Editor’s Note for the 2026 Republication
This chapter originally introduced an article by Nobutada Kuroiwa, Mayor of Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, entitled “Do Not Allow the Arrogance of Feminists to Go Unchallenged,” published in the February 2023 issue of Seiron.
The case subsequently reached a decisive conclusion.
On September 29, 2025, the Maebashi District Court found former Kusatsu town assembly member Shoko Arai guilty of defamation and false accusation and sentenced her to two years in prison, suspended for five years.
Neither the prosecution nor the defense appealed by the deadline, and the conviction became final.
The case about which Mayor Kuroiwa wrote in 2023 thus ultimately reached a major judicial conclusion.

The following is from an article by Nobutada Kuroiwa, Mayor of Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, entitled “Do Not Allow the Arrogance of Feminists to Go Unchallenged,” published in the February issue of the monthly magazine Seiron, now on sale.
The female town assembly member who inflicted an almost unbelievable ordeal on Mr. Kuroiwa, like the woman who represents Colabo, is not genuinely Japanese.
Anyone who reads this article will surely be convinced that such conduct could come only from someone carrying the DNA of a country of “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies.”
Self-denigrating views of history, pseudo-moralism, arrogant ignorance of one’s own limitations, the self-righteousness shared by communists, contempt for Japan in virtually everything, and minds formed by the editorials of the Asahi Shimbun—the fact that people possessing such minds can become professors at the University of Tokyo is more frightening than any horror film.
The pseudo-moralism and sanctimonious hypocrisy produced by minds indoctrinated through GHQ’s War Guilt Information Program, comparable to China’s “bottomless evil” and “plausible lies,” have repeatedly produced ugly and vicious events.
This article is a valuable record and testimony of one such event.
It is also one of the ugliest examples of what resulted from the Asahi Shimbun’s domination of Japan until August 2014.
It is essential reading not only for the Japanese people but for people throughout the world.
The reporters of The New York Times and Britain’s The Guardian, in particular, should be required to read it.
Every Japanese citizen capable of reading print should go to the nearest bookstore and buy a copy.
After all, a magazine filled with genuine articles and essays of this quality costs only 950 yen.

Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, is a historic tourist town, home to Kusatsu Onsen, which boasts the largest natural hot-spring output in Japan.
It is a small town with fewer than 7,000 residents, whose citizens’ charter declares, “Peace to those who enter; happiness to those who depart.”
For generations, its residents have lived peaceful lives while cherishing both their hot springs and the visitors who love them.
But since November 2019, our town of Kusatsu has been struck by an outrageous and unreasonable affair.
It began with the publication of an e-book containing the false claim that I had engaged in a sexual relationship with a female town assembly member in the mayor’s office in broad daylight.
Her claim eventually changed into an allegation that I had raped her, and I found myself falsely accused of an act that had never occurred.
I, the other members of the town assembly, and the people of Kusatsu did everything we could to dispel the allegations.
Yet feminists and university professors devoted to women’s studies then attacked us, saying that “silencing a woman’s courageous accusation of sexual assault is a violation of human rights” and branding Kusatsu a “town of second rape.”
As a result of the investigative authorities’ efforts, on October 31, 2022, the former female town assembly member was indicted without detention on charges of defamation and false accusation.
The trial was still ahead of us at the time, but our struggle to clear our names had reached an important turning point.
In this article, I want to report what happened to our town and allow as many people as possible to understand the frustration and anguish we experienced.

