Spicy Crime

(upbeat music)

Japan has decided to get
stricter on their cycling rules.

I mean, Japan as a country
is already pretty strict.

We’ve talked about the
incredibly strict gun laws in Japan.

We’ve talked about how there
were some crossbow shootings

to try to get around the gun laws so
then they made crossbow control laws.

Like, something happens in society
in Japan reacts by creating laws.

I’m waiting for IRL public streamer laws.

With Johnny Somali in
the advent of a bunch

of other streamers
doing something similar,

I’m waiting for those
laws to become a thing.

They have decided to get
really strict on bicycle laws.

This came as a bit of a surprise.

There’s a big bicycle culture in Japan.

Not a bad thing, I think bicycles are good.

But they wanna make it safer.

So a couple months ago,
maybe the end of last year

we talked about how drunk
bicycling is illegal in Japan.

You are responsible
for any accident you

cause while being drunk
on a bicycle in Japan.

There are severe fines of Japan.

Well, they’ve now decided
to add like 100 more things

that are going to be illegal and
findable if you do it on a bicycle.

So just some of the
highlights, just so you know,

holding an umbrella is going to
be illegal while cycling in Japan.

Having the clip on the
front of your bicycle

to hold the umbrella is also going to be
illegal because it can inhibit your view.

From April 2026, there
will be a 5,000 yen fine

for holding an umbrella
while riding your bicycle.

There will be a 12,000 yen fine for using
your mobile phone while riding a bicycle.

Well, this one I actually agree with.

The cycling one with
umbrella, I’m a little torn.

I get, they want you to wear like this full
body piece of plastic rain suit, I guess.

I don’t know how feasible that is.

I got caught in the rain yesterday.

So maybe I have a little sympathy.

But I guess overall, they
don’t want you to have like one

hand on the bicycle and
one hand on the umbrella

and a gust of wind and it blows you
into the road or something like that.

There is a, the goal
here is safety for people.

So I’m always kind of on board with that.

The cycling while looking at your smartphone
is an incredibly normal thing I see now.

Primarily teenagers on their way to school,

they’re on their phone,
they’re on their bike,

they’re zipping down the
road, they’re not even looking.

I’m actually worried about those kids.

Now, I don’t think a 12,000 yen
fine is actually going to stop them,

but hopefully it helps
somebody, I think it’s worth doing.

A 6,000 yen fine for
ignoring traffic signals,

but that’s going to be
like you’re on your bicycle,

on your smartphone and
you blow through a red light,

you now get a 12,000 yen
fine for your, using the mobile

phone and a 6,000 yen
fine for blowing the red light.

There is also a 3,000
yen fine for double riding.

Double riding is seen as this terrible
thing, but it’s also very romantic.

So this is a problem
where culture has made a

girl riding on the back
of her boyfriend’s bicycle

or riding on the handlebars
and then double riding together.

There’s a very youthful romantic thing.

It happens in manga, it happens in anime.

It’s a love story thing.

So people want to do the love
story thing they’ve been raised with.

It’s also slightly dangerous.

So screw you 3,000 yen please,
although that is a nominal fee,

I don’t think it’s really
going to be a big deal.

(upbeat music)

If I said host of the NTV show,
the exclamation point, Tetsuhan,

Tetsuhan exclamation
point, dash double

exclamation point, his
name is Kokobun Taichi.

He’s a 50 year old dude.

He was also the keyboardist for the band
Tokyo, and he suddenly disappeared from TV.

If you had to guess, having
listened to an introduced pen

in the past, if you had to guess why or
what happened, what would you guess?

This would be a quiz, this
would be the easiest quiz ever,

’cause it’s like a 50 year old Japanese
man who has a certain amount of power.

Sexual harassment, just across the board.

You know it’s already sexual harassment.

I don’t even have to read it.

The funny thing is the TV channels like,

oh, we’re just going to say he violated
compliance rules, but it’s like, no,

it’s a 50 year old dude on
Japanese TV who’s famous.

He was sexually abusing people around him.

He was harassing people around him.

It’s something like that.

He touched someone inappropriately.

They, he disappeared from the band.

He disappeared from his TV show.

And I actually am more deeply offended

by the fact that they had
double exclamation points.

They had an exclamation point, ’cause
it’s like, you can’t be the Tetsuwan dash.

It’s the Tetsuwan.

And I don’t know how you
double exclamation point, how

you make that sound
stronger, but the name bugs me.

Japanese TV names are already bad.

This one, I don’t know,
was particularly offensive.

And the fact that this guy is now
this guy, I never knew who he was,

but then as soon as I saw the title,
it was like 50 year old Japanese man

removed from his TV show
and kicked out of his band.

I knew what was going on.

Apparently it’s not just sexual harassment.

It’s also like a power
harassment abuse kind of thing.

He was pulling an Ellen
DeGeneres on his staff.

So basically if he saw you as equal,
so you’re a Tokyo band member,

you’re a boy band member,
you’re of a certain social status,

you have a certain amount of fame,
then he treated you really nicely.

He was really kind of, but if
you were anywhere beneath him,

he would like lose his
shit on you regularly.

So shouting was a daily occurrence.

He asked female staff members for nudes.

He asked them to go on dinner dates.

He did non-consensual
touching on a regular basis.

This was reported multiple
times for being overly familiar.

And of course the station didn’t
do anything about it for years.

So now it’s come to the forefront.

