Kyoto resident Kazunori Yokoi allegedly blasted dozens of guitars and his radio at high volume from 2019 onwards – despite repeated official warnings – according to police.

Four neighbours, aged between their 60s and 80s, complained of health problems including insomnia, depression and tinnitus. Police said the complaints eventually provided grounds to arrest Yokoi on assault charges.

Officers seized more than 40 guitars, many of them electric, along with amplifiers, CD players and radio cassette players from his home. Investigators recorded noise levels exceeding 80 decibels in the neighbourhood, comparable to the sound inside a moving train, according to city guidance.

“It was awful because all kinds of sounds were jumbled together all day,” one neighbour in his 60s told Kyodo News.