Chapter 335

Uesugi Muneyuki's concerns were not unfounded; it was simply because the composition of these high-end clubs, adult entertainment venues, and various major entertainment consumption venues in Kabukicho was too complex.

Simply put, take a host club as an example: the most superficial result of a host club is that a certain club belongs to XX Entertainment Co., Ltd., and the legal person of that joint-stock company is usually some unrelated individual, such as a retired elderly person, a low-level employee, or a third-party unrelated rural person.

Therefore, if any problem arises with the host club, initially only this can be investigated.

After peeling open the first layer, the second layer follows immediately; upon careful inspection, one will find that the equity of that entertainment joint-stock company is mainly held by certain offshore investment companies, registered in places such as Okinawa, HK, Singapore, and even the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, located in areas with lax trust supervision.

After peeling open the second layer, the third layer follows closely: the beneficial owner of that offshore investment company will trace back to a certain trust bank and a certain fund, with the beneficiary pointing to certain private equity funds controlled by mysterious entities.

Finally, that private equity fund will trace back again to certain major Japanese banks or investment banks, such as Mitsubishi UFJ Bank or Nomura Investment Bank, controlled in the hands of certain professional brokers, and these professional brokers control anonymous funds, which normally makes it difficult to query the true holders.

So who are these true holders?

Haha, conglomerate business association tycoons, multiple Diet members leading political cliques, old-established local large self-governing organizations (such as agricultural cooperatives, an unnamed chief priest of the Kantou Shinto Alliance), and of course also including Shimakawa Ren, this old-timer from the postwar Minato ward.

Uesugi Muneyuki knows about these matters.

To investigate these people, even the Investigation Division 2 of the Metropolitan Police Department is powerless; the only ones truly capable of posing a threat to these behind-the-scenes giants are the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's Special Investigation Unit established by the Five-Star MacArthur, and only them.

Then, yakuza groups often occupy the ecological niche of a "buffer" in these chains, collecting protection fees, mediating territorial disputes, and settling some less important matters, so as not to let the Metropolitan Police Department notice and intervene.

Even, as mentioned earlier, the true holder of a host club actually does not need to truly own a host club; they only need to go through a third party, for example, no matter how you investigate Club A, it comes up clean, but in reality, alcohol and food must be purchased from "B Trading," renovation and furniture must be contracted by "C Construction," cleaning services must be handled by "D Company," and the land rented is from "E Products," with contracts stipulating compliance with various lease terms, many activities requiring approval from the "landlord" and "cooperating party," thus effectively transferring most operational rights.

And this is also one of the characteristics of Japanese society: you have me, I have you, conglomerates hold cross-shares and cooperate to hedge risks, then the government maintains influence over conglomerates by arranging large numbers of "retired civil servants" to enter conglomerates and various high-level enterprises to hold key positions, then arranging banks to lend to large enterprises and large conglomerates, ensuring that conglomerates remain tightly combined with the Japanese government; although both sides also fight and bicker all day, they always maintain an environment of "struggle without breaking, only competing for shares without eliminating opponents."

A fairly typical example is Tokyo TV; in the past, Tokyo TV was also a powerhouse in Kantou, but due to poor management and stylistic differences, it gradually lost market share to other TV stations, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

Logically speaking, at this point, the other several major commercial broadcasters should have rushed forward to tear it apart and divide it, seizing TV Asahi's last share, right?

But fundamentally, no; seeing that Tokyo TV was about to fail, the other several major commercial broadcasters did the opposite: they sent people to guide Tokyo TV's program planning on how to proceed, even leasing and transferring some department staff to assist Tokyo TV in reform and debt restructuring, requesting relationship banks to provide low-interest loans to Tokyo TV, all working together to help Tokyo TV rise from the ashes and overcome the crisis.

Thus came a forever-honored last-place finisher, always with a quirky style but a fixed audience, never competing with other TV stations for current affairs hotspots, while outside the whole world lies in absolute zero, united in defending Super Earth, losing 40 million people a day here, yet Tokyo TV remains peaceful, airing animation clips, existing but posing no threat, and completely sealing off the possibility of other commercial broadcaster stations ascending to a stable "big five commercial broadcaster pattern."

Therefore, Japan's conglomerate economic system is essentially "not-so-state-owned state ownership."

Certainly someone will say no, that's wrong; you say this is somewhat like state ownership, but what does this high-level game have to do with ordinary Japanese citizens?

Then isn't it very simple? Those so-called "true state ownership" actually also have nothing to do with ordinary citizens (laugh).

Uesugi Muneyuki currently lacks the ability to challenge these behind-the-scenes major forces; even strictly speaking, even if Watanabe Eiji, this Superintendent General, is merely able to sit at the table to eat, clink cups with big shots, and talk about how to handle things.

After breakfast, Uesugi Muneyuki opened various major portal websites.

Sure enough, as the incident fermented, Japanese netizens began frantically brushing posts.

First, Japan's largest portal website "Yahoo": Uesugi Muneyuki clicked in and saw the first hot post was a comment by a Japanese fifty-something male netizen.

"Police who protect civilians from the frenzy of blade attacks are heroes! Before left-wingers sympathize with terrorists, they should first apologize to the families of police injured while protecting citizens, who are still being rescued to this day!"

Likes 32.4K, dislikes 2.5K.

