Exclusive Confession] “My Boyfriend Ran Away and My Father Divorced,” Ayaka Otsu’s “Fight to the Death with Takashi Tachibana” Reaches its climax here!
Over 170 trials in three years
“I often sleep well these days, ……, and then I think, ‘Oh yeah, I got caught! I often get a “ah-ha” moment. Some people criticize hostage justice, so I suppose it is possible that I will be released, but at least now, I think I am living a peaceful life.”
Ayaka Otsu, 33, leader of the Minna-no Tsukuru Party, said she was informed of the arrest of Takashi Tachibana, 58, a defendant in the “Party to Protect the People from NHK,” by her lawyer over the phone.
He said, “The call came in at 6:30 in the morning on November 9, but the lawyer didn’t know where he had been arrested. For a while it didn’t seem very real. As soon as I hung up the phone, I went to a place. It was the place where a volunteer staff member of the Minna-no Tsukuru party who had been fighting against vicious slander, threats, and exposure by defendant Tachibana and his supporters had died. We reported the arrest there.
In January 2025, the volunteer staff member committed suicide in protest after Tachibana exposed his home address on X, and his enthusiastic supporters roamed around his house, identified his workplace, and threatened his family.
Some people say, “Taking someone to prison for slander is too much,” but has there ever been a slander this bad? How many precious lives do you think have been lost so far?”
It was in 2023 that Otsu was appointed leader of the “Political Women 48 Party,” an advancement of the Minna-no-Tsukuru Party. From there, the death struggle between Mr. Otsu and the defendant Tachibana began. There have been a total of 176 trials. Now that he has reached the milestone of his arrest, he feels the “absurdity of Japan.
Before I entered politics, I thought that the judiciary and investigative agencies would operate more smoothly. I thought that if I asked for help, they would respond. But that was not the case. I realized how I had been living peacefully and carefree.
During the last Tokyo gubernatorial election, I was put up on a terrible poster. It had my picture on it and said, “Ayaka Otsu! Please return my money! with my picture on it. The NHK party was selling the “right” to put up these posters for 10,000 yen to make money.
What was most painful was that my father said with tears in his eyes, “I’m going to take down the posters! I’m going to take down the posters! I was so pained that I had to stop him from removing the posters because it would be a crime to do so. Still, it seemed that someone had tried to remove the poster on the bulletin board closest to his house and left a trace, but defendant Tachibana said, ‘I’ve put it back up. It was really weird.”
The poster had a QR code on it, and a YouTube video that could be viewed from there showed Otsu performing at a shameless SM political fundraiser where he was tied up in a tortoise-shell bondage.
The poster said, “I did not hold such a political fundraiser, and the idea of the party itself was not written by me but by a member of the Political Women’s 48 Party, who wrote it on line as a joke. It was found by the civil court to be a character assassination against me, and the complaint was accepted.
However, When I held a press conference at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office on this matter, none of the major media covered it. I felt that the world is an absurd place. I felt that the media has a social responsibility.
I was very much aware of the media’s social responsibility. After bowing, Mr. Otsu continued, “I’ m very grateful.
After bowing, Mr. Otsu continued, “One case came in the other day, so the total number of court cases is 177. We had a mysterious complaint from someone who was a member of the Minna-no Tsukuru Party when it was the NHK Party, saying that he was qualified to be a party executive because he had invested in the party.
Normally, the complaint would be delivered through the party’s trustee, but for some reason it was delivered directly to the party’s mailbox, so I could not check it, and before I knew it, the trial was over, but I had won the case. The person, it seems, filed an appeal for permission, but the decision to deny the appeal was issued! .
Most of the other lawsuits were absurd, such as ‘I was defamed by being told I was slandered. In terms of vs. Tachibana defendants, I think the win rate is over 80%. There are a lot of harassment slap lawsuits based on the assumption that we will lose, so we win, but all it takes is time and money. ……”
I will carry the party on my back for the rest of my life.
I was saved by the willingness of my legal advisors to “just pay when I have to”. There was also a lawyer who saw our plight and helped us with only advisory fees and actual expenses. When I filed a request for disclosure of a malicious account, a lawyer for the platform apologized to me by phone after the trial , saying, “I really don’t want to defend this kind of thing.
He said, “It costs a lot of money to request disclosure of malicious accounts. That’s why I can’t do too many. Moreover, I am being sued by the platform for requesting disclosure of an account that is making money by spreading false rumors and slanderous statements. They say the disclosure request is unfair.
Isn’t it a problem to sue the victim? You’re suppressing the speech of the victim’s side while turning a blind eye to the bad guys who are using the power of spreading slander to generate advertising revenue. And with a big legal team of about 5 people.
One of the party’s pledges is to eradicate anonymous online lynching. We will seek reforms such as imposing a legal obligation on the platform side to cooperate with disclosure and applying strict penalties for violations.”
