Chinese Student’s Troubling Justification for High School Girl Solicitation in Tokyo

Discovered during a simultaneous crackdown at To-yoko

On August 6, a pale-skinned, bespectacled, seemingly quiet man appeared outside the Shinjuku Police Station building. When bombarded with intense strobe lights and cameras, he froze with a momentary confused expression. Then, lowering his head, he never looked up again.

The man arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s Juvenile Division for engaging in indecent acts with a high school girl at a hotel in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho district is Shu Kahan (28), a Chinese international student attending a university in Tokyo.

“On April 3 of this year, Shu is suspected of violating the Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Prohibition Law by giving 15,000 yen in cash to a second-year high school student (16 years old), knowing she was under 18, and committing indecent acts at a hotel. Shu contacted the girl, who was recruiting papa-katsu (sugar dating) partners via SNS, with messages like ‘Let’s meet soon.’ From December 2024, they reportedly met about ten times and engaged in indecent acts.

During a mass crackdown conducted by the Metropolitan Police in April around the To-yoko area of Kabukicho, the girl, who had overdosed, was taken into custody. It was then that she revealed she had been involved in papa-katsu, which led to the case coming to light. Shu admitted to the allegations, saying, ‘The indecent acts and conversations with the girl were a way for me to study Japanese.’

Additionally, Shu reportedly said that my hobby is people-watching, and at times I would go around the To-yoko area up to five times a week. When meeting the girl, he would observe police movements in Kabukicho and communicate things like ‘There doesn’t seem to be a mass crackdown today.’ It appears he spent a lot of time in Kabukicho. Further undiscovered crimes may come to light in the future.”

Many foreigners approach (the girls)

At Okubo Park, where foreign tourists flood in, prostitution involving foreigners has become quite common. The suspect, Shu, who reportedly visited the To-Yoko area five days a week, and the high school girl apprehended there—could their connection have been formed in that very area? We asked Kabukicho expert and writer Midori Hakushi for insight.

“Foreigners who can’t distinguish between the streetwalkers at Okubo Park and the girls at To-Yoko often approach the girls there with the intent to buy sex. However, since most of the girls can’t communicate with foreigners, they usually ignore them. Even if they respond, it’s usually just petting (manual acts), while the foreigners are aiming for full intercourse.

The high school girl involved in this case also frequented To-Yoko. The people there are all living day-to-day and struggling financially, often asking for support (money or donations) via social media. Rather than sugar daddy relationships, it’s likely that they met through such means and then began meeting regularly. Since the suspect was a foreign student, they could communicate in Japanese.”

While learning a language naturally through communication with a romantic partner might make sense, it is a very weak excuse for child prostitution.