Punchy People

This is a bit rushed.
Normally I record tomorrow.

I don’t know if I’m going
to be able to get this

episode out early, but
this is going to be the

only opportunity I have to
record. So I’m going to record today.

Try to edit tonight
and tomorrow.

Who knows? Just want to
get the episodes out on time.

I have to work tomorrow.
So I’m a bit flummoxed,

confused, out of sorts because I’m just,
it’s not my regular schedule. I really like

keeping a regular schedule.
But to make me happy,

we got a message on speakpipe,
speakpipe.com/tongueveachas.

It means I get to
hear your voice.

And that is actually very
exciting for me to get to hear some

of the people who actually
have another podcast.

Let’s hear what Gray
has to say from the peak.

Fuck off from the speakpipe.
I just wanted to say,

bro, the discord link is
dead on your link tree.

Please update.
That would be sick.

So I have already updated
that. So if you go to the link tree,

Chongveveachast, now
you do get a links to a whole

bunch of stuff that you
probably are not interested

in, but it does have a
discord on it that I’ve

really set up ages ago, but
only started using recently.

So if you want to join
the discord, you can

go to the link tree,
join the discord there.

A tech support request. It’s
not a tech support request.

It is actually just helping
me out because there’s

no way I can keep track of all the links
and stuff that are across social media.

And let’s be honest, I hate social
media. I hate taking care of it.

I don’t mind doing it.

I don’t mind interacting. I
actually like interacting with people,

but the maintenance
that goes into social media,

it was just never for me. I
want to sit here and make stuff.

I want to put it out
there on the internet.

I want to make podcasts. I
want to make videos whatever.

I don’t want to promote
them maintenance is a pain.

That’s actually the thing.

I need a promoter. I don’t
can’t offer any money.

So the best I can offer is
beard oil. I have a five pack here

started using, am I
advertising? If I was getting

a sponsorship, then I wouldn’t
have to go to work tomorrow.

Here’s a deal. Is
near mile beard oil.

I have promoted your
product for free, but I would

love to quit my job. So if
you want to sponsor this

podcast, giving me enough
money so that I don’t

have to go to work
tomorrow, not even forever,

just tomorrow because this is,
I’m recording Monday morning.

I usually record
Tuesday morning.

I’m recording Tuesday
morning. Fuck, I’ve already

affected the sounds up.
I’m recording this morning

because I have to work
tomorrow because I have

a full-time job. So
I’m a bit out of sorts.

So this is the fifth or
sixth start to this podcast

episode and it’s not
going well. I’ll be honest,

but I’m very excited to
have a message from Gray.

I do appreciate anyone
pointing out any issues

because that’s the only
way I’m going to find them

or be able to try to fix
them. I have an RSS feed

issue going on right now.
I have stat tracking issues

going on right now,
knowing that the discord link

was old or not working.
It’s actually super helpful.

So I really appreciate
that. Let’s just get a

little bit more from Gray
and then we’ll move on to

the actual episode. And,
uh, two, uh, thank you so

much for making the
podcast. It’s nice to listen to

you before I end the
bed. I find it very weird

that people listen to
this before they go to bed

because as the podcast
goes, there is a structure to it.

Uh, the dirty or more
violent stories are

at the end, which means
while you are drifting into

sleep when you are when
you are mind is sort of

your body is closing, but
your mind is opening is

when I start talking
about the dirty weird stuff.

Um, I don’t know if that’s what
you should be falling asleep to.

Secondly, um, I think we should
be falling asleep to your voice.

I think Gray is a
way better of what

basically I’m saying why
is why am I podcasting?

And he’s not, he clearly
has a nicer sounding voice.

So if I was going to
fall asleep to a voice, my

own or his, I would
choose his, I think every

time is they got that
sort of nice timber to it.

It’s a little deep. It’s nice.
It’s better than my man.

Uh, secondary proposal,
I could write the podcast.

You could record the
what you could do the voice.

And then we’d maybe actually
this might go somewhere.

Yeah, I would like
to show up on one

of the segments. So it
would be cool to fuck around.

And it would be
cool to fuck around.

I don’t know exactly what you’re
saying, but I’m open to anything.

Uh, if you would
like to join, so we’ve

been doing quizzes and
the quizzes, I’m already

trying to change them
a little bit last week.

We didn’t do a quiz.
We did essentially a little

Japanese lesson. Uh,
my friend Tom joined and I

showed him a couple of
words that were sort of

new Japanese words.
He took them back to his

students and he tried
them on his students.

They knew Mofu Mofu, but
they didn’t know the other ones.

And it’s like, Hey,
maybe you guys need

to update your Japanese
and he’s saying that to

like a group of like young
people, which is pretty funny.

So I’m not going
to just do quizzes.

Quiz is was a great
format to start with, but I

want to expand it into
like every idea I can have.

And I want to do it with other people.
So if you would like to join the podcast,

send an email to
chuggavelefchest@gmail.com.

You could drop a message and
speak pipe like gray is just done.

Uh, you can join the discord,
which is in the link tree.

And we can arrange to record.

I usually do it over zoom
and I just record the audio.

So you don’t have to
be on camera or anything

like that if you don’t
want to, but we can try

to fit it to your schedule
because I recorded

outside of the live
recording that we do on

Twitch, usually on Tuesdays,
but today is Monday.

You can tell that’s
really resting on my mind.

I’m just not getting
anything right.

Let’s start the show.

Now I’ve already now
that we’re into the format

I’m comfortable
with that I’m used to.

I’m actually already
a little bit more calm.

We have an update.
We have the story.

So there was God fucking discord.
We have an update on a previous story.

We have the NHK
does national news and

they do it in multiple
languages and they do it in

Chinese and they had a
guy doing the national news

in Chinese and he decided
to sort of just go off

script for a bit. He
switched to English.

I found that part really
interesting. And he made a couple

of statements like the
Senkaku Islands belong to China.

Uh, he said, don’t forget about
comfort women and the rape of non king.

So he was basically saying
like we have to remember the

awful history of Japan
and there are these disputed

islands between China and
Japan and they belong to China.

He’s just making a staunch political statement
right out the gates. That’s a problem

when your radio show
represents the government of

Japan because it’s a
national broadcast system.

So it’s actually, it’s not
pro government, but you

certainly are working
for the government.

An executive had to quit
to take responsibility for this.

Two other executives had their
pay cut because this happened.

And I actually in
the last episode when

we talked about it said
like this seems unfair.

The executives, unless
they were sitting there

with like hovering
their finger over a mute

button with a seven
second delay or something,

they had no control over this. And they had
hired this guy to read the news in Chinese.

He decided to go off
script. So I was thinking it

was only he should be
punished. I said that was unfair.

The contract with that agency
that hired that guy was cut.

So that guy and
many of his co-workers

actually lost their jobs in
Japan if they were in Japan.

They might have been
doing it from overseas,

but that contract was
ended. So that guy killed

that contract for multiple
people, which I think

ah, that’s what that’s
what actually would happen.

So his friend should
be angry in him.

The executive quit, this
is a very Japanese thing

is you, there’s a problem
in your company and you

quit and you say, I
take responsibility for it.

I quit. I’ve always found
out a weird system.

We went through a period
around 2010 in Japan where there

were 10 prime ministers.
Because anytime there’s a

problem, the problem
would be like the prime

minister say, oh, it’s
my responsibility as like

punishment or whatever. I will
quit and then they would quit.

I realize that doesn’t
fix the problem.

You’re just moving the
problem onto the next guy.

You’re saying, okay,
you can blame me and I’ll

step down and then the
next guy comes in clean.

He’s still has to fix the
problem. So I think you

usually have to fix the
problem and then quit if

that’s the way it’s going
to work out or maybe

just fix the problem. If
you fix the problem really

well, maybe nobody
has to quit. I don’t know.

This is slightly different.
I thought it was weird

that the executive
quit, but then it turns out

two weeks later, he was rehired by the NHK.
They said they rehired him because of his,

they said they rehired
him because of his

experience as an overseas
journalist. So he’d worked in Russia.

He’d worked in China. He’d worked in a
couple of different places and they said that

experience was valuable. But
then it seems very convoluted.

So why did you let
him let him quit in the

first place or just don’t
let him resign or to say,

look, yeah, it is
responsibility, but we’ll just

keep you in the job. It
doesn’t say if he was rehired

is the same job,
which I find interesting.

I’m pretty sure he
was. It just seems like a

convoluted way for him
to take responsibility by

resigning, but then
not actually taking any

responsibility because
he got hired back on.

So it’s like an agreement
was made. Hey guys, this

bad thing happened. I’ll quit.
You hire me again in two weeks.

So I’m just going to
take a two week vacation.

And then you can say like someone took
responsibility for this thing happening, but

then also none of us in this
room right now get punished.

Although those two other executives
did get a pay cut for a couple of months,

but I’m assuming they’re
making enough money

that it’s not really negatively
impacting their lifestyle.

I did have a secondary question. As
soon as this seemed like a scheme,

I started going like, oh,
has his contract changed.

So when he was he quit and then he was
rehired, was he rehired at the same salary?

Was his salary improved?
Did what changed?

And then none of the
details came out in that.

But it being NHK, I was
like, oh, this might actually be

public information. So
I kind of started going

to look for it, but I
honestly just don’t know

what to look for. So I
am going to do some

research because I’m
wondering if in a weird way

this Chinese announcer
saying a very political

thing so that this guy had
to take responsibility for it.

So he quit and
then he came back.

If that actually worked
out is him getting a raise.

We’re living in the
future. It’s 2024.

Although some aspects of
Japan, if you’ve lived in Japan,

do not seem like
living in the future.

There are some bits
that are super futuristic.

There are some bits
that just you’re like, again,

so I live in a Japanese
house and the heating,

cooling system of Japan
as a country just has not

caught up with
anywhere else I’ve lived.

Korea had the heated floors.
Amazing, the heated floors.

Japan basically has air
conditioners in each individual

room, which means this
room will be cool or hot,

whatever I set it to.
And then I go out in the

hallway and then either
all the cold air, all the

hot air goes out as
soon as I open the door.

And the hallway is either
super hot or super cold.

And you just get these like
shocks to your system constantly.

I was on the train
the other day.

It’s getting to the end of
September. It’s still very hot in Japan.

But a lot of the
community is cut.

But I got on the train the
other day and the heat was on.

So I’m thinking it
was an accident.

But they turned on the heat.
I guess coming up to October

is officially fall. I
think it’s officially

fall now, but it still
feels like summertime.

Yeah, man. Japan has
this very weird thing where

people will change
their clothing and stuff

depending on the
season, not on the actual

weather outside. So
it’s like it’s still hot,

but it’s now fall. So I’m
going to start wearing

my fall warmer clothes,
even though it’s still

quite warm outside. And
I’m sweating all the time.

But anyways, that’s not
the story we’re talking about.

I’m talking about soft bank.

Soft bank is the first company
in Japan to offer digital salary.

So some companies when
crypto kind of went through

its boom, we’re saying,
we’ll give you crypto

as part of your
salary. I think it was an

investment, but it had
to be a very small amount.

There’s some legal
issues with paying with how

you pay your employees.
Pay pay is one of the

payment systems in Japan.
I actually had a conversation

with this with some
friends last night about

and they know there
is no Venmo in Japan.

It’s not recognized by
the Japanese government.

There is no cash app in Japan because
Japan has its own Japanese systems.

Japan is very insular and
pretty much everything.

So they don’t want other systems to come
in and kind of assert the ones that are

being used in Japan. I don’t
know if they’re better or worse.

I use pay pay. I
used to use line pay

because everyone had line
and if you needed to share

money or send money,
it was very easy.

That was kind of the main
reason I did that one and it was

already on my phone.
Pay pay took over line pay.

They’re going to be the
same company next year.

So I switched over to pay
pay early because why not?

I was scamming them
for double points for a

while because I used my pay
pay credit card in my pay pay app.

I used my line pay credit card in my
pay pay app. So I got points on pay pay

and I got points on line
pay but they shut down

that system very
recently. So now I just use

pay pay exclusively.
But with the government

approval, you can pay a
salary up to 200,000 yen

in pay pay directly. So it would mean on
pay day in my phone, in my pay pay account,

the 200,000 yen would
just show up. Now let’s say

I get paid more than
200,000 yen, which is very

likely if you have like
a regular full-time job.

The rest of that money
has to go to the bank.

So you can get part
of your payment up to

200,000 yen in pay pay
as a system. And if that’s

where you’re using all
the time, it makes sense.

You can split it. You can
decide how much like I

want 100,000 yen of my pay to
go into my phone every month.

That can happen as
well. 300 companies

have already contacted
pay pay about adopt about

adopting digital payment
systems. And I’m guessing

because at the end of the
day, it happens automatically.

You don’t have to deal
with banks in the same way.

It’s faster and I bet it’s
actually also cheaper.

A nursing nursing
home care worker.

So I mean these are
people who are taking care of

old people in Japan. It
has a grain population.

There’s a lot of old
people. There’s a lot of

demand for this job.
So there’s a lot of people

who can get jobs in
this kind of care system.

They were arrested for
assaulting 105 year old patient.

I don’t know that one
was like 105, like any

sort of assault is going
to be significant if the

person is 105 years
old. So that is crazy.

It turns out they also
assaulted three other patients.

The youngest being 94.
So these are like 94 year

old people end up. And
this guy is like getting

frustrated with them and
punching them in the face.

The actual statement
was I was so frustrated

with caring for them.
I couldn’t help myself,

which makes it very clear
that you should not be

working in this industry.
The home care facility

they were working
at was for exclusively

patients with dementia.
So you I mean dealing

with old people can be
frustrating dealing with

people my age can be
frustrating. Dealing with older

people who also you know
have dementia is going

to be extra frustrating.
If you’re going to get so

frustrated, you then think
punching him in the face

is the acceptable
response. And that’s going to

somehow make things better.
You probably shouldn’t be

working in that industry.
I think if you’re sort

of a punchy person all around,
you shouldn’t be in care work.

That’s just this is going to be one of
those statements that engineers depend for

moats out there. If you’re
a punchy kind of person,

you shouldn’t go into
care work. Staff noticed a

bruise on one of the
patients. So they decided

to go check the security
camera. And it turns out

the bruise the patient had
wasn’t related to the assault.

But because they checked
the security camera,

saw the assault take
place giving maybe different

injuries, different bruises.
So the person got caught.

So I’m like this other
person absolutely should

be in health care because
they’re like oh that guy has a bruise.

I should just go
check just to be

safe because again we’re
dealing with dementia patients.

We’re dealing with older people.

Maybe they fall down. Maybe
they get bruises all the time.

Maybe they bruise very easily.

This is all totally on board. It
would be very easy to ignore.

But they’re like, you
know what? Let’s bruise.

I should just go check
the security camera.

Goes and sees these
older people getting

assaulted and then is
able to call the police.

So that second person
should get a raise.

But care workers are
not appreciated and that is

probably not going to
happen. Since we’re talking

about people punching
people who should not be

punched, I guess no
one should be punched.

I mean you go into boxing.
I do. I practice due to

I get punched in the face. I
think it’s actually quite funny.

But that’s voluntary.

So that voluntary aspect
changes the whole atmosphere of

the getting punched in
the face. If you are an

old person in a home
care place, I don’t think

you expect or deserve
to be punched in the face.

I mean, okay old
people can be shitty too.

Sometimes they might
deserve it. But that doesn’t

mean you can do it.
There’s lots of people I

see dated to oh god now
we’ve got to do who you

should be allowed to
punch or not, which is

going to be a big book.
There are people I think

I should be able to punch just
me exclusively, not anyone else.

Because I think I
have good judgment.

All right. A teacher in
Shiga, since we’re going

to go to the other end of
the spectrum, we’ve now

talked about punching
old people on the face.

Let’s talk about punching
young people on the face.

A teacher in Shiga was
arrested for hitting an

elementary school age
boys about 10 years old

in the right eye. So he
decked a kid in the face.

He was reported to
police the same day.

So the kid went home
probably had a black eye because

he got punched in the eye
by a full grown adult teacher.

The parents called the cops.

Absolutely, 100% exactly what I
would do. Police are investigating

the reason for the assault.
Now, I am not saying

it’s okay to punch
little kids in the face.

But I can absolutely
tell you the reason.

Without even meeting this
kid, without even knowing the

situation, he was being
a mouthy little shit.

Now, kids are mouthy
little shits. This is one of the

things having had
experience teaching kids,

having dealt with kids.
I’ve dealt with kids in

education situations. I’ve
dealt with kids judo classes.

I’ve dealt with kids
just out in the street.

I’ve dealt with kids when I took my
kids to the park when they were younger.

I understand, in general,
kids are mouthy little shits.

I’ve never punched
one of the face.

So in all those situations as a teacher,
as a guy doing judo teaching kids judo,

as a guy in the park,
as a parent, I have never

punched a kid in the
face despite the fact that

they were being mouthy little
shits and probably deserved it.

But again, deserving it and actually
getting it aren’t always the same thing.

That’s what kids do. So this
is the same as the care worker.

If you can’t handle little kids getting on
your nerves, you shouldn’t be a teacher.

It’s really that simple.
We’ve had a couple of stories

where teachers
just kind of lose it.

There was a couple maybe a
month ago. Kid was mocking his

teacher and copying
him and the teacher just

goes over and tackles the
kid. You shouldn’t be a teacher.

That’s just straight up.
Don’t go into that industry.

They’re going to figure
out you have a weakness.

They’re going to
get under your skin.

That is, again, what kids
do. Hello, Dave, Dave.

I’m God damn it. God, I’m
going to settle you down.

You get this little puff here sometimes.
Hello.

I would like to angle the camera down
just a little bit so you can get his head.

But then when I do that, he
spends a lot of this time sleeping.

Then you would just
be looking at my nose

down and a sleeping
dog, which actually still

think would be aesthetically more
pleasing than what you’re seeing right now.

Kids are going to get your
weakness. They’re going

to figure it out. So let’s
say I’m self-conscious.

I wear a hat because
I’m losing my hair.

But I’m not that self-conscious,
but if you make fun of it,

I’ll make fun of it. But
if a kid understands

that it is sensitive to
me, they absolutely 100%

will make fun of it
constantly until I break.

A man was arrested for
violating stalking laws for

sending six text messages
to his ex-girlfriend.

And I was like, “Oh,
that’s a weird title because

that doesn’t sound too
bad.” Like he sent six,

usually the text messages
stalking stories are,

I sent 500 messages a
day. It’s always, I sent

thousands of messages over the
course of a month or something.

So it’s always a lot.
And I was like six,

the number stuck to me, stuck
out to me as being very small.

Like this was like an
insignificant amount of text.

It would be very easy to ignore.

Then of course, we got
to see the content of some

of the texts like, “I’ll
never break up with you.

Breakups don’t have
to be too sighted.

” So she broke up with
you, then you’re broken up.

You don’t get to really
decide. I was like, “That

has an underpinning that
maybe we’re not a big fan

of. I’ll come and get
you.” That contextually,

since you’ve been broken
up, has a very different

meaning than like if I’m
going to come get you

as an pick you up and
drive you somewhere and

be a good guy, that’s
great. But since she’s broken

up with me and made
it very clear she doesn’t

want to speak to me
anymore, I’ll come and get you.

It takes on a very
different meaning.

Again, being an outside
reader of this, we have

to sort of like try to
be as neutral as possible.

So once you get context,
that makes a big difference.

I’m trying to sometimes
try to think like a cop would.

So I see this message.

I’m like, “Well, that can be
interpreted two ways we need to

understand the situation.”
But the situation is

that she had blocked him
on all the ways they had

talked to before and then he
started sending these messages.

So I will come and get you.

Yeah, that’s a threat. So
I’m coming to your home.

I do like that this guy
is not explicit in violence,

but everything he’s writing
doesn’t apply violence.

Like this is actually a
fairly well crafted threat

because you could say
once you get arrested

because you’re going
to get arrested for this,

you could say once
you get arrested that you

were not threatening,
you were just giving facts.

Like I’m coming to your
home. I’m coming to get you.

Like what does that
mean? That means I’m

like going to come and
pick you up or I’m going

to come and take you
somewhere. I think maybe

this guy was smart
enough that he was banking

on that working, but
any reasonable outsider

like myself would go,
“No, you’re threatening this

woman because she
blocked you and dumped you.

” The woman broke up
with him at the end of August

and having now seen
the way he’s responded to

being broken up with,
“I can’t fathom why she’s

such a charming personality.” It’s
clearly he’s got like sort of anger issues.

He can’t handle rejection
or he can’t handle being told

he doesn’t get what he
wants or something like that.

These, this response
demonstrates why he was

dumped in the first place.
And so he’s not taking

a moment to reflect
and be like, “Maybe I have

to improve myself as a
person.” He’s like, “No,

I’m going to lean into
it and be even worse.

” And that’ll get her
back. He said he was angry

at being ignored because
she had blocked him previously.

So I’m assuming
he got a different

phone or a different phone
number or something like that.

So he can start sending
text messages again.

Which again makes it
very clear the way he

must behave while
they were actually dating.

He said when he was
being arrested, I thought if I

send her scary messages,
she wouldn’t respond.

And that’s why I
used a strong language.

So he’s again, he now he’s
trying to say like, “I wasn’t

threatening her. I was just
trying to get her to react to me.

” Which again kind of demonstrates probably
why he was dumped in the first place.

“80 year old man goes into the bank.” And
he’s decided, “I’m going to rob this bank.

” At 9.25 a.m. on a
Tuesday, which I was like,

“Ah, I don’t think he’s
planned this very well.

” I don’t know when banks
have the most money in

their cash drawers. But
that is the kind of thing

you, if you’re going to rob
a bank, you should check.

So they’re going to have
ways of dumping the money.

They’re going to have ways of
taking money back to the safe.

They’re going to have
ways of taking the

money from the safe to a central
location or something like that.

So you need to figure out the peak time to
rob a bank. And I bet banks have actually

figured this out as
well and they try to like

randomize the times.
So that you never really

have peak money in
the cash, in the tills.

But at the same time,
they have to have a

certain amount of money
on hand. He held up the

teller, he took a gun
out, and he held up the

teller demanding cash, and
then the teller hit a silent alarm.

So again, I don’t know if this guy
had really done his planning. He’s 80.

Maybe he’s basing this on what
banks were back like when he

would have been like in
his youth, so 40 years ago.

So maybe he’s 80 years
old and he’s basing his

knowledge of how banks
are run back 40 years ago

when he was in his 40s
when he was just like

a regular adult. And
he doesn’t realize like

everything has been
updated. Like maybe he doesn’t

know that there are
silent alarms, the police

as soon as you start
watching movies, you actually

gain a lot of information
by watching like

heist movies and stuff and
know that silent alarms are a thing.

The police showed up and caught him
before he was even able to leave the bank.

It turns out he had a toy
gun. No one was injured,

but again, also probably because he
was 80 years old and using a toy gun.

Now I kind of ended that
last story with a gentle

joke, a jai, but the
fact that this man was

80 years old and therefore
not much of a threat

and he had a toy gun.
Well, we immediately have

another story of an 81
year old man who is a threat.

So I guess even if
you’re 80 year old,

we shouldn’t underestimate
your ability to threaten

or hurt other people.
A tax official started

going to this guy’s
house. He had to because

there was a claim against
him, so he hadn’t been

paying his taxes or something, or
he’d done something a little shady.

This guy needed to deal with some
tax issues. So a tax official shows up to

this guy’s house. The
guy, the 81 year old man,

attempts to run the tax
official down with his car.

In his car, he also
had a hunting rifle.

He had license for hunting
rifles. So he had, when the

police arrested him, he
had foreign the house,

I want to get more
details about this guy

because this guy, 81
years old, sounds hard core.

So I’m wondering what the, I’m betting
he just decided not to pay taxes anymore.

Is he 81 years old? He’s like,
I’ve paid a taxes for 80 years.

I’m not paying taxes anymore.

You guys go screw
yourself. Tax official shows

up. He’s like, you know
what? I’ve got to run

him down with my car. I
got a hunting rifle in the back.

Whatever. Like, who’s
going to stop me?

I’m 81 years old. I go to
jail. How long do I go to

jail for a life? Life could
be like three more years.

Guy’s going to be arrested
for driving without a license.

So that’s not a very big thing.

Like he get in
trouble. You get a fine.

I don’t know how much trouble
you actually get in for driving

without a license. He was
driving a car and a motorcycle.

Technically, two
different licenses.

But again, I think it
would just be rolled into

one thing, driving
without a license.

You pay a fine. I think
that’s pretty much it.

The police know where this
guy is. So they show up to a hotel.

He’s staying at with
a girl. They show up at

7.20 a.m. I think that’s
perfect time to show up.

I mean, that is like the
guy’s up and he’s around,

but he’s not really
aware and ready for like a

kerfuffle, which is exactly
what’s going to happen

when the police show
up. Please bang in the door

like hey, where the
cops cut lettuce in.

He decides in his underwear to
jump off the third story balcony,

hit the ground and run
away. There is so much

in that sentence,
though. So first of all,

he’s in his underwear.
And he’s like, I don’t have

time to put on anything
else. I’m just going to go.

I’m on the third story.
I can make that jump.

I’m like, that would already
be a hesitant thing for me.

I know three stories
isn’t technically that

much, but it’s also a
lot at the same time.

I’m assuming he’s hitting
the ground. Even if it’s a

grass, it’s not going
to be like cushiony soft.

That’s going to be
really, really rough.

But then he gets up from
the jump and just runs away.

So no twisted ankle, no
broken foot, no nothing

that either that or
his adrenaline so high,

he’s able to run through it. I’m just
kind of shocked by the whole deal here.

He was suspected of being
part of under you under you is

a semi organized
group of criminals now.

I actually had her story last
week where we talked about a

semi organized gang. And I was
really unclear on how that works.

This one I’ve heard of before.

This is basically a loose
gang of individuals who

are willing to commit
crimes and what they do is

connect on social media
when they are in the same area.

They commit a crime
to it with each other

and then they separate.
So it’s very hard for

the police to track down
the entire gang or any sort

of network because the
network is always changing

because I commit a crime
with you and then I move

on to another thing. And
then on the social media

I connect with someone else.
I commit a crime with them.

And then I get
the support I need.

I get to commit the
crimes. But then none of

us are actually tied to
each other too closely.

So it actually depends
on how active you are,

how dangerous you are.
So he was suspected of

being one of these guys.
They didn’t actually have

as much proof, but they
did have proof that he

it was driving without
a license. So that’s what

they were going to pick
him up for because he was

a member of this disorganized organized
crime, which is a great way of saying it.

11 cops were waiting
for him. Now the thing

is, what do you do?
You surround the building,

you sort of get sort
of people in the area,

that kind of thing because
you only need two or

three cops to take
one guy into custody.

When he jumps out the window
off the balcony, off he goes,

there were no cops out there.

They did not expect him to
jump out the balcony and get away.

So they had no cops
sort of around that side

of the building. I guess
they were all around

the front door expecting
him to use the front

door very politely as
they just walked him out.

He got away. There were 11 cops waiting
for him and he still got away. Secondary,

the cops all they have to do is put out an
APB on guy running around in his underwear.

And it’s going to be pretty obvious.
Like they should be getting calls.

Hey, I just saw a dude run
down my street in his underwear.

Hey, there’s a guy
in his underwear in

this convenience store
buying pants or something.

I can’t, can you buy
pants? I think you probably,

you can buy t-shirts
in underwear and socks.

I don’t know if you can buy
pants. Maybe you can buy shorts?

I don’t know. You can
buy almost a full thing

of clothing and it can
be in the store in Japan.

That is how Japan
convenience stores aren’t

literally more convenient
than anywhere else.

But at the end of the
day, this guy got away

and I got to say like
I rip on criminals a lot

of ninja news Japan. But
I got to tell you, I do have

some respect for this
guy who if he’s going to be,

he’s one of the better
criminals we’ve had on the show.

Okay, December
15th, a body was found.

It has been drowned. The
police suspected suicide,

but then they turned out
there was no real motive.

Like this guy didn’t
seem particularly

depressed when they
started looking into his life.

They’re like, there’s
no real reason for

this guy to have killed
himself. So now they’re

like, we got to figure
out if maybe there’s some

foul play at hand 10 days
after his death, a friend

of his takes 160,000 yen
out of his bank account.

That’s like a thousand
bucks, let’s say.

So the police are like, Hey,
why do you have access to

his bank account? Why
are you taking money out

of his bank account?
He’s been dead for 10 days.

That seems a little
suspicious. The man claims

he held the bank card
and obtained consent

before taking the money
out. He had the bank

card for sure because
he had to have the bank

card to actually get it,
but did he obtain consent?

This is now when it
gets really suspicious.

Why are you, how do
you have consent to take

money out of this dead
guy’s bank account?

Did you get consent
before or after he died?

That kind of thing. He did have
the number and he claims to

have been managing
this guy’s finances for

quite a long time. So
there’s actually like,

this is again, very
good crime if it’s a crime

because we actually 100%
don’t know if it’s a crime.

So this is to me, one
of the more interesting

bits of this, they say
they became friends 30

years ago because
they both like baseball.

So they were at baseball
games, they saw each other,

they started talking, they hung out, they
watched baseball at the same bar, whatever,

they became friends
over baseball 30 years ago,

they’ve been friends
for a very, very long time.

The friend was the beneficiary
of the dead man’s life insurance.

Life insurance doesn’t often pay
out if you commit suicide though.

So that’s actually a sole other
sort of issue. If he murdered

this guy for the life
insurance, then he had to

make it look like an
accident, whereas the police

immediately assumed suicide
because he was pushed into a river.

So that’s kind of the
first issue that I have.

I’m like, this is, is it murder or was it
an accident? Because it was a murder,

it wasn’t planned out
well enough, whereas this

guy seems to have had
access to everything else.

So it seems like he would
have been in a position

to make a good plan. They’ve
been friends for 30 years.