Even if he wins the case, the compensation is meager. Even if they win the case, the compensation is meager, and “most of them don’t get paid,” Otsu says angrily.
They could pay, but they don’t. After his arrest, Tachibana offered a settlement to the wife of Hideaki Takeuchi, the deceased prefectural assemblyman, right? At that time, I heard that he offered a settlement amount in the order of tens of millions of yen. Where is he hiding that kind of money when he won’t even pay me 300,000 yen in compensation?
I think they are not daring to pay it in order to put a burden on the victim. And Tachibana’s supporters are following suit. There were supporters of Tachibana who did not pay compensation even after he lost the case, and when we tracked down their bank accounts, we found that their deposits were in good standing and we even seized them.
One supporter publicly stated, ‘I will go to jail for Mr. Tachibana. ‘I have never lost money in my life by being someone’s yes-man. Yes yes yes yes yes! He said it so seriously that it scared me. Still, with the arrest of defendant Tachibana, his supporters seem to have lost their cohesion.”
What has Mr. Otsu gained from his three-year fight with defendant Tachibana? When I asked him, “Have you become stronger in court? When I asked him, ” Have you become more knowledgeable about bankruptcy and other things that you may never want to use again?
After the trial, the party subsidy, which should be recognized as a legitimate political activity, was used to pay off the huge debt created by the defendant Tachibana. He said that if he dissolved the party, it would be charged to me, the representative, so I could not dissolve the party for a long time. I have to live with the party on my back for the rest of my life.
I have already paid a considerable amount of my own expenses and will still be charged in the future. There is no one who would take a woman like that as a bride. My father, who gave up his personal fortune to fight with me, is divorced. He told me, ‘It’s your fault.
The boyfriend who ran away said, “I got scared…”
Once, in an interview with Friday Digital, she happily reported that she had a boyfriend, but that man had already left Mr. Otsu. He had left because he feared that Tachibana and his supporters would turn their attacks on him and jeopardize his position.
(You can read about Otsu’s “love story” in this interview.
She said, “I was told, ‘I’m so scared. This summer, she told me that she wanted to get back together with me, and I was happy to hear that, but I knew that I couldn’t be with someone who ran away from me when I was at my worst……. I had given up on marriage as soon as they started spreading false rumors about me being a prostitute and spreading sexually explicit photos of myself.
I was surprised at the words that followed her self-deprecating laugh : “Because I’m not decent, decent men don’t come near me. He is currently studying law at university and aspires to become a lawyer.
Tachibana was also arrested and charged with manslaughter, but the case was dropped or the charges were dropped. His supporters must have felt empowered, saying, ‘He’s innocent! ‘ and they will be empowered. The fight continues. In the first place, the authorities have not yet acted on the case I filed.
What I want to move most now is the embezzlement of 350 million yen in party funds for business purposes. It is the longest sentence among the cases I have filed and had accepted. It is no exaggeration to say that I have been fighting for this for the past three years. Defendant Tachibana has always said, ‘I used the money for legitimate activities,’ but he could not prove that in the civil trial. In this case, he has also said that he admits the contents of the trial itself. So he is admitting to himself that he can’t fight the case in court.
I am claiming unjust enrichment, so there is about 40 million yen in damages riding on it. So I’m saying I’m admitting a total of 390 million yen. He also admits that he bought land to build a hotel with a dog run. That alone should be enough to constitute embezzlement.”
He decided to become a lawyer because he “learned that there are terrible lawyers who instigate slap lawsuits and slander, and I needed to acquire the knowledge to fight them. At the end of the interview, Mr. Otsu divulged the following.
Tachibana was inciting the defendant to say, ‘If you speak ill of me, you will make money. If you spread false rumors and invective, you can earn views and monetize your business. The compensation to the distributor who slandered me as a prostitute and a panhandler and made millions was 110,000 yen. That’s impossible. It’s not even the cost of the stamp. The stamp fee was 130,000 yen, so screw you! And.
First of all, we want to raise the amount of compensation and make it deterrent, or even if it doesn’t go to deterrence, we want to make sure that the victim is not negatively affected. It costs 300,000 yen to request disclosure. Then there is the lawyer’s initiation fee, contingency fee, and more expenses. In the meantime, it takes a lot of time and stress. So the damages are not compensated at all.
Nowadays, slander and libel are spread around the world at a tremendous pace via the Internet. The amount of compensation must be in line with the times. Platforms have a big responsibility for the system that allows them to make money from slander. Unless that is changed, there will be no end to people who abuse the system.
Of course, freedom of speech is important, and criticism of the administration should be encouraged, but making money from false rumors and slander is a completely different thing.
Men often say to her, “If I go out with Mr. Otsu, I might get sued. I think you’re doing something wrong,” he said, showing his white teeth.
I hope Netflix will make a movie about it. The story is about a …… who is suddenly made the leader of a national political party one day and suddenly finds himself saddled with a huge debt. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”
The story is about to reach its climax.