A food delivery rider was arrested for molesting a child who was home alone. I read all 1,191 comments. 47.5% of the vote went to what to do at the front door, and the five countries I had named got 0.5%
I started from "I knew this would happen." Of 1,191 comments, 47.5% of the vote went to what to do at the front door. The countries I had named got 0.5%. The comment this thread pressed hardest was written by a delivery worker.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 28024 ∕ 467 I deliver for Yu-Pack. Sometimes I deliver at hours when only the children are home, and almost always they say through the intercom that their parents are out, please leave it at the door. That will be because their parents taught them to say it. These days there are people who commit crimes by posing as delivery workers. When only children are home, it is safer not to open the door
- 2nd 14459 ∕ 977 If you are going to let foreigners live in Japan, you have to think about this as well, or there will be more victims. People will say Japanese men do it too, but this is Japan, so of course they do. According to Metropolitan Police figures, the number of foreign offenders is going up a little each year
- 3rd 8076 ∕ 325 It used to be peaceful enough that a child could walk outside alone at night, and now, with more foreigners in Japan, this happens to a child sitting at home. I want the government to recognise how the things we have to worry about keep multiplying
- 4th 5874 ∕ 400 In our house we always leave a packed lunch when we leave a child at home, though I know some people have no time or are caught out suddenly. Even so, a convenience-store sandwich, instant noodles, something to microwave. If you must order in, order two portions and have it left at the door. As far as possible, arrange things so your child is never alone with an adult they do not know. The offender is the one at fault, but saying that does not help. Find the way to prevent it
- 5th 3940 ∕ 93 I do delivery work as a second job, and people like this make it genuinely hard to hold your head up. But people like this exist, so protect yourselves. First, when a child is alone, always have it left at the door. Wait a little before going out to pick it up. If you can, open the building door without speaking. Giving no sign that you are there is the most important thing
I read all 1,191 top-level comments, about nineteen hours after publication, at 7.24am on 26 September 2026. The article shows 3,587 comments in total, and 790 replies are displayed beneath the top-level comments. The buttons stood at 87,444 agree, 7,683 that-explains-it and 4,244 hmm - 95 to 5. Of the 55 threads I have counted, this is one of the more settled ones. The vote is heaped at the top to an unusual degree. The single first-placed comment holds 28,024 agree presses, 32.0% of the whole vote. The top five hold 69.0%, the top ten 78.9%, the top twenty 87.7%, the top thirty 90.7%. Further down it is silent. Of 1,191 comments, 224 - 18.8% - never received a single agree press, 160 - 13.4% - were never given any button at all, and 57 - 4.8% - collected more hmm than agree. The average comment is 85.6 characters, and 84 run past 200. Now for what stands out. My own reading was this. I knew it would happen. The people who do this come from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia - a breeding ground for criminals. More than three in ten of them here must be offenders. The ones riding modified electric bikes around on deliveries are all from there. And Japanese justice is so soft that these cases are not even prosecuted. So I counted how much of that this thread actually wrote. First, the countries. Comments naming China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia or Indonesia number 17 - 1.4% - with 405 agree presses, 0.5% of the vote. Vietnam appears in 10, China in 6, Indonesia in 1, and the Philippines and Malaysia in none. Comments naming Uzbekistan, the country in the article, number 36 - 3.0% - with 1,998 agree presses, 2.3% of the vote. The country this thread named most was the one the article named, not any of the five I had. Second, proportions. Comments that put a figure on it - this share of them are criminals, this percentage - number exactly 1 out of 1,191, 0.1%, with 5 agree presses, 0.0% of the vote. This thread wrote about foreigners more than four hundred times and almost never attached a number. Third, the modified bikes. Comments touching on mopeds, illegal modifications, electric bikes, riding against traffic, running lights or road rules number 9 - 0.8% - with 111 agree presses, 0.1% of the vote. The one closest to my own reading says that Uzbek delivery riders on illegally modified electric bikes had been a serious problem and