CHIBA —

Police are investigating whether Yukari Ogino, a fourth year student at Chiba University, who was found dead in her Matsudo City apartment last Thursday night, was being pursued by a customer at the “cabaret club” she worked at in Ueno in Tokyo, police said Monday.

Ogino stayed at a friend’s house on Tuesday night Oct 20, but left early Wednesday morning. The friend and her boyfriend went to check on Ogino at her apartment on Thursday night after she hadn’t been able to contact her. After noticing smoke coming out of her window, they called emergency services.

Ogino was found naked inside the apartment, with several stab wounds to her chest and cuts to her neck, some as deep as 11 cms. The knife used has not been found but a lighter was left on the floor. There was no sign of a struggle nor were possessions or cash missing, police said.

About 80 officers have been assigned to the case and many of them are now focusing on the “cabaret club” she worked at three times a week in Ueno. The company managing the business removed her photo and introduction from their website on Sunday, but her introduction said she liked to be pursued aggressively and forcefully.

Whether this was true or something encouraged by management remains unclear, but one journalist specializing in the adult entertainment business said: “The business had tight security, but it wasn’t rare for customers to pursue the women beyond what was acceptable.”

Wire reports

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  marushka at 07:06 PM JST - 27th October

  Dolphingirl: agree and not agree:) I still strongly believe that human beings always make a choice in a life. Some prefer to work in a grocery shop, get very small amount of money ( no designers bag etc), some prefer to make quick money. Again, maybe they think they have to do it, but in fact, it is a matter of personal choice, as longer as they haven’t been pushed to work there. Agreed that in Japan women are not promoted, can not do career. In this aspect there is a part of society’s responsibility.

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  flatearther at 07:26 PM JST - 27th October

  Even if her murder was connected to her job, what does that matter? What if this woman were a firefighter, or police? Would we be justifying her murder then? Those jobs are dangerous too, shouldn't those women expect to be burned in a fire or murdered on the job, too? I'm pretty sure no poster would make comments like the ones I'm reading here in those cases, though. Who cares if she was a kyabakura? She knew the risks? What a ridiculous justification. This is Japan, women take risks walking down the street here. We need to stop giving these criminals excuses! It's never okay to murder a woman, no matter what her job is. Her job was only risky because criminals prey on women in these jobs, and they do this because we tell them that it's okay to prey on women like this. Every time we say something callous like "She should have known the risks" or "Well, she did work in a cabaret..." we give unstable men an excuse to murder women because they're not "good" women, so no one will miss them. We need to stop giving sickos a free pass on crimes like this. This woman had every right to live her life and have her safety guaranteed, no matter what her job was.

  I hope they catch whoever murdered her and send a message with this case. Especially if it was a customer.

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  marushka at 07:31 PM JST - 27th October

  no, we dont give an excuse to murder, we just simply say "because criminals prey on women in these jobs"

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  MeanRingo at 08:45 PM JST - 27th October

  I for one would like to know just how seedy this snack bar is. Anyone have the lowdown? I've been to one or two of these places and my experience was not what I expected. I went with two teachers (one a woman) and my girlfriend (who became my wife) and it seemed just like any normal tiny bar albeit with a young (not overly attractive) woman to pour beer and light smokes for people. It was hardly the den of iniquity that I had heard. Mind you I have been outside of places known to hire a lot of filippinas and to be honest it looked quite whorish. Do the women deserve better or worse treatment for working at such places? No. But the degeneracy of the clients may be judged. Still, I am surprised that an aspiring teacher would want to work at any such place. Just imagine what would have happened had one of the PTA members stumbled across her in her evening position. Sadly, it probably would have made an even bigger scandal in their lives.

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  moonbeams at 09:15 PM JST - 27th October

  despite the article saying "adult entertainment business," using the words "adult industry" is not fair to her. We all know what "adult industry" means in English and her job is just drinking and flirting for money. It's not fair to lump those together.

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  morriconelover at 09:51 PM JST - 27th October

  Actually in some japanese media the story has been reported that the boyfriend of the friend arrived to the crime scene before the friend, and that he should reportedly have been discovering what was going on. At least thats what my japanese friend said, and she said it sounded suspiciously as if the boyfriend might have been involved. But this is just second hand knowledge, i havent read those articles myself.

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  morriconelover at 09:56 PM JST - 27th October

  There are sooooooooooo many types of bars that caters to people with different services. If the dead girl might have specialized in "aggessive" service, then it sounds likely that she might have ended up with a costumer following her home and went over the edge. I have once spoken to a japanese prostitute myself who started her work in a "Kyabakura", and it is the reality that many young women that start a job in a kyabakura later on in life continue in a more seedy place. There are actually a few good books and reports out about the subject. So there is more to it often than just "drinking and talking" in many cases. But it depends on the clab and depends on the girl.

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  dokachin at 10:11 PM JST - 27th October

  Teaching English is also a profession where stalkers and possibly murderers can strike. This girl was a university student working a part-time job in a club. Brantastik don't be so quick to put down women who work in mizushobai business after all there wouldn't be this kind of business without the men who demand it.

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  Blacklabel at 10:32 PM JST - 27th October

  Women who work in mizushobai CHOOSE to do so. As with any other "risky" job, bad things can happen. It is really sad that this happened, but the likelihood of something going wrong would have been much less with a less risky part time job.

  In my opinion anyway, the blame against men for the existence of these type of services is is misplaced. If women were not willing to provide the service(s) for the pay offered, it wouldnt exist, bottom line. Just because men "demand" something, do women HAVE to do it? nope, doesnt work like that- anyone can choose another line of employment.

  Women who have no desire to actually work a real job for a living have found they can get paid more to do this kind of stuff, so they choose to. Sometimes it works out, but in this case it was a sad (and fatal) mistake. At least I hope they catch the person who did this so they cant do it again.

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  dolphingirl at 11:58 PM JST - 27th October

  I really don't understand how people can say that women 'choose' this type of work and are somehow responsible for the whole sex industry. I also don't think it is fair at all to imply that this woman was partly at fault for getting murdered because she chose a risky job. If this had been a man murdered who happened to be a taxi driver or a convenience store worker, his job probably wouldn't even be an issue.

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  marushka at 01:11 AM JST - 28th October

  dolphingirl:Did someone push her to do it? If not, then it was a choice. I think everybody understands there is not an excuse for such awful criminal act, but being in certain milieu (where ladies are just chatting and flirting nothing else;)) make a person higher exposure to the certain risks which might occur in this “work” field

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  JHansen at 01:37 AM JST - 28th October

  blacklable et al,

  Even bona fide prostitutes do not deserve to be murdered. They lady was killed in her house. Outside of that, it doesn’t matter one bit what she did for a living. The fact is someone made the choice to stab her to death. That is the only thing that should matter. Who cares what she did for a living, poring drinks or even more, which I am guessing she did not do. In the end we cannot excuse murder for any reason!

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  bdiego at 03:00 AM JST - 28th October

  Exactly, people get stalked in many professions (teaching is a big example) and being stalked is not a choice.

  And an interesting trend is hostessing and selling bottle service is becoming quite popular here in the US. The legitimate form of this is definitely not an adult service.

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  tokyotom at 03:17 AM JST - 28th October

  does everyone remember the "stalker" craze in the mid 90s, i think there was even a couple of TV Dramas on the subject there is no question that mizushobai increases exposure to such activities, just like walking through Times Square with 100 dollar bills hanging out of your pocket makes you more likely to be mugged neither deserves but a once of precaution is worth a kilo of cure

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  mikihouse at 06:48 AM JST - 28th October

  ounce of precaution is better than a pound of cure mate

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