Jan. 19, 2026
E136 - Girl by the Shore: Yokoto Megumi
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Episode one thirty six explores the disappearance of a 13 year old girl from Japan. While there's no shortages of monsters preying on victims in Japan (or around the world for that matter), Megumi's disappearance would end up as something else entirely. Instead, it would involve politics, diplomacy, and a lot of lies.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jessica, and you're listening to the Asian Madness podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Asian Madness podcast in the year 2026.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly I'm surprised I'm still here doing this little podcast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for continuing to tune in, and while I may not be one of them big names out there, that's totally cool with me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoy doing this, not in a, this is fun, but more in a, I like sharing these stories with people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you!
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[SPEAKER_00]: With that out of the way, let's get into today's case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I found this case online somehow, and I immediately knew I had to put it on my list.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's strange, almost plays out like a movie.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of weird-of-infection cases exist in our world, so at this point, what will truly shock you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So imagine yourself as a teenager.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You go to school, you have a family, you have friends, you have to do stupid homework every day, and you probably have a crush on that boy sitting across the room from you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Simple everyday teenager things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're taking away kidnapped and you never see your family ever again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These kidnappers not only take you away from your home, from your loved ones, you actually wake up in a foreign country.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is this human trafficking or something else?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Don't get me wrong, people know where you're at, your family knows, your government knows, but there's nothing they can do for you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As much as this sounds like an action movie about a teenager's resilience and revenge, real life does not tend to play out that way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But this is something that actually happened to Yokota Megumi back in 1977.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was snatched away, not spirited away, and everything about what happened to her afterwards still remains a mystery.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, there were accounts of our live post kidnapping, but are these accounts to be trusted?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some say no, and you'll see why.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yokoton Megumi was born on October 5, 1964, in Nagoya, Japan.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This would make her 61 in early 2026, but let's slow down a bit first.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not much is really known about her background, unfortunately, but we do know that when she was around too, her family moved to Tokyo, and two years later in 1968, her twin younger brothers, Tetsuya, and Takuya were born.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The family then moved again in 1972 from Tokyo to Hiroshima, and in July of 1976, the Yokota family up and moved to Niga-ta prefecture.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That seems like a lot of moving around, and it must have been difficult leaving friends behind, having to make new ones, and enrolling in new schools.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Regardless, Megumi and her brothers made the best out of it, following their parents and adjusting to their new lives every single time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi met her best friend at the time in September of 1976, a girl named Shimbo Emiko.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The two soon became familiar and fast friends, taking part in the elementary school's choir club together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi was a good singer, and was also talented in drawing, and quite athletic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's family also became familiar with Emiko's presence, happy to see their daughter
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[SPEAKER_00]: In April of 1977, Megumi wasn't rolled in a local Nigata city or Nigata city, Yori, Junior High School.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was supposed to be the good kind of boring life where you go to school, make friends, lose friends, take tests and complain about the teachers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But not long after starting junior high, things took a very dramatic turn for the Yokota family and those around Megumi.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was just supposed to be another regular day, Tuesday, November 15, 1977, a little cold, a little windy, but nothing out of the ordinary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 13-year-old Megamy woke up like she always did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She had breakfast with her family, grabbed her school bag, and headed out to class.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She laughed with friends, laid a little badminton after school, along with her friend Emiko.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On this day though, Megumi was set to have injured her finger during practice, and ultimately decided to return home early.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Home was barely seven minutes away.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said goodbye to her friends, but she never made it home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When the clock tick passed 6pm, and Megumi still hadn't walked through the door, her mother, Saki, felt something wasn't right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She rushed to the school gym, hoping to catch her on the way, but Megumi wasn't there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When she asked around, the night watchman told her that the school kids had left ages ago.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And just like that, panic said in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sakia also made a call to her daughter's best friend, Emiko, wondering if they were together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, you know the answer to that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Emigo couldn't imagine the worst for Megumi.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In a child's mind, it was safe for them to assume that their friend probably just stopped by a shop or ran into another friend.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They may not immediately think of the worst, and I would be surprised if anyone managed to guess what really happened to Megumi.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The police got involved quickly, searched parties formed immediately, flashlights cutting through the pine trees, police shouting her name, track her dog sniffing the path that led to the sea.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her mother, running to the beach in the dark, scanning the shadows between the park cars, calling for her daughter.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It made sense to look near the shoreline, they were living in a seaside town after all,
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[SPEAKER_00]: some gut-level dread that she couldn't shake, and sure enough, out in the black nose of the ocean, just beyond the waves, a boat was already moving.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, no one knew anything about a boat at the time, this would all come to light years later.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yokotashi Garu, Miigumi's father, started walking the shoreline every morning, hoping to see
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[SPEAKER_00]: If a body was washed up to shore, he would immediately ask if it was his daughter.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It never was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At night he would cry in the bath quietly, so no one could hear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sakia cried too, but only when she was alone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't want to scare her sons, Takuya and Tetsuya, who were just nine years old at the time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The house once filled with chatter and brightness turned heavy, quiet, cold.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Takuya would later say that he still remembers waking up each day thinking, maybe this is it, maybe she'll walk through the door today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But that never happened, and it would never happen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What the family didn't know, what no one knew for years, was that Megumi was still alive, at least at the time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her family didn't know it yet, but Megumi wasn't even alone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, more similar cases would surface, more disappearances, some confirmed other still in limbo.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, this isn't some predator kidnapping little kids all over Japan, or some deranged murder grabbing people off the streets to fulfill their personal fantasies.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At least not in Megumi's case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The real reason for Megumi's disappearance was very bizarre.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So if not some freak targeting schoolgirls, then who?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Long story short, the Japanese government eventually admitted that at least 17 of their citizens had been abducted by North Korea between 1977 and 1983.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, almost sounds like the government is blaming someone else for their inability to solve crimes, but sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because it seems to be really what happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Seventeen confirmed victims, but that barely scratches the surface though, because it could have easily crossed a hundred, or so it was believed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And among the first on that list was Megumi.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And while we have many questions for North Korea, the biggest question is probably why.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why was North Korea actively kidnapping so many innocent civilians from their hometowns?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did they have a plan?
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[SPEAKER_00]: A target list?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And why would they grab a 13-year-old girl?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I can imagine what crosses your mind, but let's hold that thought for a minute.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the days after Megumi's disappearance, the town was shaken, but the weak stretched on, and then months, then years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Before learning about North Korea's involvement, though, the police launched a full-scale search.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Over 3,000 staff days were poured into the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Patrol boats scanned the water, a kidnapping unit, even operated out of the Yokwata family home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But still, nothing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: According to a later testimony from a North Korean defector, her abduction had been a mistake.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In 1988, a senior spy reportedly told the story to Anmyeongjin, a young North Korean agent who would later flee to the south.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So according to the North Koreans who admitted to knowing what happened to Megumi, this is their story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On November 15, 1977, two North Korean agents were wrapping up a secret mission in Niga-ta Prefecture and were waiting on the beach for a boat, presumably to get them back to North Korea or their vessel.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They noticed someone walking nearby, someone who might have seen too much of whatever they were up to, but this part was unclear since we don't know what they were doing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Either way, they got spooked.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the darkness, they panicked and grabbed the figure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi was tall for her age, so they didn't realize she was a child until it was too late.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What are they going to do?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Apologize and let her go?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People who do bad things usually stick to their guns and double and triple down.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what they did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever mistake they made, they could probably remedy it somehow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She spent nearly two full days, 40 hours, locked in a pitch black storage compartment on the ship.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When she arrived in North Korea, her fingernails were torn and bleeding from trying to claw her way out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She screamed for her mother and refused to eat.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The agents, of course, were reprimanded for making such a stupid and risky mistake.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A child wasn't supposed to be taken.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was considered useless to the regime at first.
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[SPEAKER_00]: but soon the gear started turning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why waste a perfectly good and able-bodied person?