He trusts him completely.

He did actually seem to
trust him with his finances.

It actually would have
made more sense to rip

him off bit by bit since you
have access to his finances.

And then if you were going to try
to kill him for the insurance payout,

pushing me into a river
does seem like suicide in

Japan because it’s going
to be like jump in front

of a train, jump into a
river. These are pretty

fundamental ways to
kill yourself in Japan.

One month before the
man drowned, the friend

asked how he would
collect on the life insurance.

So that’s another very suspicious thing
to ask immediately before someone dies.

So this is, again, this pushes
it more towards murder.

But at the same time, the
guy had so much control over

the other guy’s life, the dead man’s life.
It seems like it’s, there, there’s so much

accessibility. It
seems suspicious.

But what if he actually
is doing the thing he said,

and the thing he said was like he was helping
take care of this guy as he got older,

he was getting out of shape. So we used
to go down to the river, work out together.

I, because he stayed at
home and never did anything.

I took care of his finances.

I helped no, he sounds like during
the 30 years, he was a very good friend.

And then near the end of the time, it
becomes suspicious because if this was an

accident, the suspicion
would naturally lay

like go towards this guy. To me, the most
suspicious aspect of this is that the man,

they were apparently
seeing each other all the time.

This man dies, and the
friend wasn’t the one

who called the police.
To me, that is the one that

pushes it towards murder
more than anything else

because it was 10 days
after the death, he took money

out of the bank. That
means he hadn’t had contact

with his friend, he loves and
manages his finances and whatever.

Over the last 10
days, that’s a very

long period of time not to
have contact with someone

you’re so close with and
then not get suspicious

and call the police. So
if he wanted to do this

murder correctly, he needs
to play into the fact that

he was essentially a
caretaker of his friend for the

last X amount of years,
and he is the one who would

be most likely to report it
to the police and therefore

get the police on the
track. But the problem is

then you are opening the
case. Maybe he was just

hoping he would disappear
and nobody would notice.

But then again, how
do you collect on the life

insurance if no one
knows the guy is dead?

So there’s a lot of question marks in this
one. I am going to follow up on this case

very carefully as
much as I can because I

actually think there might
be enough doubt here

that the man doesn’t get
prosecuted, which in the

case, he would still have
access to the bank accounts.

I don’t know how that
gets shut down in Japan or

not, but he could take out
as much as he wants now.

I guess the police probably at this point
have already taken the cash card away.

But it seems like he
has messed up this plan if

he actually did it, but
there is a big question mark.

Maybe he didn’t
actually do it, which is

what great murder
mysteries we’re all about.

If you want to join the
show for a segment, you

want to do a quiz, you
want to do some Japanese,

you want to do some fun stuff,
you want to just chat with me.

I would love to have
you on the show.

You can send a
message to speak pipe up.

You can send a message to
speakpipe.com/truckmanbeefchester

and email to chunkmanbeefchestergmail.com.
I love interacting with anybody.

That’s actually not true.
I gotta stop being so fucking literal.

I do love interacting with
everyone who enjoys the show.

That might be the
caveat that I need.

Interaction with people who listen
to the show is very motivating for me.

So I actually was like,
I gotta work tomorrow.

I was like, I just won’t
do an episode this week.

I got the message from Graham.

I’m really motivated to try to
get an episode out this week.

So your interaction helps me
produce more and better shows.

So thank you to
everyone who’s listening.

And if you want to be
on a segment, if you want

to just chat, if you
want to send a question,

speakpipe or Gmail, links
are in the description.

The link tree,
hopefully is all working.

I’m actually going to go
check that again right now.

If you want to join the
Discord, it’s not very active yet.

But again, I’m sort of just building
it from scratch at the moment.

And thank you for listening.
Thank you for giving me your time.

And if you listen to this one, you’re
going to sleep. It’s creepy, creepy time.

Mental Gymnastics

(upbeat music)

So I think it’s maybe getting
time for a new theme song.

So I just decided to try out
one of these AI generator things.

Just to see if it was any good.

So my prompt was news
intro, drums, and trumpets.

‘Cause you know, pretty much every new
show starts with like bam, bam, bam, bam.

(humming)

There you go, I should do it in my mouth.

Why am I, why am I getting AI?

When I have the natural
instrument of my body.

It was horrible.

Like every song was absolutely atrocious.

I had to do about eight
or 10, and not one of them

sounded even close to
what I would call music.

So musicians, you’re safe for
the next little while, at least.

I mean, I bet AI could at
this point generate the script

for this show, although almost
impossible because I don’t script it.

But you know what I mean?

If you fed all the ninja
news Japan’s from the past

into AI, it could
generate, if you take the,

I must be able to take
the news, take my style

of speaking and put it
together, clone my voice.

The podcast is automated now.

I don’t actually have to do anything.

But the theme song, you’re safe.

I’m still thinking about what to do.

I wanna pay people to do
it, but I don’t have money.

Like I’m not rich.

This is an update on a
story from previous week.

So we had our two gentlemen who
decided to graffiti Yes, Kuni Shrine.

I’ve talked about why.

Yes, Kuni Shrine is a controversial place
for people from primarily China in Korea.

We’ve talked about graffiti.

Is it bad?

And overall, basically, yes.

This guy, he sprayed, what did he spray?

It was dog poop, actually
could go back into my old notes.

I should’ve checked.

He sprayed what I would consider like
grade two level thoughts onto the shrine.

He was a little more honest about it.

The first guy was like,
this is a political statement.

The second guy’s like, I don’t like this.

I actually kind of
appreciate the honesty there.

He escaped back to China.

And so in my report, last time I was
like, he’s not going to get arrested.

No, he’s going to happen to him.

Chinese police do not care if
you’ve committed a crime in Japan.

You can read into that a
bunch of different ways,

but at the end of the day,
it is a fundamental truth.

But he did get arrested.

So I said he wasn’t going to get
arrested, but then he did get arrested.

But the reason he got arrested
for a different crime, of course.

So there is sort of a karmic
version of justice happening here.

He committed a crime
and he is being punished.

He has committed two crimes.

He’s being punished for one.

Does that count for both?

I think the criminal justice
system in China is pretty harsh.

So I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

The graffiti in Japan,
honestly, graffiti, how bad is it?

I don’t think you should graffiti
vandalize things, whatever.

But in the end of the day, how
many people are I still getting hurt?

You got to clean it up.

I would basically make the criminal
clean up the thing they graffiti.

That’s a pretty fair punishment.

He was arrested on suspicion of extortion.

He was threatening people involved
in online streams for shopping.

So China is very popular to have shopping
streams where you bring products out.

You talk about them.

You move it on people can buy that product.

And he apparently was trying
to intimidate these people

into getting them to put
money into a bank account.

So just essentially just
extorting them for money.

While I, of course, would judge
someone for graffitiing something.

I couldn’t understand the
politics behind graffitiing.

That’s a coony shrine.

I really can’t.

I wouldn’t do it, but I can understand it.

But when you get into extortion, it’s pretty
clear you’re just a bad person anyways.

And so there is not a lot
of a redemption arc here.

And I’m sure that Chinese justice
system is absolutely going to bury you.

So good luck to him.

A Japan Postman, I say
Postman because it’s a guy.

So I’m not trying to be sexist biased or
use my sort of older misogynistic style.

I was speaking.

It’s an actual Postman.

But also could be Postboy
because this Postman

was a teenager and I was like, wow, I
never thought about the age of Post people.

It’s kind of a neat thing.

But because I never thought about it
because in my image, they’re just adults.

But I don’t want to insult
people, male carriers.

And skill wise, you need to be able
to deliver male to certain addresses.

That is about it.

I’m sure there’s more to it.

Again, I feel like I’ve
already insulted someone.

I’m sorry.

I think it’s valuable job.

I think it’s important.

Japan Post is dedicated.

I once did an online thing.

It was probably for t-shirts or something.

And because the website, I put my
name in Japanese and Chinese characters.

So in Kanji, on the form, it
showed up as question marks.

So the Chinese script
wasn’t on the server

side of the system they were
using the payment system.

I guess they were set up for
only English perfectly makes sense.

They still sent it out because I assumed
the whole system was just automated.

Two months later, this package shows up.

All it has is my name in English and the
postal address and they still got it to me.

So that level of
dedication made me really,

really appreciate Japan Post as
a group of very dedicated people.

But now we get this story
and it’s a team who is hired.

So already it’s like,
maybe that’s the

problem, but also I
don’t think it’s like teens

are inherently lazy or
not capable or anything.

I don’t look at young people that way.

I look at individuals.

So this individual, the fact that it is a
teen, I think, is what got it to the front

of the news because it’s sort of playing
into people’s presuppositions about youth.

A teen Japanese postperson
dumped 2,378 letters

and 449 parcels in
seven different locations.

So over the course
of mid-June to July, so

that’d be about six weeks, just
like I can’t deliver all this mail.

So I’m just going to take it here.

I’m going to dump it.

I’m going to take it over here and dump it.

I’m going to take it over here.

1049 parcels, though, okay.

You’re a mail person.

You’re supposed to deliver the mail.

You decide you’re not
going to deliver the mail.

You start dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

If you’re going to commit, this is a crime.

I’m pretty sure this is a crime.

Just dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

You might as well steal the parcels.

I know I every
regularly say I should not

give advice to criminals,
but then immediately

sorry giving advice
to criminals, but it’s

because I’m like the police officer
who gets into the criminal mindset.

I just want to be in their thought, but in
my head, I’m like, well, if you’re going to

throw it away, you might
as well profit from it.

There may be some
good stuff in the parcels.

Keep them.

You might as well even take
the mail home and open it.

Maybe someone sending
someone some money or something.

I’ve now realized that if
I became a postperson,

if I decided to just
start dumping stuff,

like I didn’t want to deliver the
mail, I didn’t want to do my job.

I would be like, well, let’s
take it home and I’ll go through

it and see if there’s anything
valuable that I could keep.

Less likely to get caught.

So the fact that he was dumping
it in seven locations outside.

So the report came in on July 31st.

Someone found mail
and parcels in between

house and a river, so
I didn’t write it down.

They found it, they
basically found one of

the places that the kid
was dumping the mail.

They called the post office and the police.

The post office talked to the
guy, he admitted to doing it.

He just said, I can’t
deliver all this mail.

You guys are crazy with all
the mail you expect me to deliver.

It’s too much.

Clearly should not have been a mail person.

So what they’ve done,
they didn’t arrest the kid.

I’m finding this the interesting part.

He’s not been arrested.

The post office is filing
for damages and that

means he’s going to have
to pay the equivalency

of whatever that all that stuff was
worth, so they have to work that out.

They found pretty much all
the mail could still be delivered.

There were three parcels
that were so damaged

probably because of rain or something
that they couldn’t read the address.

There’s three parcels
will not get delivered.

They’ve put the message out there.

If you are missing a parcel,
you can contact the post office.

Maybe they haven’t for you.

But at the end of the
day, it actually seems

like after 2,000 pieces
of mail go missing.

Someone should have
noticed a little sooner.

Japan, we’ve done a
lot of things about Japan.

Battening down the hatches.

There’s some good sailor talk
that I’ve learned from my father.

They get stricter.

Japan does not get
looser in its laws and rules.

They get stricter.

So what has happened?

Electric scooters became available.

They immediately started making
rules about electric scooters.

About a month ago, we did a story about
those little motorized suitcases you can sit

on and go through the –
supposed to be through

the airport, but some people
were riding them in the streets.

If you ride them in
the streets, they fall

under motorized vehicle
rules and you have to

have all these modifications to
make it legal to go on the streets.

Cycling, very common in Japan, you –
it’s a very convenient way to get around.

Because the trains are great,
but trains don’t go everywhere.

So if you take a train
somewhere, it’s often

more convenient to take a bicycle to your
final destination, not the movie franchise.

Why?

That didn’t even make sense.

Just as soon as I said final destination,
the movie comes into my head.

I have even watched those movies.

I know they’re all about like people
dying and they know they’re going to die.

I don’t care about that.

I don’t know.

I like horror movies.

I like movies.

I never cared about the
final destination series.

Maybe I should – maybe
I should be my – maybe

I’ve been overly judgmental
about something I haven’t seen.

So I gotta make some amends and
maybe actually go watch one of those.

There’s like six.

That’s a bad sign.

Anyways, cycling is very common.

So they have decided
to get a little stricter

with the rules for
riding your bicycle.

And it’s going to
be people riding their

bicycle drunk and people riding their
bicycle while looking at their phone.

So if you are cycling
while using your phone,

you can now get fees, fines,
not fees, fines and jail time.

If you are a repeat offender, you
have to go to bicycle safety school.

I go quite like that.

I bet it’s not very good.

I have the gold driver’s license

  • Japan has a tear system.

So if you have no reasons,
I don’t drive very much.

So I have never had accidents.

I’ve never had a ticket.

So I have gold.

My wife got one ticket.

She has blue.

It actually really bugs her that
I have gold and she has blue.

When I renew my license, I have to go in.

I think I have to just go in, change
it, maybe watch a 10-minute video.

But if you have blue, you’ve
got to watch the long video.

That’s literally punishment.

I love it so much because as I just
said, someone I know has to do it.

I don’t.

If you are a repeat offender,
you have to take a safety course.

I bet that course is miserable.

If you are found using
your phone on your

bicycle, it can be up to six months
in prison and a 10,000 yen fine.

If you found our
phone to be a threat to

pedestrians, so if you’re just riding
looking your phone, that’s a cry.

If you’re riding looking
at your phone and

you almost hit people, it can be
one year in prison and 300,000 yen.

So that’s a significant jump up.

So if you’re in danger in
other people, that’s a big deal.

If you’re drinking
and bicycling, it might

used to be, you’re not
allowed to drive drunk.

So riding your bicycle drunk
was therefore acceptable.

Now the only way acceptable to
travel while drunk would be walking.

It’s probably a good idea,
even that might be dangerous.

But if you’re drunk and you’re riding your
bicycle, it can be punished by up to three

years in prison and
half a million yen fine.

So they have decided that not
only are you going to be careful

on your bike, you’re going to
be sobering careful on your bike.

There are four options.

Okay.

So the story itself is
there is a reporter, a

lady reporter for
business sort of daily thing.

She was arrested for breaking stalker laws.

She texted a reporter
at another paper 64

times between August
17th and the 25th, which

I was like 64 sounds like a lot,
but that’s only eight texts a day.

That’s dedication.

I don’t know.

Eight texts.

I think if you and I had
a chat, it would be 50.

I guess it was just 64 initiating messages
where the guy didn’t really respond.

Anyway, like if it’s
on the session, 64 isn’t

it, but then if it’s 64 just you,
messages in a row, yeah, that’s a bit much.

That’s crazy.

Okay.

But that those 64
messages came after she

had been warned by the police not
to attempt to contact the man again.

So now you can see that 64 is way too many.

It is.

So the police show up and
they’re like, hey, don’t text this guy.

Okay, and all anymore.

And she’s like, okay,
well, just 64 more times.

The way she sent
messages, so this actually

implies to me because
the information was not

in the paper in the
news story, was not

overlined or a traditional
text messaging thing,

which would imply maybe
that he’s blocked around that.

She would send a message
via pay pay, the payment system.

She would send him
like one or two yet and

then the message she connected to it was
I want to see you or something like that.

So she sent 64 messages
through pay pay a payment system.

So for the American listeners
or whatever, it would be

like Google pay sending
it like a couple of pennies.

And then you can send why you sent
those pennies is like, I want to see you.

So she was actually paying
extra for each of those messages.

She’s pretty serious about it.

So her reason, so your job
is now to guess her reason for

continuing to send messages
after she had been blocked.

So I have four options.

One, I want to see you, but she
meant professionally, not personally.

B, it’s a payment app and
therefore they are not messages.

C, he didn’t block me, so like
he didn’t block me on pay pay.

So it must have been okay on pay pay.

Or D, it was for a story on stalking.

Man, so I don’t know how this story yet.

Good.

Because if you hear the
story, it kind of ruins the quiz.

This has been my biggest concern.

It hasn’t happened yet.

But my concern is I
start the quiz, get to

the quiz part and
they’re like, oh, but I’ve

heard this story and know the answer and
they haven’t like cut me off, in which case

I would have to abandon
the whole thing anyway.

But okay, you can ask
questions about the four options.

And again, the three that are not true, I
will try to make up real sounding answers.

Do you remember the options?

She basically got a restraining
order against this gun.

It was one step lower.

So the police warned
her that if you continue,

you’re going to be
breaking stalking laws.

He hadn’t officially
gotten a restraining order.

So there is maybe a little
legal wiggle room, but I

think the message was
very clear you need to stop.

The police had warned her, that’s yeah.

She’s clearly gone through pay pay,
just keeps sending messages, I don’t think.

I don’t know.

And I don’t know.

I’m walking on a mental gymnastics with
this level three still to go, be doing.

Does he see what do you have?

Okay.

So C was he didn’t block me
therefore, it must have been fine.

So he didn’t block me
on pay pay specifically.

Or it was for a story
I was doing on stalking

and just wanted to get
into the mind of a stalker.

Be is also pretty good mental
gymnastics, why is that right?

Yeah, it’s a payment app.

So I wasn’t sending messages.

I was sending payments
and you have to

connect a message like a thing to
the payment, like a receipt almost.

So the receipt was a I want to see
you, you can ask a couple of questions.

It’s hard to ask questions on this
one because it’s just guessing, I guess.

So the person she was
sending, the pay pay messages,

I don’t know, messages
to, is he also a stochist?

Is he also what is he also in
the same kind of a fashion?

Oh, he’s a reporter.

They are both reporters.

They work at different publications.

So I’m going to assume that they met
professionally somehow, like at the same, they

were at the same story
or at the same location

or a conference or something,
professionally, they overlapped personally.

They did not.

And I think I’m good
with D. D, it was for a

story I was doing on
stalking, is incorrect.

When she was arrested,
the statement she

made was, it’s true
that I sent him messages,

but I thought I’d been accepted
because he didn’t block me.

I’m not concerned by
the accusations, oh, I’m

sorry, I’m not convinced
by the accusations.

So she’s saying the police told me to stop.

He hadn’t blocked me
on pay pay, so therefore

I’m not convinced
he’s told the police.

So the police are just interfering
in her personal relationship.

They aren’t.

It has nothing to do with the guy.

She thinks that the police are
jealous of her relationship or something.

Well, they might, but
I mean, what other

logics are like, the
police have come and told

you stop messaging this guy, and she’s
like, well, wait a minute, he hasn’t blocked

me on pay pay and I
can send him messages

and then he gets those messages
and he hasn’t said anything.

Therefore I’m not convinced
that he told you to tell me to stop.

I see.

It was the line of mental gymnastics.

That was a, it’s a lot.

I mean, she’s gone
through the three or four

different justifications
to get to the point

where it’s like still acceptable for
me to send messages to this dude.

On pay pay pay, that’s the fact that it’s
on pay pay, a payment app really solidifies

to me that this, she
was not either he didn’t

give her his contact information
or he had blocked her elsewhere.

But because she saw
this one opening that did

you ever see the German
guy who was in love

with like a kpop band,
it was a video online.

That’s probably like pre
pandemics for like five, six years ago.

He’s, he’s doing
his justification, he’s

basically been given a
restraining order and he

says, ah, this restraining order wasn’t
given to me by the woman I am stalking.

It was given to me by
the management company.

So it’s the management
company trying to stop me, not her.

It’s sure that Naio
likes me and that she

wants me to come back
to Korea and here is why.

So first of all, at the start of this
year, I received a restraining order.

At this restraining order was not from
Naio, it came from JYP Entertainment.

It did not come from Naio
and JYP Entertainment

tried to destroy my image
and tried to intentionally

scare Naio away from me because they feared
that Naio might neglect her job if me and

Naio start a relationship,
but obviously that

would not be the case
because I would obviously

support Naio’s job as
an idol and stay with

her in Korea so that she can still
focus all her time for her career.

Secondly, I always have treated Naio with a
lot of respect and I truly, truly love Naio

with all my heart and I am working really
hard all the time trying to make Naio happy

and trying to make her
realize that I truly love her.

So why would she hate me
that would not make any sense?

I know one time I
accidentally leaked Cheyong’s

phone number and I admit it was a
mistake and I apologized for that already.

And I know that there
are a lot of fake news about

me on the internet
created from unprofessional

news outlets who
try to gain views with

click-pake titles and fake
rumors to make money out of it.

But Naio is smart enough
to know that there are

a lot of fake news
about me on the internet.

Naio knows that I am a
good person and Naio knows

that I am in love with
her for almost years now.

So like he is convinced in his head that
the girl does love him back or would accept

him but it is the management
company that is interfering.

Yeah they are just
going to stop us getting

together, the management companies and
scares that I am going to take her away.

That does seem like
it and so this seems

like on the same kind
of thinking, it is like

the police are trying to
stop us from getting together.

Why?

So in the other one, the management
company would be losing an asset.

So she falls in love
with this guy and they

disappear and she is not
going to do music anymore.

But in this case, the
police, why would they

bother to interfere with
a personal relationship?

They do not care.

If you ever get a message
on pay pay from me

and you don’t block
me, I hope you realize

what you have actually
done is just open that door.

I mean yeah, pay pay is also a
messaging app, it is time to figure.

I actually did an interview with another
podcast this morning called Requiem Radio.

So that should actually be
out this afternoon or tomorrow.

So if you are listening
to this, you want to

hear another two hours of
this noise coming out of my face.

You can listen to that as well.

He had another two hours of just me
and another guy we are talking about.

We talked about movies
and comics and anime

and we talked about Japan and
we talked about YouTube and stuff.

So some new interesting insights into me.

If you don’t get enough of listening to my
voice every single week, multiple podcasts

and YouTube channels
in Jesus, I bet it’s a lot.

Anyways, feel free to
check out Requiem Radio.

You get another two hours
of chunk of beef chest.

Don’t know why that popped into my head.

I think I had a link that has
now gone because I was talking.

There’s a city hall and they
were keeping Excel sheets.

Japan loves Excel sheets.

They use Excel sheets inappropriately.

Like they use Excel sheets
that should be Word documents.

I don’t know why, but just Japan, Japanese
companies, something about it, something

about Excel, really is attractive
to them as the catch all document.

Maybe it’s the cells.

I don’t know.

I find it frustrating
not because it’s wrong

or bad, but I’m like
this actually would

be more comprehensible as a Word
document than it is in Excel sheet.

And then the Excel
sheets I often get at work

are gigantic, like
incomprehensibly large.

So how am I supposed to actually
get any information out of this?

They don’t seem to understand that Excel
sheets are used to contain information.

And then make that
information more digestible.

That seems that last step, the
step that makes Excel sheets in

my mind useful is the one they
don’t seem to have adopted yet.

It’s very relevant.

Like most Japanese
offices, this city hall was

keeping an Excel sheet
on staff performance.

Between 2020 and 2022,
it was called Progress

Report and it was
delivered to the department

head every week or two so that they
could check the progress of employees.

This was about a specific employee.

There were multiple
categories, like words and

actions, so I guess if they said
inappropriate or appropriate things.

In the sufficient abilities, quite
direct, but stuff you’re not good at.

The marks were then
put into the Excel sheet,

making fun of one of the
employees’ appearance.

So one of the statements was, the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

Another statement was, his underwear can
be seen from under his polo shirt’s hem.

It’s disgusting.

It took me a moment
because was that, at

first I was like, is that
you’re tucking your

shirt into your underwear and the
underwear hikes up out of your pants?

I was like, no, because
it’s from under the

hem, so it sounds like the polo shirt is
too short and you can see his underwear.

Anyways, someone felt
that that was inappropriate,

instead of speaking
to the man, put it

into an Excel sheet that would go
as a report to the department head.

The thing is, this was
on a public network

within the city hall,
which means eventually,

of course, the man,
in this case of the

victim, found it, found the comments,
and then saw it as power harassment.

He reported the
harassment, the conclusion of

the investigation was
the document itself was

a measure necessary for smooth and proper
performance and therefore not harassment.

So what they’re saying is, this document’s
intent, so keeping track of things people

do well, keeping track
of things people do not

do well, so that we
can give them feedback.

That is appropriate.

They do continue, though.

However, it contained
sentiments unrelated to

duties, so his hair looking bad, his
underwear are sticking out of his pants.

That does not impact his actual ability to
do his job, like whether I like it or not,

is irrelevant and therefore,
that did constitute harassment.

They did meeting with the department head.

The department head, at
first, he said, “It’s just facts.

We only put facts in there, but the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

That’s an opinion.

In May or May not, I don’t know why I would
have to see a picture, and then you have

to show me a picture of a bird’s nest and
put them together to actually see if that

is factual, but his
underwear is sticking up

also, I guess that is
technically a fact, but

I think he was trying
to cover it up, but

then they said, you
know, let’s dig into it.

This is harassment.

When it became out
that this was harassment,

it kind of changed
his tune a little bit

to claiming he did not know
about the tab with the comments.

So he’s claiming that he was given this
Excel sheet every single week or so, that it

had comments added to
it every single week or so.

He claims that this
thing he was sent every

week with new added
comments every single week.

He didn’t know that there was
this one tab, just the one tab.

I looked at all the other
tabs, didn’t look at this one

tab that had the harassment
in it, so I didn’t know.

So I think maybe he’s
being a little dishonest.

I think maybe this guy actually has a
case that this is a former harassment.

Now, the department
head would have been very

justified in sitting down, have a
conversation with him about his appearance.

You just have to be
very sensitive about it.

And you have to realize
like, does this matter?

So in a lot of jobs, how you look will
not negatively impact your performance.

This is what work from
home is actually taught us.

Like if you’re working on a computer,
let’s just say software programming.

If you’re in your pajamas, it does not
negatively impact your performance.

In some cases, being
comfortable might even

increase your performance,
but it’s irrelevant.

So I think this might
be a case where could

they have dealt with
this more deftly, probably.

What they could have
had is really sincere

conversation, maybe
constructive criticism of

how we could help you in the future,
maybe we can make some recommendations.

Maybe when you’re
underwears hiked up, we

could actually suddenly
take you to the side

and be like, hey, you
might want to pull your

shirt down and your
pants up or something.

It’s about 11 p.m. and I’ll always 20/3.

And a guy works for Yomi
Udi, he’s a cameraman,

and he’s out at this
time, he’s working.

So he’s riding on his
bike, and he goes to a

place where he needs
to take some pictures.

And there’s some guy skateboarding
there, and he’s like, fuck these guys.

So he starts a fight
with three skateboarders,

and I’m going to assume the
skateboarders are younger.

Skateboarders do tend to be younger.

But one of the things I
know as a former skateboarder

myself, when I was in
my teens, skateboarders

band together and they have big pieces of
wood with metal tight, like stock to them.

So it’s never a good
idea to mess with us

skateboarder because
the other skateboarders

are going to join in
to defend their friend,

and they have big
pieces of wood with metal

screwed into it, that
they can then hit you with.

The cameraman then kicked
one of the skateboarders.

Now the skateboarders,
good boys to be honest,

they did not retaliate,
they just chased

them down, they did
not like attack them, he

tried to escape, he ended up getting
caught, no one else got hurt any further.

The police show up and they’re like, hey,
you’re not allowed to kick skateboarders.

I know some people
might consider them a

lower class of citizen, but you’re
still not allowed to kick skateboarders.

He said it’s not fair
that I’m working while

they’re playing, while
others are playing.

So he’s saying that because I
have to work at 11.30, no one

else should be allowed to have
a good time at 11.30 at night.

If I’m working, everyone else should be
working, no one should be having any fun.

That is unreasonable, and not a
reason to go around kicking people.

And I actually think he might be lucky he
got off as light as he did, because I think

what’s going through his
head, like how frustrated he is.

One of the things we
talk about is work life

balance, and again, yeah,
this guy is working at 11.

30 at night, when he doesn’t
clearly want to be working,

is what’s setting him off,
attacking other human beings.

He just, he got to set limits,
he can’t work all the time,

but then I guess that’s again
the Japanese work life style.

Okay, we’re getting into the darker stuff.

I’ve decided, okay, I
did a Seamig B episode,

and it was about murder
in Japan and on YouTube,

it got like 20 times more views
than any other video I post.

I usually get like
double digit views on the

podcast, because this is an audio format,
and that’s where most of the audience is.

It was never really
taken off, because I think

anyone who listens
to this, they’re listening

on podcasts, but to
try to make it worth

listening to, I had like
comments and stuff.

I used to not do any
murder on this, because

I tried to be so
flippant, and I realized

I’m not actually that
flippant, I just talk

and then give my opinion
and maybe make a joke.

So I did this episode
of Seamig B on murder,

and it got like triple
digits, 450 or 60 was

the last number I saw, which is
a huge increase from let’s say 25.

So I was like, well, there’s
no reason to shy away

from murder if that’s what
people want to hear about.

So in Indonesia, Japan going forward,
basically no topics off the table.

I just think if it’s got murder, I
probably will just make less jokes.

It will just be more fact stated,
maybe an opinion here or there.

But if that’s what
people enjoy, I mean, I

was hesitant, because I wanted to make
jokes, but I’m like, ah, still make jokes.

It actually is very obvious.

Here I am 300 in whatever
episodes later, just

figuring out I can
decide not to make jokes.

I can decide not to be flippant.

It’s a revelation for me.

I always feel like you have to, you have
to make jokes, you have to be flippant.

There’s a ferry that connects Japan
and South Korea, it’s about 200 kilometers.

It’s a passenger ferry.

So you get on in Japan
and you take this nice

boat ride, it’s probably
about a few hours,

and then you get off in
South Korea, you go on

holiday, Koreans do the same
thing, they come to Japan.

And I actually think it’d probably be on
a good weather, very nice way to travel.

And staff member was returning to
her room, and she found her door open.

Now she thought, ah, I closed my door.

Then she found her underwear
drawer open, she’s like, that’s weird.

