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].

Me want the…

 It's a rainy day in Japan. I'm sitting at home in December. I'm thinking of writing a country song. It's hard to put Japan into country songs. As soon as I just start doing that, I'm like, ah, it's not really going to work out. But I could do like a soulful. Okay, I am very distracted by the fact that I heard a new... The disorganized nature of my thought pattern at the moment is being demonstrated through the word salad that is not being completed. I'm not able to finish any sentences. I listened to a two-hour podcast, Behind the Bastards, and I listened to the one on Steven Scal. 

It was actually two parts, but I listened to two hours. And there was no really new information in there. It's all stuff I'd heard before. Reaffirming my belief that Steven Scal is a piece of shit garbage human being. Fine. But there was a reggae style song. So he has a music career on the side and it's supposed to be blues, but then there's this song where it's like a reggae song. I found that to be a lot and it's kind of overwhelmed my brain. Well, actually... Yes, it's called Strut. This is featuring Lady Saut. Now you're really like, hey Peter, I came here for the Japanese news. I didn't come here to hear about your stupid Steven Scal and how much you hate him and his terrible music. I understand that. But at the same time, fuck you. You got to listen to the awful things I have to listen to. This is the only way I'm going to be able to flush this out of my head. So we're going to have to listen to some of it. All right. That's all I really wanted to get out there is that Steven Scal, it's a calling response between him and what's her name? Lady Saut a little bit. And she's like, what do you want, sir? Steven Scal. 

And he says, I want the punani. And that was it. That was enough for me. Like my brain has not worked properly since I've heard Steven Scal say I want the punani. So now I've put that out in the world. Hopefully that'll sort of like flush it out a bit. You can suffer along with me having heard Steven Scal say. I think he even says me want the punani because, of course, he has to affect do a sort of he has to do an affectation for every sort of sentence he ever says. We have some updates. Let's actually start the show. Yeah, I can't. I think we need to use Japan and this week seem to be it might just be me talking about Steven Scal saying I want the meet me want the punani. Over and over again until I just exhaust myself, I should start drinking now. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. There wasn't enough. OK, you've come here for the show. I'm here for the show. We're all here for the show. We want some updates on previous stories. I really hate you've come at the wrong time. My brain. Oh, no, we're going to do it again. Jane came. So we're going to play the Steven Scal thing. I actually put it. You don't need to see the picture. You just need to see my dumb face. I have been going for four minutes and this is supposed to be recording my show and I can't do it. I can't do it because of a Steven Scal song. Let's do it. Let's listen to that part again. He says me want the punani. Steven Scal at that time probably 60 year old gross man. He says me want the punani. He's a white guy. He's disgusting. 

He's a sexual predator. He's multiple sexual assault cases. He's a serial liar. And yet weirdly the most offensive thing about him is him saying I can sing. I don't know. This is everything. Every aspect of him. I got to cut all this out and start again. Me want the punani. I should make that my transition sound from now on. That's it. So instead of doing the. Where is it? OK, let me get the transition sound. Instead of that, it should just be this. Oh, I think my clapping my hand woke up Dave a bit. I'm sorry. Sorry, buddy. I'll settle down. I got to settle down for Dave's sake. That's the important part. Me want the punani. So I'll do like a dead serious Japanese news story, which I actually never do because I'm always here to make fun of it. I'll do a news story from Japan and then me want the punani and then change on to the next topic. I might do that for the rest of this episode. It wouldn't stick. It's only funny ones or it could be funny. And it gets like so it's not funny, but then because it happens so much, it gets funny again. Those actually are all pretty good, but it's pretty painful. All right. No, I'm going to do some ninja news, Japan. Otherwise, I'm not going to get an episode done today.

