Video of man spraying liquid on conveyor belt sushi leads to arrest in Saitama

TOKYO — A lot of things in Japan rely on the country’s ability to trust that people will be considerate and respectful. Perhaps nowhere is this more clearly displayed than in the existence of conveyor belt sushi restaurants, in which automated delivery of food to customers is carried out under the assumption that no one will do anything disruptive or unsanitary along the way.

In other words, one of Japan’s most popular restaurant genres is dependent on people refraining from behavior within the “jerk” and “jackass ” sections of the societal spectrum. Unfortunately that proved to be too tall a task for one man, who’s now been arrested after posting a disgusting video of his recent visit to Hama Sushi, one of Japan’s biggest conveyor belt sushi chains.

In the video, which the man posted to TikTok, he can be seen squirting liquid from a dish soap container, which he had brought to the restaurant with him, onto a plate of sushi. The video was recorded at a Hama Sushi branch in Saitama Prefecture and posted on May 27.

One week later, the Saitama Prefectural Police have not only identified the man who posted the video as an unemployed 43-year-old resident of the Saitama town of Moroyama, they’ve also arrested him on charges of forced obstruction of business.

There are a couple of aspects of the incident that warrant further discussion. To start with, the man did not squirt the liquid on sushi that was eaten by another customer. In recent years, in order to improve efficiency and provide fresher food, many conveyor belt sushi restaurants in Japan have done away with the old system of pre-making sushi pieces and sending them on plates down the belt to be grabbed by whoever wants them. Instead, the vast majority of the food, and at many conveyor belt sushi restaurants all of it, is made after the customer places an order, then sent down the belt and automatically stops at the table of the diner who ordered it. That was the case with the sushi the 43-year-old man squirted the liquid onto, as in the video he uploaded the plate has stopped on the belt at his table, and in the video he can be seen taking the plate off the belt and placing it on his table.

However, the plate was still on the lane when he squirted it, opening up the possibility of whatever the liquid was splashing onto other plates or parts of the restaurant where it could come into contact with other diners’ food. The man, who has admitted to recording and posting the video and said his motive was “to get a lot of views on social media,” claims that he had emptied the dishwashing liquid container and refilled it with water prior to squirting it on the sushi, though this isn’t something that can be easily confirmed after the fact.

One could, perhaps, make the argument that regardless of whether the liquid was dish soap, water, or something else, as long as the man ate the sushi himself, or simply left it uneaten so that it would be thrown out when the restaurant staff cleaned the table, that he didn’t do anything wrong, just something weird and potentially damaging to his own stomach. However, by posting the video online, his actions could be seen as damaging to the reputation of Hama Sushi. Any suggestion of unsanitary conditions is extremely damaging to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, and by extension the chain and even the entire industry.

A rash of conveyor belt sushi “prank” videos occurred in 2023, but though things have quieted down since then, the Moroyama man’s actions are definitely not the sort of thing businesses, the police, or the general public have any patience for anymore. “[His] actions are utterly unacceptable” said Hama Sushi’s parent company Zensho in a statement, while promising to provide all possible cooperation in the investigation and legal procedures.

Source: Livedoor News/Kyodo, Nitele News, FNN Prime Online

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