3,118 Photos and videos
News! I'll be available for work from December onwards! Interested in hearing about anything - writing, narrative design, story consultation, script editing, whatever. Freelance or on staff! You can find all my work on my site: edfear.co.uk
3
50
65
26,764
Seen a lot of posts from Japanese people frustrated that this didn't become a huge deal in Japan, but hoping the international shame might move the needle.
Jun 7
🇯🇵 Japan’s World Cup team includes a player with a gang rape admission and they tried to hide it. Mexico just set the story on fire 🔥
On 3 June the Samurai Blue landed in Mexico for pre-tournament training. The official JFA account posted the usual high-quality set of photos, full squad lined up in suits in front of their ANA jet, everyone smiling and team mascot in a sombrero holding a “Welcome to Nuevo León” sign in Spanish and Japanese.
Looked clean, professional and on brand. However, Mexico didn’t get the memo.
A local journalist posted on X that the Japanese squad currently training there includes Kaishu Sano, a player arrested in 2024 on suspicion of rape. He shared Sano’s photo and told Mexican women to stay alert. That one post has already passed 8 million views. In China’s terms, that’s the equivalent of an 80-million-view explosion back home.
More posts followed. One showed Panini-style player cards with Sano’s face completely blacked out by marker, captioned “All sexual abusers should go to hell.”
The original case is straightforward and grim.
In July 2024, just ten days after sealing a €2.5 million move to Mainz, Sano and two friends allegedly gang-raped a woman in a Tokyo hotel. They had dinner with two women, moved to a pre-booked party room, one woman left and between 2am and 4am the three men assaulted the remaining woman. She called police immediately and officers arrested the men on a nearby street.
Sano admitted to the sexual violence. It was then resolved privately through reconciliation and no charges proceeded.
He did the typical apology press conference. The JFA, after what they called thorough internal discussions, decided he had simply made a mistake and welcomed him back. A year later he was selected for Japan’s World Cup squad. In August 2025 he announced his marriage. The typical script followed: the victim settled, the new wife has moved on, so outsiders should shut up.
Plenty of people outside Japan are choosing not to shut up.
The story has now jumped from Spanish circles into English ones. With X’s auto-translate, Japanese users can read in real time exactly what foreign fans think about a player with a gang-rape admission representing their country. The domestic reaction has been furious, mostly aimed at the JFA for letting this become an international problem instead of dealing with it earlier.
Look at those smiling faces in the Mexico arrival photos. Every single one of them chose to stay silent about one teammate’s record for the sake of the jersey and national image. Disgusting.
The JFA’s recent posts about teaching schoolkids tax education make it even more out of touch. The replies are brutal but spot on. Maybe they should have prioritised proper sex education and actual accountability instead.
Since the story broke, both the JFA and national team accounts have gone completely silent. No mentions of Sano, photos carefully cropped, complete radio silence. This weekend brought zero official response.
Tomorrow is Monday. Japanese football’s bosses now have a live international scandal on their hands and the world is watching. They clearly thought they could control the narrative the same way they controlled the original case. That bet just failed in Mexico.
It also presents an interesting contrast. A Japanese volleyball player gets arrested for marijuana and faces real consequences. A footballer with an admitted gang-rape case gets to pull on the national shirt for the World Cup. Different standards, apparently.
How the JFA handles this from tomorrow onward will show whether they actually learned anything, or whether protecting the institution still matters more than protecting victims or the game’s reputation.
This is what happens when you treat sexual violence as a PR problem instead of a serious crime. The truth travels, especially when your players are supposed to represent the country.
What do you think they’ll do?
110
Ed Fear retweeted
Around 1,950 years ago in Pompeii, a weaver named Successus fell in love with a barmaid named Iris.
She did not love him back.
We know this because his rival, a man named Severus, decided to humiliate him publicly. He grabbed something sharp and carved this into a wall for the whole city to read:
"Successus the weaver loves the innkeeper's slave girl named Iris. She does not care about him at all. But he begs her to have pity on him. His rival wrote this. Goodbye."
