Japan Police used this Mii to try to catch a criminal

back in the mid-2000s Nintendo were right at the top of the casual game market grandma's were playing Wii Sports grandkids were playing Nintendogs and I was over in the corner with Mike the pocket hand man game and at the top of Nintendo's Kingdom reigned the meze these little guys and gals could truly take the form of any person or indeed non person but in Japan near the end of the decade these Me's came in handy for a slightly less mundane purpose crime fighting or at least that's what I thought when I started researching this video it turns out I might have been very mistaken let me explain [Music] hi there welcome to Thomas game docks so let me set the scene it was 2009 in Japan the exact location isn't known for sure but it's somewhere within the kanagawa prefecture this area here in the Albert ward of Japan's second largest city Yokohama now sometime early February in this very district a hit-and-run occurred a man driving a car crashed into another vehicle but instead of stopping and getting out he just kept driving fleeing the scene of the crash now this is unsurprisingly a crime and the local police the tanigawa prefectural police wanted to catch this criminal but how best to go about this well they decided to put up a wanted poster you know those old posters you see in like Wild West movies wanted dead or alive although they are still used today typically containing some kind of description of the criminal a tall man with blue eyes or a round woman with a large nose that kind of thing or even a photo or perhaps a police sketch some way of identifying the criminal you're trying to catch except the Kanagawa Prefecture all police didn't do any of that instead of a typical wanted poster they used a picture of a me to try to identify the criminal in question in a car park in Alva Yokohama this sign was displayed there's a short description a picture of the criminals car with which the hit-and-run was committed and of course a recreation of the criminal using Nintendo's me character creation tool and this me looks genuinely quite creepy as a certain air of menace to the character like keep away from me now when this story broke in Japan it was received with great hilarity using a me to catch a criminal bananas said the press actually one journalist tried to recreate the me of the suspect using their very own copy of me maker I personally think it's a pretty good recreation but they themselves said I couldn't recreate the feeling of stubbornness and yeah I see what they mean the original me has this distinct flavor to it which I think can't ever be perfectly who he creates it oh and the story even got outside of Japan me sought in hit and run read a headline on Kotaku comm journalist Owen good actually raised a very good point in this article he noticed that it wasn't clear whether a the me was based on a description of the criminal from a witness to the crime or be this was the criminals very own me maybe the criminal was on the run and the police tracked down their house the only form of identification found was the me on their Wii console that seems a little unlikely but hey it certainly could be true either way it seemed like this was the conclusion to the mystery please put up this poster to try and catch a criminal on the run that was it case closed except there's actually a lot more to the story here did the Japanese police really put up this poster did they actually think that would work I mean come on a me could anyone really identify a criminal based on just a me that seems unlikely so what else was there actually more than meets the eye when it comes to this simple looking image well to answer these questions Japanese reporter by the name of I believe Ito a hi Otto decided to find out for themselves and so they contacted the Kanagawa Prefecture Elise the force supposedly responsible for putting up this wanted poster and the response they received well I'll read it out usually these sort of wanted person signs don't have photos or police sketches on them so I don't think he was created here that's right the Kanagawa police chief claimed this image was not created by their police force at all hmm that seemed very strange I mean if it wasn't put up by the police themselves who the hell did put it up well well never know for sure I'm afraid but the chief had a theory of his own you see the day after receiving this message from the reporter he went out to the site of the wanted person poster for himself the nondescript carpark in Alba Yokohama and sure enough there it was in all its glory there was the Alfa mentioned description there was the photo of the car and sure enough there was the me avatar of the supposed criminal now after confirming this for himself the police chief headed home and that evening he began to think who was really behind this image who was the true culprit and as he sat the cheap concocted two theories behind this posters origin - quite shocking theories which he later relayed to the reporter the first maybe this was just a mischievous troublemaker out to make a fool of the Kanagawa Police Department if that was true this troublemaker certainly succeeded in their task the Japanese press had a field day to say the least and as I said news even broke internationally the force was described by one publication as the police station that Nintendo likes a little too much ouch ah so yes this first theory could certainly be true just a prankster up to their usual tricks huh but the chief had one other theory and this is pretty crazy listen what if the wanted person poster was put up by the criminal themselves the man behind the hit-and-run that started it all I mean if this was true then the criminal could use any me they want it they could use almost didn't look anything like them it would throw people off from their true appearance and help them to escape the responsibility for their crime Wow and so as unlikely as this theory might sound the Chiefs certainly considered it a possibility so which which is it which of these theories is the truth which theory did the chief go with well unfortunately he never figured it out and it seems like well never know either in all the research I did I was unable to find out whether the criminal did end up being caught I certainly couldn't see anything to indicate he was so maybe he was the one who put up the poster and it ended up working I mean it's worked on me I've described the criminal as a he this whole video because of the mayhem but there's no reason why the criminal couldn't actually be a woman who used this mail me to trick everyone or the criminal could be bald maybe they don't wear glasses or they've got platinum blonde hair think about it this is kind of brilliant the news story got so much traction that this me was burned into everyone's minds regardless of whether it's reflective of the criminals true appearance maybe that's just what they wanted or maybe this was just a troublemaker we have no way of knowing but either way I think this is a pretty entertaining story of an extremely unconventional use of nintendo's me maker software to try and catch a criminal or perhaps to prevent them from being caught alright and that's what I've got time for this video thank you very much for watching to the end and thank you to your translator I am Jack speci T - on Twitter for helping me with some of the quotes you can subscribe to the channel for more videos just like this and you can follow me on twitter at thomas detox for updates and all of that kind of stuff and i'll see you next week bye [Music]

Channel: Thomas Game Docs

Views: 1,488,644

Keywords: Thomas Game Docs, gaming, Mii, Nintendo, Wii, Mii Channel, Mii Maker, Japan

Id: 41Ka7Op1NuI

Length: 8min 38sec (518 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019