Clearly if she thinks
she’s closed her door,

she’s the kind of
person who closes things,

not like my son, who now has gone into this
weird habit of just leaving drawers open,

which I’ve asked him
to close the drawers and

he looked at me and he
goes, no one’s going to die.

My immediate response was of
course, you will, if I see this open again.

That’s parenting.

So this is a room, a
birth on a boat, so the

bed has a curtain around it so
you can block out light and stuff.

She pulls back the
curtain and she finds a

30 year old man, first engineer on
the boat, attempting to hide in the room.

First of all, I’m going to be
really honest, terrible hiding spot.

There’s not going to be a lot of
places to hide in a room on a boat.

They’re going to be small
and very tightly packed.

But closing the
curtain to the only really

usable piece of furniture
in the room, I assume,

is not a good hiding
place, you get under the

bed, get behind the
bed, get above the curtain

maybe even, I don’t
know, something like that.

Then maybe you’d have a chance, I’m not
even, they’re still not successful, they’re

going to catch you,
but imagine just pulling

back the curtain,
there’s just like this

30 year old man, they’re going,
hmm, kind of just stole your own D’s.

He kept in game and could talk into and he
admitted to doing it, he quit the next day.

So they were like
saying, let’s not involve

the police, please no
charges, they actually

talk to the girl and they
said, please don’t press

charges, he’s going to quit,
he’s off the boat, he’s gone.

She was a little torn
because he’s like, we’re

worried about the
reputation of the boat,

we’re worried about
the duties, operations of

what’s going on, this is
going to negatively impact us.

So they were trying
to pressure her into not

pressing charges to
try to keep it quiet.

I think that’s really it.

I had a whole other idea though, if they
press charges, is this international law?

Is it maritime law?

Is it the South Korean jurisdiction
or the Japanese jurisdiction?

Because I believe it’s a Japanese
boat in South Korean waters.

So is it the Japanese
boat means they should

report to the Japanese police because it’s
Japanese citizen who would get arrested?

It was a South Korean staff
member who had her underwear stolen.

So should they report
to the South Korean

authorities that a South Korean person
had had a crime committed on them?

Should they call interpol
and solve it that way, just have

interpol international police
come in and just deal with it?

Should they do maritime law?

Now, I didn’t look up
maritime law for theft.

I actually do enjoy maritime law
because often it’s very, very logical.

So maritime law does
have a lot to do with intent.

So there’s float some in jetsam in this.

So basically your boat is
sinking, you throw stuff off.

If you threw it off, it becomes salvage.

If you threw it off with the intent
to come back for it, it’s not salvage.

So salvage you if you come across
it, you can find it and just take it.

It’s not salvage, you have to
give it back as maritime law.

So intent became the most important factor
when it came to float some in jetsam.

There’s also the stuff that syncs.

I forget there’s two names for that too.

Again, for the same,
some has been abandoned

and there’s no
expectation that it’ll come

back and then some they
intend to come back and get it.

That actually makes a huge difference as to
whether or not you are allowed to keep it

because some is salvage,
some is not salvage.

In this case though,
the Japanese guy clearly

intended to steal, so
that makes him a pirate.

So he should be treated like a pirate.

Now he didn’t do any of
the swashbuckling cool stuff

to escape because he should
have been able to escape.

So I think he should
be treated like a pirate

and how do you balance
it out to make it fair?

Yeah.

Walk the plank.

It’s the only answer.

Oh, I did the song too, sir.

I didn’t know what keel hauling was.

Keel hauling is when
they would drop you

over the front of the
boat and then drag you

under the entirety of the boat and then you
got to think there’s barnacles and stuff.

The stuff they scraped off.

Barnacles are sharp.

They cut you and then
this was before engines

and then you would come
up the backside of the boat.

If you’re still alive, that
was your punishment,

but most people
died in that process.

They could keel hauling
him but see, there might

not be barnacles because
of modern technology

but there is a big frickin
propeller engine at the back.

So if he survives that,
then God is on his side.

Anyways, we’ve got to
move on to the last story.

In 83 year old woman living in a care
facility in Fukuoka, she entered her room and

she found a stranger, someone sleeping
in her room and she became furious.

So she decided to do
the only logical thing.

She walked up and
started just punching her,

leading to the woman’s
death because it was

another older woman who
was sleeping in her bed.

Now it turns out the 83 year old
woman had entered the wrong room.

That is a very, very interesting
set of circumstances for this death.

So she’s walked into a room.

I’m going to give her
that it’s night in its

dark because the other one was
already sleeping in her own room.

If she had looked
around, she might have

noticed that this isn’t
my stuff, but at the

same time if it was dark, maybe
she didn’t because it’s a care facility.

So every room is probably
set up basically the same way.

So it would be a pretty easy mistake
to make, but I think it’s very clear.

You see someone sleeping in a
bed beating them is not the answer.

She should have gone
and gotten security and

then gotten them to check and
get the person out of the room.

And then she could turn around
because you make the same assumption.

Maybe that person came
into my room by accident

and went to sleep because these are
all older people they might get confused.

They might have sort of early
onset dementia or something like that.

Who knows?

But immediately going to
fist a cuffs on a sleeping

person who is defenseless
is an unreasonable reaction.

So the beating led to
this other woman’s death.

She was arrested.

into introducing murder
as a story into the podcast.

So I cut it off pretty quick.

I don’t want to talk
about it too much until

I get comfortable with where I want
to go and how much I want to say.

You can see this is a slightly
new direction for the podcast.

Things Getting Sadder

(upbeat music)

So, is your population getting too old?

I mean, that’s happening
in a bunch of countries.

So, it is actually very possible.

You’re living in a country that is graying.

Population is skewing
to the older generation.

So, there’s a very simple solution to that.

And Japan has come
up with it, which is great.

You just redefine what old is.

So currently, elderly is defined
as someone to 65 and over.

So, the retirement age.

And they’re saying, hey, what we can
do is just redefine that as 70 an older.

And then, we got less old people.

And those people can keep working.

Doesn’t matter how they feel or if
they want to retire or anything like that.

They can keep working ’cause
you know, they’re not old anymore.

The government’s actually
promoting re-skilling for all generations.

And of course, this
is specifically designed

as this new generation of people
who were old who are not old anymore.

Now, they’re not saying specifically
what they’re gonna reskill them too.

So, right now, you’re 65
years old, you’ve worked your

whole life in one industry
or two industries, let’s say.

You’ve probably worked in one
industry, maybe multiple companies.

How are they gonna reskill you as
actually very interesting question?

I’m wondering, yeah, ’cause
what that mean to me,

reskilling is taking
someone who doesn’t know

how to computers and teaching
them how to use computers.

If you’ve ever tried to get older
people to use new technology, it’s tough.

Like, I tried to stay up on technology.

I can see there are elements
and parts that fall away,

certainly like there are
apps where, you know, people

who do use them regularly,
show me how to use stuff.

I was like, wow, I didn’t
know that was in there.

I am approaching the first
old, and then as soon as

I get there, they’re gonna
move it to the second old.

I can tell you, I don’t wanna work now.

Well, I don’t wanna work five more
years after working my whole life.

And I don’t wanna be reskilled.

I’m already, this is very
bleak looking for me.

The government is predicting
a 1% economic growth

as a result of this
scheme, if it is successful.

I’m wondering how much
push back they’re gonna get.

They do talk about
Social Security and stuff,

which, you know, the
only way to keep Social

Security robust is to
have people pay into it.

So if you have too many people
retired and not enough young people,

they’re not paying enough
money into it to support the

old people, and then they
get nothing when they retire.

So I do see that the
Social Security is a big issue,

but I don’t think redefining
old, but making a bunch of

people who’ve retired start
working again is the way to do it.

‘Cause what they’re
actually talking about is,

if you’re 65 and you start
getting Social Security

and they redefine old,
then you might lose it for

five years and have to go
back to some sort of job.

And as a prospect, that makes me very sad,

which makes perfect
sense for our next story.

Global Happiness Report 2024.

The fact that you have to
make a global happiness report,

like you just can’t assume
everyone’s happy has already a bit.

Man, Japan is on a downward trend.

A lot of countries are.

So this isn’t just picking on Japan.

Japan’s a group, a country
of depressed people.

This is a lot of countries
are on a downward

trend, but it has dropped
13 points from 2011.

So the worldwide survey,
this was interesting.

This survey only surveyed
2000 respondents in Japan.

So the entirety of the
Japanese collective happiness

index is based on the
feelings of 2000 people.

There are millions of people in Japan.

If you’d only surveyed last week,
they surveyed like 1,800 foreign people

and used that to represent
all foreigners in Japan.

And I was already like, that
seems like a poor sample size.

Sampling 2,000 people from the country

seems like not enough to
actually call it a fair answer.

So I’m very, I’m gonna put a
big asterisks on the end of this.

I don’t think this is a good survey.

It may not be representative.

Unless, of course, the
other millions and millions

of people in Japan are just
too depressed to answer.

In which case, this is
really, really accurate.

57% said they were very
happy or rather happy.

There were four categories.

There was very happy, rather happy,
somewhat unhappy, and then just miserable.

The happiest country in the world.

Oh, I should have done a quiz.

I gotta work my quizzes in advance.

Bit busy this week.

But what do you think the
happiest country in the world is?

This would be the quiz question.

So I’m gonna pause.

Please lock in your answer now.

Oh, Ignat’s is in the chats.

Let’s do it.

Ignat’s.

What country do you believe is
the happiest country in the world?

They have an 85% of the people who responded
said they were very or rather happy.

It’s one of those scannability places.

It’s one of those scannability places.

I don’t know what scannability means.

Scandinavian, it makes way more sense.

You are on the right track.

Please name a Scandinavian country.

There is a second place
that is very not Scandinavian,

but also, well, I was
gonna make a joke about

that, but please name
a Scandinavian country.

And if you can name, I mean, you’re
gonna get partial points for Scandinavian.

You are correct.

Norway or Sweden?

Norway or Sweden is not
correct, but again, you’re very close.

It’s a good guess.

I didn’t get the whole list.

I only got like the top two in
the bottom few and stuff like that.

So I don’t actually know where
Norway or Sweden rests within this.

The Netherlands, 85% said they
were very happy or rather happy.

83% in Mexico.

Now, my stories, my news
media input from Mexico is all

cartel stuff and murders
and people dying and stuff.

But people in Mexico, 83% said
they are very happy or rather happy.

And I guess if, like, I eat
burritos almost every day,

if you’re eating Mexican food every
day, you’re gonna be pretty happy anyways.

So that’s pretty good.

Japan was 28th on the list.

The lowest two were South
Korean hungry and hungry.

They tied for 48%.

So if you wanna go to, see, I
don’t think this is representative.

If they’re getting these low numbers, 2,000
people don’t represent a whole country.

But I do know that South Korea has
the worst work-life balance in the world.

And that’s gotta say something.

Again, my thing about Japan as a
country has been work-life balance.

I’ve been saying it for years and years and
years and years doing these, news Japan.

The thing to fix the country
is to fix the work-life balance

and then all the other stuff would
start to fall into place afterwards.

But who’s gonna listen to the
number two news Japanese news

entertainment podcast
in the world other than

not politicians ’cause they’re
not smart enough to listen.

Although I do rip on politicians a lot.

I bet no politician would
actually wanna listen to this

’cause if their name came
up, they’d be like, “Ah, he’s

gonna make fun of my apology
“and retracting my statements.

” There is a global trend right now
towards the happiness index going down.

So I would be interested in
checking out the happiness index.

What kind of questions
they actually ask you.

But looking at the
results, not enough people,

but weirdly accurate
for what I would assume

are the countries with
the worst work-life balance.

February 2005, we’re gonna
get all the surveys up from.

I do enjoy my surveys
and my numbers and stuff.

February 2005, survey was done.

Should we have a female emperor?

87% people said yes.

We should have a female emperor

because as I’ve stated
in other emperor-related

stories in the past,
they don’t do anything.

So the fact that it’s a man or
woman does not matter anymore.

That went down to 72% in
2006 when a prince was born.

So they’re like, “Hey, we have a male heir.

“Maybe we don’t need
these ladies anymore.

” I went down to 68% in 2017.

30% of the people back
in that survey in 2017 said,

“We should take someone
from the former imperial lineage

“that left sort of the royal
family line after World War II.

“There is a relationship there though.

“There’s a reason those
people left the royal family

“after World War II, and it might be one of
the reasons “why we don’t want them back.

” Because right now, what
does the emperor’s family do?

They work with the Red Cross.

They do make countries
nice with each other.

They do charity work.

I think that’s great.

I actually think that’s good
work and it’s good to be done.

I just think these people should
have to have jobs and stuff as well.

This year, a different
survey was done last month.

And so it’s related because
the topic is the same,

but it was done, again, I
didn’t want to get too much

into the weeds, but it’s done like different
numbers, different amounts of people.

A different survey was done last week.

81% of those people
said bring on the ladies,

we want a female emperor, or we’re
comfortable with a female emperor.

And I think, yes, either
take whoever is next in line.

I don’t care about
their gender, male, or

female, or any other
aspect of their personality.

They are just part of the royal family.

If you’re gonna have a royal
family, just deal with them.

Do not overcomplicate this.

Or, do maybe the more sensible
thing and just get rid of them?

Like, how are tax payer
dollars being spent on this?

Well, we’re talking
about in our first story,

raising the age of
retirement from 65 to 70?

Like, why are we paying for a royal family
when you have 70 year olds having to work?

Because I’m already done.

I was done probably a few years ago, but I
gotta keep working until I get my pension.

This is like one of those cult movies

where it’s like the day before
my pension kicks in and I die.

It’s the day before my pension kicks in,

they change the rule and I have to
keep working for another five years.

It’s a nightmare.

Those should be horror
movies at this point.

If your country is considering

moving the definition
of elderly from 65 to 70

to keep those people working
and re-skilling those people, which

would mean training, which
mean you have to pay for training.

Maybe the money we spend
as a country on the royal family.

Is it really worthwhile?

It’s like the whisper.

I do like whispering every now and then.

It really brings the tension
in but down in a soft way.

There was that town,
talked about last week.

They installed a big black barrier to
cover a loss in that was undermount Fuji

because visitors, tourists were coming
and they were flocking to this place

and taking this iconic picture
and they were standing in the road

and they were causing problems
and they were being dirty and stuff.

All the stuff they’re complaining
about over tourism right now in Japan.

What has happened as a result?

Well, a lot of people are like, “This
isn’t great because it’s kind of an ice or,

“but, taxi drivers said
the traffic is better.

“It’s a lot safer.

” And what has actually happened is
people have, as I would have guessed,

moved to another loss in location that
is similar in taking a similar picture.

So now you’re gonna
get everyone in this area.

Every loss in this area is
gonna have to put a black barrier.

They are talking about solutions ’cause
this odd view is an imperfect solution.

It has worked for this one location ’cause
people end up moving to other locations

but you’re just taking
the problem in moving

it to some other town
or place that is similar.

They’re saying what
they’re gonna do is put up

the big, a QR code on
the big, big black barrier.

Let’s see if I can say
that five times fast.

Big black barrier, big black barrier,
put a QR code on the big black barrier.

If I practice, it’s not bad.

They wanna put a QR code on the big black
barrier and that will guide you to places

where it’s appropriate to take good pictures
of Mount Fuji, like tourist locations

and stop bothering
locals who are actually

trying to get to loss
and to get their one cup.

It’s interesting, so the complaint now
that this thing has actually been erected

is that the locals are
saying we have a problem

and it’s that we don’t
like the big black barrier.

So they’re talking about replacing
the barrier with a different color.

I did originally say a green
screen, which would be super

problematic because all the
influencers would go there.

Take a video and then put something else
like their anime loss in the foreground

and then take a picture
of them in front of

their anime loss and
in front of Mount Fuji.

Charge ’em for it and
then we have a solution

to the thing that I don’t have
to now retire at 70 instead of 65.

Now all that money
should go into a fund for

me so that I can go
into early retirement.

So they are talking about a different
color to make it more appealing.

But putting this thing
up costs 1.3 million yen,

which came out of the town’s coffers,
which came out of the town’s money.

So they’re like, is this really the solution
to spend more money to get a new barrier

that’s a different color after spending
all this money put up in the first place?

There is no simple solution to any problem.

This is something I’ve found, I
become hyper fixated on solutions.

So the best example from me, is I needed
a bag, a backpack for my judo clothes.

So I wrap up my judo suit and
I measured it and I found the

perfect measurements and I
was like, okay, this would be great.

So I went online and I found a
backpack, I actually have it here.

Right, it’s a sling
black, it’s a sling back,

it’s rated hazard
four, which is the super

durable, it says it
could inhibit a bullet.

It’s not, it can’t say it’s bullet proof
because a bullet would go through it,

but maybe it would slow it down
and it would do less damage to me.

I’m certain there’s a
lot of factors in there.

So I bought this bag, it’s very expensive,
gonna last me for years, I’ve done it,

I’ve got the perfect bag and I put
the judo suit in and it fits perfectly.

I’m hyper focused on the
solution that I immediately

go, I need a water
bottle and that doesn’t fit

because the measurements
are exactly to the judo suit,

not the judo suit plus water bottle and
there’s stuff on top of that, water bottle

and change of underwear
and change of pants,

t-shirt, whatever, like I
go in one set of clothes,

let’s say my work clothes,
I want to come home

and maybe more casual
and more comfortable clothes.

I’m still probably sweating,
so I want to put on a t-shirt

or something, so I
got to bring the t-shirt,

I got to bring a towel ’cause
I want to take a shower, I got

to bring a water bottle, I got
to bring underwear and stuff.

And then if there’s anything
else I need to bring that day,

a notebook, something else like
that, it has to go in there as well.

So I was hyper fixated on a single solution

and I didn’t take into account
the bigger picture around it,

that is a very common
chunk of beef chest way

of having a mistake is I’ve
actually solved a problem

so perfectly, I failed to take into account
other things surrounding that problem.

This is kind of what
they’re doing, we’ve put up

a barrier, we’ve solved
this individual problem,

but we’ve actually just
made different problems.

Now locals are saying that
this thing, this barrier is ugly.

Now locals are saying like, a local’s
in a similar location, maybe close by,

are going, all you’ve
done is move those

people to where we
are, that’s not a solution.

Do I have a solution for it?

No, tear down melt Fuji.

This is very interesting, now we’re gonna
get into news, there’s no more surveys.

So if your survey porn has not been
satisfied, you gotta go somewhere else.

A teacher was being brought to
trial for sexual crimes in real Oklahoma,

we’ve actually done this
kind of story dirty teachers,

I actually have kind of shied
away from dirty teachers

because there’s not much to
make fun of, it’s just gross and awful.

And I do want to be relatively
flippin’ about the stories I talk about.

So I’ve actually not touched these as
much because there’s no joke factor.

The Yokohama school board brought staff in
to the courthouse to occupy all the seats

so they would keep
the public out of the trial.

Now why do you think they did that?

You want, you have a teacher who’s on trial

for doing something dirty,
dirty, dirty, bad and gross.

So you bring in all your staff, and
they’re going to fill up all the seats

so the public can’t take
part or can’t watch this trial.

They have done this
eight times for eight trials.

Well, I guess it’ll be multi
trials in just a single event.

So eight trials, which would be multiple
days, they had 371 staff members.

They used up to 50 at a time to
make sure that all the seats were taken

and they did this for, this
could be 50 people per trial.

The school board even paid travel expenses

for the staff to get
to the trial to take the

seats so the public
couldn’t see the court case,

which means the tax money in
Yokohama that goes to education

is going to pay to keep
the public from seeing

the trial of the teacher
who abused a student.

That’s a lot going on
in one single sentence.

The board of education,
when this was brought

to their attention,
said that this was done

at the request of the victims
to protect their reputation.

Now I think there’s a word
you should swap out there.

If you said the board of
education said this was to,

was done at the request of the board
of education to protect their reputation.

I think that might be more accurate.

They then vehemently
denied, they admitted it

was excessive and they
apologized for doing it.

They did not say they’re going to stop.

So that is an interesting thing.

The school board has
decided to make sure the

public does not have
access to public trials

and they’re claiming it’s for the
victims benefit not to protect themselves.

59 year old man got arrested,
oh, love my 59 year old man.

As soon as I say that phrase, now
we’ve said a tradition in Indonesia, Pat.

If I say 50 something year old man got
arrested, you know it’s gross and dirty.

This isn’t as bad.

It’s interesting though,
he’d been drinking.

So there’s the combination
of 50 year old man,

plus alcohol and you know he’s not
elderly, he’s still defined as a young man.

He wanted to confront his neighbor
about parking in their property.

So his neighbor’s parking
maybe in their parking lot

or going over the middle
line or something like that.

It’s a very get off my lawn scenario.

And I’ve gotten to that age where I’m
like waiting for someone to come out.

So I can charge out and be like,
yeah, my drive, I don’t have a lawn.

I got to drive way.

Get out my drive way.

You can’t park over a rubber.

I don’t know why my accent
changes when I do that.

That’s a certain, I guess that’s the change

from old to elderly is a
significant accent change.

His wife stopped him.

He said, look, honey, your drunk,

you’re being unreasonable, don’t
go confront the neighbor about this.

Let’s maintain some neighborly relations.

We’ll have a conversation with him
when you’re in a better state of mind.

He’s like, no.

And he, he hit her with a banana peel.

Now here’s the problem.

The only bit of information that’s
lacking in the article that I want.

Did he throw the banana peel and
the banana peel hit her in the face?

Or did he actually slap
her with a banana peel?

They’re both funny, but
they’re funny in different ways

because you could throw a banana
peel and it could just sail over them.

But if he threw a banana peel and he sniped
her, that’s actually kind of awesome.

If he slapped her with a
banana peel, it’s like you

want to slap someone but
you don’t want to hurt them.

Did he do it for a hand or backhand?

Did he bit slap her with a banana peel?

Because now what I want
to do more than anything else

is getting to a gentle
argument with someone,

a confrontation, and
then backhand them with a

banana peel, which I
think would be really funny.

The wife on the other hand
didn’t think it was funny.

She calls the police.

The police show up and like, your
wife says you hit her with a banana peel

and he’s like, yeah, I hit
her with a banana peel.

Is that a big deal?

And then he gets arrested for it.

While he’s being arrested, he
said, is this considered violence?

Couples experience this level of violence.

No, actually they don’t.

I’ve never hit any partner
I’ve had with anything.

I’ve never hit any of my
partners in the entirety of my life.

So that is not true.

But at the same time, I’m
kind of, I’m not on his side,

but it seems unreasonable
for her to have called

the police over him hitting
her with a banana peel.

Because the banana peel didn’t hurt.

Because whenever they
have any sort of these assault

or violent statements,
they talk about how long

it takes the victim to
heal from their injuries.

And there’s no mention
of that because getting hit

in the face with a banana
peel doesn’t actually hurt.

So there’s nothing to recover from.

But there is also the
question of escalation.

So once you hit someone with a banana peel,

the next step is obviously
hitting them with a watermelon.

50, 50, 50, 55-year-old man arrested.

Yep.

Two in a row, he was
coming back from Thailand.

I watched a video just
the other day of two British

tourists in Thailand just
getting the crap beat out of them

by some security guards because apparently
they had hit one of the service workers.

I actually don’t know what kind.

I don’t know if it was legit or a
red light district or that kind of thing.

But there was enough
of an area where they

have security workers
and there’s the ladies.

The bar ladies are trying
to stop the security workers

from beating the crap out
of these two British dudes.

But there’s something very satisfying
of watching British men get beat up.

If they had done it with banana
peels, now this is my new high standard.

If you’re going to beat
someone up, you beat them up.

You know, fizzly bump, bump, bump,
bump, bump, and knock them down.

And at the end, you backhand
them with a banana peel.

You can oil you want.

You would get the same
satisfaction of watching two

British tourists get their shit kicked
out of them by Thai security guards.

I guarantee.

I did.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, there you go.

I do it.

Everyone, British people
have the same feelings

everyone else about watching
British tourists get beat up.

If you said they were Canadian, I’d be
like, oh, but Canadians are nice people.

I hold this stereotype where my
default stance is Canadians are nice.

And then you would prove
to me that they were bad

people, and they’d be
like, oh, they deserve it.

There is the default is that
British tourists deserve it.

And in Thailand, again, you kind of know.

You kind of know.

I know nothing about
them, but you kind of know.

They deserve it backhand
with a banana peel.

All right, so this guy,
Japanese dude, 55 years old,

he gets on an airplane, he’s
coming back from Thailand.

He’s drunk.

Allegedly.

I can literally guarantee
you this man was drunk.

I don’t need to do any detective work.

While he was on the airplane, he was
yelling and trying to hit other passengers.

I mean, I’ve never been on a
flight where that’s happened.

Everyone’s actually been very–

I guess that’s why those
end up videos on the internet.

I wonder if I would hit him back.

If someone tried to hit
me, would I hit them back?

I probably wouldn’t.

Like, I have a great deal
of violence within me,

but at the end of the day, I’m
like, I don’t want to get in trouble.

I don’t want to go to prison.

I don’t want all these problems.

But I guarantee if one
of those dudes hit one

of my kids, I would
just go ape shit on him.

I’d be like a Thai security guard on
a British tourist with a banana peel.

So he was moved from wherever
he was sitting to a different set place.

Now, I’m wondering
if he was in first class

and was moved back to
economy or vice versa.

I don’t know, because how many places can
you actually move someone on an airplane?

But he was moved.

He was then, he then tried to do
lewd acts towards the flight attendants.

And it says several.

He was hugging and trying to kiss
one flight attendant for up to 10 minutes.

And that is a long time.

And they couldn’t do
anything about it, it seems.

So he was taken off the airplane
when they landed, and he was arrested.

His statement was, I don’t
remember because I was drunk,

which is one of the most classic
Japanese defenses of bad behavior ever.

I do have a counter for
obstruction of business.

I was thinking some of these other
ones I should start a counter as well.

I don’t remember because I was
drunk should be one of them, for sure.

If you have listened to
any of the back catalog

of Ninja News Japan, and you have any
recommendations for a counter we should keep.

Because I’m happy with keeping
counters is actually quite fun.

I think I don’t remember because
I was drunk should be up there.

That is absolutely one that should go in.

We haven’t had a lot of
obstruction of businesses lately.

So I’m waiting for a
tsunami, a wave of obstruction

of business crimes to
come up in the future.

But also, if we could start the trend
if hitting people with banana peels,

I think that’s something
we should actually start.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(gentle music)

We Retract This Podcast

(upbeat music)

  • Man stole a forklift and he
    decided the best use of this

would be to crash it
into a convenience store

that was closed and
steal 100,000 yen in cash.

Now 100,000 yen, it’s
about a thousand dollars.

I mean, we’re just gonna go
with the simplest math on this.

It’s about a thousand dollars.

My dealings with criminality in doing an
international panther as long as I have,

so let me to understand
the things have value.

Forklift in itself has value.

I’m pretty sure a forklift, even a
used one, it’s worth a lot of money.

So I went to decide to look it up online.

What I found was that a used 3,000 pound
electric forklift at the low end is $9,900.

At the high end is $28,000 with
an average selling price of $17,200.

We don’t know what kind
of forklift this guy stole.

We do know he stole a forklift.

And we know that an
expensive forklift, let’s say a

15,000 pound pneumatic, the
low price for that is $43,000.

The high price is $91,000.

And the average price is $62,800.

So that tells me that after he had gone
through the effort of stealing the forklift,

it would have been more
financially viable for him

to resell the forklift as
opposed to smashed into

a convenience store and
get only $1,000 in cash.

And that $1,000 in cash
is what led to the arrest.

So I bet he could have
stolen, sold that forklift

and then skipped
town, that pin’s got free.

Keep in mind though, some of the listings

we took above number to
not include paint in the price.

So if you need to paint your
forklift, that’s gonna cost more.

So maybe he’s gonna steal the forklift,

give it a fresh coat of
paint so it looks different.

Sell that forklift.

You can charge extra for that.

I mean, that’s the benefit of
having a paint job on your forklift.

You can actually up that price a little
bit and maybe get more of the high end

and less than the low end,
you know what I’m saying?

All I’m saying is, as
soon as I read the story

about a man crashing a forklift
into a store to steal $1,000, I was like,

I bet the forklift he was sitting
on was worth more than $1,000.

Oh my God, put some thought into it.

That’s all I’m saying.

The Tokyo Metro Police have
filed charges against a student

who took an engineering
exam for a university.

Now what did he do?

That’s a very good question you ask.

That’s probably why you’re here.

He was wearing smart glasses and
sending pictures of the exam to X.com.

And here’s the thing, okay.

It turns out he had his
smartphone in his pocket.

So he was sending pictures to the internet,

trying to get people to
answer those questions for him.

And then when they sent
the answers to the responses,

he would check the
smartphone in his pocket.

That is partially how he got caught.

There’s actually an interesting thing here.

So I read multiple stories again,
trying to get my sources straight.

There are actually two
versions of how he got caught.

But I want to actually
get to the main point.

This was an engineering exam.

He had smart glasses on.

He was using the smart glasses to take
pictures of the exam to send to the internet.

My theory is, if he had built
the smart glasses himself,

so they had a camera
in it where fully functional

took pictures and sent the
pictures to the internet successfully,

that should be enough to
pass the engineering exam.

I actually think that would
be enough engineering,

a practical exam, let’s
say, and he should pass.

And then my second thought was, why
don’t they make that the engineering exam?

Like you have to take the exam,
so you can take the exam as it is

and do it the way the
traditional way in filling the exam

answer the questions, you
know all that boring stuff.

Or if you can engineer a way to cheat

and that engineering
is well constructed

enough, then you pass
the exam automatically.

I think the failure point
here is that he got caught.

And it seems like he got
caught using a smartphone,

not actually the sunglasses he was
wearing that had the camera in them.

But my feeling is if he’s a good enough
engineer to make glasses that take pictures

of some of the internet, that he’s already
passed the exam, he doesn’t need the exam.