"Compared to the Self-Defense Forces' Iraq deployment, this is the real battlefield wwww, award a medal to the judo beauty policewoman!"

Likes 20.7K, dislikes 0.9K.

After reading this, Uesugi Muneyuki smiled faintly; in the country across the sea, "left-wing" often represents correctness and progress, but in Japan, "left-wing" is generally used as an insult.

Flipping through the Yahoo website, most comments were support and affirmation for Ikeda Erena.

But there were also some opposing voices.

"When the perpetrator was burdened with 60 million yen in debt and then killed, that's the Japanese police, using guns on poor women more efficiently than against gangsters!"

Likes 15K, dislikes 28K.

"I really…… feel despair toward this country, a woman, driven to this extent by a host club, I don't even know how desperate she was when forced to kill? This is clearly societal discrimination against women, yet you all still loudly cheer; thinking of this, my tears won't stop flowing, chilling shivers, can this society still be improved?"

Likes 4.6K, dislikes 19.2K.

Opposition to Ikeda Erena, sympathy for the murderer, and resentment toward police are concentrated among women in their 20s.

At the same time, the 2CH anonymous board, this Japanese conservative's main base, is also heatedly discussing this matter.

"It should have been regulated long ago! Host clubs are still operating normally as alcohol-serving venues, but it's said that these host clubs in Kabukicho have daily revenues exceeding 5 million yen! They can easily earn over ten billion yen annually, and this 'accounting' and 'introducing engagement in the adult entertainment industry' chain has already caused countless tragedies; this incident is merely the overall outbreak."

"I too was once a 'nominee' debt slave of a host club. Her cleaver was our shout. Why don't the police shoot at the violent machinery of host clubs? Are they just afraid to take responsibility?"

"A hundred police officers can't take down one murderer, not even daring to draw their guns—please, you're so inferior! In the end, they actually needed Uesugi Muneyuki, this non-professional police officer, to go up and grapple with the murderer to rescue hostages, and fortunately they were rescued; if we lose this national forensic medical examiner, how should Tokyo's public security be handled in the future???"

Uesugi Muneyuki then turned his phone to NHK's poll.

After one night and a full day of fermentation, Ikeda Erena's national support rate had dropped from 94% to 91%, still showing overwhelming dominance, but compared to before, it had already declined.

Uesugi Muneyuki went through the age groups, finding that support among males aged 40 and above for Ikeda Erena's lethal act being legal reached as high as 99%, while support among 20-something women for Ikeda Erena had further dropped to 36%, especially young women in Shinjuku Ward and Osaka's Minami area, whose support for Ikeda Erena was only 11%.

Uesugi Muneyuki saw this 99% support rate and knew it was secure, after all, in this country, the main wealth and discourse power are still held by males aged 40 and above.

Thus, on December 29th, all of Japan's newspaper front-page votes were entirely about the December 28th Kabukicho major serial indiscriminate murder case; multiple TV stations held temporary special lectures, their content mainly revolving around "Uesugi Muneyuki stepping forward to praise VS the murderer's attack background," "legitimacy of law enforcement VS abuse of enforcement power," "elders believing it should have been regulated long ago VS a portion of young people believing personal freedom should not be interfered with," conducting a series of pointed confrontations, with each faction unyielding.

However, as time reached noon, online public opinion suddenly underwent a certain unspeakable shift.

First, the 2CH board suddenly exposed that the trading company behind AnonTokyo Club and a certain Diet member were involved, and the VIP blacklist of the host club contained multiple names of wives of high-level government officials.

Not only that, the club annually paid a total of 6 million yen in political consulting fees to the secretaries of three Diet members, and simultaneously, the brother of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, who took up a position at a security company, signed a six-year security and anti-theft contract with anonTokyo in one go!

After seeing this news, Uesugi Muneyuki felt a chill run through him.

Public Security Police took action!

Indeed, it is still necessary to have foreign astonishment draw the attention of the entire international community before Japan will truly decide to take action to solve the problem.

Actually, the Public Security Police are not incapable of finding out; rather, they simply will not take real action.

There must have been an order from above; who would it be?

Minister of Justice? Minister of Foreign Affairs? Minister of Finance? Cabinet Secretary General or…… Prime Minister?

Uesugi Muneyuki leans more toward it being Chief Cabinet Secretary Onoda convincing his brother, the Cabinet Secretary General, to directly issue the order, and moreover, the Police Agency Security Bureau's affairs are beyond Watanabe Eiji's authority to inquire into; only Onoda Kanbocho can order the Public Security Police.

Indeed, the exposure of this news quickly drew public attention.

However, as time came to the afternoon, public attention again began to shift toward another strange direction.

They began digging into the two parties involved in this matter: Uesugi Muneyuki and Ikeda Erena!

"Major Discovery! Major Discovery! Uncovering the past of the tall judo beauty policewoman who is the killer in this incident—abandoned sports career, Metropolitan Police Department superior's assassin, existence of untouchables, actually a special mission unit from the pillow business?"

"Exposing the legendary rookie forensic medical examiner Uesugi Muneyuki and the secret relationship between the judo beauty policewoman Ikeda Erena! The two have long been closely related, suspected lovers!"

"Huh???" Uesugi Muneyuki was stunned.

How come they're heatedly discussing as they walk, heatedly discussing their way right over to me?

Damn it, why are Japanese people such gossips?!

(Chapter End)