Original subtitles

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting and deals with Suicide and Sexual Abuse

So I decided to document myself, um...

..how I feel, and...

Yeah. Um, what's going to happen next, I don't know, but...

I know by next week, after 10th of May,

which is five days before my 28th birthday,

things will change. And...

I have a chance to talk about the truth what happened to me

two years ago,

which happened, I feel... which has been ignored.

Um...

This could be a big change in my life

and some others, or many others,

and I am...

..not sure...

I'm scared and I'm not sure if I could be responsible for that,

but all I want to do is talk about the truth.

Hai. Hai.

CAMERAS CLICK

Hai.

Hai.

I want to hide myself and just, you know, try to not be in public,

so, yep. Say that again?

Sunglasses. OK, Yeah, I will do that.

LAUGHTER

SHE SIGHS

APPLAUSE

You know, many people already witnessed

what kind of negative reaction I've got.

And...

..that's not OK.

I mean, I don't want to be a bad example

for these people who need to speak,

need to ask for help and let them think,

"OK, this is what's going to happen and I can't do this."

No, this is... This is not OK.

So, I have to be speaking up.

I have... I shouldn't stop speaking

because I don't want to let people know this...this...

You know, this... "Shut up." No.

These are transcripts.

I recorded our conversation

between investigators and prosecutors

just because, from the beginning,

I didn't feel like they were doing their job,

and I felt like everything they say was an excuse.

So, yeah, I hid a small recorder in my bra, or wherever I can,

you know, hide on my body.

I record it in past two years.

One of the, I think, most important thing

in this recording is that this investigator,

I'm calling him Investigator A,

he... "A" helped me

to give us insider information.

So, yeah, here, like, we can see what he said, what he found. Um...

And without these recordings, no-one would have believed.

No-one would believe what I heard.

TELEPHONE RINGS

Hai.

Hai.

Hai.

Tell me, tell me what it is.

Black Box. That's the title of our... Of MY book.

It's a term the prosecutor was always using.

He was always saying, "Because it's in a black box,

"we'll never know what... what's really happening."

And I think that tells everything about our justice system,

that how it's not working.

It just came. This is the...

Now I feel complete that I have the name for my book.

Black Box.

Yay! More wine. Whoo! This is the green box.

Look what we have. It's, like, five litres of wine.

I love my green box.

That was the investigator.

So, yeah, we're going to meet at six next week on 13th and Wednesday.

And I have a feeling, of course, he wants to talk about something.

Maybe he decided to come out, you know? I hope so.

Maybe he would talk that he wants to...

He wants to believe, and he wants to take his own path

to tell the truth and,

yeah, be part of it.

THEY LAUGH

THEY LAUGH

I have mixed emotions now

because if I reveal

what I've been writing in my book, if that gets out...

..he could lose his job. So...

It's so hard to think. I don't know what's the good thing to do.

But, you know, he's a journalist who...

..would go really into the politicians, you know...

..house and stomach. And you have...

They have to know you're a journalist

and they have to know this can get out.

And our job is to... to tell the truth.

But he's the good guy. So...

Ah!

NO AUDIO

AUDIO RETURNS

ALL TALK AT ONCE

SIRENS IN DISTANCE

LAUGHTER

I don't understand.

What?

That looks like the van we saw. Really?

LINE RINGS

HOLD MUSIC PLAYS

I feel like I just say it so casual.

"Do you have, um, wiretap detector?"

LAUGHTER

He's like, "OK, let me check."

BEEPING

BEEPING

BEEPING

BEEPING

Oh, is it my radio mic, maybe?

BEEPING

I'm the one! Hello!

Let's try again.

SINGLE BEEP

BEEPING

Still working.

PHONE RINGS

Hai.

THEY LAUGH

SHIORI LAUGHS NERVOUSLY

LINE RINGS

My publisher just sent it to me.

My family doesn't know that this would come out in 13 days.

I couldn't deal with them saying no,

cos I knew this has to happen,

but...I'm putting them in danger.

I still remember...

..what my dad told me. Like, they knew...

I was telling him, I'm going to do the press conference.

And they're like,

"I know that you're not here to discuss with us.

"You decided, and you're just telling us that you're going to do.

"But we want to stop this."

And my dad said, "You know, as a father,

"I want my daughter to have a normal, happy life,

"meet someone,

"married, have a child.

"Hope you can live close to us."

I know I can do it anywhere, I...

And for me, being silenced was... wasn't an option to be happy.

But if this takes away the opportunity to be close to them...

The funny thing is, I even wrote my will,

saying, "I know my condition wasn't good

"right after the press conference but I was never going to...

