Shiori was an intern journalist when allegedly raped. She then turned the camera on the system

There is a scene towards the end of the documentary Black Box Diaries where Japanese journalist Shiori Itō sits in on a press conference called by the man who, a civil court found, raped her almost five years earlier.

Noriyuki Yamaguchi, 53, one of Japan’s most renowned TV broadcasters, who had close ties to then-prime minister Shinzō Abe, was there to maintain his innocence in the eyes of the country’s criminal law system, which never prosecuted him or charged him with rape.

Japanese journalist Shiori Itō began recording her fight for justice after police declined to charge the high-profile TV identity she accused of raping her in 2015.Credit: Christopher Jue

The previous day, Itō had secured victory in a civil lawsuit, and the Tokyo District Court had ordered Yamaguchi pay her 3.3 million yen ($34,000) damages after finding that he forced her “to have sex without contraception, while in a state of unconsciousness and severe inebriation”.

In the documentary, the camera pans to Itō, ensconced in the press pack, her gaze focused on her laptop, unflinchingly documenting this chapter in her own harrowing story. It is a moment of powerful, quiet defiance. A woman wronged, but not ruined. Still standing, and recording everything.

Black Box Diaries, directed by Itō, is the culmination of her years-long investigation into her allegations of rape and her pursuit of justice. In the process, it tells the story of an intern journalist who at 25 grabbed the reins of a life spiralling out of control, trained the camera on herself and lit the fire of Japan’s #MeToo movement.

Itō’s case rocked Japan, rattling the entrenched social taboos and patriarchal structures that underpin a system where just 4 per cent of rape cases are reported to police.

Itō says she went to the police because as a journalist, she couldn’t keep the truth hidden.Credit: Jeremie Souteyrat

Sitting in a small whiskey bar in Tokyo’s Koenji district, Itō, now 35, is candid about the toll levied by this almost decade-long journey and her decision, in the still-raw aftermath of her rape, to begin documenting her story.

“I think my coping mechanism was to record, and to look at it as a journalist. I didn’t want to be a victim,” she says.

“The reason why I even took the case to police was that I couldn’t keep the truth hidden and twisted in myself as a journalist.”

But, she adds: “The effect of trauma is never ending. It lessens, for sure, but then you keep circling back.”

The case drew international attention due to Yamaguchi’s high profile, as the then Washington bureau chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System, and Itō’s singular focus in keeping the spotlight trained on him and the flaws in Japan’s legal and policing systems in the face of excoriating public backlash.

But her story is less well known in Australia, where the saga faced by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins has dominated headlines for years. There are many factual and contextual differences between the women’s cases and their trajectories, but there is a theme that winds through both – as it has with cases the world over – about the high cost endured by women who go public with their allegations of sexual assault.

On the night of April 3, 2015, Itō met Yamaguchi at a restaurant in Tokyo after he offered to help her with her career. At the time, Itō was working as an intern at Thomson Reuters.

During the evening she felt lightheaded in the restaurant’s bathroom. She says that her next memory was waking up to Yamaguchi raping her in a room at the Sheraton Hotel. He claimed the encounter was consensual.

Former TV journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi was found by Japan’s civil courts to have raped Shiori Itō.Credit: AP

The documentary shows grainy CCTV footage of Itō unsteady on her feet and stumbling as Yamaguchi escorts her from a taxi through the hotel lobby.

At its core, Itō’s exposé aims to smash the “black box” – a term used by prosecutors to describe her case as one that occurred behind closed doors and could not be proven – and to highlight Japan’s broken sexual assault laws, unchanged for more than 100 years and containing no reference to consent.

That is, until last year, when the parliament changed the definition of rape to “non-consensual sexual intercourse” and raised the age of consent from 13 to 16. For Itō and other campaigners, it is only a start.

“This black box that I had wasn’t just my case. The black box is everywhere in society,” she says.

‘I’m wishing for this film to push more [people] in Japan to change the law.’

Shiori Itō

“I’m wishing for this film to push more [people] in Japan to change the law.”

The documentary navigates her journey through a criminal investigation that was abandoned by prosecutors after an arrest warrant for Yamaguchi is halted, a decision that came from within the highest ranks of Tokyo’s police department.

With no further criminal recourse, Itō decided to go public with her story in 2017 and launched civil action against Yamaguchi, and he later counter-sued. Before the documentary ends, we are told that Yamaguchi’s appeal to the Supreme Court was dismissed in July 2022. The court upheld Itō’s claim that she was raped to the civil standard and upheld the damages she was owed, but found her allegation that Yamaguchi slipped her a “date rape” drug was lacking evidence and awarded him 550,000 yen ($5800).

Throughout her journey, Itō covertly recorded conversations with police and other key players, and made video diary entries, forensically examining the people and systems that failed her and would continue failing other women unless something changed.

Ito outside the Tokyo District Court in 2019 after the court ruled in her favour and awarded her 3.3 million yen.Credit: Getty Images

In one particularly heart-wrenching scene, we see Itō break down sobbing when the doorman at the Sheraton Hotel agrees to testify in court with his memory of that night – that Itō had tried to make an escape toward the hotel’s entrance and appeared to be moaning and so intoxicated that she was barely conscious.

Her crusade has been the subject of a BBC documentary, she has released a memoir (also called Black Box), and this year her own documentary screened at film festivals around the world, including Sundance – a bitter triumph that has invited many press interviews like this one, invariably stoking the trauma of that hotel room in April 2015.

“Living with it this year, talking about it a lot, it’s affecting me a lot,” she says. “A month ago, I did Vipassana – you know, 10 days of not speaking meditation, just to keep balancing myself.”

In the Q&A sessions that she has held with audiences following the documentary’s screenings, Itō also has found a form of catharsis and bonding, aware that her story has resonated with many women carrying similar scars.

“It becomes like a huge sharing therapy session, over this Q&A,” she says.

“Every time now, when people are sharing their traumatic experiences, I’m asking them, ‘What’s your coping mechanism?’, so I can take it back home or share it with others.”

With the release of Black Box Diaries, Itō wants to draw a line under this chapter of her life, not sealing off the box entirely, but not allowing it to consume her either. She has squeezed in this interview around her own freelance work. Beforehand, she interviewed a Japanese actor who had entrusted her with her own story of sexual assault at the hands of another actor.

“There are so many things coming out from that industry today,” she says.

For Itō, and sexual assault campaigners everywhere, the fight continues.

National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 737 732. Crisis support can be found at Lifeline: (13 11 14 and lifeline.org.au).

Black Box Diaries screens at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) on Tuesday 13 August at ACMI 1 and Wednesday 14 August at Hoyts Melbourne Central. Director Shiori Ito is a guest of the festival and will be in attendance at both sessions of the film.

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