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[SPEAKER_00]: They told me that if she worked hard enough and learned Korean, she would be allowed to go home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To no one's surprise, it was a lie, one carefully crafted to break a child down slowly without allowing her to fully give up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If they wanted to use her abilities, they would have to keep her spirits up and give her hope.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hope is usually thought of in a positive way, but in this case, it's a case of false hope.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Dangling the carrot, moving goal posts, never giving their victim the final reward.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But how could Megamy have known that?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And even if she suspected, why wouldn't she at least try?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi was eventually assigned to a secret training facility where she taught Japanese language and culture to North Korean spies, spies who would later infiltrate Japan.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she wasn't alone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As there were others, Japanese and South Korean students, teachers, even couples, some were abducted from their own country for a specific purpose.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Others, like Megumi, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the goal was always the same, to build a spy network using foreign expertise, stolen identities, and brainwashed loyalty.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, the Yokota family had no idea and they weren't the only ones.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Families all over Japan were struggling with the same agonizing silence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some cases were written off as runaways, others were cold cases gathering dust on shelves.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If no one confirmed, how would these families know if their loved ones were kidnapped by North Korea, murdered, or runaway, or something else entirely?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But whispers continued, patterns emerged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until the 1990s that the story began to slowly leak to the public.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A Japanese journalist named Ishidaka had been investigating the North Korea facilitated repatriation program.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A Cold War era campaign that had encouraged ethnic Koreans in Japan to return home to the North.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But as he dug deeper, he uncovered something darker.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These people weren't going back voluntarily.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't going back so they could reunite with their families or return to the motherland.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were vanishing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Taken.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In 1995, Ishidaka produced a documentary called Dark Seas, North Korea secret operations against the South.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It exposed the 1980 kidnapping of a man living in Osaka named Hara Tadaki by a North Korean spy named Singlansu, who then used Hara identity to conduct a spianage across Asia.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Singl was eventually captured by South Korean authorities in 2014.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The documentary reached millions, but the government and media remained mostly quiet, probably
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[SPEAKER_00]: Still, Ishidaka kept digging.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In early 1996, he published an article in a South Korea magazine describing a seventh-grade Japanese girl who had been abducted in the 1970s and was believed to still be alive in North Korea.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't name her, but eventually everyone knew he was referring to Megumi.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A secretary from Japan's parliament called Megumi's parents in 1997 and told them what had been uncovered about their daughters' whereabouts, that the North Korean did it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's father, Shigaru, was skeptical.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds fantastical.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After all, it had been so long since they had heard of any updates or leads.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But one specific detail stood out in that call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The girl was described as a twin sister.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This part I'm a little bit unsure of, as I can't find any information saying that she had a twin herself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Did they mean that she was a twins sister?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Either way, this was the piece of information that made she go to his ears perk up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For too many years, the Yokota family had no answers.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Then suddenly, they had too many.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So as mentioned, on the 21st of January 1997, she got to receive news that he had been dreaming of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Quote, we have information that your daughter is alive in North Korea, unquote.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Along with their shock, a mad hope sprang back into the family's hearts.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The government believed Megumi was alive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the question at once became, how do we get her back?
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[SPEAKER_00]: By getting eyes on enemy ground, of course, getting as many people to learn their story and back up their claim.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The family appeared on Prime Time TV, questions were raised in Parliament, and the government publicly confirmed that Megumi was not an isolated case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There were many more others like the Yoko Taz, aching for stolen daughters, sons, sisters,
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[SPEAKER_00]: Soon after this revelation, in 1998, the Association of Families of Victims, kidnapped by North Korea, was established, which she get through heading the organization.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Seven of these families joined the support group to demand the rescue of their loved ones.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They talked at length, gathering and trying to make sense of what little they knew.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The abductions looked opportunistic, but there were patterns.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For example, just nine months after Megumi was taken.
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[SPEAKER_00]: 24-year-old office clerk Matsumoto Rumiko went to watch the sunset with her boyfriend, 23-year-old Ishikawa Shuichi.
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[SPEAKER_00]: At a beach in Kagoshima prefecture.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was the last time they were seen.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Their car was found locked at the location, with rumicles, wallet, and sunglasses still in the passenger seat.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her camera was there too, filled with pictures, the couple took of each other, the day they disappeared.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please pick up one of Shuchi's sandals, not far from the shore.
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[SPEAKER_00]: bit by bit, secrets were spilling out, and in 2002, something no one expected to happen happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On September 17, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Juni Chidol, boarded a plane to Pyongyang.
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[SPEAKER_00]: During the historic summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il did something no one thought he would do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He admitted it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, North Korea had abducted Japanese citizens.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it had happened over many years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, Yakutamigumi was one of them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He even apologized.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell do you do with that?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, thank you, but more action, please?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Five of the victims were returned to Japan immediately.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A few of their children followed soon after.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, the North Korean government claimed that Megumi had actually died, and that she wasn't the only Japanese abductee that had died.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They such married another fellow abductee, a South Korean man named King Yongnam, in 1986, that they had a daughter in 1987, and he claimed that she later killed herself because she was suffering from depression.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently she had made multiple attempts before finally succeeding.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly can't be surprised she was depressed at all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine being not just kidnapped, but being taken by the stake and just given a different life under North Korea randomly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: North Korea also produced several Dutch certificates to Japan, including that of Mingumi's, listing out the names of those they claim had died.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, it was later discovered that these Dutch certificates were fakes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Probably something they thought was shut the Japanese up, stopped them from digging any further.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Per Ishidaka, quote, the desertificates were hastily prepared in 2002 in response to the visit of a Japanese government survey team.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There were many unusual details.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For example, the same hospital confirmed all eight does despite the time and place of each death being different.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In addition, North Korea initially claimed that Megumi died in 1993.
20:49.126 --> 20:56.159
[SPEAKER_00]: However, according to the testimony of the return of Doug D's, she was still alive at some time after that year.
20:57.101 --> 21:01.709
[SPEAKER_00]: So North Korea quickly revised the death certificate to say that she died in 1994.
21:03.192 --> 21:08.241
[SPEAKER_00]: These suspicious actions suggest that Megumi might still be alive, unquote.
21:10.432 --> 21:15.021
[SPEAKER_00]: They said Megumi's husband cremated her remains and kept the ashes in his home for years.
21:15.782 --> 21:20.992
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, as of that wasn't jarring enough, they handed over those ashes back to Japan.
21:21.753 --> 21:26.642
[SPEAKER_00]: The Yokota family was devastated, but a big part of them didn't take it at face value.
21:27.464 --> 21:28.807
[SPEAKER_00]: Or rather, they had doubts.
21:29.628 --> 21:32.794
[SPEAKER_00]: This felt too clean, too wrapped up in a bowl.
21:33.297 --> 21:42.173
[SPEAKER_00]: There had to be more information, so they decided to get a DNA test done on the ashes, and turns out, the ashes weren't even hers.
21:43.155 --> 21:44.898
[SPEAKER_00]: Were they even ashes to begin with?
21:45.580 --> 21:48.505
[SPEAKER_00]: Or did they just give her some random person's ashes?
21:49.852 --> 21:52.557
[SPEAKER_00]: But immediately the DNA testing was questioned.
21:53.338 --> 22:00.009
[SPEAKER_00]: The testing had been carried out by a relatively junior lecture with zero experience analyzing cremator remains.
22:00.751 --> 22:06.641
[SPEAKER_00]: The samples were tiny, easily contaminated, and completely used up during the testing process.
22:07.602 --> 22:09.165
[SPEAKER_00]: Retesting was impossible.
22:09.686 --> 22:12.130
[SPEAKER_00]: Verifying the existing result was difficult.
22:13.325 --> 22:16.869
[SPEAKER_00]: and Nature Magazine published an article questioning the entire process.
22:17.610 --> 22:29.603
[SPEAKER_00]: Their point was, quote, Japan is right to doubt North Korea's every statement, but its interpretation of the DNA test has crossed a boundary of science's freedom from political interference, unquote.
22:31.084 --> 22:36.210
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, the truth is buried somewhere between lies, ashes, and politics.
22:36.494 --> 22:37.856
[SPEAKER_00]: and no one could prove anything.
22:38.937 --> 22:40.839
[SPEAKER_00]: And that wasn't the only strange detail.
22:41.500 --> 22:46.185
[SPEAKER_00]: Cremation isn't a common practice in North Korea, or at least it wasn't at the time.
22:47.267 --> 22:57.959
[SPEAKER_00]: In an article on funeral services from 2021, it states that quote, until two decades ago, many Pyongyang citizens were buried the deceased in nearby hills or mountains.