"..commit suicide. If something happened to me,

"seems like I commit suicide,

"please investigate, cos that's not who I am now.

"And, I mean, if that happened,

"Please promise me to publish the book and publish this documentary."

I wrote this last Saturday, just thinking,

I want to go to see the nature, and I couldn't,

I was so scared going by myself.

Hai, hai.

SHE LAUGHS

LAUGHTER ON PHONE

LAUGHTER

We received a call.

I received a call from my lawyer,

and he was saying the Tokyo mayor wanted me to join her new party

and run for the next snap election.

And people were saying,

after this election, if things go on the other side...

..there is no guarantee for my life.

Which is bullshit, but...

Can I say that?

Which is really bad.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Tomorrow, it's going to be the election.

My publisher thought it would be better if I would stay

somewhere away from the media and where it's a bit more secure.

The election is tomorrow.

That's that, and, yeah, we're all going to see the result,

and that's that. And I'm not part of it.

I'm just a journalist who experienced it, and period.

I don't know what people were expecting me to do and say.

I'm not an activist, I'm not a figure,

I'm not propaganda for anything.

I'm so tired all of a sudden.

SHE SIGHS

Do you miss all the pressure?

I don't feel pressure and I don't need this pressure,

and, really, it's not my...it's not my...

..yeah, it's not my...

CHANTING

I saw one guy reading it, standing there, but he just put it down,

so I should have said something,

telling him, "I read that book and it's good.

"I read it, like, four times already, and it's good."

And the thing is, because this famous producer from Hollywood,

as many women came forward to talk about what he had done to them,

and I feel like, yeah, everywhere

in the world people start speaking up and talking about it.

It's just amazing, I'm very excited.

I don't know her name,

it's just there is an email address.

"I was thinking for a while, but now you're publishing a book,

"so I really want to tell you that I was so ashamed

"that we are the same gender.

"Do you think you had nothing done wrong?

"I have been raised very strictly that I can avoid these things.

"Even though whatever you are saying is the truth,

"I feel so bad for the man you are accusing.

"Shame on you."

Yeah.

It just makes me think it's been six months...

..hmm...

SHE LAUGHS

..since I became this girl who was raped, to the public.

RADIO PLAYS

I just got an email from the New York Times'

Tokyo bureau chief.

She finally published my story.

I met her about half a year ago, and,

yeah, they've been waiting for the chance to publish

their story, and they thought this is the time,

so they just did.

So far, they have been the only media which succeeded

to talk to Mr Yamaguchi.

She told me that over the phone about two weeks ago,

and I was just reading the article,

and suddenly,

I could see his forehead

as I was scrolling down the article.

I got a panic attack.

Just the latest photo of him makes me feel this way.

I don't know how I was thinking to be in a court, thinking

I might be going to see him in front of my eyes.

Hold on.

What I realised was that I...

..the only motivation of talking

about this, being alive, doing this...

..is the way for me to be a journalist,

to look at what happened to me

as a sort of third person.

And when I became that person, I didn't think

I could stand this any more.

I realised how...

..how I haven't been faced to myself.

I want to meet the person from the Ministry of Justice.

Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

FEMALE VOICES

Thank you so much.

It's not just about sexual violence,

it's about a problem of power, of misusing the power.

It's all of us who could be victim,

perpetrator or observer.

You know that story about the CEO?

She said all her friends didn't want to push her,

cos it's just too much for her.

Yeah. Yeah.

SHE SNIFFS

I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor

to hurt me with goodbye?

die?

TANNOY

Mm-hm...

SHE LAUGHS

I got this email from the doorman at the Sheraton Hotel.

He remembers that night very well.

He reported it to the police, but the hotel made him not

talk about it.

SHE SNIFFS

SHE SOBS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome today's guest, Mr Yamaguchi.

APPLAUSE

You have asserted very clearly that you have done nothing illegal.

However, when you look back on the events of that night,

do you have any regrets?

Are there any things which you wish you had done differently?

Do you believe you made any mistakes, even though they may

not have been mistakes that broke the law?

Erm, I'm not fighting that I didn't commit any crime at all.

This is my first step.

But if I'm measuring,

besides the legal point of view, there might be some kind

of misunderstanding that, if I say regret, that some journalists

might connect illegality.

But I really regret what happened

because she suffered a lot.

She got so many, erm, PTSD.

Then, me, too.

So that's really an unfortunate incident,

and I have a lot of regrets ethically.

But still I have to claim that I didn't do anything illegal.

Is that enough for you?

I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor

without you by my side

THEY LAUGH

how to get along

to bother me

little person