Japanese woman hunting "Fargo" movie loot dies in Minnesota

Definitely in contention for a Darwin award!

 

She held a mirror up to Art - she was found dead and the mirror cracked.

"I don't need to. I live here." How phlegmatic. Chief, are you sure you didn't see the movie?

 

She has my vote for a gold medal in the winter Darwin events.

 

Although, the movie is based on a true story...maybe someone had explained that to her, and she went looking for where the cash actually was.

Still incredibly stupid, but at least it makes for a bit more of an explantion of why she chose the movie Fargo...

 

Now if she wins the award will NHK run her story for an entire week as a lead in the news? Will you Ministry of Education form a committee to explore ways for Japan to get 50 Darwins in the next 50 years? Will they attempt to bribe Darwin judges with free all expense trips to Japan in luxury hotels with gifts (see yesterdays report in the Asahi on Japan's attempt to buy Nobels)?

Will the winner go on TV in a ghost like apparition and argue that Japan's educational system needs to stay exactly as is so the country can produce still more Darwins? Will Japan finally become a world leader in Darwins and be able to hold its head up high as a global leader in no so common sense? Will Japan's economy be next years' winner? Will Japanese continue to wet themselves with kid-like glee everytime they win a Darwin as they do with Nobels?

Suthii

 

Actually there was some controversy as to whether the movie was based on a true story. The Coen brothers are believed to have used the claim as a ruse, a part of their rather twisted and entertaining style of movie making.

Still these moron wouldn't have bothered to check and is no being defrosted and mailed back home.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't Fargo in North Dakota? Me thinks that this lady missed her mark by just a wee bit.

 

above message (DTogo; RRyan)sent to wrong thread please erase

 

lol

 

This is such a bizarre story that I would really like to see Japan Today do a followup on this story by interviewing her parents or friends about what they know about this woman to give us a little insight on what events lead up to this tragedy.

 

Truly, if something like this can be called a tragedy, what are we to make of the deaths of thousands in the course of otherwise normal existence?

Insight? How about this? She was nuts, and Japanese.

 

Your correct its not based on a true story. See:

http://www.snopes2.com/movies/films/fargo.htm

Even if it was this chick is a wack job. So it hardly matters. It would be nice if the paper hear gave us a background to confirm her mental illness.

 

Firstly, who in hell would watch a movie and believe that the movie would actually point the way to a treasure trove! What an idiot!

But it gives me an idea! If I ever need to put a swimming pool in my back yard (OZ), then I might post the location on a few websites in Japan, and say that there is some treasure stashed underground left behind from some (stoopid) bank robbery.
Then I�fll kick back, eat iceream and watch other idiotic Jp people come and dig up my back yard. Save labour costs!
(PC. Note: this is a joke and I�fm not generalising that all Jp people are this stoopid).

Suthi: great wit, mate. Keep up da good work!

 

Yep, Fargo is in North Dakota, but the movie was set in Minnesota. I don't remember if there was an explanation for that or not.

 

USA does not need a japanese psycho murder..we have enough already with our own:)

 

This woman must have been tired of her boring life. She was certainly looking for coloring her life so she finally believed in the unbelievable. Poor woman...

 

However this story is more disturbing than the movie was. Too bad nobody spoke Japanese, no telling what might have happened instead.

 

The translator would have given up...lost cause. She would have never turned her belief down based on saying of other people. She came from Tokyo for that.

 

"However this story is more disturbing than the movie was. Too bad nobody spoke Japanese, no telling what might have happened instead."

Disturbing? Not really. What's disturbing is that apparently her other favorite movie was 'Dumb and Dumber'. No imagine if she'd survived this little caper and moved on to her next one.

 

Whatya mean? She was found dead wearing an orage tuxedo? No, it's disturbing that somebody friggin died walking around Minnesota, retarded or not. Ok ok, tragic would be a better word than disturbing.

 

I put out a weekly email newsletter of bizarre news for my friends as I spend a lot of time looking for bizarre news on the internet. In fact, I emailed this story to Japan Today about 3 days ago not knowing whether or not they were even aware of it, and hoping they would post it.

Anyway, I just wanted to add that this is one of the most bizarre stories I've seen in a long time.
Sure it's easy for us to dismiss her as a whacko or a nut and say she's a prime canidate for a Darwin award, but this story leaves so many questions unanswered that it begs further inquiry. In a way, I'm a little like Paul Harvey in that I'd like to know about "the rest of the story."

Nothing in the article points to any serious mental condition observed by the police, she had money and presumably a job in Japan where she may (for all we know) have lead a relatively normal and stable life prior to watching this movie and boarding the plane for Minnesota. This just strikes me all as very odd. Perhaps she was mentally ill - but we don't know that.

Again, I urge Japan Today to followup on this story and interview her family or friends and would ask any others in this forum who would like to know the rest of the story on Takako Konishi to voice your interest to
Japan Today editors.

 

Hey bonehead (I like the name?don't have to think too hard how to insult you) it was sarcasm. Maybe you've been in Japan toooooo long and you've forgotten.

astro cat: JT is not an investigative journalism web poage. At best they have Peter Hadfield who looks like he's providing good ribbings in his spare time. At worse they have Floyd Williams who probably shouldn't be sent to Fargo to investigate less an accident befall him as well.

Either way she's off to the big freezer in the sky, orange tuxedo and all.

 

Suthii, actually I just thought the tuxedo thing sounded kewl. As for bonehead, I always make sure I can take some hits, so I can reserve the right to dish em out.