 I was thinking of doing some lunchtime drinking this. This song is ruined my brain. Ninja News, Japan fans. I want to apologize and just let you all know. I'm going to make a sound board that says me want the punani. Steven Seagal sucks on so many levels. Like, like there is no metric by which you measure another human being where he is not a total piece of shit. Lady saw the female voice in that I actually bet is very talented. And the reason she's in there. The reason she's in there is because Steven Seagal paid her a ton of money. May says she hates the punani. How can you hate the punani? Because we all know that deep down inside. I mean, that's that's it. I got to actually make the sound board so that I can I can actually just hit the me want the punani. Let's listen to a little more. We didn't actually get into that's only the intro. My my my podcast, Ninja News Japan, usually 20 to 30 minutes. I've done seven minutes now. Never having said a word yet. When the when the girls start to strut, you can look at their butt. But you shouldn't do that. So here's just throwing in a little bit of morality, despite the fact that he's just said me want the punani. Look, I don't know where my head's at. And that's that's maybe the core issue that we're dealing with here. If I can just comment on Jade's last comment, we we all love the punani. I mean, that's just that's just factual. 

Everyone when it comes to punani loving, it's like KFC. It's finger licking good. Was that gross? I'm 50. I shouldn't be saying shit like that anymore. I should be a more mature adult. But I don't one of the the fallacies of growing up and getting old. So like now I am certainly old. I'm past growing up. I'm now old. I have yet to feel like I've grown up yet. I'm going to do an Indian News Japan episode. I'm a little down about it. Steal myself. Intro song once again, let's get to start from the beginning. Let's actually do it. All right. I'm going to start from the beginning and start the whole thing again. Updates to previous stories that do not have anything to do with punani. Or Steven Seagal. We there was a story about. A group of men, gentlemen who belong to a crime group. They weren't mafia. They weren't Yakuza. This is a new form of group. They were more of a gang, organized gang. It was really interesting because they were actually orphans from Korea and China. Not them. This would be like second generation. But their parents and stuff were orphans and stuff. And they were left in this dire situation. And they had kids in Japan and they turned to crime. And they ended up organizing. So it's Yakuza is always like a family thing. This is a mishmash group of people who have come together because of dire circumstances. Actually, it would make a really good movie. I'm not kidding. They had a celebration. One of their members, senior member, had gotten out of jail. And there was like 30, 40 guys. 

They had taken out this whole restaurant at the top of this very high skyscraper. So you know that's an expensive fancy restaurant. They booked the whole place to have this party. Brawl breaks out. And they start smashing the place up and fighting. No one gets killed. I mean people get beat up but that's a fight. Five people recently were arrested. The problem I see, they were arrested for obstruction of business. Very standard Ninja News Japan end of a story. Because that is the catch all law in Japan. Obstruction of business. The problem I see is that they were, the brawl broke out at the celebration of someone getting out of prison. They've made five arrests. They're going to have to have five more parties. Which means five more celebrations of people getting out of prison. Which has exponentially increased the likelihood that there's going to be a brawl at a restaurant. Where they're having another party welcoming someone out of prison. Five more arrests. It just goes on forever. Last week we did a story about a multi-level marketing, a pyramid scheme. 

And it was a guy selling eggs. And he was saying that his eggs were special and nutritious. Vaguely implying that they were like super-powered eggs. Total bullshit. He sold you these eggs 150 yen per egg. And that's, an egg in Japan, as I said, is like 10 to 15 yen. So he's doing a hundred times markup. So all these eggs, he was making tons of money, got shut down, he was arrested. Great. This week though, egg prices in Tokyo have gone up. The feed cost, the war in Ukraine, and a bird flu outbreak has increased the price of eggs by 26.5%. So maybe I was wrong. Maybe the multi-level marketing scheme was actually a good deal. And you should have got your eggs on the ground floor. Because the price of eggs going up means that might just be our new currency. Forget cryptocurrency. Forget fiat currency. Eggs. You know in video games they always have, Fallout was bottle caps. Became the new currency. Maybe this guy saw it coming. He saw that eggs were going to be the fundamental core basis of currency in the future. And he was actually a visionary. And we, who just want the punani, we don't see the future because we're so fixated on the punani. And so that's why he has clarity of vision and we don't. 

The reason this is important is eggs are usually a standard price. So fluctuations in price for many things. There's enough buffer around eggs and enough ability to plan around eggs that the price of eggs has remained relatively constant. So the fact that the price of eggs went up suddenly is really shocking to economists. So you might not think about eggs and things like that. And the prices of things go up and down, yes. And we've recently had price increases on many, many goods. Eggs have remained stable through all of that until very recently, which is a big problem. And it's actually very shocking. And it is actually a big issue. But also, we just did a story on eggs last week. So it was kind of interesting. Okay, so this is a kind of scary story. Over the next five years, Japan wants to increase defense spending by 56%. 

