Street Fighter Pro Player Arrested For Alleged Sexual Molestation

Kenji Kuroda – a professional gamer widely regarded as one of the finest Street Fighter III: Final Strike players of his generation – has been arrested pending a full investigation. The 32-year-old Kuroda has been accused of sexually molesting a high school age girl.

Kuroda is a prominent figure among otaku in his native Japan. In addition to his status as a professional Street Fighter player, Kuroda had written a regular column for the magazine Weekly Playboy (no relation to the American publication Playboy) – one of the most popular men’s magazines in Japan. Kuroda was also poised to star in the independent movie 9road. Since Kuroda’s arrest, Weekly Playboy has pulled the archive of Kuroda’s writings from their website and the status of 9road – which had just released its first trailer two months ago – is now in question.

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Kotaku reported on Kuroda’s arrest, which came after the mother of the alleged victim filed charges. Reportedly, Kuroda invited the girl to his home after meeting her on Twitter. It was here that he started hugging her before moving on to what was described in the Japanese press as “obscene acts.” Twitter user across_gomi posted a shot of Kuroda’s arrest, see it below.

There was some early confusion as to whether or not the Kenji Kuroda arrested on these charges was the famous gamer and writer. Originally, Kuroda was described in the press as being unemployed and his name was spelled with kanji symbols. Professionally Kuroda had always spelled his name phonetically and made a comfortable living, despite sharing a home with his mother – a not uncommon occurrence for single men in Japanese culture. However, later reporting confirmed that the accused and the famous gamer were one and the same, after eagle-eyed reporters noted that the house where Kuroda was taken into custody matched pictures of the famous Kuroda’s distinctively painted home in earlier lifestyle profiles.

The police later released an official statement confirming that the Kenji Kuroda taken into custody was indeed the famous professional Street Fighter player and columnist for Weekly Playboy. Kuroda has reportedly been cooperating with the police and given a full confession to the charges leveled against him. He is still in jail pending a larger investigation into whether or not he might have committed other acts of sexual assault against other girls and young women in the gaming community. At the time of this writing, no other charges have been filed.

More: Sexual Assault Allegations Levied at Max Landis

Source: Kotaku, across_gomi/Twitter

About The Author

Matt Morrison
(1836 Articles Published)

Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word
“blogging” was coined. He got his start writing for the
legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing,
before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on
to write for over a dozen websites, including 411
Mania, Comics
Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information
Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the
University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book
history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American
Comic Books, Japanese Manga, Doctor Who, and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions
and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels
for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his
work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Editor In Chief of
Kabooooom.com and writes reviews for No
Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site
aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog –
My Geeky Geeky Ways –
which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series
making up The Arrowverse as well as his
comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is
devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You
can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.

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