Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Green Ranger Is In Prison For This? // The Yasutomo Ihara Scandal

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Yasutomo Ihara is a former Japanese stuntman and "suit actor" who gained notoriety for using his professional training to commit a series of high-profile burglaries in Japan. He is frequently associated with the Green Power Ranger in viral reports, though his actual work was as a suit actor in the original Japanese Super Sentai and Kamen Rider series, which were later adapted for the American Power Rangers franchise.

You know that show The Power Rangers? Let me tell you what people are accusing the Green Ranger of. Now the story starts with this guy, Yasetomo. And Yasetomo is 27 years old when all this begins, and he's living in Japan. And Yasetomo has a really cool job. He works as a stuntman in a bunch of popular Japanese superhero-type action TV shows, like Tensoscentai Gosejor and Common Rider O's. So he's doing like all the hard flips and high fall.

and complicated fight choreography so that the main actors don't have to. But one day in 2009, all that changes for him. Because Yasutomo is on set and he's working, probably doing some sort of stunt, and suddenly, kaboom, he injures his knee. And this is not like a minor knee injury. This is actually pretty bad. Now, he's hoping that he can recover and get back to work at some point. But unfortunately, over time, it's actually,

It becomes clear that his knee is never going to return to normal and he's never going to fully recover. And this, sadly, ends his career as a stuntman. And Yas Tomo is devastated by this. I mean, working in TV is his whole life. It's all he's ever done. And now he doesn't know what he's going to do. So he starts thinking, oh, maybe I could just act. You know, like stop being a stuntman and transition into being a regular on-screen actor.

Maybe he could even be a big star. Why not? I mean, he's tall, he's good looking. So he starts going on auditions and taking acting classes and doing whatever he can to improve his acting. And this goes on for a while. But at the end of it all, he's not getting cast in a lot of things. I mean, he has a good acting resume, but it's all stunt work. And no one recognizes his face because he wore a suit and a helmet in all those action shows he was in. So you can't actually see his face on screen. So because of that, he's not. really working. He's not getting any acting gigs and he's having trouble paying his bills and the cost of acting classes is adding up. And so over time, he starts going broke. So Yostombo has to come up with a plan. Why not just break into people's houses and steal the money he needs? And so he gets to work on this plan. And he goes to a local park and he starts training for this. Because he knows he's going to need to like scale some walls and telephone poles and stuff to be able to break into some of these people's houses. And he trains for a while and like people see him out there training all the time. Like what's that guy doing? Then when he's not at the park training, he starts cruising around town on his bike, mostly through the rich neighborhoods, trying to figure

out which areas have empty houses to steal from and the best ways to get into these houses without anyone seeing him. And at one point, he finally finds a place to break into. And no one appears to be home, but obviously Yashtomo can't just walk through the front door, so he starts using his expert ninja-like stuntman skills to parkour his way up the side of the house until he finds an unlocked door or window to get into. Then, once he's inside, he moves through the house fast. He grabs any cash that he can find or jewelry

or anything small and valuable that he can stuff into a bag or carry. Then he casually leaves. So his plan worked. Yasutomo was able to rob someone's house, no one noticed him, no one suspected him, and now he has a little money to pay his bills and for like his acting classes and stuff. And since that worked so well, he decides, I'm going to do it again. So he does it again. He rides his bike around the rich neighborhoods.

He finds another place with no one home. He uses his stuntman skills to get up to the second floor and he enters through a balcony and he takes whatever he wants and he leaves. And he does this over and over and over again. Now, because of the amount of houses he's stolen from, the local police are all over this case. They start investigating. And pretty quickly, they realize they're dealing with a serial burglar. So they start interviewing people around town and asking them if they've seen anything suspicious in the area lately.

And it turns out that a lot of people start reporting a tall, good-looking man, like out on the prow. But that doesn't really narrow it down. Police can't just go and arrest every tall, handsome man they see. So they keep looking. Meanwhile, Yasatomo has actually stepped up his burglary game by a lot. Like he's not just climbing telephone poles or trees now to reach the second floor. He's climbing up the outer walls of these houses and buildings, using nothing but his fingers to grip the tiny spaces on the walls to lift himself up.

And this becomes his go-to way of stealing from. people's homes. And police, who still haven't caught him yet, they end up nicknaming him the Spider-Man thief, because, you know, he can climb walls without any tools. So Yasutomo keeps going, keeps breaking into houses for several more months. In total, he breaks into 43 different places, and he steals over 8 million Japanese yen worth of cash and other items, which is the equivalent of like $77,000 U.S. dollars in 2014. So at this point, this becomes like a full-time job for him, and it's not clear he's ever going to get caught. Now, here's where the Green Ranger of it all comes in. I told you that Yasatomo was a stuntman in a bunch of popular Japanese action-type

TV shows like Tensoscentai Gosejer and Kamen Rider O's. Well, Tensoscentai Gosejer was actually later imported to the U.S. as what you might know as Power Rangers Megaforce. Now, the American versions of these Power Rangers shows, they use different actors than the Japanese versions. But they actually will often use the

same old footage from the fight scenes where the characters are in full costume. So if you've ever seen an episode of Power Rangers Megaforce, it's possible that you've seen Yasetomo performing in one of the Rangers' suits. Although there's no proof that

Yasutomo was ever specifically a Green Ranger. That part's actually an urban legend perpetuated by this specific meme that's been shared over and over again by people on Facebook. This meme talks about the 43 burglaries and it shows the original Green Ranger next to a picture of Yasetomo's face. So for years, people believed that the Green Ranger actor was out here robbing people. When Westcham first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit. different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board.

Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Until, until I came along and made this video and debunked it. Anyway, back to Yatsitomo. Around eight months go by, and it's now 2014, and Yasetomo is still out here spider-manning his way into houses in the area. Then one day, police, I assume, get another call about yet another break-in, and they go investigate. But this time, they find a set of footprints at the scene of the crime, and they're able to trace these footprints back to the local park, the same park that Yasetomo works out at. So they searched the park, and eventually they find some items that Yasutomo had stolen from some of the houses.

So now they know that their suspect spends time at this park. And I guess they scope out the place, and one day they see a guy there, Yasutomo, doing his training exercises, and they're like, hey, I bet that's the Spider-Man thief. And they approach him, and they're able to match his footprints to the footprints that they found at one of the crime scenes. And so, bam, they arrest him. And I don't have a mugshot, but here is a picture of Yashtomo in real life. And so ultimately, he confesses to all 43 burglaries, and he gets sentenced to five years in prison.