A 26 year old unemployed man in Tokyo's Arakawa ward found recently he needed to dispose of over 20 pornographic books and magazines. Following an illness, he had moved back to his parents house and decided his collection might prove a little inconvenient. He was reluctant to get rid of them through a normal garbage collection because he thought it would be embarrassing if he was associated with the porn. Instead, he took himself off under a nearby bridge at around 6 o'clock in the morning and furtively attempted to burn some of them with old rags and a cheap lighter. His first run was successful and he got rid of around a kilo of smut. Feeling confident, he went back for a further five kilos and decided to incinerate this load in a local park. It took him several runs so by the time he started his second fire, it was around 8 o'clock. Unfortunately, he wasn't furtive enough at this later hour as someone noticed the smoke and called the fire brigade. In no time at all, four engines had raced to the scene followed by a small crowd who wanted to see what the fuss was all about. Police held the man for illegal garbage disposal but accepted a written apology as an end to the affair. The ZAKZAK report (Japanese) suggests that all grown men who have faced the problem of getting rid of porn themselves might feel a twinge of sympathy. One of the onlookers said it all looked like pretty tame stuff, having perhaps expected more hardcore material among the ashes.
