NGT48 Assault Case Summary for May 24, 2020

Thanks to @speranzom for contribution of the Takken Taro transcripts in my translation of the summary from https://jbbs.shitaraba.net/bbs/read.cgi/music/29852/1553736787 for 5/24 (Sunday).

• Rena’s tweet and video
  • https://i.imgur.com/tEnUCUZ.jpg
  • “(Must-see) An idol voice actress introduces her favorite anime”
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LJGuAKB1S0
• Former NGT kenkyuusei Yamazaki, who had been criticized for re-selling masks, deletes the mask image from her Instagram and retweets Nakai Rika’s poem.
  • https://i.imgur.com/RyBJP9J.jpg
  • https://i.imgur.com/hwkJl8i.jpg
• Takkentaro videos
  • “Thoughts from watching Inapooh (?)’s appearance on “Oha Money Gain Channel””
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee0K7au02Yo
  • “NGT: Takkentaro’s thoughts after viewing the perpetrators’ “letter of apologies””
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJ-3g9FMpA
    • https://i.imgur.com/puvqwiP.jpg
    • With both the content inside of the peaceful settlement record and the apology letter having already been all over entertainment newspapers and so on, it raises the question if they weren’t actually created as documents made to be announced publicly, what with no non-disclosure clauses being attached to it, as they should be, for some obscure reason. Still, I imagine that through those entertainment newspapers the content of it has been brought to your attention already.
    • Turns out that the letter of apologies was appended to the settlement document in the form of a paper attachment
    • Among the information that has been passed along to all of you, there was that, “it’s not even penned by hand, but typed up with a word processor program”, “it’s not even marked with their seal stamps” — this is pretty much the level of the description that has been relayed, I imagine, but…
    • I received an even bigger impact from that, myself — a surprise that made me go “What the…?”, so here I’d like to take the opportunity to share this information with all of you.
      　
    • Fist off, the name of the recipient of this apology letter turned out to be not AKS, but “Vernalossom”.
    • What amazes me even more is that, when writing down an apology letter, normally, it would supposedly be standard practice to attach honorifics when addressing the other side.
    • In case of corporate bodies, it’s would not be “…-sama”, but “Dear misters at … ”, so I even when writing a letter, one would imaginably add to it “Dear misters at … Co. Ltd”, yet…
    • It’s instead “VernaLossom Co. Ltd.” all of a sudden, and just about that. Would you really call it an apology, when they refuse to use honorifics without attaching “Dear misters at …” or stuff like that — that’s basically how it is, but still…
    • It makes you suspect that this because it’s not actually the defendants that composed it.
    • To say more, there’s a 9 out of 10 chance it’s from the AKS side. Actually, isn’t it likely attorney Endo [of AKS] who compiled that text in the first place?
    • It being a text of their own making, it wouldn’t have occurred to them of using honorific in reference to themselves
    • If nothing else, while their mind went all towards “How should we go about the content”?, none of their thoughts went toward the finest particulars and proceeded with writing it like “VernaLossom Co. Ltd.” without stopping to think.
      　
    • What made Takkentaro most surprised about the letter of apologies is what’s written below the date [note: April 8, 2020, the same date of the court session in which the peaceful settlement was stipulated]
    • Surprisingly enough, it’s not even the fact of how it doesn’t come with signatures or seal stamps
    • Below that date we find written “Defendant #1” and “Defendant #2”. That too was all typed (with a word processor program).
    • Normally, for those people who would come over to view the court trial material, there are actually quite a lot of such documents which have the personal information of the defendants blotted out, out of concern that it would be bad if they were to be exposed. By which I mean, in the place where the actual names of the defendant is written.
    • If the name of the defendants had been actually written there, it would be standard custom for them to hide it with a black mark, even if it’s something typed on a word processor program, as opposed to being penned by hand.
    • Since it is not hidden with a black mark, that would then mean that they had written it as “Defendant #1; Defendant #2” from the very beginning, actually. And that would be left visible as it is.
    • Isn’t that weird? It’s not normal at all.
    • The moment they deliberately put “Defendant #1” and “Defendant #2” in there, you can tell that “Aaah, of course, it’s not them who personally wrote that”, “That’s not something that they themselves personally typed in a word processor program”…
    • Even if, by any chance, it was the defendants’ attorney who did so, he still wouldn’t have written “Defendant #1” and “Defendant #2” at the moment of writing a letter of apology.
    • However you think of it, isn’t it understandable that it’s a text composed by the AKS side, attorney Endo himself?
    • From the perspective of the AKS side, having the names of the defendants there is irrelevant.
    • It’s the content of it that’s precious to them, stuff like “The other members have nothing to do with the incident, at all”, “That I brought up the names of those other members was a lie, something which I said haphazardly”, as long as they just manage to push the topic in this direction, they couldn’t care less about the defendants’ names.
    • That is why, even there, this is displayed in a direct manner, “Defendant #1” and “Defendant #2” are both inserted in there as that.
    • Aren’t the ones who passed around this apology letter actually AKS?
    • Because I can’t help but notice from [the wording] in this or that part of it that it must have been composed by attorney Endo and his side.

---

Note: I try to repeat the Japanese thread as closely as possible here. Where I do make some editorial additions I’ll put them in [ ], though I do occasionally soften the posters’ tone.

Why is this here? My original announcement