Foreigner goes for a nude swim in Imperial Palace moat
Around 11:30 this morning, a foreign man went skinny dipping in the moat of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Here’s a video of him in action (from Fuji TV):
The 40-year-old man stripped naked and jumped into the moat, and it took over an hour and a half for police to capture him. As you can see from the video, he threw rocks at anyone who approached him in the water and clearly did not want to be apprehended.
It is not clear why the man went skinny dipping, but it may have had something to do with a group of foreign tourists that had been speaking to officers about a lost bag at a nearby police box at the same time the man prepared to make his jump into the moat.
Update: Sankei Shimbun has reported that the man spoke Spanish, and the Yomiuri claims he is from Spain (It has since been reported that he is a British citizen that lives in Spain. He came to Japan with a Spanish tour group). He apparently dove into the moat naked to retrieve a bag dropped by his friends. Reports indicate that he may have undressed after jumping into the moat.
Update 2: More video of the event!
First a short summary from NTV:
And a more detailed depiction of the event from NTV’s Real Time News broadcast (other networks started off their evening news broadcasts with other stories, but NTV felt this naked guy was very important):
Clearly the police were not well prepared to deal with this kind of problem. When he started threatening them rocks and a pole, some fled in fear!
Update 3: Reuters, the AP, and Bloomberg have picked up this story in English. (Check this link for Epic Lulz.)
Hat tip to Alex for the best comment about this story:
What do you mean he was naked? He wasn’t naked at all. He was wearing the Emperor’s new clothes!
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This is why Japan hates foreigners
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This post is why I only read select individuals’ comments.
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I do the same thing. You have to on the English-language blogs and news comments. Some of the comments are quickly posted and so unintuitive. But their wish i guess.
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This is why I hate forum trolls.
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It’s the Amazing Colossal Man!
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I dont think Japan hates foreigners. But I do think incidents like this don’t help matters much. Although I did see quite a few Japanese laughing at the guy. Other than the rock throwing and whatnot, he seemed pretty harmless.
Living in Oizumi I have seen my fair share of stupid brazil and peru people do dumb shit on a daily basis. I make a point to introduce myself to the local police and let them know Im from Canada and that Im not some savage.
You may disagree with me but you would have to live in Oizumi to have an idea of what Im talking about.
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Lol, and besides the murders and stuff Charles Manson is pretty harmless too. Only kidding, i get your meaning i just found it a funny way of saying it. Kudos
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I see they tried to pin him with that glorified coathanger contraption. *sigh*
Tasers. Give…the…cops…tasers. Ones that have a setting beyond “stun”, something like “beam suspect’s ass into another dimension leaving only the smell of burnt ozone”.
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Seriously?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braidwood_Inquiry
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Let’s see – assault and attempted assault on several police officers, destruction of property, danger to himself and others….
Yup. Seriously. Tase him. If you don’t want to get tased and possibly die, then don’t do stupid stuff. responsibility lies with you, not the cops, if you’re being a dangerous ass. It is simple, really, “personal responsibility”? Perhaps you heard of it in a history class somewhere? Because as a modern concept it seems to have died with “common sense”.
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That was hilarious. It would have been even better if they could have caught him with one of those cat poles.
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How did they know he was a foreigner? He didn’t have his gaijin card on him, so he was almost certainly a citizen.
More evidence that the media is racist.
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An educated guess
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You are joking right? Clearly, this big fat white guy is not a Japanese person. Speaking as a big fat white guy, I should know…
This has nothing to do with racism.
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you can be big fat and white and be born in japan and be japanese
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No, no you can not.
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“(It has since been reported that he is a British citizen that lives in Spain. He came to Japan with a Spanish tour group).”
Now shutup
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Yes, actually you CAN be a big fat white Japanese-born citizen. There are such peeps. One fellow was constantly being told his Japanese was fantastic, to which he would sigh and say, “of course it is, I’m Japanese” and then flash them his ID which clearly stated his birthplace as Tokyo.
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This is as bad and embarrasing as that Stormtrooper dude.
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You mean that stormtrooper guy who makes a living doing by goofing around and having fun all day? Yeah.. embarrassing…
:: rolls eyes ::
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Looks like someone on 2ch was reading your mind:
http://i38.tinypic.com/wtt5zn.jpg
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This guy wasn’t from Spain, although he was traveling with people from Spain, he was British; but ACTUALLY… the Stormtrooper dude you say is embarrassing is NOT Japanese, he’s actually Dannychoo, a guy from London living in Japan.
