Today is the “Midori No Hi” (Greenery Day) national holiday
Theater release of “Concrete”, a movie about a famous murder case in 1989, has been cancelled. The case involved a group of Tokyo youths who kidnapped a 17-year old high school girl, kept her captive and raped and beat her for 41 days before killing her. They putting her body in drum and filled it with concrete. The case is considered the precursor of a wave of juvenile crime that has hit Japan in the years since. The indie movie is the commercial debut by former bosozoku Nakamura Taku (33). It was due to open at a Ginza theater at the end of May, but repeated attacks on the Internet and threatening phone calls caused the production company to cancel. It can only be assumed that this was done by friends or sympathisers of the perpetrators – all but the group leader have served their sentences. A movie spokesperson said, “It’s unfortunate that people couldn’t understand that we had hoped to raise public awareness of the problem of juvenile crime, ring some alarm bells about the future of our youth.” Video release will go ahead in June as planned.