Hokkaido: Ex-educator cited in obscene behavior

The Asahi Shimbun
November 10, 2007
Source: http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200711100082.html

SAPPORO--A former vice principal of a public elementary school here--dubbed a "legendary contributor" of obscene photos--was referred to prosecutors on Thursday on suspicion of acting indecently with five teenage girls.

Takayuki Hosoda, 54, in October was indicted on charges of paying a 16-year-old for obscene acts.

Police said Hosoda molested the five girls, 16 and 17, and took their pictures between May and September. He paid them between 2,000 and 10,000 yen on each occasion.

"I cannot stop it," Hosoda told investigators. "I have been struck with a 'disease.'"

Hosoda said that he had taken obscene photos of about 600 women and 160 females under age 18, and contributed many photos to an adult magazine over 16 years.

While he received at least 24 million yen for his "contributions," Hosoda borrowed 6 million yen from consumer loan firms apparently for prostitution, police said.(IHT/Asahi: November 10, 2007)

Teacher's wife never dreamed she was married to porn photographer

Japan Today
November 2, 2007
Source: http://www.japantoday.com/jp/kuchikomi/492

“This is not an interview,” Shukan Bunshun (Nov 1) explains. The individual in question “preferred to write in her own words what happened to her.”

“The day before my husband was arrested,” she begins, “was a Sunday...” and everything was normal. A perfect marriage of 31 years was beautifully intact, or so it seemed. The writer saw nothing, not the faintest sign anywhere on the horizon, to suggest that her husband was within hours of being exposed as “the Sapporo erotic-photographer school teacher.”

For 16 years, it is alleged, Takayuki Hosoda, 54, spent off-hours picking up and photographing young women. Police say he paid some 600 women over the years to allow him to photograph them, earning an estimated 18 million yen selling the photos to adult magazines. Meanwhile, his reputation as a dedicated elementary school teacher could hardly have been higher. In April he was promoted to vice principal of his Sapporo school.

“For about half our married life,” writes his wife anonymously in Shukan Bunshun, “he was engaged in these indecent activities, and I knew nothing. How could I have failed to notice? It’s because he was such a perfect husband.”

He was 23 when they married, she 20. He had just graduated from the Sapporo College of Education. His first job was in Chiba Prefecture, and there the couple settled. For five years, there was no shadow on their happiness. Then she was diagnosed with a rare bone disease. “It was a mysterious disease with no known cause or cure,” she writes. “I could not have endured the terror of it, if not for my husband’s support.”

It grew increasingly difficult for her to get about. She decided to move back to Sapporo, where her mother could give her the day-to-day care she needed. Her husband would stay in Chiba until something opened up for him in Sapporo.

“Many people told me,” she writes, “that he would be unfaithful while we were living apart. I was worried myself — we were young, after all.” But there was nothing of the sort. “My husband had very high ethical standards. This was clear from what the neighbors and the other teachers at his school all said.”

Within a year he managed to procure a job in Sapporo. “After that,” writes his wife in Shukan Bunshun, “I trusted my husband absolutely.”

The couple lived in her mother’s home. The years passed with no discord to mar the harmony. Hosoda’s “indecent activities,” which apparently began 15 years into the marriage, brought no change on the domestic front.

“We went to movies together, we went to hot springs, we went on trips. He sent me flowers on my birthday. On our wedding anniversary, I’d put on my handmade wedding dress, and he’d take pictures of me. I just don’t have the words to express what a good person he was. “If he liked pornography so much,” she continues, “why didn’t he divorce me? Why was he such a perfect husband to me? There was no trouble between him and my mother. Our sex life was normal. What on earth was going on in his mind during those 16 years?”

On morning of Oct 1, she looked out her window at 8 a.m. and was surprised to see her husband, who usually left for work at 6:30, outside talking to two men in suits. The men had been packing things into cardboard boxes, her bewildered mother told her. The men left. Later that morning, she phoned her husband’s school. The principal came to the phone. “I think you’d better call the police,” he advised her.

She did, and learned the awful truth. “He was paying young girls to let him take obscene pictures of them,” she writes. “Isn’t it a teacher’s job to teach girls not to sell their bodies? What on earth was did that man think he was doing?”

