tozai

Japan is known for many great things from its delicious food and unique culture to its abundance of anime, manga, and video games. Unfortunately, it has also earned a reputation for being packed with skeevy perverts, which is actually an extremely unfair characterization–the average Japanese citizen is no more perverted than the citizens of any other country. But that doesn’t change the fact that many women still have to put up with both discrimination and sexual harassment, as a story that broke on Friday demonstrates.

A young woman in her twenties was allegedly groped while riding the train. That on its own would be bad enough, but this woman was allegedly molested by two different men at the exact same time.

Various Japanese news sources have reported that, according to police, two men have been arrested under suspicion of being chikan, or molesters/gropers. What sets this event apart from other incidents is that both men had apparently targeted the same, incredibly unfortunate, woman–at the same time.

According to FNN News, the woman was apparently “sandwiched” between the two gropers, one in front of her and one behind. Someone standing behind the rear groper spotted the illicit activity and called out that there was a chikan, prompting the victim to point at the molester in front of her and say, “This guy too.”

▼Sad kitty is sad for the world.

kittyWikipedia (Harald Wehner)

So far, police stated that the men apparently had no previous contact with each other, and both denied the allegations. However, multiple witnesses have come forward, including the men who helped capture the alleged molesters when the train stopped at Monzenaka-cho Station.

The investigation is still ongoing, though it appears that both men were on their way to work. One of the arrested men is a 24-year-old administrator at the Tokyo District Court and the other is a 39-year-old banker at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (abbreviated as MUFJ). In addition to the police investigation, the bank has promised to look into the ordeal.

Sources: Itai News 2ChannelMainichi Shinbun, FNN News, Asahi Shinbun
Images: Wikipedia (Taichi Ichikawa)