And Japan has a constitution that says it is not allowed to invade or attack other countries. It's called the Self-Defense Force, as the military in Japan. They are only allowed to defend themselves. But there are some voices in the government at the moment who are saying, like, because of the threat of China and North Korea specifically, self-defense as a concept needs to be expanded. And this is where it gets really scary, because what they're saying is self-defense should include counter-strike. And what does that mean? Because North Korea shoots missiles over Japan and by Japan all the time. It's very scary until the 50th, 60th time it's happened. Then you actually stop paying attention, which is probably the worst thing, because it should be a big issue every single time it happens. So what they're saying is if North Korea wants to shoot a missile, Japan should be able to shoot it down. But then some of them are saying we should be able to hit the thing it came from. So I assume a military base. That's the counter-strike capabilities they're talking about. 

Now, this is going to be 43 trillion yen. Okay, that's the set number, right? Now, I have an ongoing theory that Japan is really just trying to make an excuse to build a Gundam, a fully functioning real Gundam. To do that, I went on the internet and looked up the resources and costs and stuff. It's, of course, already been done by someone. How much would it cost to build a real-life, active, working, functional Gundam? And they said $725 million for parts and materials. And I went and looked it up, and it's pretty accurate. 43 trillion yen easily outpaces that number, because there still has to be some research and development. Now, how are they going to pay for this? How are you just going to grab 43 trillion yen? They've actually come up with, I think, a pretty good solution. They want to use revenue from corporate taxes and tobacco. So they're saying, corporations, you're making lots of money. We're going to tax you harder and pay for defense capabilities to keep you alive and safe in Japan. Tobacco is killing you anyways, so we're going to take that money and protect you with it, which I think is an interesting idea. If they added in a tax on alcohol, alcohol is still a big thing in Japan. 

I believe that some things should be paid by these, in Canada they call them sin taxes. So that's alcohol, tobacco, pornography. They have a higher tax rate, but all that money goes into social services. So you want to do bad things to your body, you are free to do that. You have to pay a little extra, but that money goes back into society to do some good, sort of balance it out, balance out the scales, some karma. I actually think I'm really on board with that. I think they should do it for, I love my fizzy drinks, my colas, I drink a lot of bad stuff. I think they should tax that at a higher rate. I would be immediately punished by that tax, but that tax should go into healthcare, because what do sugary drinks do? They give you diabetes, they make you sick, they do a lot of bad things. Put that into healthcare to offset those costs. I think that is a fair, balanced, sensible way to do it. So Jade has just said, finally a good tax idea. I actually think this is good. I'm not a big fan of the military.

 I do think Japan should protect itself, but I think it should build giant Gundams and just make a wall of Gundams around the whole island of Japan. No one would fuck with that. Japan has been developing rail gun technology that is a technology used within the Gundam universe and the big gun on the Gundam's arm. So they want to use corporate and tobacco taxes. I think if they included alcohol, you'd have enough money like Tuesday, next week, to pay for everything. They're looking at 700 billion yen trillion. I just wrote 700 corporate and 200 tobacco, but it gives you just a scale of how much. They're looking to tax corporations at a much higher rate than tobacco. So they're going to use that a lot. Now this comes into a third story. The Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy are all working together to develop a new fighter jet for 2035. This is the first time for Japan to do a joint venture with countries other than the U.S. So like when it comes to developing military technologies, Japan has always worked with America. This is the first time they're stepping away from America saying, England, you guys make the Triumph motorcycles. 