A 100 Percent False Accusation

The e-book in question was Kusatsu Onsen: The Pitch-Black Darkness 5, self-published by a writer named Reiji Iizuka.
Kusatsu has a traditional form of hot-spring therapy known as jikan-yu.
A person known as the yucho, or bath master, traditionally supervised the practice.
However, questions had been raised about the transparency of its activities and management, and the town decided to abolish the system.
The book was written as an all-out denunciation of that abolition.
The female town assembly member was also one of those demanding that the jikan-yu system be preserved.
Looking back now, I believe this entire disturbance was an “incident” engineered by forces that lost vested interests when the bath-master system was abolished and sought to bring about my downfall.
The book was advertised with words to the effect: “An improper relationship in the Kusatsu mayor’s office?! A female assembly member reveals the truth! Stop oppressing the women of Kusatsu!”
I could hardly believe my eyes.
It claimed that on the morning of January 8, 2015, Shoko Arai, then a town assembly member, visited me in the mayor’s office at town hall and that I pressed her for sexual relations.
The book also quoted a letter from Ms. Arai to Mr. Iizuka stating explicitly, “I had a sexual relationship with the mayor.”
It was a fabrication made up entirely of lies.
In 2015, there was no relationship whatsoever between Ms. Arai and me beyond the fact that she was a town assembly member and I was the mayor.
Nor did I have an appointment with her on January 8, the date on which the alleged incident was said to have occurred.
Apparently she had a private appointment with the then-deputy mayor at 10:00 a.m., and she entered my office together with the deputy mayor after meeting him.
We spoke for only about fifteen minutes, little more than casual conversation.
Needless to say, I never laid a finger on Ms. Arai.
The door to the mayor’s office is normally kept open.
It may be closed for personnel matters, tax-related discussions, and similar business, but as a rule it remains open.
I was particularly careful whenever a woman visited so that there could be no misunderstanding.
There was simply no possibility of sexual activity taking place there.
The claim that Ms. Arai was in the mayor’s office between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. was itself difficult to understand.
At that time of year I am invariably busy receiving New Year visitors who arrive without appointments.
It is also the beginning of the working year, when meetings with staff take place one after another.
Moreover, the mayor’s office has glass walls, and the inside can be seen clearly from the Kusatsu police box and the town chamber of commerce.
Kusatsu lies close to two active volcanoes.
The mayor’s office serves as a command center in the event of an emergency and is therefore never treated as a sealed private room.
Even during meetings, staff members enter after knocking.
Next door are the reception room, the deputy mayor’s office, and the general affairs division.
If anything improper were happening, everyone nearby would notice.
It was absolutely impossible, both in terms of time and physical circumstances.
There is a limit even to absurdity.
I was stunned and at the same time overwhelmed by an anger that was almost impossible to bear.
I also immediately thought, “This is going to become an enormous affair. This will not simply go away.”
I therefore contacted the Naganohara Police Station of the Gunma Prefectural Police in the neighboring town and filed a report.
At the same time, I contacted a newspaper reporter whom I knew.
I immediately asked my legal adviser to begin legal proceedings and later filed a civil action against Ms. Arai.
I informed the townspeople through a newspaper insert.
I also notified the town assembly.
Damage to my own honor and reputation was serious enough.
But if a mayor holding public office were alleged to have forced a fellow public official, a town assembly member, into sexual relations in the mayor’s office during working hours inside a public institution such as town hall, the matter could never be treated as merely a private problem concerning me.
Why had such nonsense been made public?
Both the town and the assembly had a duty to demand an explanation.
The assembly therefore immediately convened a meeting of all members and demanded that Ms. Arai explain herself.

Her Story Changed Again and Again

At the all-members meeting, Ms. Arai stated, “I had a sexual relationship with Mayor Nobutada Kuroiwa in the mayor’s office. I deeply regret this and confess to it.”
But after that, her explanation changed repeatedly according to the circumstances.
The e-book had said things such as, “I really fell in love with Mayor Kuroiwa. When we were alone together in the mayor’s office, I was truly happy when I felt that my feelings had reached him.”
Later, Ms. Arai and allied assembly members submitted a no-confidence motion against me.
At that point, she said, “It is true that I had a sexual relationship with the mayor.”
She then suddenly declared on the floor of the assembly that “several other women besides me have also been sexually victimized.”
When I asked, “Who are they? When did these things happen?” she replied that she could not say because doing so would violate their privacy.
She refused to disclose any details.
At a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in December 2020, she declared, “It is true that Mayor Kuroiwa raped me.”
She also claimed that “women in Kusatsu are treated as objects” and that women could obtain shops around Yubatake if they became the mistresses of powerful men.
When confronted with the physical impossibility of having engaged in such activity in the mayor’s office, she calmly produced the unbelievable claim that “the mayor rearranged the room.”
Although she said she had been raped, she did not herself go to the police or file a report.
She said, “I cannot trust the police. I will reveal everything in court.”
But the lawsuit that was already pending was one I had filed in order to pursue Ms. Arai’s responsibility.
If her claim that she had been sexually assaulted were true, she should herself have filed a criminal complaint or brought a civil action.
She did neither.
Nor did she appear to have any intention of doing so.
Distrust of and resentment toward Ms. Arai grew among local residents, and her account increasingly lost credibility.
When it was then discovered that there were questions about whether she actually resided in the town, local residents initiated a recall.
Ms. Arai lost her seat by an overwhelming majority.
It was not until December 2021 that she finally filed a criminal complaint against me.
By then, however, the story had changed again, this time to “forcible indecency,” an allegation that did not involve sexual intercourse.
The complaint alleged that shortly after 10:00 a.m. on January 8, 2015, in the mayor’s office on the third floor of Kusatsu Town Hall, I kissed Ms. Arai, touched her breasts over her clothes, lifted her clothing and touched her breasts directly after she had fallen to the floor, lifted her skirt and put my hand inside her underwear to touch her genital area, then lowered her underwear and pressed my penis directly against her genital area from behind.
At the press conference following the filing of the complaint, she was questioned about the repeated changes in her story.
The Maebashi District Public Prosecutors Office declined to prosecute me over her complaint within a matter of days.
Instead, that complaint later became the basis for prosecution on a charge of false accusation.