22:58.580 --> 23:05.488
[SPEAKER_00]: Cremation facilities are inadequate in North Korea, and local people still opt for traditional burial,
23:07.173 --> 23:22.694
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2006, Kim Youngnam, the man North Korea said Megumi had married, was allowed to meet his family from the South, and during the orchestrated reunion, who repeated the same official story that, yes, Megumi had mental health issues.
23:23.335 --> 23:24.657
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, she died in 1994.
23:25.899 --> 23:27.721
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, those were her ashes.
23:29.103 --> 23:31.847
[SPEAKER_00]: But watching and speak, something fell off.
23:32.536 --> 23:38.327
[SPEAKER_00]: Not surprising, as if he was rehearsing lines from a play he didn't truly believe or enjoy at all.
23:39.710 --> 23:42.896
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's father later said it looked like he was reading from a script.
23:43.758 --> 23:48.327
[SPEAKER_00]: That he wasn't speaking freely, that he was heavily restricted in what he could say.
23:48.347 --> 23:53.076
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in 2010, something even stranger happened.
23:53.343 --> 23:59.653
[SPEAKER_00]: North Korean officials reached out, offering Megumi's parents a chance to meet their granddaughter, Kim Ung-kyung.
24:00.434 --> 24:03.359
[SPEAKER_00]: But only if they agreed to meet her in a third country.
24:04.120 --> 24:04.701
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Japan.
24:04.741 --> 24:11.892
[SPEAKER_00]: They probably wanted someone else to repeat their official story, and Megumi's daughter seemed like the perfect candidate.
24:13.492 --> 24:21.450
[SPEAKER_00]: It was believed to be some sort of trap, a tool for leverage, at least that's what everyone thought, and that was a fair assumption.
24:22.412 --> 24:26.081
[SPEAKER_00]: The Japanese government advised against it, so the meeting never happened.
24:26.942 --> 24:29.408
[SPEAKER_00]: But more puzzle pieces kept surfacing.
24:29.388 --> 24:40.464
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2011, a South Korean magazine reported that a Pyongyang residents' directory from 2005 listed a woman named Kim Ang Yong with Megumi's exact data birth.
24:41.285 --> 24:43.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Her listed spouse was called Kim Yongnam.
24:44.410 --> 24:50.198
[SPEAKER_00]: While Fishing, it turns out this woman wasn't fat, Megumi's daughter, and not Megumi herself.
24:51.427 --> 24:55.158
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone else went down the same line of thought before this was clarified.
24:55.960 --> 25:03.040
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi herself had once lived just a few kilometers north of Pyongyang, in a mountain village called Tae-Young-Di.
25:03.593 --> 25:07.277
[SPEAKER_00]: There, she shared what passed for a life with her husband and her baby daughter.
25:08.478 --> 25:16.808
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Hasee Kikauru, one of the abductees who lived alongside her and was later freed, they were neighbors for more than seven years.
25:17.689 --> 25:22.854
[SPEAKER_00]: The homes they lived in were called guesthouses, but they were more like golden cages.
25:23.555 --> 25:29.061
[SPEAKER_00]: You could walk around, you could cook, you could visit each other's homes, but you can't leave.
25:30.172 --> 25:37.082
[SPEAKER_00]: Haseika himself was abducted along with his girlfriend, Okudo Yukiko back in 1978 from Nika to prefecture.
25:37.944 --> 25:42.030
[SPEAKER_00]: The couple kind of had the best outcome in this terrible situation.
25:42.951 --> 25:47.998
[SPEAKER_00]: They married, they had two kids, and they were eventually released back to Japan in 2004.
25:49.741 --> 25:58.474
[SPEAKER_00]: During his time as Megumi's neighbor, who remembered her as quiet and reserved, but he
25:58.657 --> 26:03.385
[SPEAKER_00]: She would go on walks with her husband and daughter, pushing the stroller through the village roads.
26:04.266 --> 26:10.216
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes she would bring sakura mochi, she made from ration ingredients, to share with the other families.
26:11.118 --> 26:13.622
[SPEAKER_00]: They had meals together, when swimming together.
26:14.383 --> 26:23.719
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was always a weight behind her smile.
26:24.374 --> 26:32.332
[SPEAKER_00]: In March of 1994, she was taken from the village by a man named Chosun Chod, a North Korean agent, a signed to monitor her.
26:33.214 --> 26:34.777
[SPEAKER_00]: Hasevika never saw her again.
26:36.882 --> 26:43.817
[SPEAKER_00]: Years later, before he was released, that same agent told him, when you go to Japan, tell them Megumi died.
26:45.232 --> 26:50.839
[SPEAKER_00]: When Haseika asked if that was actually true, the man just repeated, that's what you're going to say.
26:52.060 --> 26:56.185
[SPEAKER_00]: Haseika returned to Japan, but there was still no word from Megumi, of course.
26:57.086 --> 27:01.091
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, the North Korean government was keeping her daughter under surveillance.
27:02.413 --> 27:08.961
[SPEAKER_00]: Some reports said that she was being overseen by none other than Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un's younger sister.
27:10.510 --> 27:13.033
[SPEAKER_00]: She had become a pawn in the regime's game.
27:14.094 --> 27:17.958
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in March 2014, something else happened.
27:18.819 --> 27:24.144
[SPEAKER_00]: The Japanese government approved a neutral meeting between Megumi's parents and their granddaughter.
27:25.125 --> 27:29.870
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's parents, Shigaru and Sakia, traveled to Alambotar, Mongolia.
27:30.611 --> 27:36.417
[SPEAKER_00]: And there, for the first time, they met their granddaughter, Kimong Gil, and their great granddaughter.
27:38.489 --> 27:45.918
[SPEAKER_00]: She goto and Sakia hoped that by some miracle, Megumi would also show up, but of course she was not there.
27:47.039 --> 27:50.183
[SPEAKER_00]: But this encounter was real, and it proved one thing.
27:51.064 --> 27:55.629
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi had lived, she had loved, and she had given birth under captivity.
27:55.649 --> 28:01.476
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing they didn't know was if she was dead, but they hoped that she wasn't.
28:01.726 --> 28:11.296
[SPEAKER_00]: After all this, years of conflicting stories, forged death certificates, ashes that didn't add up, more truth came from an unlikely place.
28:12.377 --> 28:18.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Tae Yongho, North Korea's former deputy ambassador to the UK, defected in 2016.
28:19.964 --> 28:27.852
[SPEAKER_00]: In his memoir, he revealed what had been happening behind the scenes after the 2002 summit, blew the lid off the abductions.
28:29.553 --> 28:32.838
[SPEAKER_00]: He claimed that Kim Jong-il never meant to send fake remains.
28:33.760 --> 28:40.851
[SPEAKER_00]: According to T. When Japan demanded proof of Megumi's death, North Korea was like, uh, what do we do?
28:40.871 --> 28:46.881
[SPEAKER_00]: There were no proper records and no one knew where she'd actually been buried if she had died.
28:47.782 --> 28:52.810
[SPEAKER_00]: It was less about political gains and more about just being horribly disorganized.
28:52.790 --> 28:57.237
[SPEAKER_00]: A hospital staff member was asked to guess the location of her burial, so they did.
28:58.058 --> 29:05.169
[SPEAKER_00]: So they dug up some bones from the mountains behind the psychiatric facility, where Megumi was allegedly a patient at before she passed.
29:05.990 --> 29:08.253
[SPEAKER_00]: These bones were cremated and sent to Japan.
29:09.255 --> 29:16.165
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the DNA didn't match, Kim Jong-il was furious, not because of the lie, but because of the fallout.
29:16.955 --> 29:22.982
[SPEAKER_00]: He reportedly told his foreign affairs minister, quote, as expected, the Japs can't be trusted.
29:23.442 --> 29:25.004
[SPEAKER_00]: The American bastards are better.
29:25.885 --> 29:31.952
[SPEAKER_00]: Unquote, not sure what that means exactly, but feel free to interpret that however you'd like.
29:33.133 --> 29:36.216
[SPEAKER_00]: But even in failure, he refused to take accountability.
29:37.738 --> 29:39.039
[SPEAKER_00]: So, why?
29:39.080 --> 29:44.025
[SPEAKER_00]: Why wouldn't North Korea go to such lengths to hide the truths
29:44.258 --> 29:48.654
[SPEAKER_00]: Why persist with lies, forged documents, and diplomatic dead ends?
29:49.798 --> 29:54.876
[SPEAKER_00]: Why wouldn't they just say she died, and then say I don't remember where she was buried?