And so we need to look at
different ways to do exams.

Now, different people
have different skills.

There’s different kinds of intelligence.

This is something I’ve
always proposed and believed.

Ever since I first learned about it, I said
there are different kinds of intelligence

and different people are
smart in different ways.

And maybe he isn’t a paper smart
guy, but he is a mechanically smart guy.

Maybe he’s not.

Maybe he’s just bought smart glasses
and used them to try to cheat in that,

in which case he’s getting
exactly what he deserved.

So the way he got caught
is that someone responded

to his questions online and
then notified the university.

He was well, say to university one of
the most famous universities in Japan.

The school called the police when officials
noticed the camera in his glasses.

So there are two, not
contradictory stories,

but I think it might be two people
claiming that they caught the guy cheating.

I think the person who
found the questions online,

and that was answering
the questions and then

realized, this is from
an exam and an exam

that might be happening right
now and contacted the university.

That seems more reasonable.

They probably contacted the
university, told one of the officials,

the officials went and found the guy
with the glasses, and then he’s like,

but here’s a chance for
me to take credit and he did.

In which case, that guy’s cheating,
and that guy should get in trouble too.

And so I was actually thinking
of it as which is more likely.

It’s actually, if he was got into the exam

with the glasses on, started
taking the exam with the glasses on,

I actually think the camera must have been
subtle enough that he wouldn’t notice it.

You’d be more likely to notice the
smartphone in his pocket him pulling out,

’cause he has to check it for the answers,
in which case that’s when you would notice.

So someone noticing
the camera in his glasses,

it would have made more sense if they found
that early exam, not later in the exam.

So to me, story wise, it makes
more sense if it was the person online,

realized this person
was using the internet

to cheat, and then
contacted the university.

The Foreign Minister of Japan is a
woman, and we have a little quiz today.

So last week, I sort of
felt out the theory of maybe

we could do some quizzes,
maybe some fun stuff.

This week, I decided to try to employ that.

So I got a good friend
of mine, Mr. Warm Hands.

He’s going to join us in the podcast

and take the Foreign
Minister’s quiz with us today.

I have to make some kind
of like fireworks or something.

Phew, phew, phew, phew,
phew, phew, phew, phew, phew,

the Ninja New Japan, Ninja
New Japan, Ninja New Japan.

Quiz, something like that.

I’m not gonna make
any of that ’cause I don’t

have time ’cause I have
to do all this in one day.

Should I introduce you, does anyone care?

You’re just another voice in the world.

  • Yeah, I mean, you can
    do it on the actual podcast.
  • Okay, yes.
  • Right now.
  • So the female Foreign
    Minister of Japan said,

this is three options,
so it’s multiple choice.

  • Okay.
  • The female Foreign
    Minister of Japan said,

A, foreigners are diluting
the purity of Japan.

B, women are only women if they give birth,

or C, equal pay for women
will damage the equality.

  • Ah, sure.
  • Equal pay for women
    will damage the economy.
  • Oh.
  • So we can have a little
    chatter if you want clues.

I’ll try to–

  • All three of them are pretty viable.
  • That’s the problem.

I think I’ve actually done enough news

that I now my quiz questions are gonna
be super hard ’cause they’re all possible.

  • Equal pay for women
    will damage the economy.

Women are not women unless they give birth.

  • And foreigners are
    diluting the purity of Japan.
  • Ah, and this is the minister for–
  • The Foreign Minister.
  • The Foreign Minister for Japan.
  • The female Foreign
    Minister, she is a woman.
  • It is a woman.
  • It’s a, oh god, that
    doesn’t really help much.
  • It actually doesn’t.

She is old.

That actually I think is why
these statements came out.

It’s always the same thing.

It’s this old form thinking
that I’m always going on about.

  • If it was a man, everyone in
    statement might be more likely.
  • I think B would be
    more likely if it was a man.
  • Women are only women
    if they give birth, okay?
  • Yeah, but I’m not ruling it out.

‘Cause I know a lot of old women
who are like very gender roles.

  • It’s not, it’s not even a Japanese thing.

It’s just like you have to give birth.

You have to give birth and
you have to maintain a house

and you have to manage the boss
and it’s so much of that and it’s crazy.

  • That tread wife.
  • I actually was watching a video.

It was one of these
trad wives who’s like

head quit and she’s
like, I regret it so much.

It’s so horrible.

  • Well, but even my wife’s mother
    gives her shit because I do stuff.

They say, well, this so ass backwards.

  • Yeah.
  • She’s like, your husband’s doing stuff.

I can’t believe you’d let that happen.

(laughing)

  • ‘Cause my father-in-law, he’s old.

He saw me just get up
and wash some dishes once.

He was like, whoa, you can do that.

And I was like, I didn’t say anything,
but I think his attitude changed.

She’s like, oh, actually,
maybe I could do stuff.

‘Cause I made dinner
and I cook and I cleaned.

So on the days I cook, I actually
like, my wife won’t wash that.

I don’t want, she doesn’t wash the dishes.

I do everything.

So it’s like, she has at
least one day with nothing.

But okay, you have to make your choice.

A, foreigners are
diluting the purity of

Japan or unless you
wanna ask some questions.

B, women are only
gonna take a birth or a C,

equal pay for women
will damage the economy.

  • So B seems the most
    misogynistic view about his coming

from a woman, which
is, I feel like it’s that one.

  • All right, it is correct.
  • Oh, that’s what I think,
    ding, ding, ding, ding, ding sound.
  • She said, women are
    only women if they give birth.
  • Jesus Christ.
  • Her actual statement was, how can we
    call ourselves women without giving birth?
  • So the next day, you know she
    got in trouble for this, the next day.
  • Oh, of course she did.
  • Again, three choices, A,
    she gave us sincere apology.

B, she said her statement
didn’t convey the

correct meaning or C,
I retract my statement.

You know that’s my favorite one.

When they retract statements, I’m
like, it doesn’t really retract any, right?

It’s still there.

The statement you made still exists.

  • So the first one was apologize.
  • A sincere apology.
  • sincere, okay, oh, well,
    that’s definitely not happening.
  • Mm-hmm.
  • Okay, B, her statement didn’t
    convey the correct meaning.
  • You guys are too dumb
    to know what I meant.
  • Mm-hmm.
  • Or C, I retract my statement.
  • Oh, come on, right,
    so, then if it was a man,

I want 100% to go with
retract because I feel

like they just like, this
might get outbound.

I can say what I want.

  • I can say whatever I
    want in the next day, I’ll

be like, well, you know,
you guys interpret it.

  • I apologize for you
    misinterpreting my words.

(laughs)

  • Yeah, I feel like like female politicians
    are a special breed of like evil.
  • In Japan, yes.
  • No, not just in Japan.
  • I was thinking about like a
    UK even, like Thatcher, like in–
  • Thatcher has ruined it for
    every other female politician.
  • Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s
    some good ones out there.

But at the chance of Germany
was, she seems all right.

  • Yeah, she seems like reasonably
    down to a– – I kind of like her.
  • And then the prime minister
    of New Zealand, she was cool.
  • Yeah.
  • Yeah, people tried to dunk on her
    for like having a party, I remember that.

Like just talking about a party.

  • Yeah, it’s like, and had a full month.
  • Shut fun.
  • Like AOC, I really like AOC.

In America, there’s a Katie
something and she’s awesome.

All she does is take
like business men to task.

She had the president of Pierce Moore,

like JP Morgan, some giant
investment hedge fund bank thing.

And then she was like, I found out
how much like your tellers get paid.

They don’t make enough to survive.

Can you reconcile that with me?

And he’s like, basically like, how can
you justify not paying a living wage?

And he’s like, he started
to try to talk his way out.

And he’s like, no, no, no,
this is how much she makes.

Like I talked to this woman.

How do you think that’s fair
that you get what you pay?

Yeah, you get your pay.

  • Yeah.
  • I see your pace out of hand.
  • Yeah.
  • Oh, come on.

I think I’ve found my niche now though,

is coming up with quiz
questions based on the news.

  • Okay, this is here apology.

You guys are idiots.

Oh, attraction.

  • Retraction.

I’m just gonna take it
back and think it privately.

  • Oh, come on.
  • Oh, I’m gonna see.

She retracted it.

  • She retracted her statement.

Both B and C.

She actually, she did all three,
but it was not a sincere apology.

She A, apologized.

B, said that her
statement didn’t convey the

correct meaning and C,
retracted her statement.

  • So she went, I’m really sorry.

You guys too stupid to
understand my reaction.

  • Well, I do say so, I take it back.
  • So maybe if I say I didn’t say it, you
    guys will believe it ’cause you’re so dumb.

(laughing)

She said her comment was meant to emphasize

the power of women and
she meant that she was born

into the house of
representatives in a year

2000 by the power of
women voting for her.

And I was like, that is not
how that phrase has ever,

  • No, it would never convey
    that meaning, bit ridiculous.

They think they come up with some
profound saying, some profound soundbite.

And then everyone’s like, what?

  • I think they take 10 seconds and
    think about her trying to backtrack this.

It’s like that doesn’t even make sense.

That makes less sense
than your original statement.

  • That’s what you’ve said.
  • Oh dear, good.
  • And that’s the first
    news news panic was, yeah.
  • Yeah, I think it’s so
    trackers all the way away.
  • Quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz.
  • I need, I need.
  • Ninja, Ninja, Ninja, Ninja, Japan, the quiz.

(laughing) – So as you heard in the
quiz, she did not necessarily apologize.

Her statement was how can we call
ourselves women without giving birth?

She then said on the next day,
when she was doing her apology,

I accept the possibility
that my words could be

misunderstood and have
decided to retract the statement.

That is one of the most
annoying political statements.

‘Cause again, my problem with retracting
statements is they don’t make them go away.

It actually just means
I said a shitty thing

and now I want you to
forget, I said a shitty thing.

I’m not actually going to
change my behavior or anything.

I’m not gonna try to improve myself.

I’m not gonna think about what I did.

I’m just gonna say,
sorry you were offended.

Please forget the thing I said.

She then went on to say her comment
was meant to emphasize the power of women.

So how can we call
ourselves women without giving

birth was meant to
emphasize the power of women?

Now I studied English literature, I
have an English literature degree.

Now I don’t consider
myself particularly adept

at interpreting the
language, I can do it.

I don’t think of the statement she made,

how can we call ourselves
women without giving birth?

I don’t see how that relates to
emphasizing the power of women.

And I think that might be
where the words she used

could be misunderstood
’cause I think the words

she used don’t mean the
things she says they mean.

She said, she went on to say,

she meant that she was born
into the house of representatives

in the year 2000 by the
power of women voting for her.

Which is not anywhere
implied in the statement,

how can we call ourselves
women without giving birth?

This is a classic example of a
politician saying something dumb

and then trying to recreate
a narrative around it,

trying to remold that sentence
that everyone understood

into some other meaning so that
they hopefully can get away with it.

A bill has been introduced to Parliament.

And the roughest way of
saying it is that it’s designed

to take away permanent residents
from people who live in Japan

if they have intentionally failed to
pay taxes or social insurance premiums.

This has been a problem in the past

where people who live in Japan
don’t pay their taxes and stuff.

I think it’s a problem in every country.

They’re claiming it’s
only for malicious cases.

Now this is one of the problems.

This was the TikTok ban.

My problem with the TikTok
ban wasn’t banning TikTok.

It was how could that
legislation be interpreted later

to ban other companies that
are essentially not American.

This goes way back to
my experience as a young

man when they
introduced the Patriot Act.

And it was supposed
to be just for terrorists.

And it’s just gonna be
for catching terrorists.

And then they expanded
the definition of terrorists

they could redefine a
criminal as a terrorist

and then use the Patriot Act to
do whatever they want to them.

And this is one of the problems
with legislation that’s vague.

And they are saying that the
problem with this legislation

in Japan about permanent
residency is very vague.

Kishida said the plan
would not affect the

vast majority of former
permanent residents.

But it was based on inconclusive data

that shows 10% of permanent
residents don’t pay taxes.

Now this survey was done of 1,825 people

where there are 890,000
permanent residents in Japan.

So they’ve taken a small sample size,

taken that sample size
and extracted a piece of

information then
extrapolated that information

to the totality of the population
that they’re talking about.

And that’s what a lot of
people are saying is problematic.

So then they didn’t actually explain
how much of that 10% of the 1,825 people,

how much of them would be this
sort of like, let’s kick them out group.

How many people would
fail the stringent requirements

of malicious refusal to pay
their taxes or social insurance?

And then another politician piped up with,

and this is a statement
I really enjoyed was,

there are more unpaid taxes by Japanese
people than there are by foreigners,

which is a very interesting
way of looking at it.

He’s like, why are we going after
these foreign permanent residents

when we have so many Japanese
people that we could be going after?

These bridge people who are hiding money.

‘Cause that is actually a story we’ve
done and introduced Japan in the past.

We have rich people who
are refusing to pay their tax,

who hide their money, who put their
money in other countries, things like that.

And they don’t pay their taxes fairly,
whereas a majority of the permanent residents

pay their taxes, just because they’re not
here, because they’re super rich people,

they’re here ’cause they have
normal jobs and a lot of normal jobs.

Your company actually
pays taxes through your

company for you, so it’s
actually very hard to cheat.

All right, so last story of the day.

It’s usually a dirty, dirty man, but I have
a dirty, dirty couple, which is exciting.

An engaged couple, and this
is actually just kind of show

that they’ve been together
for a while, I think that’s

why they specifically put
an engaged couple in there.

An engaged couple have
been arrested for posting

unedited as in, I believe, uncensored,
explicit videos on social media.

So basically you have a
couple, and they’re doing it,

and they’re videoing it, and
they’re putting it on social media.

It’s paid, it’s like behind a pay while.

I’m thinking they’re talking
about Patreon or one of

these other, like, fansly or
some of these other sites.

The bid I was most interested
in is how much money

can you make, boinking
your partner, filming it,

and putting it on the
internet, because… (mumbling)

They earned 100 million yen through
subscriptions based on social media sites.

So again, they’re keeping it vague.

I want to know which social media sites,

and I want to know what
this couple looked like.

The first thing I did
was go look for a picture

of the couple to see if
they were attractive or not,

which is kind of gross on my part, but it
was, I think, a very natural kind of thing.

They’ve been doing this for two and a half
years, and they have made 95 million yen.

And that makes me think
that maybe I’ve made some

bad choices in my career
options, ’cause here I am.

I work a 40 hour work week.

I make podcasts for fun, and
I do not have anywhere near

95 million yen for just filming
myself and putting it on the internet.

And I realized, you know,
I got some gnarly feet.

I could maybe put something on
Wikipedia, maybe get some money that way.

I don’t think people
would actually want to pay

very much for this,
but that’s one of the

secondary reasons I
wanted to see this couple.

I was like, if I could
measure their attractiveness,

if I matched that
attractiveness level,

maybe I could make 95 million
yen over two and a half years.

The problem is they were
making unedited videos,

so in Japan, you do have
to censor the private parts.

They have mosaics is the most common way.

So they weren’t doing that, and that’s
probably how they were making their money.

So either I would have to put the mosaic
on, and I’d probably put it on my face,

’cause I think you would actually
rather see not my face than anything else,

or I’d have to change
countries before making this new

endeavor, which is going to be NJ,
which is new to Ninja News, Japan,

where I sit here and
do the news in the nude.

So I guess we could just
get a flesh colored t-shirt,

and that would actually be giving you
pretty much the whole effect right there.

Sprinkle some hairs on it randomly.

That’s pretty much the
aesthetic I’d be going for.

So if you, the viewer or
listener, would be interested,

and again, this is an
audio format primarily.

It seems like it would
make no difference to

you, but maybe if you
paid that extra money

and you get the nude version of Ninja
News, Japan, nude Ninja News, Japan, and J.

Maybe just the knowledge
that I’m reading the news

to you naked would
enhance the experience for

you, and there’s only
one way to find out.

That would be to go to our new Patreon, the
new Ninja News, Japan dot slash Patreon,

I don’t know, I don’t actually have
a Patreon, don’t actually go there.

You can go there,
you’re just not gonna find

a new Ninja News, Japan
site, which is too bad.

But if you wanna send me some money,
I will do a private recording, naked,

and I will send it to you,
and it’ll be audio only,

but I promise you, I’ll be
naked, how about that?

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Ninja News Japan Quiz

He touched you Wagyu beef has a problem.

You’ve probably heard of Wagyu
beef, it’s very expensive beef.

I actually had an
experience over the golden

week vacation of eating very, very expensive
food and it does not agree with me.

I am just too low class for that.

So the thing is about Japanese
expensive food always has a lot of fat.

And that was problematic because I
don’t eat a lot of food with a lot of fat.

So the fat kind of did a number on me.

So I actually realized I don’t
enjoy a lot of expensive food.

He touched you Wagyu beef has a problem.

It’s not the problem that I
don’t like fatty, fatty food.

But Wagyu beef does tend to have a lot
of like marbled, has a lot of fat in it.

Not my thing.

But that’s not the problem.

The problem isn’t my
preference, the problem isn’t

my preference, the problem isn’t my
preference, the problem is a different problem.

The problem with touchy
Wagyu beef and the

kanji, the Chinese characters they
use for that, young people can’t read it.

It’s an expensive item.

It’s based on its brand.

It’s based on its name.

But if young people can’t read
the name, what happens then?

So kanji, the Chinese characters,
people in their 20s, 57% cannot read.

He touchy Wagyu, 43% of
people in their 30s could not read.

He touchy Wagyu.

And he got older, he got better.

So 33% in their 40s couldn’t read it,
35% in their 50s, and 22% in their 60s.

So the kanji maybe
was more common in the

past, or maybe people
were better at reading kanji.

A lot of people are saying just like smart
phones are making it harder for people to

write like, I was of
the age where I learned

cursive in school, I don’t
think kids learn that anymore.

And in fact, I think
typing might be a more

valuable skill, but you still should
learn how to write with a pen and stuff.

But kids just can’t do stuff.

And it’s not, I don’t
think this is, again, this

is not a judgment, this
is not a negative thing.

This is like the world changes.

But people typing
everything out on their phone

means they’re never
actually writing the kanji.

They just pick the appropriate
kanji for the word the writing.

So they don’t learn how to write it.

And then in some cases,
they don’t learn how

to read it properly,
because they just assume

that the computer or the phone
or whatever is telling them right.

I actually had a student
who couldn’t type,

because they only used their phone,
they typed everything out on their phone.

So when they had to type something out
on a keyboard, it was really hard for them.

So they gave me the keyboard
and I typed down what they said.

And they were shocked at how fast I
could type it was like an amazing thing.

Just like I was shocked at how fast they
could type with two thumbs on their phone.

But again, it’s just what you grow up with.

You grow up with touch pads.

You learn to use touch
pads really effectively.

The Hitachi kanji is used different ways.

Iberaki Iberaki is a prefecture
within it used to be called Hitachi.

It’s very confusing.

So as I was reading this, I
got more and more confused

and I realized why I
gave up on studying kanji.

So I speak Japanese at
a, I would say intermediate

level would be generous, but an intermediate
level I can do conversations and stuff.

But I am essentially illiterate.

And I’m illiterate because
when I started studying

kanji, I was like, I’m
too old to be studying.

I don’t want to study anymore.

And I give up.

And I kind of just gave up on
it, which is not the right attitude.

But you do get tired of studying
when you’re old and I am old.

So Iberaki is the prefecture.

It used to be called Hitachi.

The kanji has been used different ways.

It is therefore very confusing for people.

And that’s why the
younger people now, they

haven’t grown up with
history or the understanding.

So they understand it less than
those people in their 60s, 22%.

It was actually to be 88%
could read it 22% still couldn’t.

So it’s still confusing
to that group that we

would assume actually grew
up with this more logically.

It’s used different
ways, which means some

places like Hitachi
Nakasidi, they’ve decided

to just do away with
the kanji altogether.

And when they write the name of
their city, they just use Hitagana.

Hitagana is the base
phonetic version of Japanese.

And it shows that the
use of kanji, even in

modern Japan, is a
confusing and difficult thing.

Again, sort of just justifying
the fact that I quit studying.

It’ll be interesting to
see how language now

evolves in Japan, like where this
is going to take us in the future.

Are they going to use less kanji or are
they going to adopt other things or they can

do start using English alphabet, even
for Japanese words, that kind of stuff.

It’ll be interesting to
see where this goes

because as young people
grow up finding it harder

and harder to read
kanji, is kanji the way

you want to go forward
or do they want to sort

of double down and force
more people to learn kanji?

I actually think doubling
down is very much a

Japanese way of dealing
with this sort of issue.

Sister cities are great.

I mean, it’s a cultural
exchange between

your places and you do class trips,
your high school is going to go somewhere.

They’re going to go to this place
and then you can go back down.

It’s wonderful class.

I think sister cities are great.

Cultural exchange is great.

It also will involve politicians
and older politicians.

And if you’ve ventured
to an engineer’s

Japan before, you kind of
know where this is going.

When I say the words
old politician, there

was a government meeting
and it was the mayor

and the government people
from Dubo City in Australia.

Dubo?

I’m not sure how to say D-U-B-B-O-Dubo.

I’m going to say double.

It’s so Australian to
make it a word like double.

There’s a city called double.

It’s the sister city.

They’re over the visiting.

They’re like, let’s have an after party.

There’s a 71 year old deputy
speaker and he’s doing some karaoke.

Now, I’m trying to work on a
new segment, a new thing to do.

I’m not just going to
just tell you the story.

I was like, ah, you know what we should do?

Just make a quiz.

You’ve listened to an
engineer’s Japan in the past.

You know the kind of
things that we end up

coming up, the kind
of things we talk about.

Three options before I give you the answer.

I haven’t figured out a way to do this.

I would like to get maybe
a listener or someone

to talk while we do this at the same time,
but we’ll work that out in the future.

This is still the sort of testing phase.

Three options.

What did the deputy speaker do to the mayor
of Dubo’s daughter while singing karaoke?

Option number one, he
did a lap dance while singing.

Option number two, he
started to strip off his clothes.

Number three, he held the
mic up to her private parts.

So now I would need
like some thinking music.

Please have submitted your answers by now.

So again, this is where I don’t, I
kind of maybe need a little interaction.

I need someone have
someone on like the line

and do the quiz with
them so they can guess.

But if you guessed number three,
ding, ding, ding, ding, you are correct.

Now they didn’t explain it very
carefully, like very thoroughly.

So I don’t know if he was serenading her
vagina, or if he was holding the microphone

up in the hopes that
he would start singing.

All we know is that he
while singing got very

close to her private
parts, which is gross.

I mean, that’s I think that’s a
fair statement we can make.

That is gross.

He therefore, again, apologized.

He said, I’m ashamed
that I could not respond

appropriately on the spot
or apologize the same day.

He like, I think they were partying.

He didn’t figure out what
he did, I guess, because

they were drinking and
stuff until the next day.

And he’s like, Oh, I’m sorry.

I waited so long.

I was trying my best
to make it into a party.

It’s an interesting
statement because when I

want to make something into a party, I
want to get, you know, everyone involved.

I want to get people doing stuff.

I don’t immediately
gravitate to someone’s

groin and start singing to it
or trying to get it to sing to me.

That’s not my first instinct.

I have not thrown any
blockbusters of parties,

though, if we’re being honest, like my
parties are very sedate and maybe that’s it.

Maybe I don’t do enough crotch
singing to really get the party started.

So I’m waiting for some rapper to come out
with a song about getting the party started

by crotch singing either from the crotch
or to the crotch either way works for me.

He’s sorry for the discomfort he caused.

Nobody from the, nobody
from double has responded.

So this guy is apologized, he’s put that
statement out there and no one apologized.

Apparently there is a
picture of the mayor’s

daughter looking
incredibly uncomfortable,

which is very appropriate when a 71
year old man starts singing at your crotch.

There’s a restaurant
called Tamate Baco and

this is not the only
one, an open last month

in Shibuya and it’s an all-you-can-eat
seafood buffet kind of thing.

So it’s a tabihodai.

So basically tabihodai,
hodai is all-you-can

and then tabay is eat and then there’s
no mihodai, which is all-you-can-drink.

And you go, you pay
a set amount of money,

you can eat for an hour and you
just order as much as you want.

You have to eat it all within the hour.

That kind of thing.

It’s pretty normal.

The way the article
presented it is that they

have decided that foreign tourists should
be charged more than Japanese people.

So if you want to go for lunch just on a
regular day, if you’re Japanese, it’s 5,478

yen and if you are a
foreigner, it is 6,578 yen.

So basically 1,100 yen more.

Friday being a more
popular day, so like Friday

dinner, that’s going to be
the most expensive time.

If you are a Japanese
person, it’s 7,678 yen.

If you’re a foreigner, it’s 8,778 yen.

So again, 1,100 yen more
for not being Japanese.

The interesting way
they worked around this

was they said the
higher price is the actual

official price and then if you’re
Japanese, you get a discount of 1,100 yen.

So it’s not that they’re
charging foreigners

more, it’s that they’re
actually charging

Japanese people less,
which was an interesting

way to try to get
around the racism or

the discrimination that they’re
actually putting out there.

The discount counts for
Japanese people and residents.

So very technically,
if I went into this

restaurant and I ordered
this meal and I could

show them my residence card,
I should get the lower price.

So is it biased then?

That’s the interesting thing.

The justification for
this is the yen is very

weak, so Japanese
people, their money isn’t

going as far, where
foreigners are coming

in, they’re getting more yen for their
money, so they should be charged more because

they’re not paying
taxes and things like that.

It’s a very thin argument.

The governor said
foreign travelers are

Japan’s guests, which
I think is a pretty fair

statement to make and therefore they shouldn’t
be taken advantage of, they shouldn’t

be charged more, they
shouldn’t be treated in this way.

I was interested though, because if I went,
would I get asked if I was a resident or

not where they just
assumed that I’m a foreigner

because, you know,
very foreign looking

in Japan and would they just
then charge me the higher price?

I don’t know.

It’s an interesting question.

I don’t tend to find out because I actually
don’t think this is a nice practice.

I think you just choose
a price and you make

that the price and
you charge the price.

So there’s a guy who dresses up in a black
suit and he puts on sunglasses and he goes

out into the street,
so again, this could be

another opportunity for our
quiz, so let’s try out our quiz again.

There are three options.

What do you think he does?

He dresses up in a
black suit and sunglasses,

so he’s trying to look
pretty cool while he does it.

So number one, option number
one, is he a Batman-like vigilante.

He goes out and delivers vigilante justice.

Number two, he’s going out and obstructing
traffic on his bicycle or number three, he

rides his bicycle and he grabs
women as he rolls down the street.

So we need again a clip,
some music, some thinking time.

If you guessed number
two, which I would be

surprised if you did,
because I think if you’ve,

again, you’re watching
the engineer’s Japan,

you’re listening to
the engineer’s Japan,

you’re thinking, is it going to be
the butt grabbing on the bicycle?

No, he rides out and
what he does is he rides

in the middle of traffic and he
swerves into oncoming traffic.

Now, this is to freak out the drivers,
to play a little chicken, to risk it.

No one really knows why.

He swerves into oncoming traffic
and they’re saying to annoy drivers.

He was arrested and they
suspect he is responsible

for 42 similar incidences
they’re investigating now.

He has claimed that he is not this
person, he denies all the accusations.

There is film of him doing this weaving in
an out of traffic, which I will put up in

the corner if you watch the YouTube video.

The police have given
a nickname, and I think

criminals with nicknames is
always a very interesting thing.

Police have named him
the pop-up cyclist because

he comes out into
traffic and then weaves

into traffic, popping
in and out of traffic,

popping up out of nowhere, I
guess they didn’t call him disc-spring.

Very bad man ask.

That’s where I got the first
sort of option from the back men

vigilante because he just sort
of disappears into the night.

They searched his
apartment and that’s where

they found the same black suit
and sunglasses he wears in the video.

Which I think makes him a pretty
much guilty, it’s a really chan reversal.

So the last like three weeks I’ve talked
about in any chan and I’ve actually thought

like I think we’ve done enough
until she goes to or gets out of prison.

There’s not really much
more to say about any chan.

I just again I find her fascinating
because she has a work ethic.

She just applied it to
crime whereas if she’d

applying the same
work ethic to something

else I think she would
have been really successful.

She clearly was able to do stuff.

This is a guy who she was taking,
she was a sugar baby at TV chan.

So she was doing sort of compensated
dating and then frauding men of money.

This is a guy who is
defrauding sugar babies.

So I’m calling it the atiti chan reversal.

This guy swindles women who
are looking to become sugar baby.

So he meets people
online and he says hey, if

you meet me I’ll give you
200,000 yen for a date.

That’s actually pretty good.

Like that’s half a month to a
month salary for some people.

So he connects with them on a
matching app and then he says I’m a vet.

And it was an
interesting choice because

apparently being a vet is
very successful because

you work with animals and
no he works with animals

but also you’re a doctor
so it’s very appealing.

So you have the appeal
of being a doctor but also

someone who works with
animals all at the same time.

That seems to be a very attractive profession
and so he shows that very carefully.

He says let’s meet at the
zoo, the zoo where I work.

So they meet at the zoo and then he
walks around he says you know what?

He seems very proud
of the zoo while they’re

talking you know
what but a lot of people

know me around you so let’s just
get out of here and they go to a hotel.

After talking for
about two hours, I don’t

know if that’s at the hotel or
later because again the story jumps.

The story actually
said go to a hotel which

would imply they go and
have intimate relations

but then they immediately jumps
to after talking for two hours.

So I don’t know I would not go
to a hotel to talk for two hours.

I would go somewhere else if we were just
going to talk but he talks about his family

and his love of boxing
and then he looks

very serious and he says
I’ve left my wallet at home.

Could you give me 20,000 yen for tickets
so that I can buy tickets for boxing?