They're sexy. Italy, you've got the Lamborghini and the Ferraris of the world. The build quality isn't so great, but they go really fast. That's what we need. We need fast. You want the British to make the interior of the jet. The seats, the pullout T-set, that should all be made by the U.K. Italy should do the engine and the speed. Now it's going to break every time you fly it, but it's going to go super fast when it flies. So basically you're going to have to fly it, bring it back, maintain it. I think they have to do that with jets anyway, so that's not a big deal. Japan is going to do the technology and engineering, which means you're going to have a cute AI hologram woman who pops up on the console. It's like, oh, please attack that airplane over there and does something like that. I need a voice changer maybe to do the anime voice. But you can see this is an interesting it's interesting because it's a step outside what they normally do. They have very established relationships military wise with America. You're stepping away from that, trying to expand. I mean, the U.K. and Italy, man, that's a good lunch. 

I mean, you would have a really good lunch if you had someone from England and Italy and Japan together mixing up those cultures. Japan is actually going to lead development, which again, technology wise, I think that's a good idea. But it is going to end up having like weird – or maybe you don't have a hologram girl pop up in the heads up display, and the voice in your ear is going to be super annoying and hyper cute, which is actually going to like probably make the pilot sick. There was a quote. We have begun collaboration through a series of discussions on autonomous systems capabilities. Now, my final point is that the Gundam was a semi-autonomous robot. So it did have a pilot, but the AI in the Gundam was a learning computer that learned from the pilot and its experiences and put those together and then work together with the pilot to fight better. 

So we have enough money to build a Gundam. We are joining with other countries technologically to develop new technologies that will apply to a Gundam. We have already the weapons platforms that Japan is sort of developing that would go into a Gundam. I can't believe anyone is going to tell me that we are not building a Gundam. There is a truck driver shortage in Japan. One of the solutions they want to do is have drones do delivery for the mail, which is an interesting concept. Until recently, it was illegal to fly a drone over a residential area. They had to change that law to make the ability for the post in Japan to be delivered by drone. This is because of a driver shortage in Japan. I was interested in kind of the rules because they are changing the law, they are changing the rules. What happens? To fly a drone in Japan, you have to have a level four pilot license. That is required. It is a three-year renewal process. Every three years you have to renew your license. Every year you have to do a flight test. This is still not like any casual person with a drone can fly it. 

A person with a drone is still not allowed to fly their drone over a crowd. There is significant privacy concerns. That is actually the biggest issue in Japan right now. The biggest concern is about privacy infringement because these piloted drones have to have cameras. I am waiting for this to happen. Actually, having done enough Japanese news, I am waiting for someone to fly the drone into someone's window and just stare at them and then get arrested for that. Because it will be illegal. It is absolutely going to be illegal. It is going to break the stalking laws in Japan. Drone flights are going to be allowed over residential areas. I said all that. It is primarily for parcel deliveries. That is just a big important thing. That is all that story. I am waiting to see. They built these little sort of the Japanese postal systems that uses red. A lot of countries do. It has got a very cute drone. Look out for that in the future. I am interested to see how and when they actually start doing it. 

A big change. Cops in Japan are not allowed to go into... I have totally lost track of what I said. I need a little refresher. Let's get a little refresher up there. Okay, that is all I needed. A little want the punani to get myself going. In Japan, it is actually not true. I read this thing. There was a picture of some Canadian cops on the internet. They were standing around. It was a crowd. They were policing like an event, like a parade or something. They were both holding Starbucks. There was this big interesting outcry in Japan. Japanese cops would never be seen standing around with iced coffee. But then all these other people were like, well, you know, cops need to eat and drink and stuff. I mean, it is just ridiculous that they can. I thought from that, from across the country in Japan, that cops were not allowed to eat and drink on duty or not allowed to be seen. It turned out in most places it was true a long time ago. What would happen is in the rule was, I am a cop, I am in uniform and I want to drink. I have to go back to the station, change my clothes. They had like an official jacket you could take. Go to the convenience store, buy a drink, bring it back to the station, drink it, then change back into my uniform and then I go out and patrol again. But of course that is not very convenient. It would make sense to allow cops to buy drinks. But they were worried that cops standing around drinking coffee on duty would look bad and it would reduce the trust of the public that they are not actually doing their job. They are just messing around drinking coffee all day. 