29:55.582 --> 29:56.343
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a theory.
29:57.245 --> 30:00.831
[SPEAKER_00]: Some reports suggest that Megumi wasn't just any of Dukti.
30:01.432 --> 30:05.660
[SPEAKER_00]: She was, after all, teaching the Japanese language and culture to North Korean spies.
30:06.521 --> 30:10.568
[SPEAKER_00]: That means that she would have seen and hurt things the world isn't meant to know.
30:10.609 --> 30:20.526
[SPEAKER_00]: If those secrets got out, she could be a liability, a breeding-speaking secret, and secrets like that do not get to go home.
30:20.506 --> 30:28.460
[SPEAKER_00]: She got her held on to hope for as long as he could, truly believing Megumi was still alive, that one day she would walk through the door again.
30:28.500 --> 30:37.215
[SPEAKER_00]: He remained a fierce advocate for the abductees' families, but in 2020, he passed away without ever seeing his daughter again.
30:39.052 --> 30:43.561
[SPEAKER_00]: His wife, Saki-it, now 87, continues the fight for Megumi.
30:44.563 --> 30:54.242
[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier in 2025, she told reporters about a sudden hell scare, heart palpitations, white vision, a terrifying moment of collapse.
30:54.408 --> 30:59.033
[SPEAKER_00]: But she said that she held on because the hope of getting Megumi back, kept her going.
31:00.174 --> 31:08.443
[SPEAKER_00]: After she get his death, the leadership of the abductee family's association passed the Taguchi Yakuza brother, Izuka Shigil.
31:09.284 --> 31:13.489
[SPEAKER_00]: Taguchi was a 22-year-old bar hostess who was kidnapped in June of 1978.
31:13.649 --> 31:20.196
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe Megumi younger brother Takuya is now the representative of the Association.
31:21.425 --> 31:28.650
[SPEAKER_00]: Now in the next generation, children of the abducted are stepping up, urging the government to act before it's too late.
31:29.305 --> 31:36.255
[SPEAKER_00]: Prime Minister at the time, Kishida also made bold promises in 2023, saying that it was time to take action.
31:37.096 --> 31:41.602
[SPEAKER_00]: Quote, now is a time to take bold action to change the present situation.
31:42.404 --> 31:50.495
[SPEAKER_00]: Japan will press forward proactively, engaging in high-level consultations, to bring about summit-level talks, unquote.
31:51.476 --> 31:58.907
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think any action has been taken thus far, but we can keep an eye out on this
32:00.507 --> 32:08.555
[SPEAKER_00]: So there you have it, the story of Yokota Megumi, just one of many who were taken from Japan or South Korea, by North Korea.
32:09.596 --> 32:25.452
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the accidental kidnapping and the fact that she was still a literal child, they made good use of her skills.
32:26.647 --> 32:30.713
[SPEAKER_00]: Is Megumi still alive, hidden, silenced, because she knows too much?
32:31.655 --> 32:36.122
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is she truly gone, her fate buried beneath layers of lies and confusion?
32:37.163 --> 32:42.732
[SPEAKER_00]: And why, after all these years, does it still feel like someone somewhere is hiding something?
32:43.184 --> 32:48.312
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're interested in learning more, there are so many articles online as so many other victim stories.
32:49.414 --> 32:56.645
[SPEAKER_00]: As for Megumi, Nippon television produced a film about her life, titled Saikai Yokotamigumi San Lune Gaite.
32:57.948 --> 33:05.800
[SPEAKER_00]: An American documentary was also made titled Obduction, The Megumi Yokotostori, back in 2006.
33:06.252 --> 33:31.669
[SPEAKER_00]: A book was also written in Publish in 2012 by the Yoko Dao family, titled, Megumi-E, No Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Y
33:33.016 --> 33:38.428
[SPEAKER_00]: For her family sick though, I do hope she is, and that North Korea does the right thing.
33:39.591 --> 33:41.455
[SPEAKER_00]: Wishful thinking, probably.
33:41.495 --> 33:45.124
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for taking the time to listen to this episode.
33:46.026 --> 33:50.355
[SPEAKER_00]: As always, remember to be kind, stay vigilant, and stay safe.
33:51.237 --> 33:51.919
[SPEAKER_00]: Till next time.
00:00.031 --> 00:06.413
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jessica, and you're listening to the Asian Madness podcast.
00:38.776 --> 00:51.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Asian Madness podcast in the year 2026.
00:52.457 --> 00:56.503
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly I'm surprised I'm still here doing this little podcast.
00:56.523 --> 01:04.716
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for continuing to tune in, and while I may not be one of them big names out there, that's totally cool with me.
01:04.696 --> 01:11.850
[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoy doing this, not in a, this is fun, but more in a, I like sharing these stories with people.
01:12.611 --> 01:13.433
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you!
01:14.475 --> 01:17.100
[SPEAKER_00]: With that out of the way, let's get into today's case.
01:18.282 --> 01:22.931
[SPEAKER_00]: I found this case online somehow, and I immediately knew I had to put it on my list.
01:23.993 --> 01:27.379
[SPEAKER_00]: It's strange, almost plays out like a movie.
01:27.359 --> 01:34.729
[SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of weird-of-infection cases exist in our world, so at this point, what will truly shock you?
01:35.810 --> 01:37.813
[SPEAKER_00]: So imagine yourself as a teenager.
01:38.434 --> 01:48.447
[SPEAKER_00]: You go to school, you have a family, you have friends, you have to do stupid homework every day, and you probably have a crush on that boy sitting across the room from you.
01:49.689 --> 01:56.438
[SPEAKER_00]: Simple everyday teenager things.
01:57.464 --> 02:01.992
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're taking away kidnapped and you never see your family ever again.
02:03.053 --> 02:10.045
[SPEAKER_00]: These kidnappers not only take you away from your home, from your loved ones, you actually wake up in a foreign country.
02:11.207 --> 02:14.072
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this human trafficking or something else?
02:15.454 --> 02:23.708
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't get me wrong, people know where you're at, your family knows, your government knows, but there's nothing they can do for you.
02:24.802 --> 02:32.253
[SPEAKER_00]: As much as this sounds like an action movie about a teenager's resilience and revenge, real life does not tend to play out that way.
02:33.234 --> 02:37.641
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is something that actually happened to Yokota Megumi back in 1977.
02:37.701 --> 02:46.033
[SPEAKER_00]: She was snatched away, not spirited away, and everything about what happened to her afterwards still remains a mystery.
02:46.385 --> 02:52.343
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, there were accounts of our live post kidnapping, but are these accounts to be trusted?
02:52.403 --> 02:55.813
[SPEAKER_00]: Some say no, and you'll see why.
02:56.515 --> 02:57.137
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's begin.
02:58.889 --> 03:04.156
[SPEAKER_00]: Yokoton Megumi was born on October 5, 1964, in Nagoya, Japan.
03:04.917 --> 03:10.124
[SPEAKER_00]: This would make her 61 in early 2026, but let's slow down a bit first.
03:11.105 --> 03:24.643
[SPEAKER_00]: Not much is really known about her background, unfortunately, but we do know that when she was around too, her family moved to Tokyo, and two years later in 1968, her twin younger brothers, Tetsuya, and Takuya were born.
03:26.058 --> 03:36.429
[SPEAKER_00]: The family then moved again in 1972 from Tokyo to Hiroshima, and in July of 1976, the Yokota family up and moved to Niga-ta prefecture.
03:37.470 --> 03:45.398
[SPEAKER_00]: That seems like a lot of moving around, and it must have been difficult leaving friends behind, having to make new ones, and enrolling in new schools.
03:46.459 --> 03:54.327
[SPEAKER_00]: Regardless, Megumi and her brothers made the best out of it, following their parents and adjusting to their new lives every single time.
03:55.859 --> 04:02.129
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi met her best friend at the time in September of 1976, a girl named Shimbo Emiko.
04:02.930 --> 04:08.799
[SPEAKER_00]: The two soon became familiar and fast friends, taking part in the elementary school's choir club together.
04:09.761 --> 04:14.688
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi was a good singer, and was also talented in drawing, and quite athletic.
04:15.770 --> 04:23.622
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's family also became familiar with Emiko's presence, happy to see their daughter
04:24.833 --> 04:33.244
[SPEAKER_00]: In April of 1977, Megumi wasn't rolled in a local Nigata city or Nigata city, Yori, Junior High School.