 

Suthii:
Would it be that much effort for Japan Today to make a few local phone calls to get a few statements from Takako Konishi's parents family, coworkers, or friends in Tokyo where the article states she is from?

 

Props to your newsletter...kind of like "News of the Wierd" huh?

I'm all for black humour, but this story is somehow very sad...

But Astrocat, the VERY LAST thing the dead girl's family and acquaintances need is for predatory journos to be ringing them up asking for material for their sensationalizing crap so that people can take the piss on online message boards.

 

Please don't blame the victim.
DougUSA (Dec 8 2001 - 01:27)

Every day hundreds of kids are killed by cinematography.

This is yet another instance of a life tragically snuffed out, all because film-nuts, the film-industry and special interests in Hollywood and Bollywood continue to oppose sensible movie laws.

A five-day waiting period and thorough background checks on theater ticket purchases would have prevented this woman's death. In the interest of public health, we need a database of movie-goers and the kind of entertainment they've been exposed to. We need global controls over international trafficking in licit and illicit entertainment. I wouldn't want to live in a country that doesn't have movie control.

movies don't kill crazy people,

crazy people with movies kill...oh, nevermind

 

Have you guys ever been to Fargo? I personally have not, but I've been near there. I have a friend who grew up in Fargo. It sounds to me like there's foul play involved. No offense to people from the area, but there are nothing but poor country folk up there. I know for a fact that 99% of the people up there have never seen an Asian person, nor met anyone who didn't speak English. The fact that these people knew that she had money sounds really fishy. I'll bet you that these people murdered her and took the money thinking that "oh, she's an 'oriental'." Also, not many Japanese people take prescription drugs. I don't think that this girl was on anything. I hate to generalize, but there are many ignorant people out there. I think that this poor girl was misunderstood and murdered.

 

Yes, there are many ignorant people out there and you are one of them. You hate to generalize, huh? So why are you doing it about 'poor country folk'? Give up the paranoid conspiracy-theory delusions. You don't think she was on anything? How the hell do you know that? She very well might have been, given the fact that she obviously couldn't distinguish between fiction and reality.

 

Is this story real? They say truth is stranger than fiction but ...

If this is true, I agree with SoCalGirl - it sounds like foul play.

 

Since POP VOX seems to come up with their surveys based on current events, being inspired by this article, I propose the following question to be used sometime next week:

"Have you ever known any movie-obsessed whackos? What is their story?"

Tee Hee. I'm sure that will get some interesting responses.

Just don't use something lame like, "What do you think of the new princess's name?" That would be boring and so f****ing predictable.

Entertain me, dammit!

 

That is almost as bizarre as a news article I read a while back about a teenager (and I quote) "obsessed with masking tape" who wrapped his head in masking tape until he suffocated to death.

David Lynch should base a miniseries around this one - he was pretty big in Japan at one point. Kyle Mclachlan could reprise his role as Dale Cooper, the FBI agent called in to do an investigation on her death. He could partner up with the good cop/bad cop team of 'Beat' Takeshi and Furuhata Jinzaburou - a pair of Japanese detectives sent in to assist the FBI. It would be a big cross cultural hit - Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker/Owen Wilson (take your pick) all over again!
Joan Chen could play the love interest, and they could all drink a lot of damn fine coffee and eat donuts while tracking 'Bob', Takako's assumed killer, only it turns out that Takako IS Bob.
Everyone would stand around the water cooler at work talking about 'who killed Takako Konishi?'
Damn, it's beautiful.

 

Let's see...I thought this was a hoax, but it turns out it was not. The Detroit Lakes, Fargo, Bismarck, and Minneapolis papers all have articles confirming the story, but there is a little twist.

She told police in Bismarck that she had cancer, and not long to live. When she left her clothes in the hotel, police returned them to her, and she simply set them next to a dumpster. In Detroit Lakes, she asked directions to a good place near the lakes to see the stars. On November 12th, a taxi driver dropped her off by a wooded area near a lake. Her body was found by a hunter on November 15th.

Sounds very much like a Japanese woman who had decided on ending her own life. We should all grieve a little for such a loss, whether she makes the darwin awards, or not.

And for you, socalgal, I grew up in the Twin Cities, with family from an area south of Fargo. In the fall during hunting season, I have met Japanese businessmen and exchange students in the Detroit Lakes area, where I have friends from college. There is also a Japanese Raku Pottery manufacturer who holds exhibitions of historic Japanese Raku Pottery in Fargo.

About 130 miles from Fargo, near Bemidji, Minnesota, the Japanese snowmobile manufacturers Kawasaki and Yamaha send Japanese employees to test the machines every winter. In an area where non-farm jobs are scarce, everyone knows about the Japanese company test facilities.

So why didn't the police call the Japanese companies, or perhaps the local Universities? Or the Japanese Raku Pottery manufacturer who holds exhibitions of historic Japanese Raku Pottery in Fargo, and might know some Japanese?

Perhaps they had determined that she was a normal person, doing something she wanted to do. People up in the country tend to respect others unless they are doing something blatantly illegal. They may have wanted to find a local, quick, interpretor, rather than hold her while they called an official one. There are many Hmong, Vietnamese, and other asians living in North Dakota and Northern Minnesota, although Japanese may be scarce.

And most of the N. Dakotans and Minnesotans have a good knowledge of Swedish, Norwegian, German, Russian, and French, and in many towns you may need one of those languages to speak with the older folks.

Please be more careful with your so-called "facts", socalgal.

Also, people from warmer climates do occasionally freeze to death in the great white north. It is an annual news event, especially in the fall during hunting season.

Also,