Japan’s Noto Peninsula was hit by a huge earthquake on New Year’s Day, causing massive damage to roads and buildings, and triggering a tsunami. Over a hundred have died, with many more still missing, and Ishikawa and surrounding prefectures have suffered almost immeasurable levels of destruction to property and infrastructure.
As locals subsist in evacuation centers or try to leave the area, and emergency services pour in to bring supplies and rescue those still trapped, the authorities have specifically requested that people outside the region not come as volunteers yet to ease the burden on the heavily affected transport network.
That hasn’t stopped some celebrities and politicians from going. No doubt these people have good intentions, but the same cannot be said of some prominent YouTubers who have inevitably arrived in the area.
Yesterday, it became apparent that one of these was Rengoku Koroaki. And while people need water, food, gasoline, and so on, he chose to bring a very different kind of relief item: Tenga Eggs.
As regular readers will know, these compact masturbation toys are designed for wrapping over your penis and enhancing stimulation as you stroke. They are one of the most popular and longest-running such masturbators in Japan.
The 40-year-old Rengoku Koroaki, who is also a failed right-wing election candidate, even had the nerve to request donations from his followers to cover the costs of transport and accommodation for his trip, despite netizens finding evidence that he has millions of yen in his account.
Another YouTuber has also claimed he will take thousands of yen’s worth of the latest Tenga toys to the disaster zone.
2023 was a year of reckoning for such “nuisance YouTubers” and live streamers, who specialize in outrageous or antisocial behavior to gain clout. The police arrested some high-profile figures, including the notorious foreign streamer Johnny Somali.
Rengoku Koroaki was himself arrested in November for defamation, but is currently out on bail. He is also one of several anti-feminist YouTubers and streamers who have led the campaign of harassment against the nonprofit organization Colabo, which tries to help young women in need.
Rengoku claims that delivering Tenga will help prevent sex crimes from occurring.
While it is true that staying at an evacuation center can be very frustrating due to the limited resources and lack of privacy, and there are incidents of sexual assault sometimes that are perhaps caused by this frustration and stress, we doubt the locals will appreciate this gift.
It is highly doubtful if Rengoku is actually distributing these Tenga Eggs to evacuees in shelters. We guess he just bought a few boxes of toys, travelled to Kanazawa or thereabouts, and posted a picture online for clicks. Rage-baiting in a time of need has become the new norm of our strange times.
