It started out as a personal search from the parents wanting to know where their daughter had gone, but it would come to take on a much bigger scale when many other parents in Japan was also actually experiencing something similar, before becoming a thorny issue between Japan and North Korea itself. In the late 70s in Japan, there has been a series of abductions of Japanese citizens in their early 20s by North Korean agents. But among those abducted, was someone who was 13 years of age by the name of Megumi Yokota.
It begins with Megumi's parents Shigeru and his wife Sakie recalling the day their daughter had gone missing on 15 November 1977, when she was supposed to be on her way home after school. Hours later and Sakie, a housewife then and still is at the time of the documentary's release, decided to check if Megumi was still in school. She went to Megumi's school and was told that her daughter was not there. On that same day, Sakie's husband Shigeru was working at the Bank of Japan where they had a welcoming party for the new staff, as he recalled. That very day would eventually never be the same again for the parents.
There would be a newspaper journalist who would take on the case where he noticed those who had been mysteriously abducted up till that point are in their early 20s. A North Korean defector who had been based in Japan would come to explain the rationale of the series of mysterious abductions of Japanese from North Korean agents, while being amazed at the fact that someone like Megumi's age is also on the same list of the group of people being abducted to North Korea. According to the defector, he believed that they were abducted to teach the Japanese language to future spies in North Korea, apart from that Japanese and North Koreans look alike and can assimilate easily into the crowd.
What the Yokotas experienced would come to launch into a nationwide search for their daughter as they appeared on Japanese television along with the other abductees' parents as Sakie representing the family, appealed for Megumi's return. Years would turn into decades and the Yokotas would move house, but they would still return back to where they used to live retracing what they think is the last time their daughter appeared before she was being abducted. Pressure from them and other parents would force the now-former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who would travel to North Korea to negotiate for the release of its citizens in 2002. The now-late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il would admit that it had abducted Japanese citizens, but stopped short of taking the blame.
There would be five abducted Japanese citizens who would return back to their country later in that same year. Those that return back to Japan are whom North Korea said that are still alive, with the fate of Megumi still being unknown, as she was not among those on the flight back to Japan. What happened two years later would shook the country and the world. North Korea had sent Japan two human remains, where one of the two had been claimed by North Korea belonged to Megumi where they said that she had died committing suicide. While subsequent DNA testing in Japan proved otherwise, scientific journal Nature would dispute the manner of the testing. Regardless what, it further strained relations between Japan and North Korea.
There would be various theories raised over whether Megumi is still alive or not. But, Megumi's parents still refused to believe their daughter had died.
Not often watching a documentary where the nature of the story can leave quite a powerful impact on the viewer. But Megumi Yokota's story is also a story of tense diplomatic relations between two countries over what had happened decades ago still especially being felt in Japan itself, as much as it is a personal one as along the course of the documentary, it can get heart-breaking watching her parents talking about their family which also include Megumi's two older brothers and the daughter they had always knew.
It begins with Megumi's parents Shigeru and his wife Sakie recalling the day their daughter had gone missing on 15 November 1977, when she was supposed to be on her way home after school. Hours later and Sakie, a housewife then and still is at the time of the documentary's release, decided to check if Megumi was still in school. She went to Megumi's school and was told that her daughter was not there. On that same day, Sakie's husband Shigeru was working at the Bank of Japan where they had a welcoming party for the new staff, as he recalled. That very day would eventually never be the same again for the parents.
There would be a newspaper journalist who would take on the case where he noticed those who had been mysteriously abducted up till that point are in their early 20s. A North Korean defector who had been based in Japan would come to explain the rationale of the series of mysterious abductions of Japanese from North Korean agents, while being amazed at the fact that someone like Megumi's age is also on the same list of the group of people being abducted to North Korea. According to the defector, he believed that they were abducted to teach the Japanese language to future spies in North Korea, apart from that Japanese and North Koreans look alike and can assimilate easily into the crowd.
What the Yokotas experienced would come to launch into a nationwide search for their daughter as they appeared on Japanese television along with the other abductees' parents as Sakie representing the family, appealed for Megumi's return. Years would turn into decades and the Yokotas would move house, but they would still return back to where they used to live retracing what they think is the last time their daughter appeared before she was being abducted. Pressure from them and other parents would force the now-former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who would travel to North Korea to negotiate for the release of its citizens in 2002. The now-late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il would admit that it had abducted Japanese citizens, but stopped short of taking the blame.
There would be five abducted Japanese citizens who would return back to their country later in that same year. Those that return back to Japan are whom North Korea said that are still alive, with the fate of Megumi still being unknown, as she was not among those on the flight back to Japan. What happened two years later would shook the country and the world. North Korea had sent Japan two human remains, where one of the two had been claimed by North Korea belonged to Megumi where they said that she had died committing suicide. While subsequent DNA testing in Japan proved otherwise, scientific journal Nature would dispute the manner of the testing. Regardless what, it further strained relations between Japan and North Korea.
There would be various theories raised over whether Megumi is still alive or not. But, Megumi's parents still refused to believe their daughter had died.
Not often watching a documentary where the nature of the story can leave quite a powerful impact on the viewer. But Megumi Yokota's story is also a story of tense diplomatic relations between two countries over what had happened decades ago still especially being felt in Japan itself, as much as it is a personal one as along the course of the documentary, it can get heart-breaking watching her parents talking about their family which also include Megumi's two older brothers and the daughter they had always knew.