“Foot licking man” or ashi name otoko (足舐め男) was arrested for, well, I think you know where this
is going, licking somebody’s feet without their consent.
The culprit, a 56-year old man who worked part-time at a delivery company and
lived in Kyoto’s Fushimi ward, became the subject of police investigation after
he forcibly cleaned some poor woman’s feet with his tongue back in July.
woman in her 20’s who happened to be passing by if she could help him fix his
car brakes. She, was very nice and actually agreed to help, despite it being so
late. The man told her to sit in the driver’s seat so that she could press the
brake pedal for him as he tried to figure out what was wrong. However, after she
got in the car the man did not make any attempts to fix his brakes. Instead, he
went straight for her feet. He grabbed her right ankle, started licking her
foot, took off her sandal, licked the sole of her foot and lightly nibbled on
it as well. After about 35-minutes the man decided that it was time to go, let
the woman go and got in his car and left.
Thankfully, the woman was not physically injured. She was also able to use her
cell phone to get pictures of the foot licking man’s license plate, which
eventually led to his arrest. Why did the woman not do anything for 35 minutes
though? One of the investigators explained that she was scared. So scared she
couldn’t even bring herself to try to run away or call for help. However, the
investigator also noted that despite her fear the woman was able to find the
courage to take pictures of the man’s license plate and thus help them arrest a
man that they had been looking for about 4 years.
Investigation into the “foot licking man” began in September of 2012. During
these 4 years there had been 5 similar incidents that had been under
investigation. However, since this story broke the number of women claiming
this man has assaulted them has climbed up to about 20. Investigators note that these incidents
tended to happen between the months of May and October. In other words, the
warmer months, when a lot of people wear sandals. There’s even at least one
case where the foot licking man very graciously said “Thank you” to his victim
before leaving.
Obviously,
this isn’t just a simple case of a foot fetish. This guy has a problem. The
interesting thing is that this man is married, has 3 kids and overall seemed to
be a hard working regular guy. But it seems that his wife’s feet just weren’t
doing it for him. The fact that he got away with this for so long likely emboldened
him and led him to try luring a woman into his car, which seems to, at least in
part, have led to his arrest.
I remember back in 2012 or 2013 when I was still living in Japan seeing a news
report on TV about a similar incident. It was so peculiar that it just stuck in
my head. Some guy was targeting women at night, knocking them down, taking off
their shoes, licking their feet and running away. I also remember that it
occurred in or near Kyoto so it seems almost for sure that it was the same guy.
In any case, it’s a good thing the police finally caught this man. Hopefully,
now he can get the help he needs and the young women of Kyoto can rest assured
that their feel aren’t going to get any unwanted tongue baths.
If
you’d like to read the Japanese article I got my information from click here.
Yes, it’s all in Japanese.
