In Japan, two boys aged 19 and 21 and a girl aged 15 were arrested for making a video in which one of them is seen putting a bottle of soy sauce in his mouth in a restaurant of the Kura Sushi chain in Nagoya, a hundred kilometers east of Kyoto. The video dates back to February 3, the period in which Japan was beginning to talk about “sushi terrorism”: some videos in which people were seen licking cups, plates or food as a joke had opened a debate on the level of hygiene in restaurants they serve sushi, especially those that have a conveyor belt to circulate the saucers, so that customers can choose the ones that appeal to them most. The 19-year-old boy was arrested on February 5 and the other two on Wednesday: they are accused of having created problems for the normal activity of the restaurant.
The issue of hygiene in sushi restaurants had come up earlier this year due to a video taken in a restaurant of the Sushiro chain in the city of Gifu, near Nagoya. The video showed a boy putting a small bottle of soy sauce in his mouth, licking the rim of a cup and putting it back, and then licking his finger and touching a plate as it passed on the restaurant’s conveyor belt. After the video was released, seen tens of millions of times, the managers of the company concerned had denounced the boy, despite him having publicly apologized. Sushi chains and other restaurants alike had to take steps to prevent such situations.
– Read also: Are sushi conveyor belts unhygienic?
