly translates the articles and you get the real thing. NOT what some fresh-off-the-boat person from Nebraska thinks about Roppongi.

Here is a taste of today's Tokyo Reporter that just cracks me up. It's about some guy who just got married who, two days after returning from his honeymoon, goes out and gets arrested for hiring an under-aged hooker:


On July 19, that was certainly the case for a 37-year-old employee at a life insurance firm from Kanagawa Prefecture. He was arrested by police from the city of Seya for violating prostitution and pornography statutes by hiring an underage prostitute. But that’s not all: The apprehension occurred two days after he returned from his honeymoon and in the “loving embrace” of his new wife.

“He’s a director of sales and has 15 people under him at the Odawara branch of AXA Life Insurance,” explains a newspaper reporter who covers the police beat in Kanagawa. “He’s suspected of paying 25,000 yen on April 7 for a romp in an Ebina City love hotel with a 17-year-old girl he met on a matchmaking site.”
The suspect was married on July 7 and departed on his honeymoon to Hawaii thereafter. The couple returned to their new home in Odawara 10 days later.

See original article here.

Yes, my friends, that is the real Japan. That's the Japan I know and love.

The Tokyo Reporter does something that no other publication does in English in Japan that I know of; they report the bizarreness from the Japanese perspective. You know if the regular Japanese person thinks that it is bizarre, then it truly is.

The Tokyo Reporter is the Drew Curtis' Fark of Japan.

As for English language perspectives in Japan, it is a refreshing one indeed. I get so sick and tired of reading these other English language publications that report on Japan and it's obvious that, from reading the articles, these writers have only a superficial knowledge of Japanese culture and the language. After all, as anyone knows, language is the key to culture and Brett from Tokyo Reporter is an excellent Japanese speaker.

I am proud to say that I am a faithful subscriber to the Tokyo Reporter. You can join the club too! Go to Tokyo Reporter web site here.... Tell them that Mike in Tokyo sent you!

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Keywords:
Tokyo Reporter, Shukkan Jitsuwa, Weekly True Story, Drew Curtis' Fark, Honeymoon, hooker, Japanese, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, Marketing Japan, Brett Bull, Japan, Tokyo, love hotel, Odawara, Brett

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