Chizuko Ueno Would Not Apologize

From the beginning of the uproar until the time I wrote this article, there was another matter that tormented us even as we struggled to clear away the allegations.
Feminist politicians, university professors, and people described as intellectuals began condemning Kusatsu with statements such as: “Everyone is trying to crush a woman’s courageous accusation of sexual assault. Kusatsu is a town of second rape.”
In the ordinary image of sexual assault, the victim is a woman and the perpetrator a man.
Ms. Arai made shrewd use of that image.
I also believe the situation became still more complicated when feminists introduced claims of discrimination against women and gender issues even though there was no evidence whatsoever supporting the allegation itself.
Another serious blow to the town came when Ms. Arai’s claims were transmitted around the world through her press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Her allegations were treated unconditionally as if they were established facts.
Meanwhile, those of us desperately struggling to dispel the accusations were portrayed as perpetrators, and reports proliferated suggesting that we were attempting some kind of cover-up.
Social media became what can only be called a form of online lynching.
There were many statements that simply cast me as the perpetrator from the outset.
For example, Chizuko Ueno, professor emerita at the University of Tokyo, wrote in the opening essay of the May 2021 issue of Local Assemblyman, a magazine read by people involved in local assemblies, that the decisive example was the case in which Kusatsu assembly member Arai had made public an allegation of sexual harassment by the mayor, ruling-party assembly members then launched a recall campaign, and Ms. Arai lost her seat.
She argued that the proper course should first have been to establish an investigative committee including third parties, determine the facts, and punish the perpetrator if the allegation proved true, rather than removing the alleged victim from the assembly.
Although she included the qualification “if the facts are true,” the passage as a whole was plainly written on the assumption that I was the perpetrator.
I immediately sent letters of protest to both the magazine and Ms. Ueno.
Ms. Ueno, however, steadfastly refused to apologize.
The magazine admitted that it had been “thoughtless,” but it did not acknowledge that there was a problem with what it had published.
Now that Ms. Arai had been prosecuted for false accusation, I intended to send another letter asking Ms. Ueno what she thought of what she had written.
The National Federation of Feminist Assembly Members, co-chaired by Kaoru Masuda, a Matsudo city assembly member in Chiba Prefecture, and Yoshiko Maeda, a Hachioji city assembly member in Tokyo, also sent a protest letter to me and the chairman of the town assembly.
It described the Kusatsu Town Assembly as a “one-woman assembly” and argued that its response to Shoko Arai’s accusation of sexual assault by the mayor constituted a human-rights violation because it “denied the accusation of sexual assault itself.”
But when contradictions in Ms. Arai’s claims were pointed out, she did not answer them.
Far from withdrawing her “sexual assault” allegations, she submitted a no-confidence motion against the mayor.
She had a responsibility to explain in the assembly whether her allegations were true, but she did not do so.
The National Federation of Feminist Assembly Members also attacked the fact that a recall was held and approved while the matter remained unresolved.
It protested that, with the trial date undecided and the police investigation unfinished, a referendum had been held on December 6 without any objective finding, resulting in 2,542 votes in favor of dismissal and only 208 against, and that the referendum, promoted by the assembly chairman and others, departed from the proper purpose of a referendum under local government.
That reasoning is also strange.
At that point, Ms. Arai herself had taken no legal action whatsoever, either civil or criminal.
Had she herself filed a criminal complaint and a civil suit and then been removed by recall before a judgment was reached, there might at least have been some logic to questioning the recall.
But she had done nothing of the kind.
The court proceeding in which she said she would “reveal everything” was a case I had brought.
At the provisional-injunction stage, the court had already identified specific facts and recognized defamation by Ms. Arai.
Moreover, the recall itself originated with the residents.
Ms. Arai had demeaned the many women living in Kusatsu by claiming that “women in this town are treated as objects.”
She failed to fulfill her responsibility to explain herself when contradictions in her statements were pointed out in the assembly.
There were also questions about whether she actually resided in the town.
The recall was a legitimate democratic procedure carried out in accordance with the law.
The Shimbun Akahata carried comments describing how former Kusatsu assembly member Shoko Arai, who had lost her seat after being recalled following her accusation of sexual violence by the mayor, participated together with Midori Yamada, a Japanese Communist Party member of the Nakanojo Town Assembly, and others.
It also carried the slogan, “Let us change a society that excludes people who speak out about sexual violence,” attributed to Jun Yamamoto, representative director of the incorporated association Spring.
Every one of these statements began from the assumption that I was the perpetrator and Ms. Arai the victim.
Mr. Yamamoto is said to have been one of those who spread the hashtag #KusatsuTownOfRape on social media, while also holding an important position as a member of the Ministry of Justice committee reviewing criminal law concerning sexual offenses.
Writer Minori Kitahara, writing for the Asahi Shimbun-affiliated AERA dot., criticized the assembly by saying that “even if the mayor had not in fact committed the act, the assembly itself was sufficiently sexually violent and misogynistic.”
She even described scenes in which assembly members demanded that evidence be produced as “sexually violent.”
A group calling itself the “Association to Support Former Kusatsu Town Assembly Member Shoko Arai” actively spread the expression “second rape.”
The term refers to the additional injury suffered by a woman who has been raped when she is subsequently subjected to heartless ridicule, contempt, or mistreatment during court proceedings and by those around her.
Such treatment is condemned as a human-rights violation potentially comparable to the original rape.
But it is plainly wrong if even rumors, falsehoods and fabrications like those in this case are praised as “courageous accusations,” while any attempt to challenge them is condemned with cries of “Second rape! Unforgivable!”
That would silence even legitimate rebuttal and allow false accusations to flourish.
I have no objection whatsoever to protecting women’s rights.
But such protection must be grounded in facts.
There can be no justification for tolerating a false accusation simply because it is made by a woman.
If false accusations are treated as legitimate in the name of “women’s rights,” they will become an obstacle to the genuine victims of sexual violence whom society truly needs to support.
I would like to know how feminists who are normally so sensitive and energetic in defending women’s rights now view this situation and how they evaluate their own statements.
I want an explanation.

