Confessing your love can be difficult at the best of times, as a man in forties from Chiba prefecture recently discovered. After attempting to hand over a love letter to a convenience store employee in her twenties on four separate occasions, he was arrested on suspicion of stalking.
Many netizens have expressed their shock at the man’s actions amounting to a criminal offense; however, as others pointed out, had the man’s actions not been reported to the police, the situation might have escalated.
From Yahoo!News:
Stalker: Man Sends Letter To Woman Asking her to Date Him, Arrested on Suspicion of Stalking Her, Ichigawa City/Chiba.
On November 24, Ichigawa Police Station arrested Osada Takeshi (41), unemployed, of Shinden 1, Ichikawa City, on suspicion of being in breach of stalking laws for persistent attempts to pass a letter to a woman asking that she date him.
The suspect visited a convenience store in the prefecture numerous times between October 26 and November 22, stalked a part-time worker in her twenties at the store to hand her a letter asking that she date him.
According to the police, from around the middle of last month Osada, a regular customer, handed a letter to the employee on two occasions asking that she date him, saying ‘I want to have fun with you’. On October 26, he visited the store again, and tried to hand another letter to the woman, but the woman refused to accept it. However, owing to the fact that he later went back to the store twice to ask other employees to pass the letters to her, the woman, troubled by this, went to discuss the matter with the police on November 22.
When the police questioned Osada about the situation due to fears that his actions were unsolicited and forbidden by anti-stalking laws, the suspect admitted that he had been ‘unable to control his feelings’.
Comments from 2ch.net:
スペインオオヤマネコ(チベット自治区)：
Poor guy.
サイベリアン(埼玉県)：
Why was he arrested for that…the world’s gone mad.
ボルネオヤマネコ(埼玉県)：
The police went too far too.
リビアヤマネコ(北海道)：
It’s extreme.
チーター(京都府)：
I guess he must have been really disgusting.
アメリカンカール(東京都)：
If you hand them a letter it’s game over, huh? w That was close.
ターキッシュバン(神奈川県)：
I mean, it’s not like he even followed her home or anything, so it’s going to far to acknowledge it as stalking w.
ボルネオヤマネコ(東京都)：
Is love a crime?!(｀；ω；´)
ヤマネコ(富山県):
I’ve given up trying to get a girlfriend.
スナネコ(福岡県)：
He should have given up after the first time.
ｷｬｯﾄ☆ふわ丸 ◆h..u..wa.. (やわらか銀行)：
So the man was in his forties. I guess that when a girl in her twenties looks at him, he’s not so different in age to her father. I don’t think she could help being disgusted by someone like that asking her over and over to go out with him.
サバトラ(東京都)：
Even Romeo threw stones at Juliet’s window. Arrest him.
メインクーン(関東地方)：
It’s because of things like this that men go herbivore.
オセロット(宮崎県)：
Why are they giving his name for something like this?
ピクシーボブ(埼玉県)：
Hang on, I thought it was impossible to get arrested over something like this, but I guess that in Japan these days there’s nothing for it.
ジャガランディ(京都府)：
Don’t make this news, poor guy.
キジ白(東日本)：
If he’s already been arrested then I’m not sure, but there was also the possibility that the situation could have escalated and it could have become a stalker murder. But really, if he didn’t follow her around and go to her house and stuff, then I think the police have jumped the gun.
白(愛知県)：
But to be unemployed at to try to go out with someone, that takes balls.
アメリカンカール(大阪府)：
If he’d been rich he could have got away with trying to give her the letter ten times.
アビシニアン(和歌山県)：
This is bad. She must have been scared. He’s the scum of society, she didn’t know what he was going to do.
