Kyodo News delivers some weird news:

In a decision dated Monday, the top court’s five-justice third petty bench ruled 4-1 to uphold a high court decision that imposed a 300,000 yen fine on defendant Koji Hisasue, 31, a Self-Defense Forces member, who was accused of violating a local anti-nuisance ordinance banning indecent acts.

Justice Tokiyasu Fujita, the presiding judge, said the defendant’s acts can be interpreted under normal social conventions as indecent and obscene.

Fujita also said the victim would likely have felt ashamed and anxious about having pictures taken of her hip area, even though she was wearing pants, and that the defendant’s act clearly violated the Hokkaido government’s anti-nuisance ordinance.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Mutsuo Tahara said the defendant should be acquitted, questioning whether the photographing of the woman’s hip area was indecent and noting that the defendant cannot be found to have taken photos of the victim’s hip area only.

According to the top court ruling, Hisasue followed a 27-year-old woman for about five minutes and for about 40 meters at a supermarket outlet in Asahikawa, central Hokkaido, on July 21, 2006.

The defendant took 11 pictures of the hip area of the woman from a distance of 1-3 meters.

Those of you out there who have taught English in Japan may have had to explain quite a few students (especially kids trying to make jokes) that the English word “hip” does not refer to the butt/buttocks. This can be confusing for Japanese people, since the katakana word ヒップ (hippu), can refer to both the hip and buttocks.

Aware of this common mistake and annoyed by the awkward use of “hip area” in Kyodo’ story, I searched for a Japanese language article about the same event. Sure enough, the Japanese words used [尻/臀部] referred to the butt/buttocks.

Update: It would seem that the Asahi Shimbun has translators who know what they’re doing.

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