Schools Were Forced to Close Temporarily

Ms. Arai’s allegations were spread by media organizations throughout the world.
The New York Times presented the affair as illustrating the difficulties faced by women in Japan who report sexual violence and suggested that such allegations are rare and seldom discussed openly in Japan.
Its article portrayed the town as having attacked Ms. Arai after she accused the mayor of sexual violence.
The Guardian similarly portrayed Ms. Arai’s plight as revealing male domination in Japanese local and national politics.
The reporting proceeded on the assumption that sexual violence had in fact occurred.
It was as though Japan were ruled by brutal politicians who habitually committed sexual violence while women’s rights were trampled underfoot.
Around Kusatsu Town Hall, there were street demonstrations with people shouting, “Mayor, come out!” and “Mayor, resign!”
Feminists displayed signs reading “Kusatsu, the town of second rape,” while Ms. Arai stood among them shouting that the mayor should stop abusing his authority.
There were even posts on social media threatening to attack public facilities in Kusatsu on December 10, 2020, and to shoot people who had voted in favor of the recall with a gangster’s handgun.
They were probably malicious prank threats exploiting the uproar.
Nevertheless, we consulted the Gunma Prefectural Police and asked them to prepare for any contingency.
As a result, the town was placed on high alert.
Certified childcare centers, elementary schools, and junior high schools in Kusatsu were forced to close temporarily.
It was deplorable, and I could not suppress my indignation.
An online campaign urging people to “Stop Going to Kusatsu” was also launched.
Rumors such as “you never know when you might be raped there” spread one after another across the internet.
The damage inflicted on Kusatsu was immeasurable.
People often speak of the difficulty of “proving a negative.”
With Ms. Arai having been indicted, I felt that the cloud of suspicion was beginning to lift and that we might finally be able to establish my innocence.
But it is terrifying that a false accusation can socially destroy a human being almost instantaneously.
I cannot count the number of times I felt close to breaking down during these years.
I ask the readers to watch warmly over Kusatsu and its people as we continue our struggle against this sordid and murky scheme.

— As told to Keita Ando