04:34.365 --> 04:42.556
[SPEAKER_00]: It was supposed to be the good kind of boring life where you go to school, make friends, lose friends, take tests and complain about the teachers.
04:43.637 --> 04:50.706
[SPEAKER_00]: But not long after starting junior high, things took a very dramatic turn for the Yokota family and those around Megumi.
04:52.222 --> 05:02.452
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just supposed to be another regular day, Tuesday, November 15, 1977, a little cold, a little windy, but nothing out of the ordinary.
05:02.473 --> 05:06.316
[SPEAKER_00]: 13-year-old Megamy woke up like she always did.
05:06.997 --> 05:11.362
[SPEAKER_00]: She had breakfast with her family, grabbed her school bag, and headed out to class.
05:12.223 --> 05:17.588
[SPEAKER_00]: She laughed with friends, laid a little badminton after school, along with her friend Emiko.
05:18.125 --> 05:24.754
[SPEAKER_00]: On this day though, Megumi was set to have injured her finger during practice, and ultimately decided to return home early.
05:24.814 --> 05:27.538
[SPEAKER_00]: Home was barely seven minutes away.
05:28.239 --> 05:31.343
[SPEAKER_00]: She said goodbye to her friends, but she never made it home.
05:32.445 --> 05:40.015
[SPEAKER_00]: When the clock tick passed 6pm, and Megumi still hadn't walked through the door, her mother, Saki, felt something wasn't right.
05:41.429 --> 05:45.955
[SPEAKER_00]: She rushed to the school gym, hoping to catch her on the way, but Megumi wasn't there.
05:46.856 --> 05:52.083
[SPEAKER_00]: When she asked around, the night watchman told her that the school kids had left ages ago.
05:52.123 --> 05:55.327
[SPEAKER_00]: And just like that, panic said in.
05:56.168 --> 06:01.294
[SPEAKER_00]: Sakia also made a call to her daughter's best friend, Emiko, wondering if they were together.
06:01.995 --> 06:04.298
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, you know the answer to that.
06:05.527 --> 06:07.672
[SPEAKER_00]: Emigo couldn't imagine the worst for Megumi.
06:08.573 --> 06:15.448
[SPEAKER_00]: In a child's mind, it was safe for them to assume that their friend probably just stopped by a shop or ran into another friend.
06:16.270 --> 06:23.164
[SPEAKER_00]: They may not immediately think of the worst, and I would be surprised if anyone managed to guess what really happened to Megumi.
06:24.967 --> 06:36.098
[SPEAKER_00]: The police got involved quickly, searched parties formed immediately, flashlights cutting through the pine trees, police shouting her name, track her dog sniffing the path that led to the sea.
06:37.219 --> 06:43.205
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mother, running to the beach in the dark, scanning the shadows between the park cars, calling for her daughter.
06:44.406 --> 06:53.995
[SPEAKER_00]: It made sense to look near the shoreline, they were living in a seaside town after all,
06:54.143 --> 07:04.838
[SPEAKER_00]: some gut-level dread that she couldn't shake, and sure enough, out in the black nose of the ocean, just beyond the waves, a boat was already moving.
07:05.859 --> 07:11.346
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, no one knew anything about a boat at the time, this would all come to light years later.
07:13.690 --> 07:22.041
[SPEAKER_00]: Yokotashi Garu, Miigumi's father, started walking the shoreline every morning, hoping to see
07:22.325 --> 07:27.051
[SPEAKER_00]: If a body was washed up to shore, he would immediately ask if it was his daughter.
07:27.992 --> 07:28.673
[SPEAKER_00]: It never was.
07:29.634 --> 07:33.498
[SPEAKER_00]: At night he would cry in the bath quietly, so no one could hear.
07:33.538 --> 07:37.163
[SPEAKER_00]: Sakia cried too, but only when she was alone.
07:38.144 --> 07:43.450
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't want to scare her sons, Takuya and Tetsuya, who were just nine years old at the time.
07:44.532 --> 07:50.779
[SPEAKER_00]: The house once filled with chatter and brightness turned heavy, quiet, cold.
07:51.232 --> 07:58.642
[SPEAKER_00]: Takuya would later say that he still remembers waking up each day thinking, maybe this is it, maybe she'll walk through the door today.
07:59.525 --> 08:02.035
[SPEAKER_00]: But that never happened, and it would never happen.
08:02.960 --> 08:10.169
[SPEAKER_00]: What the family didn't know, what no one knew for years, was that Megumi was still alive, at least at the time.
08:11.150 --> 08:14.214
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family didn't know it yet, but Megumi wasn't even alone.
08:15.055 --> 08:23.685
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, more similar cases would surface, more disappearances, some confirmed other still in limbo.
08:23.665 --> 08:34.277
[SPEAKER_00]: No, this isn't some predator kidnapping little kids all over Japan, or some deranged murder grabbing people off the streets to fulfill their personal fantasies.
08:35.459 --> 08:37.161
[SPEAKER_00]: At least not in Megumi's case.
08:37.981 --> 08:41.105
[SPEAKER_00]: The real reason for Megumi's disappearance was very bizarre.
08:43.888 --> 08:47.192
[SPEAKER_00]: So if not some freak targeting schoolgirls, then who?
08:48.337 --> 08:59.663
[SPEAKER_00]: Long story short, the Japanese government eventually admitted that at least 17 of their citizens had been abducted by North Korea between 1977 and 1983.
08:59.828 --> 09:08.924
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, almost sounds like the government is blaming someone else for their inability to solve crimes, but sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
09:10.005 --> 09:12.149
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it seems to be really what happened.
09:13.051 --> 09:21.746
[SPEAKER_00]: Seventeen confirmed victims, but that barely scratches the surface though, because it could have easily crossed a hundred, or so it was believed.
09:22.928 --> 09:25.532
[SPEAKER_00]: And among the first on that list was Megumi.
09:26.373 --> 09:31.542
[SPEAKER_00]: And while we have many questions for North Korea, the biggest question is probably why.
09:31.602 --> 09:37.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Why was North Korea actively kidnapping so many innocent civilians from their hometowns?
09:38.013 --> 09:38.835
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they have a plan?
09:39.556 --> 09:40.297
[SPEAKER_00]: A target list?
09:41.279 --> 09:43.202
[SPEAKER_00]: And why would they grab a 13-year-old girl?
09:44.525 --> 09:48.752
[SPEAKER_00]: I can imagine what crosses your mind, but let's hold that thought for a minute.
09:50.116 --> 09:57.584
[SPEAKER_00]: In the days after Megumi's disappearance, the town was shaken, but the weak stretched on, and then months, then years.
09:58.205 --> 10:03.171
[SPEAKER_00]: Before learning about North Korea's involvement, though, the police launched a full-scale search.
10:03.972 --> 10:06.735
[SPEAKER_00]: Over 3,000 staff days were poured into the case.
10:07.475 --> 10:13.362
[SPEAKER_00]: Patrol boats scanned the water, a kidnapping unit, even operated out of the Yokwata family home.
10:14.043 --> 10:16.005
[SPEAKER_00]: But still, nothing.
10:17.504 --> 10:22.853
[SPEAKER_00]: According to a later testimony from a North Korean defector, her abduction had been a mistake.
10:23.915 --> 10:32.910
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1988, a senior spy reportedly told the story to Anmyeongjin, a young North Korean agent who would later flee to the south.
10:34.573 --> 10:40.002
[SPEAKER_00]: So according to the North Koreans who admitted to knowing what happened to Megumi, this is their story.
10:41.281 --> 10:54.285
[SPEAKER_00]: On November 15, 1977, two North Korean agents were wrapping up a secret mission in Niga-ta Prefecture and were waiting on the beach for a boat, presumably to get them back to North Korea or their vessel.
10:55.066 --> 11:05.365
[SPEAKER_00]: They noticed someone walking nearby, someone who might have seen too much of whatever they were up to, but this part was unclear since we don't know what they were doing.
11:06.172 --> 11:07.934
[SPEAKER_00]: Either way, they got spooked.
11:08.755 --> 11:11.158
[SPEAKER_00]: In the darkness, they panicked and grabbed the figure.
11:11.918 --> 11:17.405
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi was tall for her age, so they didn't realize she was a child until it was too late.