And the woman has been promised 200,000 yen
so 20,000 yen on top of that to get paid

back is not very much
so they go to the ATM

they get 20,000 yen
they give to the guy and

then he says like
great I’m going to go buy

tickets I’ll see you
again for a second date.

I’ll you know the Japanese version of Venmo
you the money so it’ll probably be like

a line or pay pay or
something like that and I’ll pay

you back and then they
never hear from them again.

So he’s not doing the
scale of Viti Chiang

but he’s working on low
numbers of money but

large numbers of
women so trying to get a

little bit of money out
of everybody as opposed

to just getting two or three whales
and getting money out of them.

The woman never heard
from them again and

then she tried to contact
the zoo and the zoo

says there is no such person here but we’ve
had similar calls which made the woman very

suspicious so she called up the police
and said I believe I’ve been defrauded.

Now if 20,000 yen he
was banking on 20,000 yen

not being very much money
and the embarrassment

of them saying I want
to be a sugar baby to

be enough to get them to
stop from contacting the police.

So this lady was like no I’m contacting the
zoo and the zoo I maybe she actually liked

them because she
actually came out in her

part of the interview she was actually
saying she was quite embarrassed about being

defrauded this way but
it’s just like those men

I have sympathy for who were
defrauded millions of yen by Viti Chiang.

So I feel kind of bad for her.

He says he’s met about 50
women this way so again if you got

20,000 yen from each of them
that’s pretty fair some of the money.

After the rest he said
sorry you know I feel

bad for taking advantage
of these women.

He’s actually not a vet.

He’s actually a day
laborer and then he said

this was a bit that actually
kind of really struck me.

I have always disliked
animals so the construction

of him being a vet was
a very conscious choice.

I don’t like actually
like animals but women

will like a man who
likes animals so I’m

going to pretend to be
a man who likes animals

so much so that it’s
become my profession

and that will appeal to women
and apparently it was successful.

He was given two years,
six months in prison

but it’s been suspended
for four years so

if he doesn’t commit any more
crimes he will be Scott free.

There again did not mention
giving back any of the money.

I actually am now very interested in how
much and how do they give back to the money

of these women do they give back the money
of these women because this is one of those

weird things where
the fraud it’s done

voluntarily and again this
case it’s a very small sum.

So is it worth suing over like if you sue
the guy for 20,000 yen you’re going to pay

probably a lawyer more than
20,000 yen just to follow that suit.

Leena Chaunay on
the other hand she took

millions so getting a
lawyer and suing her would

make perfect sense because you want to get
all your money back but I actually bet it’s

all gone because she
gave it all to host and

she doesn’t have any
money so they’ll just

be like if she ever
works they’ll be docking

her pay for years or something I
have no idea what’s going to happen.

Again her situation the consequences of
what she’s done are the interesting thing is

it’s just going to take a decade
to find out what actually happens.

So maybe Ninja News
Japan ends at some point

because I just you
know run out of content

or run out of time or
whatever but I promise

you in nine to ten
years I’m going to come

back if we leave these chaun pops up again
if I’m still alive and give you the ending

of that story like what has she done what’s
happened since then because I’m interested

in it and I don’t think I’m
ever going to let this go

but it seems like being a
sugar baby or sugar daddy.

There’s a lot of
fraud involved so it’s

probably not going to
work out the way you want

it to so I would say
take all that initiative

take all that effort and put
it towards something else.

I’m thinking of a
suggestion to make right

now that would be
really positive and helpful

for the world and I
can’t think of any I

really can’t I don’t
do what I’m doing right

now this is previous no
money whatsoever but

I haven’t committed
fraud at least I’m not

making money honestly and that
is the Ninja News Japan mission.

[Music]

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Big Tuna

(upbeat music)

Okay, in chunk of beef
chest, we have beef nation.

That’s all the people who
like chunk of beef chest.

An individual would be a chunk.

And I was like, oh, how do I
refer to a fan of Ninja News Japan?

And I was like, it’s
actually really obvious.

It’s a ninja.

A news ninja? I don’t know.

I think just Ninja is
not descriptive enough.

It’s not clear that you’re talking
about a fan of a certain thing.

I’m attempting to do
this so that I can appeal

to you directly because
my eye is still messed up.

And I’m finding it very
difficult to look at screens

and read and podcasting is
very much using the computer,

which is primarily a large screen and
reading my notes already a problem.

As you’ve seen in the
last 190 some episodes

that I do not take the time
to write properly, clearly,

cleanly, so that I can
read my own handwriting.

We’ve had that issue multiple times.

Fuck, I’m not happy about this at all.

(upbeat music)

It’s over at Seamik B, the podcast.

We got chunk of beef chest, beef nation.

And a fan of that is called a chunk.

And I was like, oh, we need a name for
someone who’s a fan of Ninja News Japan.

The honestly much
bigger of the two podcasts.

And I was like, well, I
mean, you could just say

a ninja, but it’s actually
not very descriptive.

And it’s just the way I
could address the audience

directly to make appeals
like I’m about to today,

’cause today’s episode very
likely is going to have some issues

because I still am
functionally blind in one eye.

So not only do I make poor notes,

it’s hard for me to look at
screens for an extended period

and since I can’t see very well
my notes that are already messy,

I mean, we’ve hit that issue multiple times
where I can’t read my own handwriting.

I’m so dedicated to all the
little news ninjas out there

that I was gonna skip this
week and not put out an

episode and I was like,
no, no, I’m gonna do it.

It might be shorter and it might be
shit, but they’re used to that by now.

That might be the only
way I can start this is

it’s pre-excusing a lower-quality problem
now is that if this is a good episode.

So it’s October, 2023 and
you’re out in Yokohama,

you’re drinking and you do
what everyone does when they

go out drinking, you’re like,
I’m gonna livestream this.

‘Cause everyone wants to see
my drunk ass out in the world,

real life IRL streaming.

Never actually been a
big fan of IRL streaming,

probably just ’cause I’ve
never tried it, never done it.

I don’t think I do anything
interesting enough to stream live,

but he fell asleep on the train.

So this guy’s live streaming
himself, he falls asleep on the train.

Then a gentleman sees an opportunity
to take advantage of the situation.

So he does what he does
and he steals the man’s

wallet and phone
while it is still streaming.

They then leap into a car
where there are two other people,

those two other people accomplices.

I did learn some
interesting Japanese today.

They start having a conversation,

the whole conversation is
being broadcast live on stream.

I was immediately thinking like, there’s
two people talking, do I do voices?

I hadn’t decided yet.

Thief, hello, good work.

I just got a tuna with
a set of mobile phones.

Tuna is slang for
stealing from drunk people,

I guess ’cause they’re
just flopped out on

the, on the bench or
on the seat of the train.

So if they’re passed
out drunk, thieves refer

to them as two in us,
which I learned that.

I was really happy to learn that.

So if I want to pretend to be a thief,

I now can use a cup a
little bit like, you know,

jargon that’s applicable
to the industry I’ve chosen.

The theft is a bank debit card.

And I heard that if it’s
attached to a phone,

you can figure out the pin.

This is a very thief way of thinking,

like I heard that if you have
A and B, you can figure it out.

Other people may be us not so much
because we’re having the conversation

if we knew how to do it,
we’d already be doing it.

So later, they meet at a hotel
and the live stream is continuing

and they discuss the
contents of the wallet.

And so the accomplice says,
well, there are a lot of money.

And he says, there’s hardly any money.

But if I tried buying, but I tried buying,

of course, IQOS is, I’m pretty sure that’s
doing a vaping gesture on the stream.

I know, I know if you
took away the sound,

it would have looked like something else,

but that’s because it’s
your dirty mind, not my.

I, of course, is I believe a
tobacco product or a vape.

They’re a little like charger
things that you can buy

at a convenience store, I don’t smoke.

I know they’re for smoking.

I don’t smoke, so I don’t actually
know what they are specifically.

But I tried buying an
IQOS, IQOS, IQOS, IQOS,

IQOS at a convenience store
with this cash card and it worked.

And then they picked up the smartphone.

This lot, it says something
about making a report.

And then the live stream abruptly ended.

So I hope you enjoy my
first foray into voice acting.

That was thief number one and accomplice.

Who is a couple steps away from goofy.

But here’s the problem.

At least in this case, unlike
many of the other cases

we’ve talked about in the last few weeks,
the live streaming, it was unintentional.

They didn’t intentionally broadcast
their crimes on the internet.

Whereas actually 90% of the
crimes we’ve been talking about

lately have actually
been purposely broadcast

to try to get internet fame
and led to arrests or fines

or any of the number of other things.

So these guys are just average criminals.

They didn’t know it was streaming.

The phone was on.

I mean, what are you going to do?

You just, that’s the situation.

So they were arrested.

I am interested
in, am I? I’m not.

I mean, they were arrested.

They deserve it.

That’s pretty much it right there.

See, I’m on the way here.

Wrong transition.

That is because I can’t
see that far away right now.

Since you’re talking about
streaming, there was a teacher who

thought, you know what, I,
you know, I teach full time.

It’s my full time job, but I
have a dream, a big dream.

I actually kind of relate to this.

I have a big dream.

I want to be a streamer and
I want to quit my teaching job

in just a stream full
time and do wacky antics.

I don’t know.

He was streaming while he was working.

So he was in the teacher staff room.

He would turn on a stream
and then stream himself working.

I assume just doing like admin
work, which does not seem

like a very interesting
stream to me, but I fall into this

old category where I want to see people
do stuff or talk about interesting things.

And then I see what gets popular.

People sleeping.

People eating massive amounts of food.

Like I found that
fascinating for a day or two.

But then after that, I
was like, I don’t really need

to see people just eating
massive amount of food.

I don’t, I don’t see the
appeal in it more than once.

The TikTok NPC thing,
did not get it at all.

Like I understood it as an
oddity, something I would see once.

I couldn’t see myself watching
it for an extended period.

Watching a teacher in a staff room
do his work seems really boring to me.

The problem is the live stream
was also picking up ongoing

conversations around
the teacher, which those

people hadn’t agreed
to have this on stream.

So there’s some privacy issues there.

He also was streaming the athletic field.

Now, they’re not saying if
anyone was on it, but that could

be super creepy because it
could be like, oh, I’m going to

stream the underage people
running around the field.

Maybe my intent is not
sexual, but then the people

who look at that stuff
might turn it sexual.

And that’s always the problem.

Like you might intend
it in an innocent way.

Here’s an interesting
slice of life day in a

Japanese high school
or junior high school.

I actually didn’t say it probably
didn’t one of the articles.

So I didn’t write it down.

Anyways, this is a school.

These are kids.

They should not be filmed
without their permission.

You shouldn’t be filming kids
and throwing it up on the internet.

The reason he was
streaming at the school was to

increase his streaming time
to gain some service perks.

So I stream on Twitch and you
get so many hours and then they’ll

let you keep your vod
longer or something like that.

Basically, if you show
a commitment to the

platform, the platform
will give you certain perks.

This is just people who stream
ones or twice and then just give up.

Don’t, you know, you
don’t give any sort of

storage space to them
for any length of time.

I get it.

The reason I related to this is
because I also tend to stream

in my free time.

But I never thought like would anyone
want to watch me at my desk working?

I don’t see that.

This is maybe my biggest
problem like Instagram.

I don’t look at something and
think I should take a picture of

that and post it on Instagram.

So my Instagram is basically empty.

I don’t look at a lot of things
in real life and go, this would be

of interest to other people
when, of course, that is often the

content that is super
interesting to other people.

So I need guidance.

So if you have something you would
like to see in Japan, let me know.

I probably will forget to do it
because that’s how I live my life.

What happened to this teacher
was students found live streams

reported to the school.

He received a 10% pay cut.

So he didn’t lose his job.

And I guess I think that’s pretty fair.

I don’t, it doesn’t sound like he was
doing anything malicious or creepier weird.

He wanted to boost his
amount of time streamed.

And then just was like,
well, I’ll have to take

it with me to the
places and I go the place.

I go all day, every day is work.

So I’ll have to stream from work.

It was pretty selfish.

But it didn’t seem like he
was intending to hurt anyone.

So I think I think a 10%
pay cut is pretty fair.

Still so close to being super creepy.

We have talked about part time terrorism.

I learned that the phrase a few
weeks ago, because we talked about

food terrorism for a long
time, that there’s also part time

terrorism as kids at part time
jobs last week was the kid who

picked his nose and
wiped it in the pizza dough.

And then the domino swap team
came down on that store, like the

rage of Odin turns out
there’s insurance for that.

This is another whole other
aspect of the world that I’m

interested in, things
you can get insurance for.

I’m very interested in contracts
and contract negotiations,

primarily famous people who
have like interest in contracts or

things in their contracts that a
normal human being like me would

not have or even consider
insurance, things you can ensure is

another subject that I find
vaguely interesting, because you

can ensure that, oh, that’s
weird, I immediately reminds me of

like things you can get blessed in Japan.

So like if you build a house,
you can have a priest come

to bless your house, that
seems pretty obvious, you

can take things to the
temple and get them blessed.

So I had a child took the child
to the temple and they wave

the leaf over his head.

Great.

You know, it’s just for
me, not being religious.

It was a fun, interesting
cultural experience.

Then the guy, the priest, not
just the guy, the priest goes

and he starts wiggling
the leaves over a van.

And I’m like, what is he doing?

He’s blessing the van.

Oh, he’s blessing the van, what are
you just asking him to bless anything?

They’re like, I mean, basically,
yeah, you pay the, the, the

temple money, the priest is
going to bless whatever you want.

And my first thought was like,
could I get my PlayStation blessed?

Like have him wiggle the,
the, the, the leaves over the

PlayStation and be like headshot,
headshot, headshot, something like that.

And basically it turns out if I gave
them the money, they would bless it.

So now we could run
a scientific experiment.

We could have two play stations.

One that has been blessed
and one that has not an alternate.

I think a fairest would be week to week.

So one week you play on the
blessed PlayStation, the second

week you play on the cursed
place, PlayStation, PlayStation,

and back and forth.

And then track the statistics
of each one and see if your

performance improves
on the blessed PlayStation.

Very interesting concept I just
had, uh, should I have enough money

to a pay for a blessing
and a second PlayStation.

And I have enough time to
make that worthwhile study.

I will do it.

Uh, you can send your
contributions to science.

If you want, please
don’t send money for that.

Cause if you sent me
enough money to buy a second

PlayStation, I wouldn’t
buy a second PlayStation.

I buy something else.

And then I would feel
like I’m ripping you off.

And the last thing I want, the
ninja news is, do you need a name?

I need a name for, for people
who watch nineties news Japan.

The little ninjas, little
ninjas was a video game.

I really enjoyed it was a kid’s game.

And once you’d played it
and you knew everything you’d

finished in like six hours,
I played a multiple time.

It was super fun.

You played as a very
small ninja, ergo the title.

Anyways, talking about
insurance, the part time.

Terrorism that goes on.

So these kids, they get bored
at their convenience store job.

It’s two o’clock in the morning.

They’re making dominoes pizza dough.

They get bored.

They start doing dumb teenage stuff.

I absolutely would have
fallen into this category.

I worked in dog food and university.

I can tell you that I’ve probably
eaten every type of dog food that was

available in just to
see what it tasted like.

I did not do anything
particularly bad, but

it’s hard to mess with
dog food in a fun way.

And then back when I
was at that age, we weren’t

videoing everything
and streaming it online.

And so there was far less
incentive for me to do stuff.

The worst thing I would do is probably
like lay out and make a bed of 40 kilogram

dog food things and
just lie down for a bit.

But I was young.

So I had a lot of energy.

So I actually spent a lot of time reading.

It was a great job.

I got to honestly say selling dog
food because customer service sucks.

Selling dog food.

I mean, basically people
bring their dogs into the store.

Give the dog a cookie.

The dogs really happy.

The owners that really
happy their dog is happy.

Their way more chill to deal with,
it was very rare to have a high,

strong, worked up dog food
owner dog food, a dog owner

come in and buy dog food
and like give you a hard time.

So that’s something just in my mind.

I was like, yeah, you know, of the
customer service jobs is probably best.

So it didn’t mean we had zero problems,
but I would say compared to like any

other industry customer service way,
way fewer because you could just pay off

the dog and the owner was happy.

And you’re, I mean, again, you’re getting a
ton of this stuff for free from the companies.

They want you to
promote their cookie.

So you’re getting out
that cookie that week.

So what you can get insured.

So you have a part time employee,
they mess around on the job.

You can have the insurance
that will cover the reputate.

Oh, it’s called reputation
expense insurance.

And it was started in April 2019.

So this has been going
on for like five years now.

It covers the cost of crisis
management consulting.

So they actually offer a secondary
service where they help you try to figure

out how to fix the issue.

So there was the story I remember the most.

I don’t know why and it was the kid.

It was in the summertime.

He opened up the thing that
has all the ice cream he got in.

And then I assume another his friend of
the other employee closed it and took a

picture of it as he was like
comfortably resting in the ice cream thing.

And then the one from
last week where the kid

picked his nose and
put it in the pizza dough.

How do you fix that?

It covers the cost of lawyers because you’re
going to have to like sue the family or

sue the kid or have lawyers to protect
yourself and have everyone’s got a lawyer up

the removal of online postings.

And I actually realize like
that’s going to be the hard part

because once these things
go viral, they go like spread out.

You need like a team
sending out DCMA things,

uh, just trying to like
quell it as hard as they can.

So that’s going to be a
whole team working on that.

And then help in the apology
press conference because of

course in Japan, even when
you were technically the victim.

So I like again, no big love for
companies that an engineer is Japan.

But companies can be the victim.

And in this case, it’s the
employees messing around.

They’re making the company
look bad, but the company

still has to apologize
because this is Japan.

So you have to stand up and say
like, sorry for the trouble we caused.

We’re going to train our employees better.

We’re going to make sure
this doesn’t happen again.

A reputation is hurt
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I’ve seen a billion apologies.

It’s essentially a script, but you have to
follow the script if you work for a big company.

They had 20,000 customers in 2023.

So that means 20,000 companies
have reputation insurance in 2023.

And with these things hitting the
news more, more often and much bigger.

Because like you got shows like the
engineer, Japan, who like, this is our

bread and butter, this is the stuff we
enjoy because this is the weird news.

This is going to become
a bigger and bigger thing.

I’m going to help propagate it.

So really, the insurance kickbacks should
come back to me so that I keep promoting this.

I think I’m very money focused today.

It’s a bit capitalistic.

I apologize.

The future technology has been a
very technology oriented episode today

with live streaming and
the insurance being basic.

Again, it’s part of viral videos.

Japan’s pushes itself towards the future.

It has certainly has an image.

I mean, there was a story that
I’m not doing this week about them.

Government agencies putting
away floppy disks forever.

They’re actually mandating that
you can’t use floppy disks anymore.

There are entire generations of people
who’ve never even seen a floppy disk.

So that is how weirdly
backwards Japan can be.

And yet also it tends to be at
the forefront of a lot of technology.

There was a city that wanted
to set up a drone delivery system.

That drone delivery system failed because
they had zero orders for the last year.

Now, their idea was I’m, I’m unable
to leave my house for some reason.

So I’ll call this office.

It’s kind of like a main train station.

They’ll have someone go
out going to the local shopping

area, load all those
shopping things onto a drone.

The drone will go to a designated area.

That was my first thought.

This is the problem.

They’re not bringing it to your house.

So if I can’t leave my house, the drone
system doesn’t help me because I still

have to leave my house to go to
the designated delivery area, which I’m

assuming is basically an open field, which
might be really far away from my house.

So the whole convenient aspect of a
drone delivering to you cannot happen

because of safety issues, the
drone is going to have to be massive.

Because let’s say it’s I buy a 40 kilogram
bag of dog food has going to have to be

able to carry that X
amount of kilometers away.

It’s not going to be able
to land outside my house.

Maybe the drones too big.

Maybe it would impede traffic.

Who knows what’s going to happen there?

So since it could only go from point
A to point B, it is then less viable

system for the actual
convenience and purpose of it.

So they had zero orders, which once
I learned about the system, I was like,

of course they did because I’m going
to go with the person who actually

brings it to my door, which is the
whole point of trying to get something

delivered is, is it too bad?

I don’t know if it’s too bad.

All the money that was going to the
drone delivery system is now going to go

to electric vehicle van delivery
systems, which I’m on board with.

I do, I know that there are
everything has its problems.

So like the nickel mining and
stuff in the lithium that goes

into batteries is not thing,
but again, it’s transitional.

It’s important to take steps
to try to improve things.

And I think electric vehicles is a
very good step in the right direction.

So let’s keep going with that.

So I’m glad the money is going
towards deliveries that’ll actually work.

And, yeah, of course, if I
have to leave my house to

go to the drone, I might
as well just go shopping.

It’s not a creepy, creepy story,
but it’s out of touch politicians.

I did have an idea.

So I was thinking about doing,
I did a series for a little while.

It wasn’t a series.

It was like every now and then I
would do international politics, but

like as high school students.

So it would be like Kim Jong-un,
Kim Jong-il, one of the Kim Jongs,

talking to president of a country
and they’re back and forth.

And I was, I was affecting sort of
what I would consider as essentially

Californian valley girl accents.

So it really snied towards each other.

But I was like, you know, it
would be really interesting.

It would be do international
politics as a kids show.

So like the actual countries
are represented by characters.

You get in trouble because if you did
Winnie the Pooh for Xi Jinping in China,

he didn’t like that very much.

But I was like, if you want
to, one of the problems as

international politics so
complicated, we need to simplify it.

The best way to simplify things is
to do it like you’re talking to kids.

It relevant to what I
was just talking about.

It was just a thought that happened to
enter my head at this moment in this time.

There were, there was a government
sort of conference and they were talking

about ways to tackle the
gender inequality in Japan.

And this is a big thing.

It’s actually a very big problem in Japan.

Gender inequality and pay
and everything is still very real.

They might say it’s
not real in other places.

I don’t know whether that’s true or
not because I don’t know statistics.

But in Japan, man and
woman does the same job.

There’s a very good chance the man
is getting paid more than the woman.

Miei is a prefecture in
Japan is not is eighth in the

country for city employees
getting paid if you’re a man.

It’s 24th for city employees getting
paid if you’re a woman, which implies

that the man is getting two, three times
more money for doing the exact same

job as a woman in Miei, which is
problematic because that’s exactly what

they’re talking about
saying we need to fix.

The mayor of one of the cities in Miei
had his own opinions about how to fix the

gender inequality problem and his idea
was to start a campaign and that campaign

would be live rich by marrying
a high earning man from Miei.

Now, you can, if you were, let’s
say one of the more female oriented

members of this conference, see some
of the core issues with that as tackling

gender inequality. One of the other
people there was like, it sounds like

you’re saying that women should rely
on men and he’s saying, well, what would

happen is with the population decline,
women from other prefectures would come to

Miei, they would marry a man in
Miei and have more babies and then the

population would go up and Miei would
be a better place and that’s a quality,

right? So I think I think the actual
core issue here more than anything else.

I don’t think this guy actually knows
what gender inequality is and I don’t

think he knew what the problems were.
So he just started saying stuff that was

going on in his head and he was trying
to make Miei sound good. So he tried to

make it sound good by like, hey, the
men in Miei make a lot of money, not

realizing what he’s saying is women
in Miei do not make a lot of money.

So if you want to be a happy woman, marry
for money, not love. So marry a man from

Miei, it’s just, it’s a tragedy in his
inability to understand what was actually

going on around him in the moment
at the time. And that is politics.

I mean, that’s it right there. A lot of
the, in seeming to be the last couple of

episodes, I’ve done a couple of Senate
hearings. And one thing I’ve noticed is

they constantly seem to not actually
talk about the issue that’s on the

docket, the thing they’re supposed
to be talking about in that day.

The last one I did was the president of
TikTok who as a person, I find him quite

interesting. I think I quite like him. I
don’t know him well enough to actually know.

He may be really evil. And that’s
part of the charm of evil people.

So you gotta be careful. But it was
about his social media dangerous for kids.

I think core element, you could probably
say yes. But they kept asking him if he

was communist and if he was Chinese, which
has nothing to do with protecting children.

I guess I could twist that. This is
where my brain starts to do the work.

You could twist that so you were
protecting children from communism.

And that is why I host my own podcast.

[Music]

A 2% podcast

(upbeat music)

It’s the first episode of
Ninja News Japan for 2024

and the beginning of 2024
has been rough, to say the

least, the first day, Japan
experience an earthquake.

There was a stabbing on the subway.

The next day, I’ll start again.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

This is the first episode of
Ninja News Japan for 2024.

Thank you for joining us.

I, all the other podcasts are saying like,

oh thank you for staying with us for
another, it might be your first episode.

So, if you haven’t stuck with
us the whole time, screw you.

No.

2024 has been a very rough
start for Japan as a country.

The very first day, January
1st, there was an earthquake,

there was a stabbing on the subway.

The next day, there was a huge fire,

there was a plane crash, a
plane crashed into another plane

as it was landing.

And then worst of all, I got sick.

So, there might be a very strange
energy today because, yes, I’m sick,

but I’m also like really
high on about 20 drugs.

That’s not particularly
serious, not life-threatening.

I mean, don’t care, you just
came here for entertainment.

And my health is, maybe my health
is your entertainment, I’m not sure.

It’s always a question of,

I have two podcasts, seeming
to be in Ninja News Japan,

seeming to be is where I do whatever
I want and I talk about anything.

Ninja News Japan is supposed to be
about the Japanese news, but I’m like,

these people gotta be interested
in me, are they? Maybe not.

So, maybe I just stick to the format
and we get to the actual news of the day.

I’ve already messed up my folders.

That’s the kind of
smooth transitionary

experience you can hope
for at Ninja News Japan,

while I’m sick, that I
won’t be able to find

the folder or the button
I’m supposed to push.

I have to say, no, no, I
don’t have to say anything.

I think if I didn’t do tangents,
this would be a 10 minute podcast.

I want to start all over again.

Let’s do that.

Let’s start all over again.

(upbeat music)

2024, it’s been a very dramatic
start for Japan as a country.

The very first day there was an earthquake.

There was a stabbing on a subway.

There was a big fire
in the shopping district.

These were all like one day
apart and then there was a plane

crash, airplane crashed into
another plane as it was landing.

I mean, worst of all, I’m sick.

I know, I know, that’s
the bit that probably

accepts you the most,
but what you might find

on this episode is a
very strange energy level,

because yes, I’m sick, but
I’m also on a lot of drugs.

I even make stand a couple extra ones

that I probably wasn’t
supposed to take in

combinations with the
ones I took in the first place.

But at this point, when you
get to a cocktail of like seven,

eight, nine, 10 pills, I
can’t see how throwing in

one or two more is really
gonna cause a big problem.

If I die at the end of this
podcast, you’ll know why though.

So like, this is not a murder.

This was me just going
like, I’m going to blast

my body with every drug
I have available to me.

So that I could put on the
show, the very first episode

in Engineers Japan for 2024,
you should feel good about that.

Right?

Like, I care that much to
get this episode out to you.

I’m willing to sacrifice my own health.

Is it like the third attempted start

at making a podcast today?

That’s again, the mindset,
the mental capacity, all gone.

It’s just, it’s just, I
got nothing upstairs.

So I’m going to read my notes.

I’m going to try to make commentary,

but I’m betting the commentary is
not the best part of the show today.

And that’s the kind
of smooth transitional

experience you can hope for and more
going into 2024 with Ninja Ninja Japan,

because couldn’t
find the right folder or

button to click to get
me here, but here we are.

And it’s a new year.

So you know, it’s talking
about New Year’s resolutions.

I don’t make any.

I try to improve a little bit every day.

And that sounds
facetious, but I actually do.

I subscribe to a couple of basic theories.

I do like the 2% theories,
what they call it, like,

if you have a choice of
doing nothing or something,

like 2% of something, you should do the
2%, because that’s better than nothing.

So if I’m like, oh, one of
the problems with New Year’s

resolutions is people
make these big ones like,

I’m going to go to the
gym every single day

and they go once or
twice and then they quit.

Whereas if your resolution
was, I’m going to do a push-up

until I’m comfortable enough to do two
push-ups, you probably could stick to it.

And that’s the 2% theory.

Like if you have a choice of doing
all nothing or one, you should do one.

It’s not as good as doing 100%, but
it is better than doing nothing at all.

And then you can improve
one to 2% every day.

Then overall, you will make progress.

So I actually believe more in that.

I don’t like the idea of, like, let’s
make a massive change all at once.

I like to wean myself
onto or off of things.

There is a company that makes apps on Davy.

They do a lot of lifestyle apps
and it’s like track your stuff.

Track your health, track your fitness,

track what you do in the
hopes of making small changes,

changes to your lifestyle
to improve your life.

But they have a unique insight
into what resolutions get quit,

what resolutions people
quit the most quickly.

And they were looking specifically
at people who quit after three days.

So we’re going to
go in reverse order.

We have five.

So this is the percentage
of people who quit after three

day, quit their resolution
after three days.

This is the percentage of people who
quit their resolution within three days.

There you go.

Again, the drugs are going to be
making this an entertaining podcast.

But for different reasons than
normal, people want to quit drinking.

It’s not healthy.

They’re going to do it 59.5%
quit within the first three days.

As in, they took a drink
within the first three days.

I think quitting drinking
over the holiday is a mistake.

I think you drink until
the end of the holiday.

And then you have your resolution
start at that point because you’re

going to have to do all
these social events and stuff.

So you might as well get
through those, finish that off.

And then, OK, now I’m
going to start drinking.

I made a resolution of sorts to only
drink alcohol during major holidays.

And it’s been very easy
to stick to because we

have some or vacation,
winter vacation in May.

There’s Golden Week in Japan.

So basically, I buy a bottle of something,
drink that over the course of the holiday.

And then when it’s gone, it’s gone.

And I don’t, I think that’s
actually a really nice way to do it.

Because I get to drink on
occasion when it’s convenient.

And then the rest of
the year when it’s actually

not that convenient to
drink anyways, I just don’t.