Visiting him in police custody, she asked him, “How could you do such things?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

November 2, 2007

Pedophile principal the ultimate pro in luring prey for perverted pics

The Mainichi Shimbun
October 16, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/culture/waiwai/news/20071016p2g00m0dm002000c.html

"He told me he was a photographer for adult magazines. He said he wanted to take some beautiful portraits and needed my help. He told me he'd pay me properly for it. I wasn't too sure, but he said 'You wanna be a model, don't you? You should try lots of things while you're still young,' so I went along with it," an 18-year-old woman tells Shukan Bunshun (10/18).

She was talking about her experiences with Takayuki Hosoda, a 54-year-old elementary school vice principal arrested earlier this month for breaking the law banning child pornography.

Hosoda is accused of luring hundreds of underage girls before his camera and then selling the pictures to child cheesecake magazines for a premium price.

Hosoda apparently had all the latest camera equipment. His typical photo shoot involved going to pick up the girl he'd seduced into posing for him and then taking her straight to a love hotel.

"We first took photos having sex together, then he got me to pose. He gave me lots of instructions like 'Smile' or 'Give a peace sign.' He was kind, so I didn't have any trouble with doing what he asked," the teen says. "That is, until we went into the bath and he asked me to drink my own pee, which I refused to do. After we'd finished, he gave me the 30,000 yen he'd promised and we went home."

Hosoda is accused of taking obscene photos of over 600 underage girls. He also allegedly sent the photos into magazines for the past 16 years, pocketing a handy 18 million yen in the process. The magazines certainly welcomed him.

"He was one of the pioneers of the technique called hamedori, which is taking photos of sex as it happens," an editor of one of the magazines tells Shukan Bunshun. "He'd always send in photos of these beautiful young girls as good-looking as pop idols, so there were people on the production side who were very grateful for his presence."

Hosoda is also purported to have advised readers on how to pick up teenage women, telling them such pearls of wisdom as "look good, speak well and be kind."

Shukan Bunshun notes that Hosoda lured many of his alleged victims from an "encounter cafe" in the Sapporo entertainment district of Susukino.

At first glance, the cafe looks no different to the average manga cafe, but the reality couldn't be further from that. Inside there is a two-way mirror. Men and women have different entrances and the guys can peer through the mirror to see all the women who come in and choose the one's they would like to get to know better. Men pay a 5,000 yen fee to become a member of the cafe and 1,000 yen for every 10 minutes they want to talk with a woman they have selected from the other side of the looking glass. If their chat goes well, the newly minted couple are free to leave the club and do as they like. Entrances to women's waiting rooms are divided between those over 18 and the underaged.

"I'm sure that detail is a service the cafe provides to make sure nobody gets arrested for breaking the ordinance outlawing sex with the underaged," a reporter for a national daily tells Shukan Bunshun with a laugh. "Women can become members of the club for free. They also get free food and drinks, so lots of schoolgirls with time on their hands go in there. Hokkaido Prefectural Police have been on their guard about the joint, considering it to be a place that encourages teenage prostitution. But the cafe is not subjected to the constraints of the adult entertainment law, so the reality is there's nothing the cops can do about what goes on there." (By Ryann Connell)

（Mainichi Japan） October 16, 2007

WaiWai stories are transcriptions of articles that originally appeared in Japanese language publications. The Mainichi Daily News cannot be held responsible for the contents of the original articles, nor does it guarantee their accuracy. Views expressed in the WaiWai column are not necessarily those held by the Mainichi Daily News or the Mainichi Newspapers Co. WaiWai © Mainichi Newspapers Co. 1989-2007.

Pedophile 'superstar' school vice principal fired for child prostitution

The Mainichi Shimbun
October 11, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071011p2a00m0na003000c.html

SAPPORO -- An elementary school vice principal under arrest over child prostitution has been dismissed, local education authorities said.

The Sapporo Municipal Board of Education decided at an extraordinary meeting Wednesday to fire Takayuki Hosoda, 54, vice principal of Sapporo Municipal Hoshioki Higashi Elementary School.

"It's extremely regrettable that the vice principal who was supposed to instruct teachers has been arrested. As the one who appointed him, I deeply apologize for the incident from the bottom of my heart," said Fumio Okuoka, who heads the Sapporo Municipal Government's Office of Education.

Hosoda told a high-ranking board official, who visited him at a detention facility where he is being confined, that he wanted the board to punish him at an early date.