There is, what is it, Oita Prefecture just said, oh, we changed the law. We changed the rule. They actually did a news story. You could actually watch a cop go in in uniform and he bought a coffee and he chatted to the, you know, this was all for the news. So he chatted friendly and then went outside and everyone was like, well, isn't it great that cops are allowed to drink? Sure, I thought that was a bigger rule. But it turns out 40 prefectures, so with this change, 40 prefectures now allow it. There is only five left that don't. You can't buy any fun stuff though. You're not allowed to buy cigarettes or beer or manga and then go sit in your cop car and just eat, drink beer and read manga all day, which is fair. But I mean, if you need some water or drink or something or a little caffeine to keep you going, that's allowed now, which I think it should have been allowed from the beginning. 

Several Japanese companies are adopting English as their official language, and this is an attempt to attract foreign workers. This is primarily IT companies that need engineers and stuff, but other companies are doing it as well. They want to have, it's a 45% increase in companies that are going to use English as their official language in the future, which is fine. They want to make all their internal documents English. They want to do all their communications in English. This is going to be really tough for the Japanese staff. They're going to have to all learn a higher level of English, so that's actually maybe good for people like myself, who's primarily source of income is teaching English. But I think the problem is they're not going to attract any IT people this way. And the reason I think they're not going to attract any IT people this way is because the problem in Japanese companies isn't English or it's primarily work-life balance. IT is already a tough business. 

Japanese IT is just worse because the work-life balance philosophy of companies in Japan is poor. So if that's the case, I don't think just them speaking English is really going to be attractive. They're going to have to bigger pay package. They're going to have to have better holidays. They have better standard holidays, but the average working day is so bad that I don't think anyone is going to really want to work for a Japanese company in that capacity, unless it's sort of like a real love passionate thing. I don't know. I'm a little thinking, basically I'm thinking they've missed what's not attractive about working in Japan. The language barrier isn't what distracts people. A smart engineer, I bet, is going to learn Japanese fairly quickly and be functional. Maybe reading, I think, is a lot harder because of kanji and stuff. But English is not the barrier. It's the why would I take this job that gives me more hours for less pay versus where I'm working now. Okay, we've got two arrests. We've got some crime news to finish off. So the man was arrested for a bomb threat. He's also suspected of 600 kidnapped threats to local governments across Japan. So this is a guy, he's unemployed, has a lot of free time, and he decides to spend his free time by threatening people about stuff he doesn't like. 

He threatened to kidnap 334 kindergartners. Now I was like, that's an interesting issue because he said the 600 kidnapping threats, say like I'm going to kidnap 300 kids, is that 300 individual threats of kidnapping or is that one threat of kidnapping applied to 300 kids? Because he's very specific. He says, I'm going to kidnap 334 kindergartners all in one statement. Does it count as 300 individual threats? Was it the actual bit I wanted to know about? I was actually looking into it. I couldn't find the answer. He sent a message to the mayor of a city. I will kill the mayor using a gun I illicitly made. Now gun legality in Japan is such that if you make a gun, it is already illegal. He did not need to specify. He did not need to specify that he had illegally made a gun. He made a gun, that's already illegal. But as you know, a few months ago, Prime Minister Abe was assassinated by a homemade shotgun. So this is really going to sort of pique the police's interest. This got them sort of off the go and off they went and they found him. He was arrested and what for? Obstruction of business. Because the threats stop people from doing work, that is obstruction of business and that is the law that you can catch everyone in. I got to start keeping count. I'm thinking up here in the corner, I'm going to keep an obstruction of business counter. And then every time I say obstruction of business, as the crime has been committed, not just every time I say it, but every time it's part of the story, it's the law you've been arrested for, we ding one on the counter. I think that actually might be fun. So that's something to consider in the future. Last one. There was a new law about pornography, which I found very interesting, not the pornography, the law. 

There's something I found really interesting about it because what they do is you have to have a written contract to do a porn movie in Japan. And in the contract, it has to include that for the next two years, if the actors within the film want that movie taken down, it can get taken down. And I actually think this is a really good idea because let's say I'm 18, 19 years old. I'm like, I'm really desperate for money or I'm in a tough situation. I make a porn movie to make some quick money. And then my life changes after that. And I'm kind of like regretting the idea of making that movie. Or I'm influenced in a negative way to make the movie in the first place. And then a year or two later, I'm like, oh, my life has changed. I really want that out of my life. I want that erased from the internet. It's in your legal contract that you can just say, I want it taken down, it'll get taken down. So sorry, Jay just said it'll always be out there anyways, but it's a good idea. I think that is actually true. Like logistically speaking, it's like the internet, you put something out on the internet, it's very hard to take it back. Like it will get copied and replaced or whatever.