Imagine walking to work and seeing that with your name on it.
Successus found it. And instead of letting it go, he carved his reply directly underneath:
"Envious one, why do you get in the way? Yield to a man who is better looking and being treated very unfairly."
Severus came back one more time to end it:
"I have spoken. I have written. You love Iris, but she does not love you."
Then, in 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted and buried the wall, the tavern, and the entire argument under 20 feet of ash. The thread was frozen mid-beef for almost two millennia until archaeologists dug it up and translated it.
We will never know who got the girl. We do not even know if any of the three survived.
Pompeii has over 11,000 of these inscriptions. Bar reviews. Bragging. Bad poetry. A bakery wall that says "Welcome, hungry people." Two guys fighting over a girl in the comments.
The technology changes. We do not.
113
1,496
10,566
477,588
賛成。子供のころからずーとゲームクリエイターになりたかったのに、ゲームを作ることが大好きなのに、業界に入ってから18年間経ったのに、、、他の仕事にすれば良かったとよく思う
Jun 3
アメリカのゲーム業界に長くいる身として、近年の大量レイオフはリーマンショック時とは比較にならないほど異常だと肌で感じている。
気になって「何が起きているのか」をAIに分析させてみたら、巷の『AIが仕事を奪っている」という俗説とは全く違う、業界の深刻な構造破綻が見えてきた。👇
1
3
382
I haven't mentioned this here yet ('m mostly on Bluesky nowadays) but at the end last year I started an indie venture. Say hello to Emanation Games!
I can't call it a "studio" as it's just me for now, but the first prototype is nearly ready to start getting eye(s) on... maybe 😅
5
1
24
1,043
Still probably my favourite piece of concept art of all time.
Feb 28
1
191
Ed Fear retweeted
Mar 16
I’m sorry why does she just look like this now
Mar 16
Digital Foundry.: Nvidia’s new DLSS 5 brings photo-realistic lighting to the RTX 50 series.
Resident Evil Requiem DLSS 5 OFF and ON.
digitalfoundry.net/features/…
10
472
5,571
139,493
This must be the first time that a technological advancement has pushed us *back* into the uncanny valley
Mar 16
Announcing NVIDIA DLSS 5, an AI-powered breakthrough in visual fidelity for games, coming this fall.
DLSS 5 infuses pixels with photorealistic lighting and materials, bridging the gap between rendering and reality.
Learn More → nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/new…
8
322
p. much the best news I've heard this year, at least
Feb 23
'EVANGELION' New Anime Series written by Yoko Taro Officially Announced at the end of 'EVANGELION 30 '!
-Series composition and script by Yoko Taro
-Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and Toru Yatabe
-Music by Keiichi Okabe
-Production by Studio Khara × CloverWorks
3
363
Put it this way: I got laid off by a CEO who is a gamer, who was taking orders from a guy who is a gamer. At other studios, I've seen half the workforce laid off by a gamer.
The idea that a gamer is better as a leader by virtue of being a gamer is hella flawed.
Feb 21
You don’t have to be a gamer to work in video games. You don’t have to have a gaming background to run a game company.
The industry could do with some outside thinking, frankly.
1
1
9
547
The personal hobbies of leadership isn't what we should be rallying against.
It's that no company that make games should ever be, or ever be owned by, a public company.
Because under our current flawed flavour of capitalism, shareholders - not customers - will always be no. 1.
1
1
1
174
Oh look they remember it exists huh
Feb 10
【🌟#スクエニ記念日🌟】
本日発売されたのはこちらの作品
◆ゼノギアス (1998年)
忘却の彼方より繰り返される悲劇。
輪廻と再生。破壊と癒し。
3Dフルマップ、セルアニメとCGによる演出。
巨大な「ギア」が激突するバトル。
唯一無二のオリジナリティを放つ、新世代サイバネティックRPG
1
4
351