It’s nice.

A lot of people want to get healthier.

The next three in my mind
can all be lumped together.

People who say, I’m going to go running.

They probably go running
every day for the first two days.

And then their legs hurt and they
don’t go the third day and then they quit.

61.3% quit running
after three days.

I wouldn’t make it through the first run.

I’ve always hated running.

So my resolution would be to never run.

And that’s why I practice
due to my whole life.

So I never have to run.

I can stand my ground.

A dieting fasting.

I did intermittent fasting for a while.

And it was quite good.

It’s more of a mental thing.

But again, I didn’t just
jump into that either.

What I did was push my breakfast
back until it became lunchtime.

So let’s say breakfast at eight.

I would switch at eight 30
and then after a while at nine.

And then after a while at nine 30.

So my body got used to just eating later.

So I was able to do it that way.

And then I had lunch and then I did dinner.

So I had my two meals a day.

But because I had gotten used to
pushing it back, it wasn’t a big deal.

And that’s what I’m saying.

These people start dieting
or fasting immediately.

Again, during the holiday
when everyone’s like,

let’s have a snack, let’s
have some chocolate,

let’s have some this,
let’s have some that.

It didn’t work out 63%
quit within three days.

And then there’s the people who
say they’re going to go to the gym.

Just like running 65.9% give up on
going to the gym by the third day.

But the number one thing
that people have the most

trouble giving up, I guess,
smoking, which makes sense.

It’s addictive.

It’s a chemical.

It’s a lot harder to kick a chemical
than it is to start these other new habits.

71.3%.

Fail to give up smoking within
the first three days in the new year.

And again, I think quitting is the mistake.

You need to wean yourself, reduce how
many, so if you smoke a pack of cigarettes,

try to reduce that to 75% of a pack
for the first while, then 50, then 25.

And then maybe you get
down to a cigarette a day and

then try to do it a cigarette
every couple of days.

Weaning, I think, is
what people should be

doing, not quitting, quitting cold
turkey is something that doesn’t work.

The interesting flip
side to this is what is

the thing that people
sort of stick to the most.

So again, reverse
order, stretching 42.6%.

So people, 60% of people, if they start
stretching regularly, keep stretching.

I actually think that’s great.

Stretching is one of those
things where you can just do it.

You don’t need equipment.

You can do it at home.

You can do it at the morning.

You can do it at night.

Stretching is great.

You should stretch.

I should stretch more often.

Doing weights at home.

So not going to the gym,
doing weights at home 41.8%.

So again, about 60%
of people, if they start

doing weights at home,
they continue to do weights.

This is beyond
the three day mark.

So that doesn’t mean like
two weeks later, they don’t quit.

But forming a habit,
if you can get through

that first initial phase, you’re
more likely to keep going.

If you can, I think
it was 28 days.

If you can do something
consistently for 28

days, so if it’s once a
week for 28 weeks or

something like that,
then it becomes a habit

and you’re more likely to
just keep doing it forever.

Painting, it’s very nice, 39.5%,
and number one, yoga, 38.5%.

So most people who
start doing yoga continue

doing yoga, I assume
for longer than three days.

I would have bent
for a couple weeks.

Yoga and stretching,
though, they could basically.

I understand that yoga is a system,
but in my head, it’s just stretching.

So those should be clump together, I think.

High school marathons.

So now we’re talking about running again.

I did try to find that
sort of a tiny link

between the stories, but
after this, it gets pretty bad.

High school marathons.

Marathons in New Year’s
in Japan is a big deal.

This I think I’ve
said in previous years

when doing the new
Japan and heading towards

the end of the year,
or just starting out the

New Year, how much I
hate marathons on TV.

They have like a New
Year’s marathon and they turn

it on and they just leave
that on in the background.

I hate it so much.

I hate running first of all, but watching
running doesn’t make any sense.

I’m not really a big
fan of watching sports.

The only good thing
about the New Year really

is the compilations of the
best sports moments of the year.

I don’t watch American football
or soccer or basically any sports.

Even sports I like.

I like judo.

I don’t really want to watch judo.

I want to watch judo highlights.

I would love to watch
basketball highlights.

I would like to watch
cricket highlights a

sport I would never
watch, because the highlight

is the best thing that
happened that year.

So compilation videos
at the end of the year

of all the coolest stuff
that happened that

year, some of the best videos out
there running essentially marathon.

You don’t need to
watch two hours, you can

watch the last five
minutes and you’ve got the

most dramatic parts
where the people are getting

towards the finish
line and pushing unlike

other, yeah, whatever, running stupid.

So what happens though
is I go to my relatives house.

They put on the running,
then they ignore it

completely and start
talking to each other.

So it’s just noise in the background.

But because my
Japanese level isn’t sort of

super conversational,
once they get into topics

that are difficult for
me to talk about, I stop

talking, which means
I’m just sitting there

watching the TV, a TV
that’s been changed to

a channel where it’s just
the marathon, it’s a nightmare.

Now I basically just sit and listen to
podcasts on my phone, or read, which is good.

And they’ve, they’ve accepted
that I’m just in the room.

I’m essentially just a statue.

But high school marathons,
very, very serious in Japan.

They’re going to restrict
foreign students to

participation to just the
shortest legs of the race.

They do relay races
essentially, but relay

marathons and they’re
broken into different bits.

So there’s the three kilometer bit, the
five kilometer bit, this 10 kilometer bit.

Men had seven sections,
10 kilometers being

the longest and women had five sections
with six kilometers being the longest.

The foreign students
are only going to be

restricted to only the
three kilometer bits.

So no matter how, so
the reason is last year,

2023, they found that rankings change
significantly depending on the foreign runner.

So they’re saying that
the foreign runners are

just basically faster than
all the Japanese runners.

And if you put them
in the longest bit of

the race, you’re more
likely to win the race.

Because last year, a Kenyan student
reversed a one minute, 20 second gap.

So they went into that last,
let’s say, 10 kilometer section.

The winning team was a minute ahead.

And this Kenyan student
managed to run so

fast, they actually closed
that one minute gap.

Now that, so at first
I was like, oh, you’re

punishing foreign students for being, let’s
say, more physically capable and stuff.

But being able to close a one minute gap to
me sounds like you’re not a normal student.

It sounds like you’re a
runner first in a student

second, which would
be stacking your team.

So if they’re doing
that, I agree with this.

That is unfair.

So you might recruit
your incredibly fast

foreign runner, but they can
only run the three kilometer bit.

I’m okay if that’s
what you’re doing.

If these are foreign students who just come
to Japan in like running, then it’s unfair.

So it’s very difficult to
prove one way or the other.

So at first I was like, oh, this is racism.

Then I was like, oh,
I think they might be

stacking their team to win because
it’s such a serious thing in Japan.

So I’m not a 100% sure what’s
right and what’s wrong in this one.

I would actually need to
do a little bit of investigation.

So I come from Canada,
Canada wins the Olympic

hockey most years, or I’ve not,
they’re one of the most powerful teams.

And then I heard about
the, but you’re supposed

to be amateurs, which
we all know is not

true anymore, but the Canadian
amateur hockey team is quite good.

And then I heard about
the Russian amateur hockey

team, surprisingly all
came from the military

and then they didn’t actually
do any military training.

They only did hockey training.

So I was like, again, that’s unfair.

Those are essentially
professional hockey players.

Stacking your team is wrong,
but also being racist is wrong.

So it’s hard to see which might
be the actual truth in this situation.

Since we’re talking
about schools, the

students, we could talk
about some bad teachers.

There was a student in an English
conversation class at junior high school.

And, you know, this
is speaking a second

language, I would blame
Japanese education for

not being particularly
good in English language.

That’s why I came to Japan
and became an English teacher.

A lot of people do that.

I would say a lot of those
teachers are not very good.

And this is an example
of what I’m talking about.

I think if you take the job seriously, you
can do a very good job and actually help a

lot of people.

Or you could just be,
oh, this is an easy job.

I’ve actually found that
English teachers who look down

on English teaching are never
very good English teachers.

And it’s like this weird self.

This is not an industry.

This industry isn’t good
enough for me, which

almost explains why I’m
not good at this industry.

It might be the what
I’m trying to say.

It’s a very interesting
little phenomenon,

but if you’re going to
come to Japan just to

goof around, don’t be
an English teacher, please.

Because you make people like me who
I see, I try to be a good English teacher.

You make me look bad.

Because there’s a group of foreigners that
make all the other foreigners look bad.

But the last story
today, there’s Japanese

people who make other people
look bad anyways, whatever.

Let’s get into it.

The student was speaking
and struggling as students

do because they’re
trying to learn a new thing.

I understand this feeling because I had to
learn French and I was terrible at French.

I think my inability in
French study makes me

a better English teacher
because I understand

the frustration and difficulty students
who don’t get it are going through.

The teacher decided the most appropriate
thing to say would be that’s not English.

That’s garbage.

Also saying you speak
like an elementary

student and with your quiet
voice, you sound like a girl.

They’re saying that to
a junior high school boy.

Obviously that’s intended to be insulting.

The school tried to cover this up
by saying it was an American joke.

Now I as a Western person can
tell you that is not an American joke.

That is just them insulting a child and
honestly I feel like they should be fired.

They clearly should not be
teaching English if they think it’s

appropriate to just like slam kids
for not being good at something.

The term American joke is used as this is a
joke that you as a Japanese person may not

understand because of the
cultural context of what a joke is.

And I have been watching
a lot of foreign movies

for Seamick Bee IMDB,
just YouTube channel

that I made where I
watch so far primarily

Kung Fu movies and
every now and then I would

hit humor that I don’t
understand or I don’t find it funny.

I think primarily because
now these movies are

like 40, 50 years old and so humor has come
a long way but also there is a cultural

element where maybe I
don’t get why it’s funny.

So when they use the term American
joke that’s what they’re trying to say.

They’re like oh yeah
you don’t think this

joke is funny, it seems
like an insult but he

was making a joke you just don’t understand
that in their culture this is acceptable.

And I can tell you as an
unbiased outsider no it isn’t.

Three tax office employees all in their 20s
all ladies were suspended for work because

they were working at clubs
and doing compensated dating.

Now I read a second
story, this is another reason

to read multiple stories
on the same topic.

The second one said
they were working at soap

clubs which is very
different from just working

at a night club, soap
clubs are where the

women will wash you,
go on your favorite hub

and watch, type that in is your thing,
you’ll find some videos pretty quick.

I don’t know if
they’re that, I’ve never

been to one but it’s something
like that, how about that.

Two of them said the reason they were doing
so they were working at the tax office and

working at the tax
office means you’re not

allowed to, if you
work for a government

agency you’re not allowed
to have a second job.

So working at a soap club
is going to break that rule.

Compensated dating is
difficult because is that a job?

So I’m going on dates with men in the men
are giving me money, is that a job, does

that count, we’re going
to go ahead and say

yes in this case, the
tax office does not want

that to have an
association, they don’t want

to be associated with
compensated dating.

But two of them said they
did this to pay for host clubs.

I find it hard to believe
that soap clubs are real.

I find it hard, my feeling about soap clubs
is that soap clubs are going to be dirty.

This is crissor that can
soap be dirty argument

but that room I’m sure
is not properly sanitized

after the activities
that go on in that room.

So I would refuse to touch
any of the surfaces in that room.

I’m not going to be a good client for this
because I’d be like have you sprayed this

down with bleach
because that’s what I want

before we move on and
even then yeah, whatever.

I just couldn’t do it.

It’s another reason I
could never participate

in any sort of sex work
because I would be too

worried about diseases
and cleanliness and stuff.

Like I just couldn’t do it.

Last week I did talk
about how male prostitution

is not illegal in Japan
and I made a couple

jokes to many, many
people about I should

start my stable of jigelos and create
my new business of male prostitution.

I assume that would mean I would
have to participate at some point.

I wouldn’t be able to do it.

I just wouldn’t.

I’d be like no this is dirty.

I’m going to catch a disease and die.

Anyways, these three
ladies were relieved for

one to three months
suspension so a different

one for depending on the
seriousness of their crimes.

But all three voluntary,
but all three voluntarily

quit, which leads me to
my last question though.

Look at this to pay for host clubs, which
we’ve talked about a bunch because there’s

been crackdown on host clubs and
sugar, baby, eating child from last year.

She was the big story of the
blue at open that she made

millions of dollars and
spent it all on host clubs.

Our host clubs that good.

I need a listener who
has been to a host club

to share with me what
is so good about host

clubs because I know I’m from a
different culture a different time.

I’m an old man.

I look at the boys in the host
clubs and they got all the dyed hair.

But they all look like cheese
balls like none of those guys.

I don’t see what the appeal is
and I understand there is a segment.

I think a lot of young
people now they go

for a more feminine type man,
but these guys don’t even have that.

I understand the attraction.

It’s not maybe my type,
but I do the understand

the attraction of a
feminine yet strong

man because they’re
holding sort of a yin yang

of traits in a nice
balance is very attractive.

I get it.

It’s sort of the elf
thing like these tall

slender yet still very
fit men very attractive.

Not my type.

I want a burly burly man to out burl me.

So it has to be their
social skills, but I

can’t imagine that these
guys are really putting

on such a good show
that it’s that appealing.

I need someone who
has gone to a host club to

come back and give
me just sort of the dirt.

What is it they do?

Do they actually convince
you that they love you?

Do they actually give you
that feeling in such a real way

that you would end up going
to sex work to pay to get more?

Because that to me is sort of a drug look.

Drugs make more sense
to me than host clubs

because the drug has a
chemical addiction element.

I need more of the drugs.

I’m saying that right now
is someone who’s literally

while I’m trying to talk
about a topic thinking.

If I go downstairs right
now, I could take some

more drugs and that
would actually be really nice.

So I get, I get drugs.

I’m not saying you should do drugs.

I don’t think drugs are okay, but I
understand people who get addicted to drugs.

I can’t.

I still struggle to be
to understand how you

can get so addicted to host
clubs because what is it?

I understand it’s manipulative.

They’re trying to make you think
that you love them and they love you.

It’s reciprocal and it’s
not but consciously,

I don’t see this, I just go on a circle
now because I don’t understand this.

I need to someone
who’s going to a host club

to tell me about their experience,
to tell me if it was how positive it was.

What did they do that could be addictive to
the point where you actually want to go and

get a second job to support
your addiction to host clubs?

53 year old company executive.

I think we should get,
forget, the number of

obstruction of businesses has dropped
since I started actually keeping track.

And I think now I should
keep track of 50 year

old men doing shitty
things because as soon

as I saw 53 year old
company executive, I was

like, this guy did
something beyond the pale.

He just did something wrong.

He just went too far.

He’s grown up.

He’s a company executive.

He thinks everything he does is okay.

This is without reading this story.

He’s crossed a bunch of lines, the story.

He punched a woman
who worked for him in the

face because she didn’t get
the hairstyle that he wanted.

So I’m assuming I don’t
know about this part

that she was talking
about cutting her hair

or he told her to cut her hair, but at some
point your hairstyle currently came up.

She was like, I’m
going to get a haircut

and he says, I want you
to get this style of haircut.

She went out, got a haircut
that was not the style he said

when she came back into the
office, he decks her in the face.

Then he says, get scissors and cut it now.

And he makes her cut her
hair in the office with scissors.

So of course it looks terrible
because she’s not professional.

She can’t do it back.

I cut my own hair.

There’s a reason I wear a hat.

When the woman gets home, of course, her
family’s like, what happened to your head?

She explains, my boss
made me cut my hair, then cut

probably comes out and
he punched me in the face.

Family calls the police.

Turns out this guy regularly commits
acts of violence towards women.

So I’m hoping, they didn’t say the company.

I really wanted them to
say the company name,

so I could put the
company name out there.

But hopefully this
ends his career, his

company in total, so
that we never have to

hear about that guy
yet because that’s yep.

Okay, last story, 2024,
the introduction of

the new gross people
for 2024 are YouTubers.

We’ve actually talked about
this guy before and they call

him Rengoku, he is what I
would now call a YouTube troll.

So we had Johnny Somali
who, oh, January 10th

is when he actually
gets his trial is done.

That’s tomorrow.

We’re actually on the lookout
for what happens tomorrow.

The next week, hopefully
we can talk about what

punishment Johnny
Somali got for trespassing

and all the stuff he did.

Then there was a bunch of
other streamers, live streamers.

They were breaking
rules, breaking laws and

stuff, getting in trouble,
leaving the country.

This guy’s Japanese, so
it’s not, it’s a different set

of rules for him because
they can’t just deport him.

It’s actually harder to arrest him
and stuff for the stuff he’s doing.

We had the earthquake on January 1st
and he’s like, here’s an opportunity for me

to be a bit of a dick, so
he doesn’t buy it himself.

Now, this is a very big
YouTubers, he has lots of money.

He doesn’t do it himself.

He goes and he crowd
funds the purchase of 300,

300 Tenga eggs, a Tenga egg since
you probably don’t know what it is.

I’m going to assume.

It’s a silicone, essentially ball, it’s a
little egg thing and you put it over the

male member and you pleasure
yourself with that and it feels good.

It’s the short version.

I’m not going to get to into it.

He takes these 300 eggs
and he goes to Ishikawa,

Ishikawa, he goes to Ishikawa and he says,
I want to distribute these Tenga eggs to

people so they can
relieve their stress because

they’ve lost their houses because
they’re living in like shelters and stuff.

And he’s just an asshole.

Of course, people are like, there’s
sort of lines that you don’t cross.

You don’t go to an earthquake
hit area and don’t help.

That’s actually kind of the thing
I think is actually the problem.

If you’d done a real
thing, people might have

been more forgiving but people on the
internet are like freaking out over this guy.

The government has
actually said, don’t come

and help for clout
because there was a couple

of like ministers who
went to the affected

area and started handing
out food and started

doing stuff and they’re like,
don’t do that because you’re

doing that to increase your
reputation not to actually help out.

So it’s not against the law but
it’s clearly very frowned upon.

There are a couple of
famous comedians though

and they’re famous for
having gone to earthquake

struck areas or disaster
areas and distribute

food and buy food and just try to help out
people because they didn’t bring a camera

crew and they tried to tell people
like, oh, are you that famous comedian?

They’re like, no, no, it’s not me.

I do look like him but it’s not me.

And they were just
trying to help out because

they are successful and
have money and can do that.

This guy on the other
hand, he’s like, oh, I’m

not going to buy anything
that could actually help anyone.

I’m just going to
buy a joke thing that

people know is dirty
and sexual and I’m going

to use that to try to
get some internet fame

and actually, you
know, it’d be interesting.

They could put in like, because you know,
they have like emergency, essentially laws.

If you come into an emergency struck area
and do this kind of stuff, they could make

that illegal in that situation and I
could actually see Japan going that way.

So we have a couple of
things to look forward to.

Does this guy get in trouble?

Probably not because
he hasn’t actually crossed

the line so far they
actually hurt anybody.

It showed him renting
a truck and going to

the area and with a
big box of eggs, but then

my actual question, what are you going to
do with 300 eggs and I’m like, oh, I bet I

know what that guy’s
going to do with 300 eggs

because, yep, but
probably more interesting

than that is Johnny Somali
who actually is on trial.

His, his verdict will come down tomorrow.

So hopefully I’ll have something
more about that next week.

And I hope you have a very, very good 2024.

I hope 2024 starts out
and continues in as much

better for you than it has been for me
because I’m going to go get some more trucks.

[MUSIC]

Hacksaw news

We’ll check it out y’all.

We got what you need.

We’re all living in
apartments, condos, vans.

Well, dude, even you can have a studio.

The studio in a box.

Yes, we can help you with that
right here at Blind Knowledge.

We work on your budget and
we figure out your measurements.

We’ll get you the best
sound for the best price.

Let me know.

877-237-1143 or at Blind Knowledge.com.

Yup.

We have so much cop news.

I sometimes try to get stories
and I put them into a theme.

I try to put thematically
related stories together.

This in cop stories come up every week.

Cops are always either arresting
people or getting into trouble.

Either way, it’s exciting
and interesting, but

this week was just
overwhelmingly cop news.

I was like, do I do cop
news first or seconds?

I’m going to go with cop news
and then random news at the end.

I don’t know why I enjoyed this so much.

A cop from Shizuoka.

Shizuoka is up here in Japan.

For those of you
listening to the actual audio

podcast, I just put my hand up
in the air and waved it around.

You actually didn’t miss
anything by not having the visual.

Shizuoka cop was arrested for
kicking a Tokyo cop in the face.

I’m always interested
when cops get arrested

because they have to
get arrested by other cops.

That’s a big thing.

I always have this expectation that
cops know how to not get arrested.

Literally one of the
reasons I would join law

enforcement is to
improve my criminal skills.

If I was going to be a criminal, the first
thing I would do is become a cop and learn

the ins and outs of copness
and then start committing crimes

using my intelligence to use
the system against the system.

This is a smart way to do crime.

The engineer’s Japan has
once again quickly descended

into advice for criminals and
how to be a better criminal.

You can see what I would
like is to be the best criminal.

I saw a thing.

It was in America.

I don’t know if this is true everywhere.

They have standards for police officers.

One of the standards was there was
actually an upper level of intelligence.

You take an IQ test and if you
score too high, you can’t be a cop.

That was a new story somewhere.

The reasoning behind
that was interesting

because what they’re
saying is if you’re too

smart and you become
a cop, what will happen

is you’ll get bored or
you’ll do what I think

about and be like,
“Oh, I could manipulate

the system and commit crimes
effectively and not get caught.”

Very much Lee, very much Lee,
Trump has infected the way I speak.

Very much Lee abused
the system and out with

the cops who are chasing
you because A, you know them.

B, you understand how they work.

You understand the rules they work within.

Lee, most importantly,
you are smarter than

them because you scored
higher on the IQ test.

I don’t know how true or real that is.

It was an interesting, it was
a new story from ages ago.

It may have just been
in this one town, but

it informs my belief
of the intelligence level

of police officers
overall, which is not true

because actually a bunch of
cops I know are really smart.

Nice.

So, I guess my real
world experience and the

Internet information
I’ve received don’t line up.

I should correct my real world view.

That being said, hmm.

So anyways, Ashizuoka-Kob
is in Tokyo drinking.

He calls Ashizuoka-Kob’s backup.

Something’s gone wrong.

He calls for backup.

Cops from Tokyo, Tokyo Metro
show up and they start to help him.

They respond to this call from
one of their brethren for help.

There are no details
given about what transpired,

but then the Tokyo
cops end up fighting

with Ashizuoka-Kob, who
ends up kicking them in the face.

Now, kicking them in the face is broad.

This was to me, one
of the more specific

things I wanted to,
what kind of kick was it?

Was he down?

Was he standing up?

Did he do like a flying spin kick?

Was it backwards, bicycle kick?

Was it like some cool
type one, those stuff?

I don’t know because they didn’t tell us.

When they say no details, we need details.

We need details of the kick.

The action scene needs
to be built in my head.

This Shizuoka police officer was
arrested for obstructing official duties.

Now, you might say that,
“Hey, obstruction of business

and obstructing official
duties are not the same thing.”

Actually, it falls under the same law.

I’m counting obstruction
of official duties

as an addition to our
counter for obstruction

of business because it is
the same law, same rule.

Official duties and
your business, your

business being your
official duties is in fires.

I’m concerned is the same thing.

The counter did go up just one just then.

A cop, opposite guy, two cops are on
bicycles and they stop a guy at one a.

They’re like, “We’re
going to question them.”

He flees on his bicycle.

He’s a bicycle chase.

You don’t get bicycle chases anymore.

Bicycle chase only
lasts for 200 meters,

which I remember doing
the 100 meter dash as a

kid and it was basically the driveway
up to my school was 100 meters.

I know 200 meters is not that far.

They probably went like what?

Two, three blocks maybe.

This criminal wasn’t
dedicated to the chase.

The cops were relentless.

They’re bearing down
on him and their bicycles.

After 200 meters, you know what?

I’m going to stand and fight.

I’m going to be the man.

I know I can fight off two cops at once.

It can be awesome.

He pulls out a wooden
sword and starts

swinging it at the police
officers while at the

same time trying to
grab their gun out of

their holster so that I
assume he can either

hold them or use their
gun against themselves.

The other cop, the
problem here is taking

on two people at the same time and
they have guns and you have a stick.

The wooden sword,
wooden sword sounds more

impressive than big stick,
but what it is is just a big stick.

They have practice training swords.

They’re just pieces of wood.

They’re used for basically practice
flicking things or hitting things.

They don’t have a sharp edge or anything.

If it’s the one I’m thinking
of, it’s a solid piece of wood.

There’s a kendo stick
that is four pieces of

bamboo put together and
it makes it really loud sound.

That’s the ones they
practice with and they’re

really cool, but they
don’t technically hurt.

They don’t hit with anything.

Like you could get a meter
stick and two or four together.

You’d basically have
one of these kendo things.

They don’t, okay, yeah,
they’re staying if they hit

your skin, but they’re not
going to like damage you.

They’re not going to hurt you.

The solid piece of cedar,
let’s say, is going to hurt.

It’s not a baseball bat size, but
it’s a baseball bat kind of action.

It’s going to hurt.

So I think that’s probably where
they have when they say wooden sword.

He cop shoots three warning shots at
the man’s feet and hits him in the leg.

So we don’t actually know
if he meant to shoot him.

I bet he sort of did.

They gave a warning, a verbal warming.

They gave a verbal warming.

They said, hey, buddy,
let’s just hug it out.

Now they gave a verbal
warning, put the big stick down.

And the guy’s like,
no, I’m going to hit you

with my stick and I’m
going to steal your gun.

I’m going to shoot at your legs now.

Pew, pew, pew.

One of those hits him in the leg.

I’m assuming he shot him on purpose.

The two warning shots
and then the third one

was like at his body or the cops
like he knows I’m such a bad shot.

There’s a kill three at the ground.

One might hit him.

He was arrested for
obstruction of official duties.

That tracks.

This was interesting though.

Last week on Seamig B.

I was actually sort of mentioning media
awareness and how one of the things I do for

the engineers,
Japan, is find multiple

versions of the same story to try to
make sure that I have my facts straight.

I am not an investigative journalist.

I’m essentially a commentator.

I get news.

I read the story and I give you
sort of a summary of the news or

the interesting bits and then I
give you some color commentary.

That’s the bit you enjoy.

That’s why you come back here.

That’s why we’re friends.

I know that.

I get that.

We’re good.

But I do want to make sure that I’m
as honest and accurate as I can be.

I found a different
story on a different

news story on the same story and
some of the details were significant.

The first one said big
wooden stick, wooden

sword, he took it out
and tried to fight the cops.

The second one said
knife and saw which gives

a very different
atmosphere to the conflict.

So if a guy comes at me
with a big wooden sword,

I am threatened but I actually don’t
think my life is in danger in any real way.

I think I can probably
take him if I’m a tough boy.

I like to think myself as a tough boy.

A guy pulls out a knife and a hacksaw.

I’m thinking this dude’s
unhinged my life is in danger.

So shooting him three times in the leg,
shooting him two warning shots and shooting

him once in the leg makes a lot
more sense in the second version.

I am looking for a
third or fourth version

of this story to confirm
what was pulled from

the Rucksack that the
guy attacked the police with.

Because to me that changes the story.

The first one, almost
whimsical in the idea that you

could take a big wooden
stick and fight two cops.

The second one, knife and hacksaw,
you are now shifted to psycho mode.

And that psycho mode
is such that I’m not

messing with you, I’m
going to put three in your

leg if I can, put you
down on the ground and

then arrest you for
obstruction of business.

On the other side of
the police spectrum, an

unemployed man, a
taxi to the police station.

And he arrived at the police station.

He says to the taxi driver,
“Hey, what does it cost?”

The taxi driver says it costs $1,410.

So let’s say $15.

Yes, sorry, I have no money.

Let’s go in and get me arrested.

Clearly, that was the
plan from the whole time.

So he had brought extra
clothes for his stay in prison.

So really the question
is, why would he do this?

Why would you get in a taxi
knowing you can’t pay the fare?

Get the taxi to take
you to the police station

where you will be arrested
or refusing to pay the fare.

Knowing that you brought extra clothes, the
suspicion no one actually has said anything

yet is that he was
actually wanted to get

arrested so that he
could get food and shelter

for a while, which is a
really sad state of affairs.

Like that, it’s funny at first
because of how organized it is.

But when you think
the reality of the

situation, this guy was
dealing, I actually feel

a lot of sympathy for
him, I feel really sad.

And now I feel like maybe I
shouldn’t have done that story if

I wanted to keep sort of the
humor aspect of the podcast going.

The humor falls apart
when you get into real

life and you’re like, “No, poor guy just
wanted to play sustained some food.”.

This I can see being
an issue with the aging

population in Japan where the people who
haven’t prepared for retirement properly.

I’ve heard of this story before.

So it’s interesting to see how
often it will actually happen.

The guy was arrested.

They don’t actually
say if they put him in jail.

Here would be the
saddest thing for me is if

he goes up to the cops, he’s
like, “I just took a taxi here.

I didn’t bring any money.

I refused to pay my fare.

I want to get arrested.”

And the cops are like, “I’ll pay the
fare for you and just let them go.”.

Then weirdly, that is actually
one of the sadder outcomes

of that story is he’s just
left out on the street again.

A 40-year-old woman was skating.

So they actually called
her a 40-year-old skater girl.

Or maybe I wrote that down.

I wrote 40-year-old skater girl.

I think you hit your 40s.

It’s not really tend
to be referred to as a

girl anymore, but at the
same time, you know?

She’s clearly got a
youthful jwazaveef going on.

She was called noisy and
she seemed to be drunk.

Some guy called her
noisy and she grabbed a

construction cone,
bumped the guy in the head.

When we get to non-life
threatening forms of

violence, I find them
incredibly entertaining.

I just, okay, so they
don’t give any details.

They say, “guy was in the
park, ladies in the park skating.

