Shiori Ito’s film “Black Box Diaries” is being shown in a wide variety of locations, bringing the debate to a new level.

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/expert/articles/0f0e8bb2081f86528f62b177c4e6a368ef33d95c

Article is too long to share in here, but if you don't know who Shiori Ito is, let me give you a brief on who she is, and why she's a revolutionary figure in Japan's sexual crime laws, treatment by the society, and media.

Shiori Ito was a reporter at Reuters, back in 2015, when she met with Shinzo Abe's close aide and her future rapist Noriyuki Yamaguchi, who was a prominent TV journalist at that time.

Yamaguchi invited Shiori to a izakaya in Shibuya, under the pretext of "job opportunities".

However, she was drugged and taken back to Sheraton Miyako Hotel Tokyo, and raped.

There's a clear CCTV footage of her getting dragged out from a taxi by Yamaguchi and carried like a luggage/suitcase. The driver was actually concerned for her, and he later became a prominent figure in giving his testimony.

Shiori initially reported her horror to the police who then issued an arrest warrant for Noriyuki Yamaguchi. However, at the last moment, the arrest warrant was stopped by then Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's investigative department chief Itaru Nakamura, who was said to have close ties with Shinzo Abe.

However, one of the detectives in Tokyo MPD police department sided with Shiori Ito and continued to pursue the investigation relentlessly, putting his career on the line.

He was a key ally who provided Shiori Ito with secret and not-so-well known information and he knew that political pressure was a key element in this case.

He was forcefully removed from the investigation team, and other investigators were crushed by the chief Itaru Nakamura at that time.

Later on, the taxi driver and the detective turned out to be brave figures who risked their lives to give testimonies.

However, Shiori Ito's case never went to the prosecutors.

Instead, in 2019, she won a civil lawsuit against Noriyuki Yamaguchi, where she demanded a compensation of atleast $100,000 but a Tokyo Court ordered rapist Yamaguchi to pay only $30,000 to compensate for the medical costs and mental damages.

In 2022, the Supreme Court acknowledged that sexual assault had indeed occurred.

However, all these happened only because Shiori Ito was strong and brave enough to pursue her own case.

The Japanese media were reluctant enough and didn't even care to release full details of the case.

She started making Black Box Diaries after her 2017 press conference as she knew that her case would eventually be swept under the rug and she would be silenced.

However, her path wasn't a smooth one.

She was BETRAYED BY HER OWN LEGAL TEAM and IT WAS FOUND OUT THAT HER LAWYERS WERE ALSO FRIENDS WITH RAPIST YAMAGUCHI.

Her documentary film is exactly what was needed to break Japan's long-standing silence on sexual assault crimes.

In fact, ignoring the fact that she was a victim, her lawyers went on to criticize her, saying, "She shouldn't have provided secret unconsented footage outside of court room. There's no journalistic ethics"

What her critics care about most is "journalistic ethics" rather than the fact that she was raped by a powerful man, who still continues to stand shamelessly without any guilt beside Takaichi and click photos side by side.

Here's a photo of him with Takaichi.

https://preview.redd.it/fbf8840cc0ag1.png?width=630&format=png&auto=webp&s=70922922e570fde55771d5579dd5b98f6bfa60d9

There were no criminal charges brought against Yamaguchi, hence he served no jail time.