asks whether the police have stopped acting on it. It has 10 agree presses and sits 178th. Fourth, the courts. Comments touching on non-prosecution, sentencing, leniency, harsher penalties, reoffending or deterrence number 112 - 9.4% - with 2,743 agree presses, 3.1% of the vote. Comments going as far as deportation or a re-entry ban number 27 - 2.3% - with 228 agree presses, 0.3%. Comments blaming the press number 30 - 2.5% - with 256 agree presses, 0.3%. So where did the vote go. Comments about the doorstep - the door, leaving the parcel outside, the chain, the intercom, the delivery box, pretending to be out - number 150 - 12.6% - with 41,574 agree presses, 47.5% of the vote. That is larger than any other subject I counted here, and the first-placed comment alone accounts for 28,024 of it, written by someone who says they deliver parcels for a living. Comments mentioning foreigners, immigration or foreign nationality number 416 - 34.9% - with 35,352 agree presses, 40.4% of the vote. A third of the thread, by comment count. But those 416 also absorbed 2,168 hmm presses, 51.1% of the 4,244 in the thread. Comments saying public safety has worsened or crime has risen number 72 - 6.0% - with 12,838 agree presses, 14.7%. Comments asking for proper vetting or identity checks on delivery riders number 30 - 2.5% - with 1,678 agree presses, 1.9%. Comments touching on residence status, illegal employment, overstaying or immigration control number 32 - 2.7% - with 1,018 agree presses, 1.2%. Comments about aftercare for the child number 39 - 3.3% - with 2,874 agree presses, 3.3%. Comments saying nationality is beside the point number 10 - 0.8% - with 174 agree presses, 0.2%, and 64 hmm presses, 1.5%. Comments saying do not lump people together, this is prejudice, this is discrimination, number 17 - 1.4% - with 63 agree presses, 0.1%, and 67 hmm presses, 1.6%. The replies. There are 790, of which 162 - 20.5% - sit under the first-placed comment, and 501 - 63.4% - under the top five. Of 1,191 comments, 1,128 - 94.7% - have no reply at all. Now what I have not checked. I have not checked what share of foreign residents in Japan have committed a crime, and this thread barely offers a figure either. The two comments that do cite numbers - one quoting Metropolitan Police figures, one listing sexual-violence rates by country - I have not checked either. So this note says nothing about whether foreign crime is high or low. What I counted is what this thread wrote and what it pressed, and nothing else. Whether the arrested man will be charged is not yet known. The article reports the arrest, the police account, and that he has admitted the allegation. Now the comments I counted but will not quote. Comments containing abusive words number 28 - 2.4% - with 2,213 agree presses, 2.5% of the vote. Comments giving innate character or ethnic blood as the reason number 1 - 0.1% - with 8 agree presses, 0.0%. This site counts comments that reason from ancestry itself and does not reproduce them. Now the answers to my reading. It is people from those particular countries - the country this thread named most was Uzbekistan, from the article. My five came to 17 comments, 0.5% of the vote. More than three in ten of them are offenders - exactly one comment put that in figures, 0.0% of the vote, and I have found nothing to support the figure either. The modified bikes are all theirs - 9 comments, 0.1% of the vote, and the closest one named Uzbekistan. Justice is too soft to prosecute - 112 comments, 3.1% of the vote, with deportation at 0.3%. What took 47.5% of the vote instead was what to do about the front door. And the comment that took 32.0% of it was written by someone who delivers. The comment I shared on X sits 48th in this thread, with 80 agree presses, 34 that-explains-it, 4 hmm and 1 reply. Finally, on names. The arrested man is named in the article, but he is not named here. This site withholds the names of private individuals caught up in crimes and accidents.
At 12.02pm on 25 September 2026, TV Asahi (ANN) published a report on Yahoo! News.
A 45-year-old man of Uzbek nationality had been arrested. He was working as a food delivery rider, and at a block of flats in Setagaya, Tokyo, a primary-school girl came to the door to collect the order. He is alleged to have put his arms around her, kissed her and touched her body. She was home alone.
Questioned by police, he admitted the allegation, saying that the girl who answered the door was his type and he could not hold himself back.
1,191 people wrote in the comment thread underneath.
What I thought before I counted
I knew this would happen.
The people who do this, I thought, come from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia. A breeding ground for criminals.