So basically BOTH attention-whores are British. Interesting, right?
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>Interesting, right?
Wrong.
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What do you mean he was naked? He wasn’t naked at all. He was wearing the Emperor’s new clothes!
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An hour in that nasty moat? Poor guy… that ain’t no onsen!
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I wonder if now he has worms or sth inside… ewww
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If he’s Spanish, he’s decidedly pale.
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Spaniards are white Europeans too, you know!
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Those dang Pyrenees were put there for a reason.
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lol!
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To stop crazy British tourists from doing embarrassing things in Spain? It’s no secret that British people do really stupid things when they travel abroad. The percentage of British people going to jail in Spain is a lot higher than from any other nationality. Must be that British people aren’t well enough educated. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to say that they’re European. (Yes, right now I’m just trolling, but I feel like trolling what Geldif the troll trolled about).
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I woz onli jokin blud!
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Reminds me of a mixture of planet of the apes and donkey kong.
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I wonder how many Japanese have ever swum in that moat? Yuck.
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Ha ha, funny the police running away scared.
Where I am he would be running FROM the police scared
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Thank Bob he’s not American.
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Praise “Bob”!
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japan racist against white people bawwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Another tourist lost in translation…
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the pic (epic lulz) is absolutely priceless. the look of FEAR on the faces of the policemen when confronted with a naked man. a chase that took an hour and a half to complete. the guy probably got all kinds of germs from the moat, all of which he deserves.
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I’d be worried about a big fat white dude covered in God knows what kind of filth throwing big stones at me as well. Ha.
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Germs From the moat? I was gonna ask how you go about Disinfecting a moat?
He shall be renamed “The White Beast of Kôkyo”
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no all spanish are like this men.
i love japan.
Es vergonzoso
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If J-cops had to spend a night on the streets of London or New York I genuinely think they’d call in the army.
ROFL laughing at those idiot cops shouting “ora!” whilst wielding wire cat nooses. That can go in the same video library as the one of them running away from the unarmed yakuza in Odaiba.
Go J-Cop go! Keep up that karate training…snicker.
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Typical response from the racist Japanese police; Japanese by the million get naked in sentos every day of the week, but just one gaijin does it and they hunt him down with sticks and poles more inhumanely than they treat that Shibuya Nihon saru. All the racist studio panel in that clip could do was laugh, although I did sense a degree of insecurity in their tone at the obviously superior foreign form, if you know what I mean.
If we don’t stand up and do anything, the racist Japanese government will be sending gaijin hunting squads to onsens up and down the country and charging us for not having our humiliating gaijin cards on us, or else they’ll be planting fingerprints taken from Narita on the soap bottles, and we’ll be on the first plane home before you can say “Gaijin da!”, another victim of the xenophobic crime stats that the Yamato race cannot commit.
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I disagree with your tone.
However, I do remember some insane Japanese dude firing home made bombs over the walls of the Palace not a month ago and do not remember seeing this much media coverage.
Nudity vs Bombs Quiz: which is more dangerous? Answers on a postcard to:
Large Schlong 8″
Cat Noose-Machi
White Blob-Shi
JP Terror-wrists-Ken
The United J of P
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You do know Ken Y-N was being sarcastic, right?
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I wish the Japanese Police were a bit more heavy handed when they finally caught the guy.
Would’ve been awesome to see them beat the shit out of him, then again, Japanese Police are far from aggressive so that’s never gonna happen.
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Im sry to say he’s not spanish
He es a 40-year-old British tourist resident of Spain. Getting naked, going into the water for a bag and trying to scape from Japanese guards with sticks is too much work for us the Spanish.
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Uh, you guys do know that the term “gaijin” is offensive, right? The proper term is “gaikokujin”. When a Nihonjin refers to me as a “gaijin”, they always get called something just as offensive right back (usually “Jap”), and the correction is quickly made on their part.
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Actually, most Japanese people do not make a distinction between the two terms. It’s like saying “hey, you guys, did you know that TV is an offensive term? The polite term is television!”
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***YAWN****
(copyright 2000, MtB Ltd.)
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You gotta be effin’ kidding me, right? Japanese police…what a fargin’ joke!