"I caused trouble to schoolchildren and the school authority, and damaged the public's confidence in teachers. I regret that," he was quoted as telling the official.

Hosoda is under arrest for violating the Law Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography by paying 6,000 yen to a 16-year-old girl for sex in a car on Sept. 21.

Investigators who raided his home over the crime confiscated hundreds of pornographic DVDs and photos of underage girls. Hosoda received payments totaling about 18 million yen for submissions made to pedophile publications from 2000 to 2007.

Police said they also learned that Hosoda was well-known in pedophile circles, frequently contributing to publications with article or photo submissions.

"I'm really famous among readers of magazines where you can send in pictures," he was quoted as telling acquaintances.

（Mainichi Japan） October 11, 2007

School takes steps to comfort kids after vice-principal's child sex arrest

The Mainichi Shimbun
October 2, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071002p2a00m0na033000c.html

SAPPORO -- Officials from Hoshioki Higashi Municipal Elementary School sought on Tuesday to reassure parents and pupils following the arrest of its vice principal on child pornography and prostitution charges.

Parents have flooded the school with calls expressing concern or offering encouragement as news of disgraced vice principal Takayuki Hosoda's involvement in the world of underage sex became clearer.

Police said Tuesday that 54-year-old Hosoda had submitted child porn to at least 26 magazines at one time or another and was making about 200,000 yen a month out of kiddy porn.

Hoshioki Higashi Principal Yoshiaki Sakamoto, meanwhile, apologized to parents, pupils and staff at a hastily convened closed doors emergency meeting at the school. He deliberately avoided using words like "child prostitution" and "sex crime," apparently to avoid alarming the children.

"I'm sure there are people who already know because of the news reports, but our vice principal is being investigated by the police and an unfortunate incident has occurred," Sakamoto told the gathering. "Please keep on doing your best with your studies."

School officials said Sakamoto met with about 25 teachers before the gathering to discuss how they would deal with Hosoda's arrest in terms of handling the school's 350 pupils. School officials said they had received phone calls complaining about the case, as well as others offering support. The school wrote an apology to parents and handed it out to pupils, with children supposed to take it home in written form tonight.

Sapporo Chuo Police Station officers said Hosoda sent indecent child porn pictures to magazines over the past seven years, reaping about 18 million yen in the process.

（Mainichi Japan） October 2, 2007

Arrested school vice principal says he is a 'superstar' among pedophiles

The Mainichi Shimbun
October 2, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071002p2a00m0na021000c.html

SAPPORO -- An elementary school vice principal arrested for paying underage girls for sex faces an extra charge after a raid on his home unearthed a huge cache of child pornography, police said.

Takayuki Hosoda, 54, vice principal at Sapporo Municipal Hoshioki Higashi Elementary School, was arrested for breaking the Law Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography by allegedly paying a teenage girl for sex.

He faces another count of breaking the same law when police send him to prosecutors accusing him of proliferating child pornography.

A police raid on Hosoda's home netted hundreds of pornographic photos and movies of underage girls and he received payments totaling about 18 million yen for submissions made to pedophile publications during the period from 2000 to 2007, where he used the alias Aspirin Snow.

"I'm really famous among readers of magazines where you can send in pictures," he was quoted as telling acquaintances.

Police said the case for which Hosoda was arrested involved him paying a 16-year-old unemployed girl 6,000 yen in cash for sex in a car on the night of Sept. 21. Police said the elementary school vice principal had met the girl in an "encounter cafe" frequently used by singles looking for a partner in Sapporo's Chuo-ku on about Sept. 13 and they had agreed to meet at a later date. Police added that Hosoda frequented the cafe, going there on an almost daily basis.

"I knew she was under 18, but I have no recollection of anything else that happened," police quoted Hosoda as saying after his arrest.

Police raided the vice principal's home following his arrest. They seized 334 DVDs and photos, school uniforms and other belongings. He had images or movies of over 600 underage girls.

Police said they also learned that Hosoda, as Aspirin Snow, was well-known in pedophile circles, frequently contributing to publications with article or photo submissions. And they said Hosoda also took part in a published discussion with one magazine's managing editor about how to seduce young girls and also wrote a column for another pedophile publication.

Police said a check of Hosoda's bank accounts showed various publications had paid him about 18 million yen over the past seven years.

（Mainichi Japan） October 2, 2007