Inside Japan's secretive execution jails where death row inmates are given minutes notice before facing the noose

From the outside, the Tokyo Detention House looks much like the other tall, austere buildings native to Katsushika City, but its drab facade and tree-lined grounds conceal a far more sinister reality.

It is here that Japan's most deplorable criminals are plucked from their cells and hanged underneath fluorescent lights in a cold, bare wood-panelled room. 

There is a chillingly theatrical element to how the condemned are executed in the East Asian country - the only member of the G7 besides the US that still metes out capital punishment. 

Shackled prisoners are led past a small gold statue of Kannon, a Buddhist figure associated with compassion, as they enter their sterile execution chamber. 

Here, they are forced to stand on a spot marked by an ominous red square - the trapdoor that will give way to send them on a short and sharp journey to their deaths. 

Bright blue curtains are withdrawn to reveal a viewing gallery, where officials and families of victims are separated from the prisoner by nothing but a thin pane of glass. 

Executioners then place a hood and blindfold on the condemned, fit the noose around their neck and step back to pull the lever. The trapdoor is released, and gravity does the rest.

But it is the unpredictable and sudden nature of the execution process that sets Japanese executions apart from those in the US.

Unlike in the States, where death row inmates typically receive their date of execution weeks or months in advance, Japanese prisoners are often given as little as an hour's notice - a decision the UN Committee against Torture claimed causes the families additional stress.

It’s strange when they near your cell. You lose all your strength and you are like this. You lose all your strength as if a rope is dragging it out of you. Then the footsteps stop in front of another solitary confinement cell and when you hear the sound of the key turning you feel relieved.

— Sakae Menda, who spent 34 years on Japan's death row before he was found innocent and exonerated.

Last week's execution of the 'hanging pro' or 'Twitter killer' - a man who preyed on vulnerable women and girls before raping and killing them in his apartment in Japan - has reignited debate over the cold and clinical execution practices.

Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the 'Twitter killer,' was sentenced to death in 2020 for murdering nine victims in 2017. He was also convicted of sexually abusing his female victims.

Police arrested him later that year after finding the bodies of eight teenage girls and women, as well as one man, in cold-storage cases in his apartment.

Investigators said Shiraishi styled himself as a valiant helper, providing a way out for those with suicidal thoughts or those who had attempted suicide and failed. 

On Twitter - the social media platform he used to reach out to potential victims - his profile featured a manga cartoon drawing showing a man whose neck and wrist are scarred, wearing a rope around his neck.

The profile bio described his expertise in hanging and his Twitter handle was '@hangingpro'.

'I want to help people who are really in pain. Please DM me anytime,' it read.

'There must be many people in society who are suffering after attempting suicide, though their cases are not reported in the news. I want to help such people.'

He also worked to ensure his victims severed ties with friends and family members in advance of meeting them.

'It is not good to tell friends, family members and social networking sites that you are going to die before committing suicide,' he wrote in one post. 

He killed the three teenage girls and five women after raping them. He also killed the boyfriend of one of the women to silence him.

'The case caused extremely serious outcomes and dealt a major shockwave and unease to society,' Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki told an emergency news conference following Shiraishi's execution.

He said he signed the execution, but did not personally witness the hanging.

The abrupt nature of the Japanese approach to execution was revealed in 2021 by Yoshikuni Noguchi, a lawyer and former prison officer who recounted the system to a Japanese newspaper. 

Convicts are only notified they will be executed that very morning, without warning, Noguchi said.

As soon as the announcement is made, they are moved to a special room and constantly monitored by security officers to prevent any attempts at escape or suicide. 

The message is then supposed to be relayed to the inmate's family - though UN reports have suggested that loved ones are only told after the condemned is confirmed dead.

Once the execution is ordered, the process is quick. 

The prisoner is plucked from the 'waiting room', shackled by guards and ushered towards the execution chamber. 

Once they are blindfolded and cuffed with the noose around their neck, an official gives a signal for the trapdoor to be opened. 

Viewers watch as the condemned promptly drops through the floor, never to be seen again. 

Below the execution chamber, their limp body dangles from a rope in a grey, tiled room. 

A doctor steps in to check their pulse, and once satisfied, wipes the body clean before directing orderlies to cut them down and take them to the morgue.

Noguchi told the media how he resigned from his role as a prison officer after about four years in the job, recalling how faint he felt reflecting on his involvement in the execution of a prisoner with little more than a nod and the pull of a lever.

In January last year, another killer was sentenced to death despite calls for the death penalty to be abolished. 

Yuki Endo was just 19 when the girl he liked spurned his advances in 2021. 

Angry and despairing, the teenager sought revenge by targeting those closest to his muse, marching to the house of her parents in Kofu on October 12 and stabbing her 55-year-old father and 50-year-old mother to death in cold blood.

Endo then attacked the couple's second daughter with a machete, injuring her, and burned the house to the ground. 

After his arrest, judges determined he was fully criminally responsible and showed no remorse for the crime, making it unlikely he could be rehabilitated in their view.

Endo also became the first person in Japan sentenced to death for a crime committed between the ages of 18 and 19 after Japan's courts brought down the legal age of adult criminal responsibility in 2022. 

The change to the law was intended to get younger people to 'gain awareness of their responsibilities' and rehabilitate them more effectively. 

Meanwhile, officials have opposed calls from human rights groups to end the death penalty.

Justice Minister Suzuki this week justified the need for the execution in Japan, noting a recent government survey shows an overwhelming majority of the public still supports capital punishment, though opposition has somewhat increased.

'I believe it is not appropriate to abolish execution,' Suzuki said, adding that there is growing concern about serious crime.

The case of Yuki Endo shares striking similarities with that of Tomohiro Kato, author of the atrocious 2008 Akihabara massacre. 

On June 8, 2008, the then-25-year-old rented a two-ton Isuzu Elf truck and drove it into a lunchtime crowd of pedestrians at the Akihabara shopping district, killing three people.

Kato proceeded to stab onlookers with a dagger, killing four and wounding eight. 

During his trial, Kato revealed that online bullying had driven him to madness.

Prosecutors painted a picture of a troubled young man who was demoralised after a girl he was talking to online abruptly cut contact after he sent a photo of himself.

His rampage prompted outcry and discussion around preventative measures that should be taken to stop angry and alienated young people from lashing out in brazen displays of indiscriminate violence. 

Knife laws were tightened, and Kato was sentenced to death in 2011.

It would be another 11 years before Kato would face his penalty in the Tokyo Detention House. 

Source: Mail Online, David Avere, James Reynolds, June 30, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde