In addition to their regular mixture of celebrity gossip and scandals mixed with practical advice for readers — such as how to quit smoking or winning pachinko techniques — the weeklies also treat their readers to snippets of Japanese history.
Flash (July 28) devoted four pages to details of how law and order was maintained during the Tokugawa Era (1602-1867).
The provinces under direct Tokugawa rule dispensed justice with 11 types of punishments. For relatively minor infractions, an offender might receive a humiliating kitto shikari (a nasty scolding), administered while the recipient knelt, head bowed in shame. Another light sentence was oshikome (to be put under house arrest of between 20 to 100 days). More serious offenses were punished by flogging, banishment to the countryside and exile to an island such as Hachijojima in the Izu chain or Sado, off Niigata.