When Shiori Ito arranged to meet Noriyuki Yamaguchi for dinner at a Tokyo izakaya (bar) in April 2015, she was hoping for advice on her fledgling career as a journalist and, perhaps, a recommendation for a job. Yamaguchi, the former Washington bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting System, a respected TV network, was well connected. He had written a favourable biography of the prime minister at the time, Shinzo Abe, whom he counted as a friend.
Instead, the meal would mark the start of Ito’s private hell. She tells of how, despite indicating she wished to go home, the then 26-year-old was piled into a taxi and taken to a hotel, where Yamaguchi, more than two decades her senior, raped her. Two years later, against the advice of her family and the authorities, Ito went public with her allegations, followed by the publication of her book about the case and the shroud of secrecy hanging over sexual assault in Japan.
