Shiori Ito: Japan’s MeToo icon is up for an Oscar

When Japanese journalist Shiori Ito decided to speak up about her rape allegations, she knew she was standing in the face of a society that preferred silence.

“I’m scared…but all I want to do is to talk about the truth”, Shiori says in the opening scene of her Oscar-nominated documentary Black Box Diaries.

Shiori became the face of Japan’s MeToo movement after she accused a prominent journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi of rape.

Her acclaimed directorial debut, based on her memoir of the same name, is a retelling of her quest for justice after authorities found the evidence insufficient to pursue criminal charges.

But there is one country where it is yet to play: Japan, where it has run into huge controversy. Her former lawyers have accused her of including audio and video footage she did not have permission to use, which, they say, has violated trust and put her sources at risk. Shiori defends what she did as necessary for “public good”.

It’s a startling turn in a story that gripped Japan when it first broke -the then 28-year-old Shiori ignored her family’s request to remain silent. And after her public accusation did not result in a criminal case, she filed a civil lawsuit against Yamaguchi and won $30,000 (£22,917) in damages.

Shiori told the BBC making the film involved “reliving her trauma”: “It took me four years [to make the film] because emotionally I was struggling.”

She was an intern at Reuters news agency in 2015, when she says Yamaguchi invited her to discuss a job opportunity. He was the Washington bureau chief for a major Japanese media firm, Tokyo Broadcasting System.

Shiori claims she was raped following a dinner in Tokyo with Yamaguchi, who has always denied the allegations.

CCTV footage of an intoxicated Shiori being dragged from a taxi and into a hotel is part of the more than 400 hours of footage she edited for the documentary.

The editing process, she says, was “really challenging. It was like hardcore exposure therapy.”

When the film was released, the CCTV footage became a source of friction as Shiori’s team of ex-lawyers, who helped her win her lawsuit, slammed the documentary.

They claimed it was unauthorised use of CCTV footage – and that she had violated a pledge not to use it outside of court proceedings. .

Last week, her former lawyers – led by Yoko Nishihiro – held another press conference, saying her use of the footage posed challenges for other sexual assault cases.

“If the fact that the evidence from the trial has been made public is known, we will be unable to obtain cooperation in future cases,” Ms Nishihiro said.

Ms Nishihiro claimed that Shiori had also used unauthorised recordings, saying she only found this out at a screening of the film last July.

This included audio of a police detective who eventually acted as a whistleblower about the investigation process – as well as a video of a taxi driver who provided testimony about the night of the alleged rape. Both of them, the lawyers argued, were identifiable and neither had given their consent to be featured in the film.

“I’ve been trying so hard to protect her for eight-and-half years, and I feel like I’ve been completely torn apart,” Ms Nishihiro said.

“I want her to explain and be held accountable.”

Shiori had earlier acknowledged that she did not have the hotel’s permission to use the CCTV but argued that this was “the only visual evidence” she had of the night she was sexually assaulted.

She added that including audio of the police detective was necessary because of “the cover up of the investigation”, adding that she was releasing the video “for the public good”.

“We are standing in different points of view,” she said of the fallout with her former lawyers.

“For me, [it’s for the] public good. For them, it’s ‘do not break any rules’.”

There has been no official explanation as to why the film has not yet been distributed. Shiori has said that “Japan is still not ready to talk about [it]”, but its unclear how much of it is also due to legal hurdles.

In her latest statement last week, Shiori apologised and said she would re-edit parts of the documentary to make sure individuals would not be identified, adding that a redacted version would be screened moving forward.

“There are moments I wish I didn’t have to put in [the documentary]. There are moments I’m not proud of but I wanted to put all of it and to show we are also human,” she told the BBC. “No-one is perfect.”

In the nine years since the assault, Shiori’s fight against Japan’s justice system has been well-chronicled in the media – and is something she says she wanted to detail in her documentary.

She was met with a wave of backlash when she went public in 2017, receiving hate mail and online abuse.

“People were telling me you’re not crying enough… you’re not wearing proper clothes… you’re too strong.”

Some criticised the way she was dressed at the press conference where she first accused Yamaguchi – they said her shirt had been buttoned too low down. Shiori said she left Japan for a few months, fearing for her safety.

Shiori’s case was followed by other high-profile cases. In 2023, former soldier Rina Gonoi also went public with her story, accusing three ex-soldiers of sexually assaulting her. This was the year Japan passed landmark laws to redefine rape from “forcible sexual intercourse” to “non-consensual sexual intercourse” and raised the age of consent from 13 to 16.

Gonoi eventually won her case but Shiori says it is proof that speaking up against sexual violence comes at a price, adding: “Is it worth going through this as a survivor seeking justice? It shouldn’t be this way. You have to sacrifice a lot.”

For now it’s unclear if her film will ever be screened in Japan, but she says that its homecoming would be her ultimate prize.

“This is my love letter to Japan. I really wish one day I can screen my film, and my family can also watch it,” she added.

“That’s what I really hope for… more than winning an Oscar.”