11:18.546 --> 11:19.347
[SPEAKER_00]: What are they going to do?
11:19.387 --> 11:20.888
[SPEAKER_00]: Apologize and let her go?
11:20.929 --> 11:21.970
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
11:22.570 --> 11:26.895
[SPEAKER_00]: People who do bad things usually stick to their guns and double and triple down.
11:27.456 --> 11:28.397
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what they did.
11:29.879 --> 11:33.883
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever mistake they made, they could probably remedy it somehow.
11:34.808 --> 11:40.635
[SPEAKER_00]: She spent nearly two full days, 40 hours, locked in a pitch black storage compartment on the ship.
11:41.556 --> 11:46.721
[SPEAKER_00]: When she arrived in North Korea, her fingernails were torn and bleeding from trying to claw her way out.
11:47.522 --> 11:49.825
[SPEAKER_00]: She screamed for her mother and refused to eat.
11:50.846 --> 11:55.451
[SPEAKER_00]: The agents, of course, were reprimanded for making such a stupid and risky mistake.
11:56.212 --> 11:58.074
[SPEAKER_00]: A child wasn't supposed to be taken.
11:58.835 --> 12:02.419
[SPEAKER_00]: She was considered useless to the regime at first.
12:02.652 --> 12:04.695
[SPEAKER_00]: but soon the gear started turning.
12:05.497 --> 12:08.341
[SPEAKER_00]: Why waste a perfectly good and able-bodied person?
12:09.303 --> 12:14.311
[SPEAKER_00]: They told me that if she worked hard enough and learned Korean, she would be allowed to go home.
12:15.132 --> 12:23.766
[SPEAKER_00]: To no one's surprise, it was a lie, one carefully crafted to break a child down slowly without allowing her to fully give up.
12:25.265 --> 12:30.253
[SPEAKER_00]: If they wanted to use her abilities, they would have to keep her spirits up and give her hope.
12:31.174 --> 12:36.823
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope is usually thought of in a positive way, but in this case, it's a case of false hope.
12:37.785 --> 12:43.354
[SPEAKER_00]: Dangling the carrot, moving goal posts, never giving their victim the final reward.
12:44.255 --> 12:45.738
[SPEAKER_00]: But how could Megamy have known that?
12:46.519 --> 12:50.445
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if she suspected, why wouldn't she at least try?
12:51.185 --> 13:00.936
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi was eventually assigned to a secret training facility where she taught Japanese language and culture to North Korean spies, spies who would later infiltrate Japan.
13:02.137 --> 13:03.058
[SPEAKER_00]: And she wasn't alone.
13:04.239 --> 13:13.449
[SPEAKER_00]: As there were others, Japanese and South Korean students, teachers, even couples, some were abducted from their own country for a specific purpose.
13:14.290 --> 13:18.795
[SPEAKER_00]: Others, like Megumi, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
13:18.775 --> 13:27.985
[SPEAKER_00]: But the goal was always the same, to build a spy network using foreign expertise, stolen identities, and brainwashed loyalty.
13:29.526 --> 13:34.471
[SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, the Yokota family had no idea and they weren't the only ones.
13:35.432 --> 13:45.863
[SPEAKER_00]: Families all over Japan were struggling with the same agonizing silence.
13:46.957 --> 13:52.805
[SPEAKER_00]: Some cases were written off as runaways, others were cold cases gathering dust on shelves.
13:53.786 --> 14:02.879
[SPEAKER_00]: If no one confirmed, how would these families know if their loved ones were kidnapped by North Korea, murdered, or runaway, or something else entirely?
14:03.780 --> 14:06.524
[SPEAKER_00]: But whispers continued, patterns emerged.
14:07.445 --> 14:12.272
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't until the 1990s that the story began to slowly leak to the public.
14:12.995 --> 14:19.870
[SPEAKER_00]: A Japanese journalist named Ishidaka had been investigating the North Korea facilitated repatriation program.
14:20.812 --> 14:27.848
[SPEAKER_00]: A Cold War era campaign that had encouraged ethnic Koreans in Japan to return home to the North.
14:28.942 --> 14:31.927
[SPEAKER_00]: But as he dug deeper, he uncovered something darker.
14:32.648 --> 14:35.152
[SPEAKER_00]: These people weren't going back voluntarily.
14:35.893 --> 14:40.601
[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't going back so they could reunite with their families or return to the motherland.
14:41.122 --> 14:42.084
[SPEAKER_00]: They were vanishing.
14:42.865 --> 14:43.205
[SPEAKER_00]: Taken.
14:45.109 --> 14:53.262
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1995, Ishidaka produced a documentary called Dark Seas, North Korea secret operations against the South.
14:53.765 --> 15:07.065
[SPEAKER_00]: It exposed the 1980 kidnapping of a man living in Osaka named Hara Tadaki by a North Korean spy named Singlansu, who then used Hara identity to conduct a spianage across Asia.
15:08.087 --> 15:11.492
[SPEAKER_00]: Singl was eventually captured by South Korean authorities in 2014.
15:11.792 --> 15:22.168
[SPEAKER_00]: The documentary reached millions, but the government and media remained mostly quiet, probably
15:22.688 --> 15:24.911
[SPEAKER_00]: Still, Ishidaka kept digging.
15:25.853 --> 15:38.993
[SPEAKER_00]: In early 1996, he published an article in a South Korea magazine describing a seventh-grade Japanese girl who had been abducted in the 1970s and was believed to still be alive in North Korea.
15:40.171 --> 15:44.822
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't name her, but eventually everyone knew he was referring to Megumi.
15:45.985 --> 15:56.610
[SPEAKER_00]: A secretary from Japan's parliament called Megumi's parents in 1997 and told them what had been uncovered about their daughters' whereabouts, that the North Korean did it.
15:56.759 --> 15:59.183
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's father, Shigaru, was skeptical.
16:00.185 --> 16:01.207
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds fantastical.
16:02.009 --> 16:06.076
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, it had been so long since they had heard of any updates or leads.
16:06.837 --> 16:09.462
[SPEAKER_00]: But one specific detail stood out in that call.
16:10.103 --> 16:13.249
[SPEAKER_00]: The girl was described as a twin sister.
16:13.229 --> 16:20.143
[SPEAKER_00]: This part I'm a little bit unsure of, as I can't find any information saying that she had a twin herself.
16:20.163 --> 16:22.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they mean that she was a twins sister?
16:22.588 --> 16:28.420
[SPEAKER_00]: Either way, this was the piece of information that made she go to his ears perk up.
16:30.610 --> 16:33.855
[SPEAKER_00]: For too many years, the Yokota family had no answers.
16:34.616 --> 16:36.618
[SPEAKER_00]: Then suddenly, they had too many.
16:37.460 --> 16:44.369
[SPEAKER_00]: So as mentioned, on the 21st of January 1997, she got to receive news that he had been dreaming of.
16:45.230 --> 16:50.378
[SPEAKER_00]: Quote, we have information that your daughter is alive in North Korea, unquote.
16:50.398 --> 16:54.423
[SPEAKER_00]: Along with their shock, a mad hope sprang back into the family's hearts.
16:55.224 --> 16:57.748
[SPEAKER_00]: The government believed Megumi was alive.
16:57.998 --> 17:01.162
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question at once became, how do we get her back?
17:02.063 --> 17:07.990
[SPEAKER_00]: By getting eyes on enemy ground, of course, getting as many people to learn their story and back up their claim.
17:08.871 --> 17:18.103
[SPEAKER_00]: The family appeared on Prime Time TV, questions were raised in Parliament, and the government publicly confirmed that Megumi was not an isolated case.
17:18.844 --> 17:27.094
[SPEAKER_00]: There were many more others like the Yoko Taz, aching for stolen daughters, sons, sisters,
17:28.070 --> 17:39.022
[SPEAKER_00]: Soon after this revelation, in 1998, the Association of Families of Victims, kidnapped by North Korea, was established, which she get through heading the organization.
17:39.903 --> 17:44.148
[SPEAKER_00]: Seven of these families joined the support group to demand the rescue of their loved ones.
17:44.889 --> 17:48.913
[SPEAKER_00]: They talked at length, gathering and trying to make sense of what little they knew.
17:48.953 --> 17:57.823
[SPEAKER_00]: The abductions looked opportunistic, but there were patterns.
17:57.803 --> 18:01.030
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, just nine months after Megumi was taken.
18:01.050 --> 18:09.827
[SPEAKER_00]: 24-year-old office clerk Matsumoto Rumiko went to watch the sunset with her boyfriend, 23-year-old Ishikawa Shuichi.
18:10.569 --> 18:12.673
[SPEAKER_00]: At a beach in Kagoshima prefecture.
18:13.598 --> 18:15.220
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the last time they were seen.
18:15.240 --> 18:22.310
[SPEAKER_00]: Their car was found locked at the location, with rumicles, wallet, and sunglasses still in the passenger seat.
18:23.231 --> 18:28.538
[SPEAKER_00]: Her camera was there too, filled with pictures, the couple took of each other, the day they disappeared.
18:29.559 --> 18:33.244
[SPEAKER_00]: Please pick up one of Shuchi's sandals, not far from the shore.
18:34.557 --> 18:41.509
[SPEAKER_00]: bit by bit, secrets were spilling out, and in 2002, something no one expected to happen happened.
18:42.531 --> 18:48.601
[SPEAKER_00]: On September 17, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Juni Chidol, boarded a plane to Pyongyang.
18:49.583 --> 18:55.113
[SPEAKER_00]: During the historic summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il did something no one thought he would do.
18:55.874 --> 18:57.156
[SPEAKER_00]: He admitted it.
18:57.136 --> 19:00.400
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, North Korea had abducted Japanese citizens.
19:00.900 --> 19:03.142
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it had happened over many years.
19:03.823 --> 19:06.786
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, Yakutamigumi was one of them.
19:08.368 --> 19:09.569
[SPEAKER_00]: He even apologized.
19:10.490 --> 19:11.772
[SPEAKER_00]: What the hell do you do with that?
19:12.593 --> 19:15.175
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, thank you, but more action, please?
19:16.477 --> 19:19.160
[SPEAKER_00]: Five of the victims were returned to Japan immediately.
19:19.881 --> 19:24.966
[SPEAKER_00]: A few of their children followed soon after.
19:26.752 --> 19:34.563
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, the North Korean government claimed that Megumi had actually died, and that she wasn't the only Japanese abductee that had died.
19:35.264 --> 19:48.763
[SPEAKER_00]: They such married another fellow abductee, a South Korean man named King Yongnam, in 1986, that they had a daughter in 1987, and he claimed that she later killed herself because she was suffering from depression.
19:50.245 --> 19:53.890
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently she had made multiple attempts before finally succeeding.
19:54.562 --> 19:57.166
[SPEAKER_00]: I honestly can't be surprised she was depressed at all.
19:57.827 --> 20:04.639
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine being not just kidnapped, but being taken by the stake and just given a different life under North Korea randomly.
20:05.981 --> 20:14.015
[SPEAKER_00]: North Korea also produced several Dutch certificates to Japan, including that of Mingumi's, listing out the names of those they claim had died.
20:14.976 --> 20:18.983
[SPEAKER_00]: However, it was later discovered that these Dutch certificates were fakes.
20:20.026 --> 20:24.772
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably something they thought was shut the Japanese up, stopped them from digging any further.
20:25.733 --> 20:33.904
[SPEAKER_00]: Per Ishidaka, quote, the desertificates were hastily prepared in 2002 in response to the visit of a Japanese government survey team.
20:34.585 --> 20:36.187
[SPEAKER_00]: There were many unusual details.
20:36.908 --> 20:44.177
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, the same hospital confirmed all eight does despite the time and place of each death being different.
20:44.157 --> 20:48.445
[SPEAKER_00]: In addition, North Korea initially claimed that Megumi died in 1993.
20:49.126 --> 20:56.159
[SPEAKER_00]: However, according to the testimony of the return of Doug D's, she was still alive at some time after that year.
20:57.101 --> 21:01.709
[SPEAKER_00]: So North Korea quickly revised the death certificate to say that she died in 1994.
21:03.192 --> 21:08.241
[SPEAKER_00]: These suspicious actions suggest that Megumi might still be alive, unquote.
21:10.432 --> 21:15.021
[SPEAKER_00]: They said Megumi's husband cremated her remains and kept the ashes in his home for years.
21:15.782 --> 21:20.992
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, as of that wasn't jarring enough, they handed over those ashes back to Japan.
21:21.753 --> 21:26.642
[SPEAKER_00]: The Yokota family was devastated, but a big part of them didn't take it at face value.
21:27.464 --> 21:28.807
[SPEAKER_00]: Or rather, they had doubts.
21:29.628 --> 21:32.794
[SPEAKER_00]: This felt too clean, too wrapped up in a bowl.
21:33.297 --> 21:42.173
[SPEAKER_00]: There had to be more information, so they decided to get a DNA test done on the ashes, and turns out, the ashes weren't even hers.
21:43.155 --> 21:44.898
[SPEAKER_00]: Were they even ashes to begin with?
21:45.580 --> 21:48.505
[SPEAKER_00]: Or did they just give her some random person's ashes?
21:49.852 --> 21:52.557
[SPEAKER_00]: But immediately the DNA testing was questioned.
21:53.338 --> 22:00.009
[SPEAKER_00]: The testing had been carried out by a relatively junior lecture with zero experience analyzing cremator remains.
22:00.751 --> 22:06.641
[SPEAKER_00]: The samples were tiny, easily contaminated, and completely used up during the testing process.
22:07.602 --> 22:09.165
[SPEAKER_00]: Retesting was impossible.
22:09.686 --> 22:12.130
[SPEAKER_00]: Verifying the existing result was difficult.
22:13.325 --> 22:16.869
[SPEAKER_00]: and Nature Magazine published an article questioning the entire process.
22:17.610 --> 22:29.603
[SPEAKER_00]: Their point was, quote, Japan is right to doubt North Korea's every statement, but its interpretation of the DNA test has crossed a boundary of science's freedom from political interference, unquote.
22:31.084 --> 22:36.210
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, the truth is buried somewhere between lies, ashes, and politics.
22:36.494 --> 22:37.856
[SPEAKER_00]: and no one could prove anything.
22:38.937 --> 22:40.839
[SPEAKER_00]: And that wasn't the only strange detail.
22:41.500 --> 22:46.185
[SPEAKER_00]: Cremation isn't a common practice in North Korea, or at least it wasn't at the time.
22:47.267 --> 22:57.959
[SPEAKER_00]: In an article on funeral services from 2021, it states that quote, until two decades ago, many Pyongyang citizens were buried the deceased in nearby hills or mountains.
22:58.580 --> 23:05.488
[SPEAKER_00]: Cremation facilities are inadequate in North Korea, and local people still opt for traditional burial,
23:07.173 --> 23:22.694
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2006, Kim Youngnam, the man North Korea said Megumi had married, was allowed to meet his family from the South, and during the orchestrated reunion, who repeated the same official story that, yes, Megumi had mental health issues.
23:23.335 --> 23:24.657
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, she died in 1994.
23:25.899 --> 23:27.721
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, those were her ashes.
23:29.103 --> 23:31.847
[SPEAKER_00]: But watching and speak, something fell off.
23:32.536 --> 23:38.327
[SPEAKER_00]: Not surprising, as if he was rehearsing lines from a play he didn't truly believe or enjoy at all.
23:39.710 --> 23:42.896
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's father later said it looked like he was reading from a script.
23:43.758 --> 23:48.327
[SPEAKER_00]: That he wasn't speaking freely, that he was heavily restricted in what he could say.
23:48.347 --> 23:53.076
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in 2010, something even stranger happened.
23:53.343 --> 23:59.653
[SPEAKER_00]: North Korean officials reached out, offering Megumi's parents a chance to meet their granddaughter, Kim Ung-kyung.
24:00.434 --> 24:03.359
[SPEAKER_00]: But only if they agreed to meet her in a third country.
24:04.120 --> 24:04.701
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Japan.
24:04.741 --> 24:11.892
[SPEAKER_00]: They probably wanted someone else to repeat their official story, and Megumi's daughter seemed like the perfect candidate.
24:13.492 --> 24:21.450
[SPEAKER_00]: It was believed to be some sort of trap, a tool for leverage, at least that's what everyone thought, and that was a fair assumption.
24:22.412 --> 24:26.081
[SPEAKER_00]: The Japanese government advised against it, so the meeting never happened.