She’s probably drunk.

She’s making a lot of noise.

The guy calls her noisy.

She grabs a construction cone.

I assume skates up behind him, just
cracks him in the back of the head.

With the plastic nature of the
construction cone, I can’t get me a cone.”

Yeah, more like that.

It would make this pop sound
that I would find really funny.

I used to skate when I was like 15, 16, 17.

I mean, like that.

I was so serious about skating.

I thought I was going to
be a professional skater.

I was very good.

I didn’t have a breadth
of skills, but the few

things I could do, I
could do really, really well.

I actually thought I was going to move
to California and skate for Dogtown.

My hero is not as helpless.

I should actually look up
and see how he’s doing.

He had the highest vertical all-e
in all of skateboarding at that time.

The record may have
been broken, but that was

something I could do,
so I kind of idolized.

This is the guy I want to be.

Had four of his
skateboards or five of his

skateboards over the course
of my skateboard career.

So this lady bonks a guy with a
traffic cone, people call the cops.

They actually said she was throwing
bottles and cut someone’s leg.

This could be a more
serious version of assault.

I think the bonking might not be that bad.

I think you get a good talking to.

You know, you hit someone with something.

I bet the police would arrest you for that.

But I can’t see you getting any jail time.

Cutting someone with a broken glass.

Not on the other hand.

That’s sort of a step up and
you’re getting more serious.

Just the in your 40s,
getting drunk in the

parking skating, and
then getting violent with.

people, that’s not a good way to be
taken on the next phase of your life.

I had one more cop story.

Maybe I can swap it.

This was terrifying to me, this cop story.

Not a police officer was
forced to confess and

then to false charges
and he went to court.

He sued the police
station and he won $21,000.

They have to pay damages of $3 million.

He was actually looking for $8.2 million.

The interrogations he
underwent were considered illegal.

So what happened?

The quote from the
mighty chief is, “Police

persistently press the
officer to make a confession

as if to make up for weak evidence.”

So basically they’re
saying, “We didn’t have

enough evidence to
prosecute him properly

so we wanted him to
confess so they just brought

him in for confession
again and again and again.”

He was repeatedly
interrogated almost daily between

February 28th and March
8th for up 7 to 10 hours a day.

This is, he hasn’t been arrested.

He’s been brought into a
room and they’re like, “We need

you to confess to this
crime that you’ve committed.”

He’s like, “I didn’t commit this crime.

We’re going to go for 7 to 10 more
hours every day until you confess.”.

And in February, it’s like a week they
were doing this 7 to 10 hours a day.

That’s insane.

A detective with a
pre-factual police is first

investigation division
coerced him into making

confession telling him, “There’s no one but
you who could have done it and we’ll arrest

you as many times as possible
by delving into various charges.”

We’ve talked about this before.

Police in Japan, they can arrest
you and hold you for basically 20 days.

So the cop knows this and each
charge means another 20 days.

So let’s say this is actually about
bullets went missing in the police station.

So let’s say it’s five bullets.

That would mean they
could hold him for 20 days,

20 days, 20 days, 20
days, 20 days, 100 days.

It’s basically that we’re
going to arrest you.

We’re going to hold you for 20 days.

Well, that charge didn’t hold.

Okay, walk out.

We’re going to charge you
again for the second bullet.

We’ll hold you for 20 days
and they can do that endlessly.

So the cop knows this
and he knows they will

do it, especially with
you have this detective

standing there telling you
this is what we’re going to do.

So we’re going to force you to confess.

So he ended up confessing.

The court criticized
police saying they

drove the man into a
corner by denouncing

his personality and
using insulting language.

So they’re basically really rough with him.

The ruling stated that
such harsh interrogations

go beyond socially
acceptable bounds at our legal.

It also recognized the link between
interrogations and the officers depression.

So the officer suffered depression.

He had to quit.

He’d been accused of this
crime that he said he didn’t do.

I mean, it’s just a nightmare.

This is where Japan goes
from being your fun anime

wonderland to literally
dystopian nightmare in one step.

Because one day you’re
out having a good time

with your anime and
you’re drinking in public

and you’re maybe bonking
people with traffic cones.

Then next thing you are, you’re
in an interrogation cell for 20 days.

You got eight charges because
they rack up obstruction of business.

You touch an officer.

It’s assaulting an officer and
that’s also obstruction of business.

That’s three charges
like knowing the tiny, tiny

bit of live learned from
doing the the entire thing.

I know how to stack charges in order to
hold you for the maximum amount of time.

Make your life miserable.

You’re going to lose your job.

You’re probably going to lose a
huge chunk of your personal life.

And there’s nothing you can do about it.

It’s perfectly legal.

This case shows that
if you can bring it to

light, the courts recognize that this is
too much, but they haven’t done anything to

actually address the issue of
trying to get cops to stop doing it.

Okay.

We’re off cop news now.

Climate change.

People have argued that
climate change is not real.

Again, C-McB last week.

One of the clips I played was one
of the, it was the presidential debate.

I don’t know if it was CPAC
or something, I don’t remember.

The one dude said the
climate change agenda is a hoax.

Let’s give you some real world data now.

Nokia had 30 degrees Celsius
or more every day in August.

That’s a first.

They started keeping
track of heat temperatures

in 1875 at no point
between then and this

last month that they ever had a full
month of 30 degrees Celsius weather.

That’s not even, that’s the minimum.

Every day was at least 30 degrees
Celsius most days were more.

Last year they had 21
what they call hot days.

This year we had 22
extremely hot days, extremely

hot days are 35
degrees Celsius or more.

I know some of my American listeners
are not going to know what Celsius.

So let’s do.

I’ll see you.

Fahrenheit converter.

The 30 degrees Celsius
is 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

35 degrees Celsius is
95 degrees Fahrenheit.

That is really hot.

Taking to account that Japan is
particularly humid in the summer.

It’s actually the humidity that
actually causes a lot of heat stroke.

You sweat.

I walk a 15 minute walk from
my house to the train station.

In that amount of time I start to
sweat and like literally dripping sweat.

That’s no exaggeration or joke.

I know I’m prone to exaggeration.

Dripping sweat off my body.

That’s not like I’m not exerting myself.

I’m not trying to get there quickly.

I’m just walking.

From July 6th to August
31st they had 57 consecutive

hot days which is
terrifying and ridiculous.

I’m sorry.

You can argue climate change.

Oh well this is the natural
change or something.

No man this is sped up way too
much for it to just be like a trend.

There have been two stories about
driving structures in the last week.

One story is actually quite interesting.

There’s a driving school
and what they want to do

is make you understand
what it is to drive drunk.

They actually offer this course
where you do a course so it’s

like a slalom and maybe an
S-turn or something like that.

It’s a little course you have to drive.

You drive it sober and then
you go off and have cocktails.

I think you have a beer or
some shochu or something.

Then you get legit drunk.

They ask you how you
think you’re going to do.

You go back and do the course and
they can tell you what you did wrong.

You went too fast.

This is how you’re driving a change.

You can experience it
which is really interesting.

Then this story comes
up a driving instructor

arrested for groping a
woman during a lesson.

Police in Sapporo,
that’s the North part of

Japan, arrested a 65
year old driving instructor

on suspicion of allegedly
sexually molesting a

woman in her 20s while she
was taking a driving lesson.

Around 2.30 pm on August
14th during the lesson

at the driving school’s
course, the instructor

asked a woman to stop and
then groped her upper body.

The woman filed a complaint
with the police the next day.

The driving instructor said he’s quoted as
saying he didn’t indecently touch the woman

but gave her a shoulder massage
because she looked stressed.

This is an interesting
thing for me because I’m

sure she looked stressed
because she’s doing

a driving test and maybe she’s
struggling with the concept of driving.

You decide to start massaging her.

If it was not requested,
if it was not welcome,

maybe the nicest way to
say it, that is sexual assault.

So this guy has the
problem that I think

all old men have where they don’t
understand that you need consent.

Consent isn’t a thing when
he was a kid, I think, in Japan.

Consent is someone actually
wants you to do something to them.

So if someone looks
stressed and you just walk up

and start massaging
them, that is sexual assault.

This guy is using that
his admission of sexual

assault as his excuse,
which I find very entertaining

because he doesn’t seem
to, I bet he doesn’t realize.

He’s actually just told on himself.

He’s just ratted himself out.

Anyways, we got to be
careful about driving schools.

All right, last one for today.

The Sanjo taxi corporation
during the pandemic was struggling.

So what they do, what does
any Japanese company do?

This is again, this shows for the wild
variations we go through in Japanese society.

You have the previous
story was about consent

and the change that
you have to understand

that you have to give
consent to do something.

But then also in the same
breath, we’re going to have what

a company does to try to
like revitalize its corporation.

But at the same time, that of course
the end of the story is going to go wrong.

What does any Japanese
company do when they’re struggling?

They create an idle
division called the

Sakura team of all
female taxi drivers in all

their 20s and so they have them
post on social media and stuff.

They have them sort of
create this atmosphere

that if you take our taxi, you might
get one of these Sakura drivers.

It’ll be in the presence of a
woman who’s young and beautiful.

So again, you can see
the message there is

different from what you would actually think
from the previous story of what’s okay.

But I think this is a natural
instinct for a Japanese company.

So we’re having trouble.

So let’s get a young
attractive woman up there.

That’ll help.

One member gained
100,000 followers and then

August became the Sanjo City
hometown tourism ambassador.

So the city that they live in is like
this woman taxi driver is so successful.

If you have so many followers, let’s
bring her on as the town ambassador.

Everything’s good.

The taxi is getting good press.

The ladies getting good press.

The city is getting good press.

The CEO makes a tweet.

I guess they’re now called an X.

So you know, as soon as you say
that phrase, this is where it went wrong.

And he said how cute they are.

The problem is the picture he posted
was the ambassador biting a cucumber.

So a bit of sexual imagery there.

So again, this is
actually what they’re

selling by creating
the all female taxi fleet.

of young attractive women
who are on social media.

They are selling sex and
we know that sex sells.

The CEO is just saying
isn’t she attractive,

isn’t she cute with all
the things she does?

Now it’s on the Internet though.

So he if they just left it
alone, not done anything.

The CEO hadn’t made any
comments, hadn’t posted that picture.

Maybe if the lady
had posted the picture

herself, there wouldn’t
have been an issue, but

the CEO posted this picture
and said how cute she was.

He got blamed for sexual
imagery to lure male passengers.

The tweet was deleted,
then the account was

deleted, then it was
brought back with an apology,

then it was deleted
again, then the CEO had to

quit his job, and the
ambassador had to quit her job.

I don’t know how I
feel about all of that

because things are going well
for the lady, but she was selling.

Yeah, I don’t know.

I think I need other
people’s opinions so I

can kind of help gather
my opinion together.

Because the CD took
on this woman as the

essentially cultural
ambassador, and everyone was

okay with it, but it’s not like
she changed what she was selling.

She probably was eating a cucumber,
like a locally grown cucumber or something.

Assuming she didn’t do anything, I’m
going to try to hunt down the picture.

So when I actually
post this on the Internet,

they’ll have a picture up in the corner
of the lady biting a cucumber or not.

Or maybe I’ll just draw one.

Maybe this is where I should go.

Because Ninja News Japan is
not held to any actual standards.

For the video, I could
start drawing my version

of what I think the new
story image would look like.

I don’t have very good
drawing skills, which

is what would make that
actually good as in so bad it’s good.

But at the same time, I don’t know
if I have much time to draw pictures.

I guess I drew them throughout the week
and then just threw them up on the day.

That might work out.

Anyways.

If you go to San Jo City and you take
one of the Sakura taxis, you’re sexist.

(calm music).

Propensity to consume

(upbeat music)

Kaiten Sushi.

It’s really big in Japan.

It’s big deal.

People love it.

You sit your table.

There’s a little conveyor
belt that goes by.

Sushi’s on it.

You like the Sushi.

Take it off.

Eat it.

Feel good.

Everyone’s happy.

Couple viral videos though.

May have ruined that for everyone.

So in the viral video,

it was a young man, of course.

And he would lick his finger.

And then he would
touch some of the Sushi

that went by, which
meant someone else

who takes it off and eats it, is
of course, ingesting his saliva.

But it didn’t stop there.

There were the bottles of soy sauce.

and a young man licked the end of that.

So anyone who went to that table afterwards

would be using soy sauce
that had been contaminated

with the saliva of the previous young man.

And then there’s the little.

cup.

It’s covered.

And you take off the cover
and there’s a little spoon

and it’s the green tea and you put that in.

You put in some hot water.

You have some nice green tea.

The boy took the spoon from that
and then licked it and then put it back in.

So it’s just young men being gross.

Three incidences of young men
being really gross at Kai-ten Sushi.

They videoed themselves.

They videoed themselves
and then put that online.

This is massive outcry in Japan.

And the problem is people think it’s gross.

Now in Japan, when
people think stuff is gross,

they’ll stop coming to your restaurant.

The company, the main company is Sushi-toe.

And what they wanna do is,
it’s not what they wanna do.

The main company is Sushi-toe.

They have contacted the police.

They want to proceed with
criminal and civil charges.

‘Cause this is obstruction of business.

So put a little ding up there for
another obstruction of business.

It’s sort of endangering other people.

‘Cause if you have
coronavirus or anything else,

’cause it’s obviously people’s mind.

If I lick my finger and touch the Sushi,

if I have a disease, I’m
giving you that disease.

So that’s kind of the problem.

Now, the interesting fallout for this.

is there was a 5% drop in
market value of Sushi-toe stock.

Now it’d be interesting,
of course, it’s a giant chain.

So there’s one near my
house, there’s one near my work.

Like everywhere I go, I could
probably find a Sushi-toe.

A 5% market drop for
Sushi-toe is 12 billion yen.

Chinese news outlets are
actually reporting this story

and then people are
canceling their trips to Japan.

So tourism is being
affected by some, I

know he’s underage
because of something

that comes a little later.

Some underage, like basically a teenager,

being gross and stupid.

But when it affects your stocks,
when it affects national tourism,

you know you got a big issue.

So Sushi-toe contacted
the police, they

have security camera,
they found the kid.

Now, I know it’s a kid because
they received a direct apology

from the customer and this guardian.

So you know if they’re
talking to the guardian,

it’s not an adult, they’re not
responsible for themselves.

The company plans to continue with criminal

in this civil case.

So here’s the thing,
imagine you’re that kid’s mom

and that this company,
this nationally famous chain

has showed up at your door and said,

“Your kid licked some Sushi,
it has cost us 12 billion yen.

What are you gonna do?”

‘Cause the mom can
apologize, the kid can apologize.

I can pretty much promise you
that kid’s not gonna do this again.

But at the same time,

Sushi-toe could ruin this family forever.

Like that’s it, it could just
be like gone, you’re done.

They could take all the money you
ever have and will make for themselves.

It’s just that simple.

Now there’s also, hama Sushi,

which is a competing Kaiten Sushi chain.

They called the police,
’cause a customer

was videoed taking
Sushi off the thing

that had no wasabi
in it and putting wasabi

in it and putting it
back on the thing.

So when the people got it,
they got Sushi with wasabi

that was not supposed to have wasabi.

It’s spicy, so it’s a little
prank, but then again,

I don’t know how common
wasabi allergies are,

but I have no significant
allergies other than, you know,

like seasonal allergies
and I just take some drugs

and I’m fine, none
of its life threatening,

but you know people
with peanut allergies

and people with other food allergies,
like this is stuff that kills you.

So this other kid, he’s basically
on the hook for attempted murder.

I know they’re not actually
gonna charge him with that,

but that is kind of the severity of
the thing that’s actually happening.

So, the problem, okay, I hate doing this,

I do this every time and I gotta stop.

It’s weird instinct, but budding criminals,

you have to stop videoing yourself.

I understand that the clout
is what people wanna go for.

The sort of notoriety
is what you want,

but what you’re doing
is committing crimes

and if you video yourself committing
crimes and put it on the Internet,

this is how they get attention
and once they get attention,

you’re screwed, you got
nothing left ’cause there’s proof.

They already got
this kid because of

security cameras,
but videoing it yourself,

put it out there.

Jade has just posted
in, look, criminals

being dumb as how
the police system works.

In Japan, 100% yes.

I would actually say investigators in Japan

probably do less work than
any other country I can see

because half the time
people turn themselves in,

the other half they video themselves
doing it and post it on the Internet.

These guys basically
just have to surf the net,

go what’s trending, which
crime is trending today?

And then they just
go like, oh, let’s find

out where that guy
lives and go arrest him.

So, the fallout now is they’re
going to put acrylic shields

in front of the Sushi thing,
so you can’t touch it easily.

They’re going to install more cameras,

so if you do this, you’re
more likely to get caught.

But the fallout really is,
people are already going like,

I don’t wanna go to Kaiten Sushi,
I don’t wanna go to Sushi dough

because there is
the possibility that

some dumb, gross
kid is touched my food,

which was always
a possibility, but it

came to light, it
came to the forefront.

when this became national news.

And last week, this was honestly
100% number one, national news.

(upbeat music)

You work in a prison and the
prisons aren’t very full anymore

because you know, it crimes down overall.

And people in Japan aren’t
committing, actually, no.

My last story is about how
crime is up, but different crimes.

People aren’t going to jail
as much as they used to,

maybe it’s more accurate.

So this guy, he’s like, I got
a lot of free time at work,

I don’t have to abuse prisoners.

So I’ll bring my PS Vita to work.

So the guard brings his PS Vita.

Already, weirdly okay again, being
someone who plays a lot of video games,

my first slide is PS Vita.

I mean, you don’t have a switch.

So the PS Vita
though was very popular

in Japan, because it
had a lot of functions

that honestly the switch doesn’t have.

You could download TV
to it, I actually don’t know.

My son has a switch, but I’ve
never played with it seriously.

So I don’t know what its capabilities are,

but the PS Vita,
you could download

like MP4 files to it
and you can watch TV.

So this guy, he
brings a couple games,

downloads a couple TV
shows, sits at his desk,

he’s playing some games,
he’s watching a little TV,

but of course, it’s noticeable.

He’s the guy who’s
supposed to be doing rounds.

He’s supposed to do five rounds a day.

His reasoning was, I was bored
because there were so few detainees.

He played games, he fell asleep,

he did not do his five rounds.

He watched TV saved on the console
for at least an hour, probably more.

I would assume, if I was the
boss of this prison facility,

I would assume that if I
caught one of my prison guards,

not doing his rounds watching
TV playing video games

on the clock, that he would be fired.

In Japan, gets a warning.

I was really shocked by that.

Like your literal one job is to watch,

to make sure people don’t escape.

I am playing a video game
right now with Mr. Warman’s,

called a way out where
we escape from prison.

And it was surprisingly
easy to escape from prison.

It was a couple of really simple puzzles,

had to get a screwdriver out of
the workshops, it’s stuff like that.

But if there’s two people,

I mean, I can tell you getting
out of prison is dead easy.

I’ve run the simulation
twice and success both times.

Even went on a little bit of a shooting
rampage at the end of the game.

So, prison guards got to be on the ball.

The prime minister, one of
the prime minister secretaries.

So last week we had one of
the prime minister secretaries.

Now, secretary is not like a
personal assistant kind of thing.

It’s like a serious job, ’cause
you’re like secretary of stuff.

It was his son last
week, got in trouble

for the scandal of
taking a government car

around Paris and places
and buying souvenirs and stuff.

He claimed it was for official duties.

Everyone else is
saying it was just for him.

That pales in comparison to this
dude, who is, he got to learn to shut up.

So the prime minister secretary
told reporters off the record,

he hates to see LGBT people and
would hate to have them live next to him.

So he was fired.

I mean, you want to give some
credence to the prime minister.

He was like, oh my God,
that was a dumb thing to say.

Usually in Japanese politics,
they say something stupid.

The government in power
actually backs them up and goes,

oh, he didn’t mean that or he
was taken out of context and stuff.

This was off the records.

You shouldn’t even have heard about it.

They make excuses.

I actually am gonna
give Kishita some credit

’cause he literally just
went, now you’re fired.

If Japan recognizes same sex
marriage, people will abandon the country.

It was another statement he made,

which I was like, I don’t
actually see how that’s true.

Because what are you saying?

Are you saying that people born in Japan,

if they live around or
are with LGBT plus people,

they’re gonna leave the country?

‘Cause they’re already here and
people are not leaving the country.

So that doesn’t make sense.

I struggled with what
they were actually saying.

Because basically this guy’s just saying,

I don’t like it, I think
it’s the short version.

It did bring me to a secondary story though

of some of the hypocrisy that’s
going on in Japanese courts

because Tokyo court upheld
a ban of same sex marriage.

But the same court said
that the lack of protections

for same sex families
violates human rights.

So you can see they
understand, like if you are a couple,

whether you’re a man or a
woman, a woman, a woman,

or whatever, whatever
combination you wanna put together,

you should have fundamental
basic human rights

supported for you by the
government, regardless.

But at the same time, they
like, but you can’t get married.

So I think maybe there’s some confusion

as to what these protections
actually are supposed to mean.

Because a lot of times
my view of marriage

is that it’s primarily
for taxation.

It’s representation in taxation.

You get married for love, that’s all great,

but that has nothing to
do with the government.

As far as the government’s concerned,

two people come together
and bring their finances together

that changes the taxation or
the structure of their finances

and taxes should be done differently.

It has very little to do with love
or gender or anything like that.

So my view of the
law is actually really

simple in that whether
you are cis or LGBT,

if you form a partnership,
it will affect your taxation.

Because again, laws
shouldn’t really be

concerned with gender
politics in any way.

It should be
concerned with people

and how they live
their lives and fairness.

And so that being the case, I
fully support same-sex marriage

and any sort of combinations
that are out there.

I’m like, “Hey, man, if you are happy

and your partner’s happy,
I’m actually okay with that.”.

Because what we’re
really talking about is

how you should be
taxed by the government

when you’re talking about a marriage.

Marriage ceremonies and
stuff, they’re all about love,

religious ceremonies,
I can’t comment on

if they think it’s bad,
that’s up to them,

but I would not join that religion.

So it’s really that simple.

But I’m really
happy that I got fired

because normally
they wouldn’t fire them.

Normally they try to cover it
up, normally they try to deflect.

And this time he’s just
like, “You know what?

“Now what you’re saying doesn’t
reflect my beliefs “and you’re fired.”.

(clock ticking)

I got it.

Oh, last week we talked about Luffy,

who was running a crime
ring from a detention

center in the
Philippines in Manila.

And my question was, how does
this guy who’s in the Philippines,

who, how did he
get a cell phone and

how is he running a
criminal organization

from the Philippines with
just a cell phone successfully?

Well, turns out he had six cell phones.

There were four people involved.

I think I’m giving too much
credit to the Luffy character

because his name came to the
forefront, but there were four people

and they were kind of running
this mini criminal empire.

They had six mobile
phones and police

when they went and
searched their cells,

they actually retrieved phones and laptops.

So I’m wondering how they got a
laptop in without anyone noticing,

or are the prison facilities, the
detention center facilities in Manila,

just that generous.

So I found that to be very interesting.

I would like to know
more about that system.

There seems to be the scams racked
up nearly six billion yen worth of money.

So we’re talking about home
invasions, we’re talking about scams,

we’re talking about just
stealing money from people.

It’s insane.

One of four of the guys
may not be deported to Japan.

So this week and next week,
they’re trying to deport them to Japan

so they can actually answer
for their crimes in Japan.

But one guy, because he committed
assault, is on trial for the assault

and when you’re on trial in the
Philippines, you can’t be deported.

You actually have to stay
there and go through your trial.

After his trial, he’ll probably have
to serve some kind of punishment.

After that punishment, he
could be deported to Japan

to be put on trial again for
the crime scenes committed

while he was in detention
in the Philippines.

It’s incredibly complicated.

It’s insane that it’s actually
happening, but there you go.

I will keep you updated.

I’m really interested in what
happens when he gets to Japan,

when the sort of the main dudes
get to Japan and they go on trial.

I would love to have more details
about how they were organizing it.

It’s how they organized it.

So I understand the crimes.

Home invasions, in this
case, were quite simple.

We show up, we pretend
you have a package,

you open the door,
they kick in the door.

Maybe they beat up the person, but
they just want to steal some money.

Ski wise, not that
sophisticated, but at

the same time, simplicity
and effectiveness

often go together.

But how did he organize it?

It must have just been
through social media

and stuff, but how
do you organize it?

How do you get people to do it?

How does he collect his profits?

If I’m the criminal
who’s kicked in the

door and gotten,
let’s say, a million yen

from that household somehow,

what motivation do I have
to actually send him his cut?

Is a really interesting question.

There’s a lot of those
details I would really like

to know about because it’s the machinations

of the machine they’ve
created that I really want

to hear about because it’s fascinating

that this was as successful as it
was for as long as it was from, again,

a detention center in another country.

makes it just almost mind blowing.

The first time, so
this actually relates

to my verbal gaff sort
of at the beginning.

For the first time in 20 years, in 2022,

it’s the last year, nine as
2023, when we’re recording this,

crime increased in Japan.

This is primarily an increase in
street crime, but it’s up 5.9% from 2021.

Now that sounds like crime has shot up.

over the last year, which
is not the actual case

because every single
year since the end of

World War II, which
is when they recorded,

it started recording crime stats like this.

The number has gone down every single year.

So this is just a tiny self correction

because you had coronavirus
actually put everyone away,

crime decreased
significantly during that time

because during that time,
people just weren’t out and about

and it was harder to commit street crimes.

Primarily, now people are
out back on the street again.

Street crime is more possible,
more than anything else.

Again, opportunity is a big part of crime.

So this is up 5.9%
from 2021, but we’re

talking about a decline
every single year

for the last 70 years.

So it’s just a little blip
upwards, comparatively speaking.

So I don’t think people should freak out.

There’s a lot of very serious crimes

that you wanna talk about,
but I was very interested.

Bicycle theft is up 14.4%.

So if you ride a bicycle, the bicycle
is a very common way of transporting

yourself around Japan.

If you use a bicycle,
the last year was a lot,

but not surprisingly,
the ransomware, cyber

attacks, that kind
of stuff, up 57.4%.

Because criminals may be
are shifting from street crime

to cyber crime because
it’s probably more profitable.

It takes less investment.

There’s actually
probably less risk at first.

As long as you can
cover your tracks, it’s

very hard for people
to actually find you.

90% of the crimes we talk
about in Indonesia, Japan,

the people get caught,
it’s surveillance cameras,

see them, follow them to the train station,

they take the train home, the
surveillance, you now know where they lived

and they please just
show up at their house.

So again, I’m not talking
about like deep detective work,

like Jade said earlier,
these guys are one step away

from turning themselves in
if you do a crime in person.

So cyber crime,
computer crime makes

a lot more sense in
the current situation.

When talking about
real life dumb ass crimes,

we have a man who was
walking around a supermarket.

and he walked out and
he didn’t buy anything.

He got really frustrated.

So he kicked a glass door
and the glass door shattered.

And when he was a red, the
police, so the staff called the police,

Mandra calls the police
and the police show up

and they’re like, “Hey,
what are you doing?”

He goes, “I was really frustrated
that there was nothing here

that I wanted to buy so I kicked
the door and shattered the door.”

That is obstruction of business.

And he’s going to be arrested for that.

I don’t think too much is gonna happen,

but I don’t know,
again, you didn’t wanna

buy anything so
you kicked the door?

Like what level of
frustration are you feeling?

How badly did you wanna buy something?

Clearly just dumb ass.

(clock ticking)

Which takes us into our last story
which was sort of pretty interesting.

They do surveys about like
consumption habits and sales

and this is all important to the government

because it all talks about GDP.

One of the most recent,
I think last week again

on the news Japan, I talked
about how 50% of Japan’s GDP

is basically just consumption.

It’s just people buying stuff.

Like it’s huge.

It’s really important that
people keep the economy going.

People under 35, their
propensity to consume is weak,

which is really bad for Japan as a country.

‘Cause again, Japan’s
economy survives on

the fact that the
money is moving around.

But why are, this is under 35,
so it’s technically younger people.

I would say mostly people in their 20s.

Why are these people in
their 20s not spending money?

I would go ahead
and guess most of

them aren’t making a
lot of money to spend.

Everything just went up 4%.

And again, I’ve talked a couple times about

my electricity prices
doubled compared to last year.

I, not as a young person,
but I am spending less money.

I am suddenly being way
more cautious with my money.

I saw a cool little figurine
that I really wanted to buy.

It was 8,000 yen.

I was like, I cannot justify
spending 8,000 yen on this figurine.

So what are these kids
doing with their money?

It’s a 20% increase of young people
saying they want to save for retirement.

This is compared to 2007 to 2009.

So they do these surveys
over a couple of years.

So basically, young people are now saying,

I have to keep money so that
when it comes time for me to retire,

I have enough money to retire.

I don’t want to be working
indefinitely in perpetuity.

because I actually want to
have at least some point in my life

where I’m not bound to a
desk or doing some kind of job.

And they’re saying
that this is the root

cause of stagnation of
the economy in Japan.

It’s actually people, young people,

being so concerned and
so worried about the future

that they’re preparing for the
future by not spending right now.

So this is part of why the
government has made a call

for an increase in the
lifetime wages of people.

Because like I said, I have a job.

It’s pretty stable.

I make the same money
I made last year, though.

So actually, my take
home earnings value-wise

has gone down 4%
because of the force,

percent increase in inflation.

Electricity in these
things have doubled

in price, which I
have no control over.

I still have to pay for electricity.

So I now have to spend money there.

I’m not spending money on something else.

That 15,000 yen, so it
went from 15 last year

in December to 30,000
this year in December.

That 15,000 yen is not
going into the economy.

I’m not buying little figurines
or toys or entertainment

or stuff to keep the economy going.

That’s going directly to the power company.

They might be building nuclear power plants

or something else to make
power cheaper in the future,

but as an older person, that’s
not really going to benefit me.

