A Japanese man has died after his friend blew air up his anus using an air compressor in a ‘prank’ gone wrong.

The friend – who has been identified as Yoshiyuki Yoshida – has now been arrested, Asia Times reports.

The dead man, named by the paper as Akio Ishimaru, 46, and Mr Yoshida apparently worked together at an industrial equipment manufacturing plant in Ibaraki Tsukuba City.

An air compressor (Picture: Amazon)

They were clowning around on their break when Mr Yoshida poked an air compressor up his co-workers buttocks – injecting a blast of air up his anus.


Mr Ishimaru complained of feeling unwell and was rushed to hospital, but later died.

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Asia Times quotes a spokesman at the Ryugasaki Police Department as saying it was ‘a tragic accident but not the first of its kind’.



‘The air compressor was pushed up against the anus, over clothing, not directly into the cavity, and the release of the air into the body probably damaged the lungs, causing death.’ Investigators are awaiting the results of an autopsy.

While the incident is bizarre, it is not unique in the country. In December 2017 two men were arrested on charges of assault causing death in Saitama Prefecture, in Greater Tokyo, after their 44-year-old colleague was killed in a similar ‘prank’.

According to national news site japankyo.com, in July this year, a 28-year-old man from Kyoto was arrested after inflicting serious injuries on a 22-year-old university student by assaulting him in the anus with an ‘airduster gun’.

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A 40-year-old man known only as Ravinder died in similar circumstances in Nangloi Jat, India earlier this year.

According to local media, in 2013, Japanese Self-Defence Force soldiers were injured after using air compressors on each others rectums. There were no fatalities.

Air compressors are powerful tools with many uses. They can be used to power everything from nail guns to spray guns.

Asia Times suggests that the frequency of such ‘accidental’ incidents in Japan may have something to do with the childhood practice of ‘kancho’ – where children poke each others’ butts as a prank.

A statue depicting the common Japanese childhood prank ‘kancho’

What is kancho? A common prank among children in south east Asia, kancho is the practice of clasping your hands together to form an imaginary ‘gun,’ which is then poked at the unsuspecting victim’s anus – while shouting ‘kan-CHO’. The word ‘kancho’ comes from the Japanese word for enema. The prank is so common that there are even (quite graphic) statutes showing it being played dotted across Asia. The game is given different names in different countries. In Korea it is called ttongchim, while in Taiwan, it is popularly referred to as Qiānnián shā.