Shortly before 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, multiple Japanese Twitter users sent out tweets saying there was a naked woman running through Tokyo’s Shibuya Station, a major rail hub that connects several train and subway lines and serves as the gateway to the Shibuya neighborhood, one of the city’s most popular entertainment districts.
At about the same time as the tweets were being sent, someone also thought to call the police. Officers arrived on the scene and quickly spotted the woman, who no doubt stuck out like a sore/naked thumb, and took her into custody.
However, something they didn’t do was arrest her. The woman was not in possession of any weapons or dangerous items, and didn’t seem to have any intent of harming anyone. Apparently she simply wanted to run, and to be naked while doing it. “The woman had no criminal intent, so please put your minds at ease,” said a spokesperson for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s Shibuya precinct.
The lack of criminal charges rubbed a few online commenters the wrong way, with some grumbling about a double standard. “Why didn’t they arrest her? They’d have arrested a man who did that, wouldn’t they?” asked one Twitter user who was appalled at the lack of justice. Others, though, simply lamented the fact that they hadn’t been there to witness the woman’s splendor in person, or the lack of photos on social media.
Surprisingly, the police say the woman did not appear to be under the influence of drugs, and so it remains unclear what prompted her high-speed streaking session, making her decision as baffling as the man elsewhere in Japan this week who broke into someone’s house just to take off his pants and go to sleep on the living room floor.
-- Shibuya’s Hachiko has a new feline pal, and they look absolutely adorable together!
Hang on! There was guy arrested and charged with public indecency just a couple of weeks ago for doing exactly the same thing. He was running through the streets to purge himself of bad spirits or something like that. Perhaps he was charged coz he was an old guy and it was considered offensive, but a youngish lady running through a train station is not offensive (to the cops).
I wonder if he was arrested under a prefectural law that doesn't exist in Tokyo.
I would guess he was arrested for the breaking and entering, not the nakedness.
Training for the Olympics naked marathon event mayhaps?
Dammit! I knew I should have locked the back of my van.
So where did the streaker keep her Suica?
I would of tackled her to the ground and slowly called the proper authorities.
What....hundreds of people with a mobile phone and cameras all around and not one image along with the article?
However, something they didn’t do was arrest her.
who no doubt stuck out like a large moving hourglass.
What's so scary about a naked woman running through Shibuya station? Is this the same kind of fright that some people get when seeing tattoos? Tattoos equal yakuza. Naked woman equals what?
What's so scary about a naked woman running through Shibuya station?
For many people, the idea that someone could cast off the normalcies of society and allow themselves to be seen naked in somewhere as public and crowded as Shibuya is scary - they wonder what could drive someone to do that, and worry that the same thing could happen to them.
Maybe she was doing her laundry?
Or at least found someone's recreation of the incident.
Sannomiya Kobe watch out, the meat and veg is coming!!!!
What exactly is so scary about a running naked woman?
@ILoveCoffee She might run right into you and knock you down?
She wasn't charged because she's a woman, plain and simple. Any man would be arrested for the same thing. At the very least she was causing a nuisance, and there are public nuisance laws this goes against. Hell, the police will arrest a woman for showing are that depicts vaginas, but here you have a fully naked woman running around the police just let her go. The double standards are amazing.
Huh... so, people are frightened by the sight of a naked woman running around because whatever possessed her to shed her clothes and run could be catching? Lord have mercy, the demon could jump from her to me!
Wonderful. The sight of a naked woman is pleasurable to all surely. this sort of thing is only to be encouraged. I hope this continues.
I wouldn't mind being ran over by a naked woman.
I'm not sure why some of you are getting so excited with so few details. I mean, a 76 year old woman with a hunch and a bad limp running naked through the station isn't quite my cup of tea. Yesssss, picture that.
Nothing really surprises me anymore. Most people are looking at their phones so I'm surprised anyone noticed.
Bobolicious, your speculation ("I'm not sure why some of you are getting so excited with so few details. I mean, a 76 year old woman with a hunch and a bad limp running naked through the station isn't quite my cup of tea. Yesssss, picture that") fully answers the question of Ilovecoffee ("What exactly is so scary about a running naked woman?"). I did give both of you point.
I think the Japanese comment of 'Kowa-sugi' brings up shivering pictures of Hannya she-demons and ghosts, those who have lost their reason in a fury of revenge.
The people who think it's crazy are even crazier for not believing the true nature.