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If you\u2019re paying people to intimidate others into doing what you want them to do, doesn\u2019t that make you a mobster?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n One of the quirkiest corners of the Japanese economy is the rent-a-person industry<\/strong>. No, we\u2019re not talking about prostitution, or even the compensated companionship of host\/hostess bars. In Japan, there are agencies from whom you can hire a grandma<\/a>, a middle-aged man<\/a>, or pretend siblings<\/a>.<\/p>\n As any industry matures, new companies will spring up looking to differentiate from existing providers, and it seemed as though one organization had carved out a new niche for itself with Rental Kowaihito, a company founded last month on the concept of allowing customers to rent kowai hito<\/em>, or \u201cscary people.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n By \u201cscary people,\u201d Rental Kowaihito didn\u2019t mean zombies or dudes with low-key but unnervingly creepy vibes. Instead, their website specifies that they rent out \u201cpeople with intimidating appearances\u201d<\/strong> and has pictures of men with shaved heads, bulky physiques, and prominent tattoos of the type associated with yakuza organized crime syndicates. The company says these scary people are available for accompanying customers when resolving interpersonal disputes<\/strong> such as dealing with \u201cpeople who bully you in the workplace,\u201d \u201cneighbors who continue to be noisy no matter how much you tell them to be quiet,\u201d and \u201ctrouble with men or women involved in cheating or extramarital affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n Within the out-in-the-open rent-a-person industry, this is a novel concept, but as Rental Kowaihito attracted attention over the course of last month, several online commenters expressed that paying someone to create a menacing atmosphere with a vague implication of violence in order to coerce other people to do what you want them to is a service that\u2019s been offered for many years\u2026by gangsters and mobsters<\/strong>.<\/p>\n One of the scenarios Rental Kowaihito says it can help with is one in which a customer feels like they\u2019re still owed back pay by a former employer, but bypassing the court system and settling your financial disagreements by rolling up to negotiations with your own personal thugs and telling them they\u2019d better pay up seems like the sort of thing that could potentially open you up to various criminal charges such as extortion and assault. Similarly, the company says it could send a team of burly, angry-looking guys to accompany a woman while she confronts the woman her husband has been cheating on her with, which, again, seems like the sort of intimidation tactic that could get you in trouble with the law. Rental Kowaihito\u2019s website also recommends their services for intimidating \u201cpeople who treat you coldly in the workplace,\u201d which definitely doesn\u2019t seem like grounds for subtly threatening someone with physical harm, and perhaps most questionable of all, dealing with \u201cyour child being bullied,\u201d<\/strong> implying that they\u2019re OK with implying violence towards children too as long as you pay them.<\/p>\n \u25bc <\/em>Those are some nice crayons you got there, kid\u2026it\u2019d be a real shame if something were to happen to \u2019em.<\/p>\n The operation didn\u2019t look any more legit after commenters noticed that while the service and website are called \u201cRental Kowaihito,\u201d the actual legally registered name of the company isn\u2019t listed anywhere on their website, nor are such basics as a company profile, headquarters address, or any contact information<\/strong>, instead asking potential clients to contact them through a Line messaging app account. Other licensing information which companies in the rent-a-person industry are required to disclose were also missing from the site, and the collective shadiness has promoted online comments such as:<\/p>\n \u201cIs this even legal?\u201d<\/em> Taking all this into account, it would probably be a good idea for anyone employing Rental Kowaihito\u2019s services to also consider the fact that they, themselves, may be committing a crime. Or it would have been a good idea, had it not been for Rental Kowaihito\u2019s abrupt announcement on August 31 that \u201cDue to various circumstances, this service has been ended.\u201d<\/strong> Seeing as how there\u2019s no mention of this being a temporary measure, it would seem that whoever was actually running Rental Kowaihito has concluded that the line between the service and a straight-up gang was too fine to see, if there ever was one at all.<\/p>\n Source: Sponichi Annex<\/a> via Livedoor News<\/a> via Itai News<\/a>, Hachima Kiko<\/a>, Twitter\/rentalkowaihito (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>,\u00a0 3<\/a>)<\/em> If you\u2019re paying people to intimidate others into doing what you want them to do, doesn\u2019t that make you a mobster? One of the quirkiest corners of the Japanese economy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/09\/RK-2.jpg?w=640\")
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\n\u201cSo\u2026these guys are just yakuza\u2026\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cThey\u2019re pretty blas\u00e9 about intimidation being their method of choice, but did anyone there do a legal compliance check on that?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cThis sounds like a new kind of yami baito [part-time criminal work].\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cWhat if someone rents scary people to settle a dispute, but the other party doesn\u2019t back down, and so they rent scary people too? Is there a chance that you\u2019d have scary people on opposite sides who\u2019re actually coworkers with each other?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nTop image: Pakutaso<\/a><\/em>
\nInsert image: Pakutaso<\/a><\/em>
\n\u25cf Want to hear about SoraNews24\u2019s latest articles as soon as they\u2019re published? Follow us on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"