Japan’s #MeToo movement has been “building up slowly”, says Miura Mari of Sophia University in Tokyo. In 2017 Ito Shiori, a freelance journalist, accused a reporter and the biographer of then-prime minister Abe Shinzo, of rape. Her criminal case was dismissed, but she won damages in a civil lawsuit. “Black Box Diaries”, her film chronicling the episode, became the first Japanese documentary to be nominated for an Oscar last month (though there is no release date for it in Japan). Her case proved controversial and sparked nationwide conversations. According to surveys, only 5-10% of people report assaults to the police in Japan, compared with 23% in America. Demonstrations also started in 2019 after four rape acquittals were handed down by the courts in quick succession.

Surprised it took them so long to be honest. Women have been treated terribly in Japan for ages, even more so as the population decreased (because that’s women’s fault I guess).

I like that the crisis is “a bunch of powerful people that run the country/media are rapists. I mean, we knew that part, but now we have to do something. Who will host our TV shows!?”