More than three in ten of the ones living here must be offenders, I thought - and most foreign offenders in Japan must come from there.
And the riders on those modified electric bikes, the ones that are barely bicycles any more, tearing around on deliveries - every last one of them, I thought, is from there.
I want them punished properly. But Japanese justice is too soft, so the case is dropped. A decision that makes no sense. Foreigners can offend freely here and walk away unprosecuted, and Japan seems keen to advertise itself to the world as a country that goes easy on them.
That was my reading.
So this time I turned it into something I could count. Who is this thread writing about? Which countries does it name? And what is it asking for?
95 to 5 - 1,191 comments, about nineteen hours in
I read all 1,191 top-level comments. The article shows 3,587 comments in total, and 790 replies are displayed.
The buttons stood at 87,444 agree, 7,683 that-explains-it and 4,244 hmm. 95 to 5.
Of the 55 threads I have counted, this is one of the more settled ones. The most divided was the car park thread, at 63 to 37.
The vote is heaped at the top to a degree I have not seen before. The single first-placed comment holds 28,024 agree presses - 32.0% of the whole vote. The top five hold 69.0%, the top ten 78.9%, the top twenty 87.7%, the top thirty 90.7%.
Below that it is silent. Of 1,191 comments, 224 - 18.8% - never received a single agree press, and 160 - 13.4% - were never given any button at all.
The average comment is 85.6 characters, and 84 run past 200.
The comment this thread pressed hardest was written by a delivery worker
Here is the most-read comment in the thread.
I deliver for Yu-Pack. Sometimes I am delivering at hours when only the children are home, and almost always they tell me through the intercom that their parents are out, so please leave it at the door. That will be because their parents taught them to say it. These days there are people who commit crimes by posing as delivery workers. When only children are home, I think it is safer not to open the door.
ゆうパック配達員です。
お子さんしかいない時間帯に
配達行くこともありますが
親がいないから玄関前に置いておいてと
インターホン越しに言われることが殆どです。
それはやはり親御さんから
そうしなさいと躾けられてるからでしょう。
今は配達員になりすまして
犯罪を犯す人間もいます。
お子さんしかいない時には
玄関開けない方が安全かと思います。28,024 agree presses - 32.0% of everything this thread pressed. It also drew 162 replies.
In 55 threads I have never seen one comment take that much.
Look at what is in it. There is not a word about any country. What it says is: I am one of the people who deliver, this is what it is like when only children are home, so do not open the door.
47.5% of the vote went to the front door
I counted the comments that touch on the doorstep - the door itself, leaving the parcel outside, the chain, the intercom, the delivery box, pretending to be out.
150 comments, 12.6% of the thread, with 41,574 agree presses - 47.5% of the vote.
The fourth-placed comment (5,874 presses) says it always leaves a packed lunch, and that if you must order in, order two portions and have them left at the door. The fifth (3,940 presses) is from someone who also delivers as a second job: always have it left outside when a child is alone, and give no sign that you are there.
The comment in eighteenth place (509 presses) sets out the method in detail - a shallow 100-yen-shop tray beside the door with "please leave it here" written on it, so the child can reach through the chained door without opening it.
What this thread pressed hardest was not who is to blame. It was what to do next.
Foreigners come up in 34.9% of comments - and those comments absorbed 51.1% of the pushback
Comments mentioning foreigners, immigration or foreign nationality number 416 - 34.9%, with 35,352 agree presses, 40.4% of the vote.
By comment count, that is a third of the thread.
But those 416 comments also absorbed 2,168 hmm presses. The thread has 4,244 in total, so that is 51.1%.
Here is the single most pushed-back comment in the thread.
If you are going to let foreigners live in Japan, you have to think about this sort of thing too, or there will be more victims. Someone will come along and say Japanese men do it as well - but this is Japan, so obviously they do. According to Metropolitan Police figures, the number of foreign offenders is rising a little each year.
外国人を日本に居住させるということはこういうことも考えておかないとまた被害者は出るかもしれませんよ。
日本人もやるだろ？みたいな人も出てきますがそれは日本なのだから当たりですよね。
警視庁発表では年々少しずつであるけど外国人犯罪者は増えてますよね。14,459 agree presses against 977 hmm. Second in the vote, and first in the thread for pushback.
