Osaka Torture Case: Victim Forced to Eat Feces and Electrocuted by Coworkers in Shocking Abuse Incident

Pressing his face into excrement

It was an act of sheer brutality.

On September 12, the Naniwa Police Station of the Osaka Prefectural Police announced the arrest and indictment of three men on suspicion of coercion and related offenses: Ryo Yamashita (37), a former trading card shop owner from Osaka’s Naniwa Ward; Mitsuteru Hashimoto (24), an unemployed man from Nagoya; and Koshi Takeuchi (29), an unemployed man with no fixed address.
All three have reportedly been indicted on charges of coercion and assault.

“On February 8 of this year, the three men threatened a man in his 30s, identified as A, who worked at the trading card shop operated by Yamashita,” said a reporter from a national newspaper’s social affairs section. “They intimidated him by saying things like, ‘I’ll poke your eyes out’ and ‘Hurry up, we don’t have time,’ and then forced him to eat instant food contaminated with Hashimoto’s excrement. At the time, both Hashimoto and Takeuchi were also employed at Yamashita’s shop.”

A week before this incident, Yamashita and the others had already committed another offense involving excrement.

“While walking with A on the streets of Osaka City, Yamashita allegedly forced him to eat excrement he had found on the ground, telling him he could vomit it out immediately. The next day, when they passed by the same spot, Yamashita allegedly ordered him to eat the excrement again, a truly inhumane act. When A tore off some of the excrement with his fingers and put it in his mouth, Yamashita grabbed the man’s head and forced his face into the excrement that had been left on the street.” 

Why did Yamashita and his comrades engage in such bizarre behavior?

“A began helping out at Yamashita’s shop in December last year, but each time he made a mistake, Yamashita would assault him under the pretext of a punishment game. What started as light hitting gradually escalated in severity.

On February 17th, Hashimoto cut A’s hair with clippers in front of the store, stripped him naked inside the store, wrapped his genitals tightly in aluminum foil, and forced him to insert the tip of the foil into an electrical outlet. An electric current flowed through A’s lower body, causing an electric shock. He then took A outside the store again and blew him on fire using a lighter and alcohol spray,” said an investigator.

In connection with a separate assault case, Yamashita and Takeuchi were arrested, and when investigators examined their smartphones, they found numerous videos documenting the acts committed against A. This discovery led to the exposure of the current case.

During questioning by the Naniwa Police, Yamashita remained silent. The other two suspects reportedly stated, “It was Yamashita’s idea—we did it as a punishment game.”

“Until police discovered the assault videos on their phones, A had neither consulted with the authorities nor reported the abuse. He hadn’t been confined and could have escaped if he wanted to. It’s unclear whether there were special circumstances, whether he was psychologically controlled, or whether he feared retaliation. A told investigators, ‘I have never experienced anything so humiliating in my life. It will remain a trauma forever. I can never forgive them,’” said the same investigative source.

These men, described as beasts in human form, are expected to face appropriately severe punishment.