But it gives them a legal recourse to at least minimize so the main source can be taken down. A lot of the videos will disappear because that'll be gone. But it gives them a legal recourse. And then of course, porn being a very manipulative industry in itself, the guys who do it, they're kind of scummy guys. Like I'm sorry, I have to honestly say that's what I believe. I think it's a manipulative industry. When I had a daughter, people always, like when you have kids, so if you have a son, a bunch of straight dudes are all going, what if your son's gay? Like you're supposed to react really negatively to that. And I was like, I mean, I hope he's happy. I don't really give a shit if he's gay or straight as long as he's happy. I made a joke. Of course, I didn't say it that plainly and sincerely. I said like, oh, you know, I hope my son does really well. We were talking kind of about double standards between having a son and a daughter. As a man who was raised in a misogynistic society, I am more protective of my daughter. But anyways, yeah, what I was saying, of course, when you have a daughter, they'll go, what if she does porn? And my thought was like, if it wasn't manipulative, I actually wouldn't have a problem with it. But like I take it down to modeling. Modeling as an industry is manipulative. S

o I'd be very wary about her doing modeling. She actually a couple of years ago said she wanted to do like one of these kids fashion things. And I was like, and it's not the kids doing fashion or the photographers or stuff like that. It is the creepy people involved in the industry that I'm wary of. If my kids aren't slightly gay, I'd be disappointed, but it's okay. I think we all got that in us. Again, I think because of when I was born and how I was raised in my life that any aspect of that has been tampered down. But I think it was tampered down to such a degree it's kind of come around where I'm super comfortable talking about dudes and penises and stuff. So I think I came around the other side. I'm clearly super heterosexual. But the idea of talking about men or a handsome man or gay stuff isn't off-putting to me anymore. I don't know if that's age or because I've just hit such a level of manliness that it's okay. But that's again a different topic. I wanted to finish the porn story. I want to finish the porn story is a phrase I didn't think I'd be using today. And oh, we did it at the same time. I clicked off so I could get the I want the punani line to go. This is now going to be a sound clip I'm going to pull from this episode and actually just make that a thing. Because let's be clear, if nothing else has been said today in the last 35 minutes, me want the punani. 

Anyways, the reason this came to light is we've had the first arrest. And something again, Ninja News Japan loves first arrests for new laws. Because is it applied the way the law was intended? Is it effective? This is kind of the interesting part of a first arrest for a new law. There was an executive of a porn company and he had seven times between August and October made seven porn movies with people without contracts. Now, three of those were uncensored, which is again also illegal in Japan, but they're uploaded to this website that's in the Caribbean. But the women weren't told that was going to be uncensored. So that's again, so you can see where this leaves the woman in a more powerful position. She said, like, I made Japanese porn. Japanese porn has your genitalia censored. You have taken that video and you've released it uncensored. Now she can say, I'm not comfortable with the genitalia not being censored. This wasn't what I agreed to. I want you to take that movie down. They have to take it down. So it does give, again, I think like Jade said earlier, it's always kind of going to be out there. But this is a case where I've found out early that this isn't what I agreed to. I'm forcing you to take it down. 

They do have to legally take it down. At least the actor in this case would have some legal recourse. And that legal recourse, at least they're going to get paid. Because if something that you don't want on the Internet is out on the Internet against your will. At least the absolute minimum is you can get paid. And hopefully paid enough to shut that guy down so he doesn't do it again. And that is... Ah, it's too slow. Why? Tell me what you really want. All night. No wonder Fernandez if I make my name. Okay. But... But I mean, that's all these guys in porn. That's all they really want. All right. I got to... That was the worst end to an Indian news drama. I've had some shitty endings to my shows. Because I don't script it. That was maybe one of the worst ones ever. But thank you for hanging out.