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The story
Noriko Fukuda, a former TV Tokyo announcer now working as a freelancer, revealed on October 4 that she had an unpleasant experience while riding an elevator with a stroller carrying her 4-year-old son. The elevator was already crowded with two strollers when a woman believed to be in her twenties reportedly squeezed in, and Fukuda said she shielded her child with her hand. On 5ch, opinions clashed between those arguing “elevators should give priority to strollers” and those countering “priority doesn’t mean exclusive use” or “she might have had an invisible disability.” The debate also spread to how low a child’s eye level is and when kids should stop using strollers.
10/4 (Sun) 14:36
Former TV Tokyo announcer-turned-freelancer Noriko Fukuda revealed on the 4th that she had an unpleasant experience while riding an elevator with a stroller.
Fukuda worked at RKB Mainichi Broadcasting before joining TV Tokyo in 2016 as a mid-career hire. She served as the third assistant on “Moyamoya Samazu 2.” In March 2021 she married a company employee, and that December gave birth to her first child, a son (now 4). She left TV Tokyo at the end of March 2024. That April she joined a general company, working in PR and emceeing events, but in March 2025 she announced both her resignation and her divorce via a weekly magazine.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Exactly this.
We don't need "self-proclaimed parents" chiming in here. Even people with kids can be oblivious — I've seen parents let their kid's dangling legs swing right next to someone holding a bakery tray, ignore it when their kid's shoe sole dirtied the sleeve of the person sitting next to them, or play dumb when their stroller wheel scuffed up a seated man's shoes.
I think elevators should give priority to strollers. People can just take the escalator instead.
That's kindergarten age. Honestly, still putting a kid that age in a stroller is the crazy part.
Some kids do. Mine stopped around 2.5 years old.
Who decides whether a kid rides or not?
Re: #26
It was Fukuda's side who shielded the kid with her hand.
Former TV Tokyo's Noriko Fukuda announces divorce and relationship with Yuichi Hanada: "We're living together"
https://www.sanspo.com/article/20251107-VA57FP4UOFH2RGII2TBXYMF7W4/
Oh, she's divorced now? And living with Hanada.
It's priority, not exclusive use. What if that woman in her mid-20s had a prosthetic leg? Plenty of people out there are suffering from invisible disabilities, you know.
A prosthetic leg that can still force its way into a packed elevator, lol
That "uh, did you need something?" face. Guess that's what happens when you're raised without ever being scolded.
Right, which is why it's better not to even give that blank stare — react at all and they'll latch onto you even more. If a stranger talks to you, total silence is the correct answer.
Exactly this. Probably figured playing the "kid card" and coming in hard against a woman in her 20s was an easy win. Shamelessly transparent need to "win."
If anything, it's easier to say that stuff to a woman. Actually, people like that tend to read the room carefully and not push their luck too far.
Yeah, it could be read that way too. This article is seriously confusing.
I think that's actually it — Fukuda's one stroller plus the 25-year-old woman's two strollers.
I don't get what "a stroller still in active use" is supposed to mean, and how do you end up with two strollers when there's only one 4-year-old? Is the writer just bad at explaining, or is this something they're not supposed to get into?
Yeah, it's hard to follow.
Isn't it: "my kid's 4 but still uses a stroller, there was already one other stroller in there, so with mine that's two and it's packed tight — then a 25-year-old woman rushed in on top of that"?
This would be a civil matter. And with the other party being a woman in her 20s, it's unlikely to even be treated as a criminal case. Even if you sue, if she doesn't pay up there's nothing more you can do.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Even when commercial facilities put up “stroller priority” stickers on their elevators, that’s not a legally designated exclusive space — it’s merely a courtesy request from the operator. That leaves the line blurry as to whether a new passenger should board or step aside when an elevator is already full with two strollers, and the thread split between “priority obviously means priority” and “priority doesn’t mean exclusive.” Some pointed out the woman might have had an invisible disability, a reminder that circumstances can’t always be judged by appearance alone. The original article was also unclear about how two strollers related to a single 4-year-old, prompting several replies in the thread trying to piece together what actually happened. While some called for legal action over the alleged slap to the child’s cheek, there’s no way to confirm the specifics or whether any diagnosis was made beyond Fukuda’s own account, so this isn’t something that lets us definitively say who was at fault.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Geisoku Sokuhō+) thread “4-year-old’s mom, announcer Noriko Fukuda, rides elevator with stroller → lectures woman in her 20s as “way too thoughtless,” “shouldn’t you at least apologize?”“
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