The hoax has been circulating since 2017 and has even been spread by international media.
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Published: March 3, 2024 Updated: 7:27 p.m. | 03/03/2024
“You open them first restaurant to sell human flesh. It is in Tokyo! His name is Edible Brother. I swear that's his name: Edible Brother. The meat comes from people who sell their bodies to eat before they die. (…) Those who have tasted them assure that the taste is very similar to that of pork (…),” says a Mexican presenter in a clip broadcast on Instagram. Within five days, the excerpt was viewed more than 5,300 times on the said social network.
However, the information in the video is incorrect.
An excerpt from the program continues to be shared on networks as if it were real. Photo: Instagram
After an internet search, we found some articles and Facebook posts from November 2017 with more information. According to these texts, the alleged restaurant was called Resu ototo no shoku ryohin and Japanese law has permitted cannibalism since 2014.
We have found no trace of the original video from which the excerpt comes, a broadcast by Imagen Televisión from Mexico.
Other Detail that doesn't fit is the name of the restaurant. If it were really called “Edible Brother,” it would have to be romanized as “Tabe rareru kyōdai” (食べられる兄弟) according to Google translation. “Resu ototo no shoku ryohin”, on the other hand, is interpreted by the platform as “Resu ototo no shoku ryohin” as “Answer to the previous year’s books” and “Resu oto to no shoku ryohin” as “Answer: work and travel costs”.
The name of the supposed food establishment also does not appear on Google Maps.
According to the Japanese Embassy in Mexico, which Verne consulted in November 2017, Japanese law does not allow the consumption of human flesh, as the viral post falsely claims. In statements to the mentioned media, the representative described this information as “completely absurd“.
The hoax has been denied several times. In December 2017, Snopes said that the original source was a satirical article published by La Voz Popular on July 12, 2016.
His article was cited by Honichi, a Japanese information portal, to report on the wide reach the false rumor had on Google Trends at the time.
Two years later, Newtral – a reviewer member of the International Fact-Checking Network – also denied it was true.
Diploma
There is no evidence that a restaurant promoting the consumption of human flesh has been opened in Tokyo. In fact, its origin is satirical, but it was reported as if it were real news. We rate posts as fake.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Web editor of Verificador, the data verification unit of La República. She was an editor at PerúCheck, a collaborative fact-checking initiative for the 2021 and 2022 elections. Bachelor's degree in Social Communication from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM).