
Couple nabbed over sales of pirated discs of Japan pop band concerts
Akihiro Takayama, a 39-year-old company executive, and his Chinese wife, Chen Lili, 37, were arrested Tuesday for suspected copyright violations through sales of unapproved DVDs and Blu-rays at an online flea market between last July and November.
Police searched their home and a warehouse in Tokyo and confiscated roughly 2,200 items, including pirated versions of the popular "One Piece" manga series.
The couple are believed to have sold bootleg discs in sets, with the price of each set ranging from 5,000 yen ($34) to 10,000 yen, according to the police.
The case came to light after a woman in Ishikawa Prefecture who purchased a set consulted the police after noticing differences from authentic discs.
© KYODO

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


SoraNews24
3 hours ago
- SoraNews24
New service lets you get calls from anime magical girls to say goodnight and that they love you
PreCure offer encouragement and praise for a monthly price. Every magical girl anime series has its own distinguishing hook, twist, or quirk, but something that almost all of them share is a positive atmosphere. Sure, there have been a handful of dark deconstructions of the genre, but if we're talking about classic, orthodox aspects of magical girl series, the heroines are symbols of hope, embodying the attitude that as long as you believe in yourself and your friends, things will turn out all right in the end. And for those who need a more direct pep talk, there's now a service where the stars of the biggest contemporary magical girl anime will call you on the phone to encourage, comfort, and even say they love you. Earlier this year, Pretty Cure, a.k.a. PreCure, started its newest arc, You and Idol Pretty Cure, introducing a cast of five new magical girls. Now Toei Animation and Media Active are getting ready to launch the Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone service ( moshimoshi being the standard telephone greeting in Japanese). To use the app, you select which character you'd like to receive a phone call from, and also what kind of mood has you wanting to hear from them, after which they'll call you back. Options include 'I want to be praised,' which could get you a call in which your favorite Cure tells you how proud she is of you for doing your best. 'I want to be cheered up,' might instead have the magical girl reassuring you by saying that she's always on your side. There's also 'I want to be encouraged,' as well as morning wakeup calls and before-bed good night calls. Preview images also include the selection 'Fan service for you♡' followed by the phrase ' Daisuki da yo ,' which can mean either 'I love you' or 'I like you a lot,' depending on context. These aren't AI-generated messages, either, as the designers say the PreCure voice actresses have recorded new dialogue lines for Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone . It should be pointed out that the Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone website describes it as a 'virtual phone' app, since the whole thing runs though the Internet, not the phone network. Still, the interface is designed in a way that mimics the operations and visuals of a phone call to cultivate a sense of immersion. Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone is free to download, and users have access to a 'You kept your promise' call from the Cures for free as well. However, the majority of the service requires a subscription, with two tiers available. For 330 yen (US$2.30) a month, the Moshimoshi Course provides full access to calls from one character of the user's choice, while stepping up to the 660-yen-a-month Motto! Moshimoshi Course gives full access to all five Cures, plus a bonus cafe mini game. New wakeup calls are scheduled to be added every month. The ostensible target market of the PreCure franchise is adolescent and younger girls. However, as is sometimes the case with such anime, there's also an adult male fanbase, and some online commenters have been wondering if maybe that's who Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone is really targeting, seeing as how most of the kids who watch PreCure are too young to have their own smartphone. Considering that the You and Idol Pretty Cure cast are the franchise's 20th generation of magical girls, it would seem like there's also plenty of potential to draw in more subscribers by including characters from much farther back in the anime's 21-year history further down the line. In any case, there's no official upper-age restriction mentioned on the app's iOS or Android pages (here and here), though, so grown-up fans are apparently free to enjoy Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone too, with the service scheduled to launch on September 1. Source: PR Times, Moshimoshi! Pretty Cure Phone official website, Jin Top image: PR Times Insert images: Google Play, PR Times ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!


Kyodo News
6 hours ago
- Kyodo News
China movie on Japan biological warfare unit to premiere Sept. 18
BEIJING - A Chinese movie on the Imperial Japanese Army's notorious Unit 731 will be screened from Sept. 18, state-run media said Sunday, after its original release date last week passed without explanation. The new screening date falls on the 94th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of a railroad track near Shenyang -- an event that marked the start of the Manchurian Incident, leading to Japan's invasion of northeastern China. The Unit 731 movie, originally scheduled to premiere last Thursday, is one of war-themed works for release this year in China, which commemorates the 80th anniversary of what it calls its victory in the 1937-1945 War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. Millions of people online have expressed their interest in the film about the unit, which according to historians conducted biological and chemical warfare research in China during World War II. Set in China's northeastern region, the movie conveys an anti-war message and reportedly aims to "reveal the crimes" of Unit 731 through a focus on ordinary individuals. The film, which will be shown after the July 25 release of a Chinese movie themed on a massacre in Nanjing committed by Japanese troops in 1937, is feared to fan anti-Japan sentiment in the country. Last Thursday, a Japanese woman was assaulted while walking with her child at a subway station in Suzhou, near Shanghai, sustaining a non-life-threatening injury. Chinese authorities later detained a suspect allegedly involved in the incident but have not provided the details, with Chinese media not reporting on the case. On Sept. 18 last year, a 10-year-old Japanese boy was stabbed on his way to a Japanese school in Shenzhen, southern China. He died from the stab wounds the following day. The Unit 731 film was made with the cooperation of an exhibition hall dedicated to the unit in Harbin in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang as well as local publicity departments of the ruling Communist Party. The unit's research is believed to have included lethal experimentation and testing on humans. Prisoners of war were secretly experimented upon to develop, among other things, plague and cholera-based biological weapons, according to historians. The Japanese government says it has not found any evidence confirming that the unit conducted experiments on human subjects. In 1997, Japan's Supreme Court, in a ruling concerning state screeners' objection to a history textbook's description of the unit's actions in China, said "the view had been established within academic circles to an undeniable extent that Unit 731 had killed many Chinese people through biological experiments."


Yomiuri Shimbun
8 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Participants Showcase Japanese Calligraphy Skills at Event in Japan; Event Organizer Hopes to Pass Japanese Calligraphy on to Future Generations
KANAZAWA — About 390 people took part in a calligraphy event in which calligraphers displayed their skills in the traditional Japanese art, in Kanazawa. The event was organized by the Japan Shodo Culture Association, an entity engaged in promoting Japanese calligraphy, in an effort to pass the art on to future generations. Serving as instructors were Token Nishimura and Hisako Shida, both of whom are members of The Yomiuri Shohokai, an organization of calligraphers; and Daiun Tsujimoto, a member of the association. The event was held at Ishikawa Ongakudo's Hougaku Hall on July 12. The three calligraphers displayed their skills, writing messages wishing for the recovery of the Noto Peninsula following the major earthquake and torrential rain that hit the area. They also produced works based on themes from haiku and waka poems as well as Chinese books, which mention cherry blossoms. 'Today, we don't have as many opportunities to write [by hand] due to the internet,' said a 30-year-old man, who holds calligraphy classes in Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture. 'But I think it's necessary to convey the attractiveness of writing.'