Try some o’ this shiz in Texas ya pale blimp, and see what happens. We execute soccer moms here, let alone your sorry butt.
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The Japanese don’t need to execute soccer moms because… well… they’re not psycho texans
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One odd thing I noticed right off the bat. They did NOT put any mosaic over his face. If this guy had been Japanese they would have done so to conceal his identity from the public. Why then, did the media not extend this courtesy to this lunatic foreigner?
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Perhaps because viewers in Japan are not likely to recognize him.
Besides, in Japan AV you don”t need mosaic over the face.
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Troll boy, this has nothing to do with Japan AV. Have you never noticed how they mosaic the faces of Japanese people who are in the act of a crime or under arrest on Japanese TV?
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Actually, they don’t. But most of them hide their face under a jacket. There’s a mosaic on the handcuffs, though.
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http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=4811
Akiba man in the act of crime. No mosaic over the face.
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Troll boy? Woah, calm down, I was only joking about the AV thing.
Sorry to diffuse your little crusade against media discrimination of foreigners in Japan. But, I see by the 2 comments above me, you are completely wrong anyway.
Maybe if you started actually practicing yoga you’d have a bit better sense of humor.
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All I remember about the moat from last July was seeing a lot of green sludge and being eaten alive by mosquitoes while trying to take some pictures.
This fellow is either daft or intoxicated.
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Fuck the J Police. THis mas is my hero. Some people just have no sense of humour. WHy is this a crime?
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Humour?? its the residence of the japanese royal family, the japanese doesn’t want any of the crap that goes on in america or europe.
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Well, imagine if he did it at the Whitehouse or Buckingham Palace. Doubt the armed guards there would be a’chortlin’.
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I’d be interested to find out what happens to that guy… For doing something like that, and knowing about Japan’s legal system, I’m sure we won’t hear for at least 3 weeks, if at all…
Could they not have tried to get an interpreter? Rather than trying to poke him with sticks and running away? I don’t understand why the Japanese Police have such a hard time assessing action needed for a situation. While this guy could have probably been talked down, it raises an interesting contrast to the last big media event about Japanese police that I read on Japan Probe. When there was that horrible attack in Akihabara, there were accounts that Police raised their batons and told the attacker to stop, but he just walked away and stabbed other people before eventually giving up. While the above situation isn’t anywhere close to the horror of that event, why does it seem that the Japanese Police are unable to react properly to these situations? One of the commenters mentioned the event where Japanese police ran away from an unarmed Yakuza. They are the POLICE, in almost any other country, the naked guy would have been talked down/subdued if the situation actually called for it. And in the Akihabara attack, action of appropriate level would have been taken as well, in order to preserve more human life, rather than letting more people get stabbed.
Does anyone else feel similarly that the Japanese police seem incapable or unwilling to handle these situations?
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Yes, because it’s so incredibly easy to find out which language the man speaks when all he does is chase you, swim in nasty water and throw rocks.
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It’s because almost no Japanese person runs from the police. If they had a program like “COPS” in Japan it would be very boring.
My friend was an English teacher for Japanese cops and the cops told him that if you’re caught speeding or something, you’re very likely escape by just taking off.
I spoke to a Japanese lawyer and he actually told me that if you’re falsely accused of “chikan”, you really only have 2 options: if she’s asking for money, pay whatever money the accuser asks, or just run away. If you run, at least you have a good chance of getting away.
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Oh how I wish I was there….
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I’m sure if the police used excessive force on him, the people crying for that to have happened would be screaming police brutality.
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He’s gotta’ be dutch
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it is so funny..
I like him..
stupid, crazy and naked are the privilege of the Japan
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you mean of gaijins.
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all hail nude gaijin attack! awesome!
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Hi!
I’m from spain.
He speaks spanish… but because of his accent I doubt is from here.
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Surprisingly, the police released the man into the custody of his friends. They declined to prosecute him on the grounds of his obvious mental unstability, it was reported in the Japan times yesterday.
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I seriously wonder if this guy was on PCP
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Nobody got hurt, nothing got broken… Why is this a big deal, again? It’s just drunken high spirits. When I saw it, it just made me smile. You’d see worse on a Friday night in any town centre in England. The only thing that baffles me more than the reaction of the Japanese cops is all the draconian Yanks calling for this guy to be tazed, maced and kicked in the ‘nads. I mean, bloody hell, relax.
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