It also drew 224 replies - more than the 162 under the first-placed comment. Second on the vote, first on being argued with.
Going the other way: comments saying nationality is beside the point number 10 - 0.8% - with 174 agree presses, 0.2% of the vote, and 64 hmm. Comments saying do not lump people together, this is prejudice, this is discrimination, number 17 - 1.4% - with 63 agree presses, 0.1%, and 67 hmm.
In this thread you get pushed back for raising the subject, and pushed back for saying it should not be raised.
The countries I named are almost absent
I had said China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia.
I counted. Comments naming any of them number 17 - 1.4%, with 405 agree presses - 0.5% of the vote.
The breakdown: Vietnam 10, China 6, Indonesia 1, the Philippines 0, Malaysia 0.
Comments naming Uzbekistan - the country in the article - number 36 - 3.0%, with 1,998 agree presses, 2.3% of the vote.
The country this thread named most is the one the article named, not any of the five I had.
Even the ten Vietnam comments are mostly about something else: a reported plan by the courier firm Yamato to hire Vietnamese drivers. Comments on that number 12 - 1.0% - with 221 agree presses, 0.3% of the vote.
The eighth-placed comment (1,794 presses) says that Uzbekistan is known as a strict Muslim country with severe norms around sexual conduct, which makes the case hard to understand, and that whatever the nationality or religion, crimes against children deserve a heavy sentence.
When this thread names a country, it names the one in the article.
Exactly one comment put a proportion on it
This was the finding that surprised me most.
Comments that say what share or what percentage of them are criminals number 1 out of 1,191 - 0.1%. It has 5 agree presses, 0.0% of the vote.
This thread wrote about foreigners 416 times and almost never attached a number to it.
Two other comments cite figures. One quotes Metropolitan Police statistics - 134 recorded cases of non-consensual sexual intercourse by foreign residents in 2025 (1 agree press). The other lists sexual-violence rates by country (8 agree presses).
Neither was read.
The modified bikes: 9 comments, 0.1% of the vote
Comments touching on mopeds, illegal modifications, electric bikes, riding against traffic, running red lights or road rules number 9 - 0.8%, with 111 agree presses - 0.1% of the vote.
One of them says almost exactly what I said: that Uzbek delivery riders on illegally modified electric bikes had been a serious problem, and asks whether the police have simply stopped acting on it.
10 agree presses. 178th in the thread.
Someone is looking at the same thing I am. The country they named was Uzbekistan.
"The courts are too soft" took 3.1% of the vote
Comments touching on non-prosecution, sentencing, leniency, harsher penalties, reoffending or deterrence number 112 - 9.4%, with 2,743 agree presses - 3.1% of the vote.
One comment in ten, but three per cent of the vote.
Comments that go as far as deportation or a permanent re-entry ban number 27 - 2.3%, with 228 agree presses - 0.3%.
The comment in 146th place (53 presses) asks that Japanese men who commit the same crime be named publicly in the same way, and that sentences be raised as a deterrent regardless of nationality.
Comments blaming the press number 30 - 2.5%, with 256 agree presses, 0.3% of the vote.
Where the systems argument actually sat
Comments naming a mechanism split into two shapes.
Asking for proper vetting, identity checks or background checks on delivery riders: 30 comments - 2.5% - with 1,678 agree presses, 1.9% of the vote.
Touching on residence status, illegal employment, overstaying or immigration control: 32 comments - 2.7% - with 1,018 agree presses, 1.2%.
The most detailed of them sits fifteenth, with 749 presses.
This is only loosely connected to the arrest, but you cannot obtain residence status to work solely as a delivery rider, so if his status was in order it would be a student's part-time job or a second job alongside other work - and at 45, being a student is hard to imagine. If it is a second job, then without individual permission to engage in activity outside his status, the work is illegal. But I cannot see a major food delivery firm like Uber Eats checking that far before letting people work, so it ends up being a breeding ground for illegal work, overstayers included. If the immigration bureau is serious about finding overstayers and bringing the numbers down, leaning on Uber Eats would cut it considerably.