24:26.942 --> 24:29.408
[SPEAKER_00]: But more puzzle pieces kept surfacing.
24:29.388 --> 24:40.464
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2011, a South Korean magazine reported that a Pyongyang residents' directory from 2005 listed a woman named Kim Ang Yong with Megumi's exact data birth.
24:41.285 --> 24:43.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Her listed spouse was called Kim Yongnam.
24:44.410 --> 24:50.198
[SPEAKER_00]: While Fishing, it turns out this woman wasn't fat, Megumi's daughter, and not Megumi herself.
24:51.427 --> 24:55.158
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone else went down the same line of thought before this was clarified.
24:55.960 --> 25:03.040
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi herself had once lived just a few kilometers north of Pyongyang, in a mountain village called Tae-Young-Di.
25:03.593 --> 25:07.277
[SPEAKER_00]: There, she shared what passed for a life with her husband and her baby daughter.
25:08.478 --> 25:16.808
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Hasee Kikauru, one of the abductees who lived alongside her and was later freed, they were neighbors for more than seven years.
25:17.689 --> 25:22.854
[SPEAKER_00]: The homes they lived in were called guesthouses, but they were more like golden cages.
25:23.555 --> 25:29.061
[SPEAKER_00]: You could walk around, you could cook, you could visit each other's homes, but you can't leave.
25:30.172 --> 25:37.082
[SPEAKER_00]: Haseika himself was abducted along with his girlfriend, Okudo Yukiko back in 1978 from Nika to prefecture.
25:37.944 --> 25:42.030
[SPEAKER_00]: The couple kind of had the best outcome in this terrible situation.
25:42.951 --> 25:47.998
[SPEAKER_00]: They married, they had two kids, and they were eventually released back to Japan in 2004.
25:49.741 --> 25:58.474
[SPEAKER_00]: During his time as Megumi's neighbor, who remembered her as quiet and reserved, but he
25:58.657 --> 26:03.385
[SPEAKER_00]: She would go on walks with her husband and daughter, pushing the stroller through the village roads.
26:04.266 --> 26:10.216
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes she would bring sakura mochi, she made from ration ingredients, to share with the other families.
26:11.118 --> 26:13.622
[SPEAKER_00]: They had meals together, when swimming together.
26:14.383 --> 26:23.719
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was always a weight behind her smile.
26:24.374 --> 26:32.332
[SPEAKER_00]: In March of 1994, she was taken from the village by a man named Chosun Chod, a North Korean agent, a signed to monitor her.
26:33.214 --> 26:34.777
[SPEAKER_00]: Hasevika never saw her again.
26:36.882 --> 26:43.817
[SPEAKER_00]: Years later, before he was released, that same agent told him, when you go to Japan, tell them Megumi died.
26:45.232 --> 26:50.839
[SPEAKER_00]: When Haseika asked if that was actually true, the man just repeated, that's what you're going to say.
26:52.060 --> 26:56.185
[SPEAKER_00]: Haseika returned to Japan, but there was still no word from Megumi, of course.
26:57.086 --> 27:01.091
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, the North Korean government was keeping her daughter under surveillance.
27:02.413 --> 27:08.961
[SPEAKER_00]: Some reports said that she was being overseen by none other than Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un's younger sister.
27:10.510 --> 27:13.033
[SPEAKER_00]: She had become a pawn in the regime's game.
27:14.094 --> 27:17.958
[SPEAKER_00]: Then, in March 2014, something else happened.
27:18.819 --> 27:24.144
[SPEAKER_00]: The Japanese government approved a neutral meeting between Megumi's parents and their granddaughter.
27:25.125 --> 27:29.870
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi's parents, Shigaru and Sakia, traveled to Alambotar, Mongolia.
27:30.611 --> 27:36.417
[SPEAKER_00]: And there, for the first time, they met their granddaughter, Kimong Gil, and their great granddaughter.
27:38.489 --> 27:45.918
[SPEAKER_00]: She goto and Sakia hoped that by some miracle, Megumi would also show up, but of course she was not there.
27:47.039 --> 27:50.183
[SPEAKER_00]: But this encounter was real, and it proved one thing.
27:51.064 --> 27:55.629
[SPEAKER_00]: Megumi had lived, she had loved, and she had given birth under captivity.
27:55.649 --> 28:01.476
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing they didn't know was if she was dead, but they hoped that she wasn't.
28:01.726 --> 28:11.296
[SPEAKER_00]: After all this, years of conflicting stories, forged death certificates, ashes that didn't add up, more truth came from an unlikely place.
28:12.377 --> 28:18.763
[SPEAKER_00]: Tae Yongho, North Korea's former deputy ambassador to the UK, defected in 2016.
28:19.964 --> 28:27.852
[SPEAKER_00]: In his memoir, he revealed what had been happening behind the scenes after the 2002 summit, blew the lid off the abductions.
28:29.553 --> 28:32.838
[SPEAKER_00]: He claimed that Kim Jong-il never meant to send fake remains.
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[SPEAKER_00]: According to T. When Japan demanded proof of Megumi's death, North Korea was like, uh, what do we do?
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[SPEAKER_00]: There were no proper records and no one knew where she'd actually been buried if she had died.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was less about political gains and more about just being horribly disorganized.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A hospital staff member was asked to guess the location of her burial, so they did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So they dug up some bones from the mountains behind the psychiatric facility, where Megumi was allegedly a patient at before she passed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These bones were cremated and sent to Japan.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And when the DNA didn't match, Kim Jong-il was furious, not because of the lie, but because of the fallout.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He reportedly told his foreign affairs minister, quote, as expected, the Japs can't be trusted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The American bastards are better.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Unquote, not sure what that means exactly, but feel free to interpret that however you'd like.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But even in failure, he refused to take accountability.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, why?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why wouldn't North Korea go to such lengths to hide the truths
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why persist with lies, forged documents, and diplomatic dead ends?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why wouldn't they just say she died, and then say I don't remember where she was buried?
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a theory.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Some reports suggest that Megumi wasn't just any of Dukti.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She was, after all, teaching the Japanese language and culture to North Korean spies.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That means that she would have seen and hurt things the world isn't meant to know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If those secrets got out, she could be a liability, a breeding-speaking secret, and secrets like that do not get to go home.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She got her held on to hope for as long as he could, truly believing Megumi was still alive, that one day she would walk through the door again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He remained a fierce advocate for the abductees' families, but in 2020, he passed away without ever seeing his daughter again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His wife, Saki-it, now 87, continues the fight for Megumi.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier in 2025, she told reporters about a sudden hell scare, heart palpitations, white vision, a terrifying moment of collapse.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But she said that she held on because the hope of getting Megumi back, kept her going.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After she get his death, the leadership of the abductee family's association passed the Taguchi Yakuza brother, Izuka Shigil.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Taguchi was a 22-year-old bar hostess who was kidnapped in June of 1978.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I believe Megumi younger brother Takuya is now the representative of the Association.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now in the next generation, children of the abducted are stepping up, urging the government to act before it's too late.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Prime Minister at the time, Kishida also made bold promises in 2023, saying that it was time to take action.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Quote, now is a time to take bold action to change the present situation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Japan will press forward proactively, engaging in high-level consultations, to bring about summit-level talks, unquote.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think any action has been taken thus far, but we can keep an eye out on this
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there you have it, the story of Yokota Megumi, just one of many who were taken from Japan or South Korea, by North Korea.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the accidental kidnapping and the fact that she was still a literal child, they made good use of her skills.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is Megumi still alive, hidden, silenced, because she knows too much?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or is she truly gone, her fate buried beneath layers of lies and confusion?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And why, after all these years, does it still feel like someone somewhere is hiding something?
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you're interested in learning more, there are so many articles online as so many other victim stories.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As for Megumi, Nippon television produced a film about her life, titled Saikai Yokotamigumi San Lune Gaite.
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[SPEAKER_00]: An American documentary was also made titled Obduction, The Megumi Yokotostori, back in 2006.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A book was also written in Publish in 2012 by the Yoko Dao family, titled, Megumi-E, No Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Yu-Y
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[SPEAKER_00]: For her family sick though, I do hope she is, and that North Korea does the right thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Wishful thinking, probably.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for taking the time to listen to this episode.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As always, remember to be kind, stay vigilant, and stay safe.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Till next time.
