A heart-broken inventor received the shock of his life last week when police showed up at his door, confiscated his most prized possession, and left in its place a restraining order. “Now maybe everyone who laughed at me for having created what I thought would be the ‘perfect companion’ will not be laughing so hard…or maybe they will be laughing even harder now, I don’t know,” said the downcast inventor, Daichi Hiromu.

No one, it seems, is laughing at this moment. While the lonely inventor struggles to understand his legal options, officials in this suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo are equally perplexed. “We felt that we had to do something, we just weren’t sure what” offered one representative of the local prosecutor’s office, who spoke with our reporter only on condition of remaining anonymous. “At this point, we don’t even know that a crime has been committed, we only know that a complaint has been filed on behalf of a machine… a very nice-looking, well-built machine, I might add. This guy Daichi may not know much about how to treat women, but he sure knows something about how to design and build them!”.

According to this same official, it was Hiromu’s neighbor, Kaito Mitsui, who first notified officials that something very strange was taking place next door. “I have known Daichi since we were small children. He has always been a good and honorable friend and neighbor. I always felt sorry for him, because he was such a nerd. He never, ever had a date. It’s not that he was unattractive or funny, if you know what I mean, it’s just that he seemed so shy and introverted. He began acting strangely about three years ago, around the time he started working on his invention, and over the past three months, he has hardly been outside.” When questioned by our reporter about what motivated him to turn Daichi in to authorities, he spun a bizarre tale of having received text messages, expressing fear and asking for help. “The messages were sent from Daichi’s phone, so naturally I asked him about them. He was very evasive in his replies, like he had something to hide, and immediately the messages stopped. That’s when I decided to contact the authorities. These things were not making any sense.”

Authorities, meanwhile, are trying to sort out this whole mess. They have refused to allow Daichi to see his robot, Junko, and expect that charges will be brought, should any evidence of abuse be found. “Right now”, said one official, “we’re trying to respect the wishes of Junko. We are all aware that she is a robot, but she seems to know what she wants, and right now it appears that what she wants more than anything is to be free from what she herself has described as slavery to every whim and desire of Daichi Hiromu.”

For his part, Daichi can only wait and see. “I would take her back today,” he lamented, “Please come back, Junko.”