逮捕された容疑とは関連が薄い内容になるが、配達員専業では在留資格は得られないので、正規の在留資格があるなら留学生のアルバイトか他の仕事があっての副業だろうが、45歳で留学はちょっと考えられない。
他の仕事があっての副業となったら、個別許可の資格外活動許可を受けないと不法就労になる。
しかし、食品宅配大手のウーバーイーツなんかだと、そこまで確認して就業させているとは思えず、結局不法滞在者も含め不法就労の温床になっている側面がある。
入管も不法滞在者の摘発に力を入れ、減少を画策しているならウーバーイーツにテコ入れすればかなり減ると思う。There is that phrase again - a breeding ground.
I used it about people. This comment uses it about a sign-up process.
The comment in 168th place (3 presses) goes further still: the residence statuses that can register with a delivery firm are limited, but lending accounts is rife, and last year brokers were arrested for mass-producing accounts in Japanese names and renting them to 1,400 people with no right to work.
94.7% of these comments have no reply at all
There are 790 replies. 162 of them - 20.5% - sit under the first-placed comment, and 501 - 63.4% - under the top five.
Of 1,191 comments, 1,128 - 94.7% - have no reply.
A note for readers outside Japan
The hardest thing to carry across here is the shape of the thread rather than any single word.
Japanese news reports state a suspect's nationality when the suspect is a foreign national, in the headline or the opening line. This article does: an Uzbek national, 45 years old. So everyone reading the comment thread was handed the nationality before they began.
A third of the thread then wrote about foreigners. But 47.5% of the vote went to what to do at the door, and the comment pressed hardest came from someone who delivers for a living.
And those 416 comments about foreigners absorbed 51.1% of the thread's hmm presses. How many people wrote it, how much it was pressed, and how much it was pushed back are three different shapes.
What I have not checked
I have not checked what share of foreign residents in Japan have committed a crime. I am the one who brought a figure of more than three in ten to this thread, and I have found nothing to support it. This thread barely offers a figure either, and the two comments that do cite numbers I have not checked.
So this note says nothing about whether foreign crime in Japan is high or low. What I counted is what this thread wrote and what it pressed. Nothing else.
Whether the arrested man will be charged is not yet known. The article reports the arrest, the police account, and his admission.
I do not know anything about how the child is now.
Counted, but not quoted
Comments containing abusive words number 28 - 2.4% - with 2,213 agree presses, 2.5% of the vote.
Comments that give innate character or ethnic blood as the reason number 1 - 0.1% - with 8 agree presses, 0.0%.
This site counts comments that reason from ancestry itself, and does not reproduce them.
Checking my reading against the count
I knew this would happen - that was where I started.
It is people from those particular countries. The country this thread named most was Uzbekistan, from the article. My five came to 17 comments, 0.5% of the vote. The Philippines and Malaysia did not appear once in 1,191 comments.
More than three in ten of them are offenders. Exactly one comment in 1,191 put that in figures - 0.0% of the vote. This thread argues without numbers. I have found nothing to support the figure either, so this note does not put it forward as a fact.
The modified bikes are all theirs. Nine comments, 0.1% of the vote, and the closest one named Uzbekistan.
Justice is too soft to prosecute. 112 comments, 3.1% of the vote, with deportation at 0.3%.
What took 47.5% of the vote instead was what to do about the front door.
What this thread was actually saying
This thread did not say keep them out.
Every comment saying send them back or stop letting them in, added together, comes to less than 1% of the vote.
What it said instead was do not open the door.
And the person who said it and was pressed hardest was a delivery worker, describing what he sees from inside the job: this is how it goes at houses where only the children are home.
A third of the thread wrote about foreigners. 40.4% of the vote went there. So did 51.1% of the pushback.
This thread split over whose fault it was, and closed ranks over what to do.
On names
The arrested man is named in the article. He is not named here.
This site withholds the names of private individuals caught up in crimes and accidents. His nationality is central to the reporting, so that is written as it stands.
Nothing is written about the child beyond what the article reports.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.