Mochi Injures 5

This wants to murder you.

Of course every year people die from choking on mochi, or rice cakes, but now the treat is finding new ways to hunt human prey. At a festival in the South Village of Okayama, three women and two elementary school students were hit in the head by mochi and taken to the hospital.

According to the fire department (because apparently they're in charge of not only cats in trees, but mochi related head injuries as well) at 3:30pm an event was held where mochi was thrown from a stage into a crowd. This is a common event. Often the mochi has paper connected to it saying you won a prize. The fire department went on to explain that the mochi was round as well as pink and white. Good to know.

The festival organizers said they froze the mochi beforehand to prevent molding, and they admit that they may not have properly thawed the mochi.  They said, "We apologize that we injured people during an event that should have been fun. We will examine how to improve things like our preparation method." One would expect the investigation to take at least a few months. One solution could be to first touch the mochi to determine if it's as hard as a rock. If it is, you could ask yourself if you would like to be hit in the head with it. If not, think twice about throwing it at others.

Source: Yomiuri Online