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Man in Japan arrested for breaking into ex-girlfriend’s apartment to steal her Nintendo Switch

Casey Baseel Sep 29, 2021
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Claims he had a better reason for the crime than just wanting to play games.

While some couples are able to stay friends once their relationship runs its course, more often than not the best course of action for both parties is to make as clean a break as possible. After you’ve said your goodbyes, it’s important to give your ex the space they need to move on, which usually means not texting just to say hi, telling them how much you miss them, or breaking into their apartment.

That last one proved to be a problem for one 34-year-old resident of the city of Chitose, Hokkaido Prefecture, who has been arrested on charges of sneaking into the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, who lives in Sapporo, and stealing her Nintendo Switch.

However, his motivation wasn’t a desire to deny his ex the simple joy of playing Smash Bros. with her newly expanded amount of free time since they broke up. The man, who has admitted to the charges, says he stole the woman’s game console because she owes him money. He loaned her a certain sum of cash while they were still dating, which he claims she’s yet to repay. “She still hasn’t paid back the money, so I stole the Switch to cover part of it,” he told the police, apparently with the intent to sell it on the used market.

Even if the grievance is true, though, it’s not winning the man much support from Twitter commenters in Japan, who’ve reacted with:

“You can practically hear the police officers who arrested him sighing at how asinine his story is.”
“When you make a personal loan to someone, you should be mentally prepared for them to never pay you back. I learned that in elementary school.”
“This guy seems pretty whiny for 34 years old.”
“If his ex is in her 30s too, they both sound pretty sketchy.”

The man was arrested on Saturday, but the break-in and Switch theft actually occurred all the way back in June. The wheels of justice sometimes turn surprisingly slowly in Japan, and the ostensible thoroughness of investigations may be a factor in the country’s extremely high rate of criminal convictions and confessions. In this case, though, it definitely seems like detectives could have cracked the case sooner, considering that the man was also arrested for breaking into the woman’s home in May, at which time he stole her wallet and apartment key. Since she didn’t change her locks after that incident, investigators are working off the belief that the man made a copy of the key, which he then used to regain entrance to her apartment when he stole the Switch.

Source: Hokkaido Broadcasting Company via Yahoo! Japan News via Jin, Twitter (1, 2)
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