Hopefully it benefits these
young people who are saving.

But they’re seeing stuff like this happen

and they’re thinking, “I
need to hold onto my money

“so I have enough money for the future.

“and paid does not increase
significantly in Japan.”

So I’m not going to
get paid a lot of money,

so I need to hold on
to as much as I can.

That, the problem
they’re not really realizing

is that philosophy,
that core kind of thinking

is going to continue with them
throughout the entirety of their life.

They’re not going to, at 35, something go,

“Ah, you know what, I
have enough to retire.

“I’m ready to go.

“Let’s just start spending money.”

These are going to be a generation
of people who do not spend money.

And if we don’t, like, because of the way

the economy works in
Japan, if they don’t get people

to have more money, then
they cannot spend money,

and then you get into
this cycle of decrease,

where I’m not spending
money, so companies make,

maybe offer less
salary, like salaries go

down because
products are going down,

and it just keeps declining
as if, and then, of course,

I’m making less
money, so I spend less

money, and it goes
down and down and down.

It relates to a very weird different story.

I’ve always, the Chinese foreign minister,

this is about four years ago.

He was this amazing guy,

because he was just so
blunt and straightforward.

And they said, “Oh, China,
they were interviewing him,

“and they say, “China’s investing
a lot of money “in Indonesia.

“Why are you doing that?

“Like, what is the focus on Indonesia?”

And he just looked at him and goes,

“Indonesian people are
too poor to buy our products,

“so we want to increase
their economy enough,

“so they have enough
money to buy our products.”

So then they become our customers.

But you can see what he was saying was,

there needs to be
a fundamental level

of wealth for people
to be able to spend,

so we need to create essentially an economy

where people can spend
or people do not spend.

And it’s the same, the Japanese economy,

almost internally, functions
very similarly to that.

If people aren’t making enough
money, people do not spend.

People need to be rich enough to
spend money to increase the economy.

And if they do
that, then it will build

up and up and up,
it’s the reverse cycle.

of what I was talking about.

I am interested to see
over the next year or two,

how many companies
actually increase their wages.

‘Cause I honestly believe a
lot of them at this moment

cannot, it’s not that they
would, it’s just that they can’t.

And then going further from
that, going into the future,

how do they make sure that
people have enough money

so that they can spend money
to keep the economy going?

Because we gotta get, this
is like one step away from,

we have to just start giving
people money to spend.

Will that work? Probably not.

Because what’s gonna
happen is this generation’s like,

anytime I get extra money, I need
to put it away so that I can retire.

Which is one of the bleaker endings.

I usually end off in Indonesia, Japan,

with like a creepy guy story,
so I can make fun of him.

And sometimes it goes wrong and I
feel really bad at the end of the story,

but I mean, I’m
literally just talking

about the demise of
the Japanese economy.

You can see the solution
is actually increased wages,

but the reality is, most
companies probably can’t increase

wages, I think I just killed Japan.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[Music].

This podcast sparks joy

(electronic music)

Let’s figure out a start
with some light, light news.

Marie Kondo, you may remember Marie Kondo,

she wrote a book and kind
of took the world by storm.

And the reason she took the world by storm

is because she was
like, does this spark joy?

So here’s my pen.

Should I keep my pen?

And she would say, well,
you hold it, does it spark joy?

Now, I had an issue with this
sort of philosophical practice

because there is
literally no physical object

that I hold that sparks
joy because I’m an old man.

So I understood what
you were saying though.

Like if it would need to be
rephrased for me, is this a necessity?

Do you consider this a necessity?

And that word, the
definition could be expanded

to be like, like
when I hold up my

video game controller,
is this a necessity?

Well, no, it isn’t, but it is deeply
connected to my entertainment time.

And I consider that important.

So yes, I should keep that.

Is there anything on my
desk that I don’t need?

Ah, my wedding ring,
’cause I’m not wearing it.

But, no, but this is it.

I think I’ve actually kind of
followed the Marie Kondo philosophy

because there’s everything in my
desk that I’m looking at has a use.

So the idea is minimize
how much stuff you have.

I could throw out some old clothes.

There’s clothes I don’t wear.

There’s clothes that don’t fit right.

So that’s probably where I
would make the first real effort

just throw out a bunch of clothes.

It’s just, it’s so hard for me to find
clothes that fit properly in Japan.

If I find something, I keep it.

Even if I don’t really like
it, I might wear it later.

So that’s again, a necessity.

But her whole thing was, everything
you have in your possession

should spark joy and
create a positive feeling

or you feel like you
have like warms around it.

She did an interview and
she said she’s sort of given up

on keeping everything clean and organized.

Which is kind of cool and
interesting, ’cause it’s like,

what drove someone who’s
built a career, a tiny, tiny empire?

She’s been on like Western TV.

I know she was on Stephen Colbert’s show.

What would drive
her to the point where

she’s almost given up
on her own philosophy?

She said, “My home is messy.

The way I’m spending
my time is the

right way for me at
this stage in my life.

What is important is enjoying
spending time with my children.”

And then you find out
she’s had her third kid.

So this is why her house is
messy, because three kids,

and I assume all pretty small still.

‘Cause one’s a baby,
’cause you got two other kids,

they’re a little older, but
then that means they’re like

toddler, so they’re just running
around, just making a mess.

That’s what kids do, and they have toys.

And the kids, if you say,
“Does this spark joy?”

They’re gonna go, “Yeah!”

‘Cause everything sparks
joy when you’re a little kid.

This is something I was kind of sad about.

I saw a kid who a train
went by and got so excited

that he did a little
like tippy-tappy dance.

I was like, I don’t know if
I’ve ever been that happy.

I don’t know if I’ve ever
been that at a point in my life

where I was did a little tippy-tappy dance.

I must have, and then at
some point that joy went away.

And it’s sad.

It’s sad that I don’t get excited
about things like that anymore.

So I’m gonna try to
find something that

would make me do a
little tippy-tappy dance.

And that’s gonna be like,
this could be the chunk

of beef chest philosophy of tippy-taps.

‘Cause when you
get to a certain point

in your life, you don’t
tippy-tap anymore.

Can we find the thing in our
life that makes us tippy-tap?

And if we can, then that gives
us a sense of what brings us joy.

And that’s maybe what I’ve lost
in my life, a certain amount of joy.

I wanna bring that back.

And then I was thinking, my
recondo’s version of messy

is probably still way
cleaner than everyone else.

So I keep my head, again,
if you’ve watched the video,

you can see there’s very little in my room.

Behind me there is the bed.

There’s the chin-up bar.

Down here in the corner,
there’s a little heater.

It’s a space heater.

Electricity doubled for me, last,
between last December and this December,

went from 15,000 yen to
heat my house to 30,000 yen.

That’s a big bite.

So we, the small rooms,
so my room’s quite small.

We got a little kerosene space heater.

We’re using that.

That’s basically all there is in my room.

There’s the two desks
with my computer

set up and another
desk with just nothing

so that I can do other stuff there.

I have a minimalist philosophy.

So I think overall,
my room is probably

less messy than
other people’s rooms,

because I only use things
that I consider necessary.

Maricondo’s whole spark joy thing.

She probably doesn’t have that much
stuff in her house in the first place.

She doesn’t have that much
stuff in her house in her first place.

Her version of messy is probably way better

than other people’s
version of messy anyways.

So I’m betting Maricondo’s state of
decay that she may be in right now.

It’s still 10 times better than
almost everyone else’s state of decay.

So you know, she’s got three kids.

She’s got a life.

I mean, I don’t, I hope she’s happy.

She says she’s happy.

She wants to spend
time with her kids and

then that actually
brings in a secondary.

This has nothing to do with
news anymore, I just realized.

She’s brought in a secondary
aspect of the philosophy

is that her philosophy has changed.

She went from everything
should be sparking

joy and clean in an
order and minimalist.

To I wanna spend time with my
kids and you know, enjoy that time

and enjoying that time with
kids, that’s gonna be messy.

You’re gonna have a lot of stuff.

You’re gonna have
toys all over the floor

sometimes, but that’s
actually pretty fun.

I remember, you know, just
toys everywhere for my kids.

It was pretty cool.

You know, I don’t have that in my
house ’cause my kids are like teens.

There.

They have basically a phone or a
device and that’s all they pay attention to

and I’m not criticizing that
’cause like, what do I do?

I play video games, I
make podcasts, and I

stream on Twitch
and stuff, and that’s it.

That’s my version is just a
bigger device at this point.

So I can’t be critical of
them, but I kinda miss Lego.

(phone ringing)

A very quick update.

So I think last week I did talk about China

and China denying visas to people
in Japan, being very hypocritical.

China has resumed issuing
visas for Japanese people.

That’s it.

I mean, there’s actually no,
because we talked about it last week

and the hypocrisy in there, and I
didn’t think it was gonna last very long.

I thought it was gonna go
longer than just a couple weeks

I talked about it because
China’s the kind of country

that sort of makes
a decision, stands

by it, even if it’s
the wrong decision,

but tourism is money.

Everyone wants tourists to keep
tourisming, and they want the money.

So Japanese people, you
may hate them historically,

but they’re gonna spend a lot of
money if they come to your country,

so you want them to
come visit your country.

(phone ringing)

There’s been a series of robberies.

They’re pretty awful, actually.

The interesting part is
that they were masterminded

by a man who’s being
held in a detention

center in the
Philippines, in vanilla.

So basically he had
a smartphone, and

he was directing
people how to break in,

how to basically do home invasions almost.

What they would do
is they come up to

your house and they
do a fake delivery,

and then they would force
their way into your house.

They beat up some
people, they accidentally,

they beat up a
90-year-old person,

and they died as a result of the injuries.

One of the home invasions used
seven people, so these are big things.

They talked about how much money they took,

but again, it’s how much
money you keep in the house.

I don’t keep any money in the house.

But Japanese people, older generations,

still tend to keep money,
physical money in the house.

Which, because they
don’t trust banks, and

then the banks,
interest rates are so low

that keeping money in
bank almost means nothing.

Sometimes you pay more in fees
than you would get an interest,

so there’s no benefit
to keeping you to bank.

I think it was interesting
that this guy had a smartphone.

He was arrested in
2021 being held in Manila.

He gave instructions via smartphone
how to set up the fake deliveries,

how to go to the houses,
how to pick the houses,

and he organized groups of people
in Japan to do these robberies.

He called him, they kept
referring to him as Luffy.

Luffy is a famous
criminal character in

Japan, from a manga
in anime and stuff.

And Luffy is the pirate.

I was thinking of someone else.

Yeah, Luffy is the pirate.

Okay.

And I was like,
don’t give, police

should not be giving
criminals cool names.

And it turns out
that he called himself

that, which makes
him actually way lamer,

giving yourself a nickname of a cool
anime character that you probably like.

And then like, I guess making
other people call it, you that?

That’s, I don’t know.

It’d be like someone going, getting a
stupid name like Chunker Beef Chess

and trying to get
everyone to call him that.

I actually don’t want
people to call me that.

I have never insisted any of my friends

or people I’ve talked to actually
call me Chunker Beef Chess.

It is just a nickname.

I guess at this point, it’s sort
of a production company name

because I have a series of podcasts
and stuff all under the same pseudonym.

So maybe if I write stuff, if I
might use that as my pet name, but…

Anyways, this guy, it looks
like he’s going to be deported

in the second week of
February back to Japan.

So deported from the
Philippines back to Japan.

And when that happens, I do want
to see like what he’s charged with.

I’m betting these charges
are going to be pretty big

because there is at
least one death involved

and multiple, multiple
people have been injured.

What I want to know is what is the scope

of the organization he was
able to do while in detention?

Because you think the guards maybe
would have noticed he was using a phone,

but he was being detained, not in jail.

Like there’s a lot of
sort of like shady areas.

Why did he have a smartphone and
why do you have so much access to it

if he was being detained
for a full year at least?

More than that’s really
weird and interesting.

So I’m looking at sort of
the back sides of this story.

So you’re going to get all the, oh,
this is how much money was stolen

and there’s people who were hurt and stuff.

But I’m like, how did he get
this organization into place

from a detention center with a smartphone?

That’s the bit I’m more interested in.

The criminal proceedings,
I mean, it’s going to be big.

We’ll see what happens.

I will do updates on
this as they come along.

(phone ringing)

I’ve got like three or four stories
of, it’s all 40, 50 year old men.

There’s a 44 year old
man who is arrested

for producing
counterfeit, huggy pillows.

So you know those big pillows, body
pillows, and it has an anime girl on it.

He was arrested, he had 72 items of
12 characters from 10 different shows.

Now what he was doing
was taking these pillows

and modifying them so
they were showing more skin.

So you have the,
I know it was like

one of the characters
from Dead or Alive,

video game, sexy lady.

She’s lying on the
pillow, let’s say, like this.

  • Oh.
  • For people who are listening,
    I just did a very sexy gesture.

I don’t know if he
was painting it, or

he was doing some
kind of modification

to make it look like she
was exposing more skin.

So it sounds like
what he did was took

an original licensed
picture, modified it

so it showed more skin and
then produced these huggy pillows.

And since they’re sexier
than the official ones,

the companies are like, this isn’t
cool when the police arrested him.

They found 600 more in his house.

Prosecutors are seeking heavy punishment

between 2018 to last
summer, he made 12 million yen.

So that’s towards like 18, 19, 20, 21.

So that’s four years 12 million.

He was making 3 million yen
a year off these huggy pillows

that is a lot of money, but also
it’s less than the average salary.

Now when I’m gonna
commit my big crime,

because it’s coming,
I like this age group

has made it very clear
that I am ripe for crime.

When I commit my crime, I wanna
make it so I don’t have to work anymore.

So it’s gotta be a big score.

This is why I will never
commit a crime though,

’cause I’m never
gonna hit a score big

enough where I wouldn’t
have to work anymore,

or it would be enough money
that I could just keep my job

and then just supplement my income.

Yeah, I guess I’m already
not a career criminal

’cause I’m smart enough
to know that like if I have

to keep committing crimes
over three, four years,

even if it’s just the exact same crime,

it’s the sheer volume
is going to make it

easier from the catch
you sooner or later.

It might be years, this
guy’s like three, four years.

There’s another story,
I actually didn’t do it.

There was a guy riding
a motorcycle and he

was riding his motorcycle
close to the car

in front of him so that
when there was a toll gate

to get onto the highway,
he would go through.

And they were like, he
didn’t pay not very much

like three, four, five,
hundred dollars worth of tolls,

but then he got arrested
because he’s been doing it

and they’re like sooner
or later gonna catch him.

He flipped up his license plate.

There’s a thing in Japan
where they take the license plate

and they bend it upwards
so you can actually see it

if you’re behind the motorcycle and stuff.

It’s a Yankee kind of thing to do.

It had a name, oh, I
forget what the name was.

But anyways, the volume of crime
increases the likelihood of getting caught.

So you want to commit one
crime and not have to do it again

or a few crimes in your life
very distant from each other.

So like once a decade
you commit a crime,

you’d have less
chance of getting caught

’cause there’s less for
them to put together

and figure out if you have
to commit a crime every week

or every day, the police are like, well,

we’re gonna find a pattern,
we’re gonna figure something out.

We’re gonna have all these
guys are getting caught

by a surveillance video if
we’re being really honest.

You’re gonna get surveyed
and then they’re gonna see

what you’re doing and then catch you.

They’ll probably just follow you home.

I don’t think I wrote this one down.

There was lots of crime stories this week.

There were actually too many,
but now they’re all in my head.

So I’m like, this is all interesting.

The links between them.

It was like two 14
year old kids like

smashed, did a smash
and grab basically

of jewelry store and the
police once they figured out

which way they left the
building just got on video

from different buildings
and just followed them

basically back to where
they live and arrested them.

But let’s get on to other old men
committing more crimes often poorly.

So we had a story a couple weeks ago

about a guy who was
just really exhausted

from work and I kinda
know how he feels.

He’s like, I don’t wanna
go to work anymore.

So he took a knife
and he put it up against

the wall and stabbed
himself in the back.

And then claimed he’d been,
there was an attempted murder

that he’d been attacked and then
he wouldn’t have to go to work.

And then they got the
surveillance video and found

that there was no other person
around and he just stabbed himself.

But seems that this
is not a unique incident.

There was a teacher who
said work was too tiring.

And I relate, like sometimes
you just get burnt out,

you’re tired, you don’t
wanna do this anymore.

What’s the solution?

My solution is usually,
if I can take a day off

and maybe the Japanese
solution is to drink

a lot and just burn
it out with alcohol.

Now this guy’s like, I’m
gonna call the school.

at 8 AM, so this is
before classes on the 25th.

This was the 25th, so
this is like last week.

And tell them, there
might be explosives

on the first and third
floor of the school

and in the gymnasium, if
classes don’t end by the morning,

you could be in danger, that is all.

This was not handled how I
thought it would be handled.

The school staff then searched
the schools and the gymnasium

and they concluded there was
no bomb and classes continued.

I would have called the police
because it’s a bomb threat.

And even if you know it’s fake,
you have to take it seriously

because there’s the off chance it is.

There was a package,
I think I’ve told

this like two, three
times on the podcast,

but how often does
this happen in your life?

There was a package in the
parking lot near my house.

And from my balcony, I could see it.

So I went out with my balcony and watched

as the police showed up
and it was pretty noticeable.

And the police were like,
this package had a note on it

and the note was vaguely threatening.

So they’re like, we don’t
know if this bomb or not.

And I watched them like, get the shield out

and the guy all armoured
up and he walked

up to it and like
poked it and stuff.

I couldn’t see very
well, was it night time?

But I could see kind
of like them approach

it and then back up
and then approach it.

Eventually a detective came to our house

and it’s like, look, we’re gonna
basically try to open this thing.

We don’t know what it is or what’s in it.

We could be a bomb, we don’t
think it is, but we wanna be safe.

So could you guys evacuate?

And we’re like, I can’t wanna watch.

But then of course
me standing on my

balcony and Shrapnel
hits me in the face

is one of the worst ways to die.

So I’m just like, okay, let’s
not like the way you die,

but the stories people
tell like this dumbass

was standing on his
balcony watching a bomb.

So we evacuated my family
like 20, 30 minutes later.

They’re like, it was just a
bag with some garbage in it.

And then again, the
note was just like some,

some person just put a note
on it to make it threatening

and has wasted
police resources so

they were gonna go
try to find that person.

Yada, yada, yada.

But they took it seriously.

This school did not.

The school’s like, hey, teachers
completely inexperienced

with actual bombs and
what they look like and stuff.

Let’s go take a look around
and see what happens.

And I guess don’t touch anything.

I don’t think that’s right.

The guy who called in the bomb threat,

he’d gone to a pay phone
relatively close to the school.

The police could figure out what
phone made the phone call, of course.

So they basically traced it back.

They got some security camera
found the guy making the phone call

and then him immediately
going to work afterwards.

He still had to go to work
and then he got arrested.

So his bomb threat didn’t
even give him a day off.

So not only is this a dumb
crime, it’s also poorly executed.

I am so judgmental of criminals
’cause if you’re gonna do this,

have a good plan and execute it properly.

I this might be why I’m
so fascinated with the guy

who was in Manila because
he’s organized a criminal empire

with a cell phone while in detention.

I don’t wanna show
any sort of respect for

him, but he clearly
knew what he was doing

and he kinda was doing it the right way.

I’m glad he got caught
and there got stopped

’cause I also, I
would like my crimes.

When I commit my crime, I want it
to be one where no one gets hurt.

I don’t wanna hurt another
person that commit a crime.

This might be another
thing that’s holding me back.

I’m not as cold-hearted as I need to be.

I would not want to
hurt someone else

physically for sure
to commit my crime.

I’m okay with threatening violence.

I’m okay with the threat of violence.

I don’t actually wanna hurt anybody.

You know what, this
isn’t about me and

that’s maybe why I
should just move on.

(upbeat music)

Okay, there was another
set of bomb threats.

So 300 schools and universities
received bomb threats

last week between Monday and Wednesday.

It kinda came through in waves.

Facts.

And that to me was the
only bit that I was like,

what, they facts the
schools of bomb threat?

They said it had a unique font.

Which I don’t know what that means.

I’m assuming they had to just put in a font

from some kind of plug
in on their computer, right?

‘Cause you’re not even, you’re not
getting, maybe they did print it out

and maybe they did the classic
like Pasting Magazine bits together.

Anyways.

It was facts to schools
from a number in Tokyo.

It demanded a ransom between
300,000 yen to 3 million yen.

I actually think maybe they
made a mistake on the first one,

’cause why would you
go with the low number?

They didn’t say how the person
was supposed to collect the money.

I think this was just a very
poorly thought out scheme.

And they hadn’t
thought through how to

actually, like should
they be successful?

I think this was more of a prank
than an actual attempt to get money.

I think they just wanted to be disruptive
because there was no plan in place

that we could see
or hear about where

the person actually
would end up collecting

if a school was going to give in
and actually give them the money.

So, man.

(phone ringing).

More threats?

Let’s just keep going.

It’s a theme.

This guy had a game on his phone.

It’s called “Majong Seoul.”

And he kept losing.

So he decided, you know, the way
to deal with when you’re losing it,

probably a very random game
that’s designed to make you lose.

A lot.

You should go to the
publisher’s homepage,

the computer game
publisher’s homepage.

And start sending
death threats, which

is a forcible
obstruction of business.

(phone ringing)

Hopefully you guys
watching on Twitch,

nothing happened,
but when I edit this,

I’m gonna put in a counter up there

in a little ding that says
obstruction of business.

‘Cause we’ve decided to
start keeping track of that crime

because it happens almost so much.

He confessed to actually
doing the death threats

because of his constant losses at the game.

I don’t know, man, you can’t invest.

I lost a lot of college duty.

You know what I did?

I stopped playing college duty.

‘Cause I’m mediocre at best.

I’m certainly not good.

I wasn’t gonna get any better
’cause I wanna put the time in.

So you stopped playing that game.

You’ll get some other game
that’s easier and more fun.

(phone ringing)

Okay, talking about angry people,

there’s a high school teacher
and he’s been suspended.

He’s been suspended for abusing
the handball team members.

And that’s terrible.

I don’t know why I find it funny.

I think it’s ’cause it’s handball.

And it’s not like I don’t
have any respect for handball,

but let’s face it, if you’re
gonna invest your life

into something and
get like abusive over it.

Choose a better sport.

It’s even saying that sounds shitty.

Handball is something you play for fun.

I assume there are professional
handball leagues and players,

but there’s a reason I’ve never
heard of them or thought about them.

Like there’s professionals
in almost every sport.

Not every sport gets
the same level of respect.

Okay, so there’s a handball team.

And this teacher has been assigned
the task of coaching the handball team.

He decides that the students
are making too many mistakes.

So he starts slapping
the students and

telling them to die
and calling the media,

it’s enthrowing the handball at their head.

Now, if you’re a really
good handball player,

you should either catch
or deflect that handball.

So that last one, I should not,

I don’t believe you should be
considered part of the abuse.

That should be just training.

Someone made an
anonymous call to the school

and the principal,
instead of actually,

dealing with this, decided
to give the teacher guidance.

And I think what that means
is they tried to cover it up.

This all came to light
very recently when

all six members of the
senior handball team

quit at the same day.

And then the teacher was called out.

And there’s been a press
conference and the teacher had to say,

I became frustrated by
the repeated mistakes.

And my first thought
was, dude, it’s handball.

Just let them have a good time.

This is a different philosophy.

It’s maybe cultural.

My daughter was doing
gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics.

And she was having a good time.

She was a little kid.

Troll the Baton.

I actually liked really playing
with the ribbon on a thing.

You could wave it around.

I really enjoyed that.

So I would do that at home a lot.

She really liked it.

And it was really good for her.

And she was flexible.

And she was having a good time.

And it was athletic.

And then she got, I
think, I forget what year,

but it was like 10
years older or something.

They’re like, great.

If you want to go to the next
level, you have to come every day.

Now, we couldn’t
bring her every day

because we’re working
parents and stuff.

And we have jobs and lives.

And she also has other things to do.

We didn’t want her to dedicate
her whole life to rhythmic gymnastics.

We wanted her to go a couple of
times a week to do this healthy exercise.

That was fun.

So literally, they gave us an ultimatum

of it’s all rhythmic gymnastics
all the time or nothing.

So there was no sort of
class where you would go

for kids to actually just enjoy themselves.

You had to be dedicated to this to
become a professional rhythmic gymnast.

Which I assume is, I don’t know
if that’s the same level as him,

but I don’t know if there
even are professionals.

So we did the actually
only thing we could do.

We were putting an impossible situation.

We pulled her out.

So that gym makes slightly less money.

And I assume this happens regularly.

Like every time girls hit this
age, they’re giving this ultimatum.

And a significant
proportion of them, it’s

not that they even
don’t want to do it.

The parents can’t commit
the level of that amount of time.

‘Cause okay, I go to judo,

means I can’t take my kid to
rhythmic gymnastics that night.

Which means I have a
choice if I give up my hobby

’cause I’m not a professional judoka.

I don’t do judo all day every day.

But it’s the thing I do
for my health and fitness.

I’m supposed to give
that up and just sit

in a gym and watch
her every single night.

Even if I swap off with
my wife, it doesn’t work.

It just doesn’t work for most people
to do one thing every single day.

But that’s like in Japan,
they have this thing

where you either have to do
it super seriously or not at all.

And I see, again, like I
just mentioned, I do judo.

And you can see the
kids with the parents

who aren’t there
to have a good time

or learn a martial art or enjoy themselves.

They’re just like, they want
their kids to be world champions.

And I can tell you, these kids
are not gonna be world champions

’cause they’re
hating every minute

of it ’cause they’re
being forced into it.

They make like judo,
they don’t like it every day.

And they certainly don’t like their
parents shouting at them from the sides.

And this is sort of the same
thing, rhythmic gymnastics.

To me in my mind is a
fun version of gymnastics

that’s incorporating
dance to have a good time.

They didn’t see it that way.

This was a lifestyle
choice you had to make.

And it was going
to make your life or

break your life and
it broke our lives.

And my daughter doesn’t do rhythmic
gymnastics anymore, which kinda sucks.

Very light last story.

It all had the abuse of
tendencies kinda sucks, huh?

The Prime Minister’s son is his secretary.

So the Prime Minister
was out in another country.

I think he went to America, he went
to, oh no, they went around Europe,

a couple places in Europe.

And while they were there,
they have an official car.

So he used the official
car to go and do things.

Now a news story came out, a
magazine came out, this is a scandal.

He said he used the
government car for sightseeing.

And the government then
turned around and denied it.

He said he used the car
to take publicity photos.

So he was going to like the Eiffel Tower.

And he took a picture of the Eiffel Tower

to put on the official
Prime Minister’s Instagram,

and I’d say I don’t know
what they actually were doing.

Maybe it was for
publishing materials or

something, but I’ll just
give you an example.

And then you could put
it on that and go look,

the Prime Minister is here in
Paris doing this important thing.

He went to buy souvenirs,
which is in Japan,

a very important
thing to do for work.

So you buy souvenirs for your coworkers.

He’s gonna buy souvenirs
to give to people politically.

So it’s part of his job.

He claims he did no shopping for
himself, didn’t use any tourist facilities.

And I was like, I got Japan’s,
this takes everything a step further.

I’d be like, well, if he was at a
tourist place, officially taking photos,

what would be the
problem with him buying

a snack or doing
something like that?

And that’s again, it’s
very different in Japan.

That would not be acceptable.

I did the story, forget when now.

It was like maybe a
couple months ago,

where it was cops in
Japan are allowed to go

to convenience stores to buy a drink.

Like that’s how it, that’s
before they weren’t.

It was like they couldn’t in uniform go in

and just buy a drink
because they were thirsty.

You had to go and change so that
you didn’t look like you were slacking off.

So they take that really seriously here.

It’s a different, I got
a different mentality.

And that mentality maybe needs to
be adjusted for a new modern lifestyle.

So that kids can do
rhythmic gymnastics for fun

or play handball and not get
smacked in the back of the head.

Or if you’re in a very exciting new country

and doing some work and
then take a little side step

and they’re like, oh, I’d like
to take a picture for myself.

Don’t have everyone freak out.

I did take a moment and think, imagine
the level of scrutiny a US politician

would be comfortable with.

They could never
survive in Japan because

the level of scrutiny
he’s gone through.

So again, I think he was
probably taking pictures

and then maybe took
a couple pictures for

himself, which I
would not judge at all.

I don’t think any Western person would.

He probably went and bought souvenirs.

And yeah, if you’re buying souvenirs

and then you buy one extra
with your own money for yourself,

I would not say that was a bad thing.

Oh, I’m gonna buy five boxes
of these Parisian chocolates

for my father, who’s the prime
minister for his some of his coworkers

or other politicians he’s gonna meet.

I’ll slide one in there and I’ll pay
for it myself separately for myself.

It’s 10 seconds more.

I wouldn’t, as long as he’s not
using government money for it,

I have no problem with that at all.

I would like to see that level of scrutiny

in other countries
would be really interesting

’cause imagine the stuff they
would be judging Donald Trump for it.

‘Cause he’s basically been
caught committing crimes

and stuff and it’s just nothing happens.

I am waiting to see, the
most interesting thing

about America right now
is will they bring charges

and if they do, ’cause we
all know he’s actually guilty,

would they actually put him in prison?

I know it would be
a cushy prison, but I

would love to see
Donald Trump go to prison

and they keep hinting
at that they’re gonna

do it and they keep
pushing towards it.

If they put his kids in prison, I
think that would be pretty good

’cause then he would
have to reconcile that.

And probably distance himself?

Yeah, that’d be funny.

That literally just to me would be funny.

So, do we have a positive note?

Because of my start
with Mary Condo and

our philosophies must
have just over time

to suit our circumstances, but
we still must find joy where we are.

My joy, that my tippy-tappy dance
is going to be Donald Trump in prison.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[Music].