Now he’s being pulled.

I mean, I don’t even know what to say.

There’s nothing I can say.

This is just such a standard thing now.

Famous guy.

The bit that boggles me, I
think, is, I’m a 50 year old dude.

If I really needed to, I could get a date.

If I was famous and rich, I
think it’d actually be quite easy.

I don’t need to be shitty to people.

I don’t need to be mean or cruel
to people to get that attention.

I’m already getting the
attention of being famous.

And then, oh, I could
be nice to some girls.

And I bet they would
give me attention back.

I can’t fathom how these
guys are finding it difficult.

Demanding nudes from ladies.

That’s not gonna get you anything.

I mean, that’s, I think
that’s the short version.

I think that’s not gonna get you anything.

Why do they think this is gonna work?

You can leverage your fame
and your wealth and get that stuff.

Why, why, why do you gotta
be a dick about it as well?

(upbeat music)

This was a very interesting
piece of dental fraud,

which is a very, very
specific kind of fraud, I guess.

I had a very hard time
finding good dentists in Japan.

So, doctors, I’ve been very lucky.

I’ve had people, my
friends, co-workers and

stuff tell me some
horror stories about them,

not finding good doctors over the language
barrier, being too much or whatnot.

I have had very good luck with doctors.

I had to try a couple dentists.

I found a good one who
went to my university,

which gave me a lot of
confidence for some reason.

I think because there was an understanding

that he was going to be
using more modern techniques.

I went to another dentist
in an emergency situation,

and he started like
banging away at my mouth,

and I’m like, you should
not be banging teeth ever.

Like, that’s just a given.

Just dentists should not hit teeth.

Because I had been told
there was a crack in my tooth,

and I guess he wanted to, if there wasn’t
one, he was gonna make one and then fix it.

Anyways, got out of there real quick.

This guy told patients that
they would get a treatment

fee of 2 million yen
refunded if they provided

their medical records and then a
cooperation fee would also be refunded.

It’s very complicated.

Okay, the story is very complicated.

Let me start again.

This guy was running a scam.

His dental clinic was in a rears.

He was gonna go bankrupt.

So he started telling
patients that they paid

2 million yen upfront, and then
they provided their medical records.

They could get that 2 million yen back
and essentially making the dental work free

because they’re allowed
to use the dental records

or share them with
other sources and stuff.

There was also a 2
million yen cooperation fee,

which once all the treatments
were completed, they would get back.

So he’s basically saying,
you give me 4 million yen,

and you will get money
back later, all of the money

back, and essentially,
this is just free treatment.

He’s received more than a dozen complaints.

He was doing this to
more than a dozen people.

And what would happen is
he would delay the treatment.

So he would actually
never finish the treatment.

So he would never actually
get to the point where he actually

had to pay someone back the
money that had been promised to them.

One patient paid over 7 million yen.

Oh, sorry, that’s totally different.

Since 2013, his clinic was 7
million yen in a rears for rent.

He had not paid employees since January,

and since April he had been
running the clinic by himself.

So that’s already something
you should take note.

If you go to a dental
clinic and it has staff,

and then you go back
for your second treatment

and all the staff are gone,
and there’s just the dentist,

that’s suspicious, there’s a problem
there, there’s a money problem there,

he’s not paid a staff,
all his staff have left.

So I’m really glad the staff got out,

maybe they lost a paycheck or two, that’s
unfortunate, but at least they’re not like,

constantly one of these people
who have been like, bamboozled

by the dental guy, and they’re
actually still working there

with the promise of
getting paid down the line.

He is suspected of taking 100 million yen.

He promised a patient that
he would replace the silver

fillings they had with ceramic,
which I actually had done.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and I had
some silver fillings, and then when I got,

and I went for some dental work, he said
we can actually replace those with ceramic.

It’ll look whiter, like it
just won’t have those,

like silver things in your
teeth, it looks better.

I find I did it, I don’t
remember it costing particularly,

a lot of money, but maybe I
didn’t have as many as this lady.

He said it would cost five million yen.

Then he convinced her that if
she paid another five million yen,

the whole 10 million yen would be returned,
refunded at the end of the process.

So basically he’s saying
like I’m gonna take this,

I’m gonna put it in here, I’m
gonna invest it, I’m gonna do

something with it, and then
I’ll give it all back to you.

You just gotta give me the tell me again.

Since they had already started the work,

she had already been convinced that
this was a treatment that was a real thing.

So that’s how they kind of got her.

So he would start the work,
convince them to spend more money,

they would spend more money,
and then he would just drag it out,

or he would stop like
returning phone calls.

He never got to the end part
where he had to pay them back.

She got real suspicious when he said,
I need to remove four of your teeth,

and then after the operation
said he had removed five teeth.

She’s now like, I’m losing teeth
that I wasn’t supposed to lose.

I don’t know if this guy’s actually
taking any of this seriously.

So basically he’s just like, well, I
gotta take something out of her mouth.

So this is again, there
is a very good chance

that none of this dental
work had to be done.

He was just convincing
people that it had to be done.

He was talking like implants,

like I’m gonna go into your
jaw and put an implant in there

that maybe was completely
unnecessary just to generate

more work for himself so
he could get more money.

But the scam was that he
never finished treatments.

He was in so much trouble financially.

So we don’t actually know what he was
actually like spending all his money on.

That his father who had
a farm was selling farm

equipment to give him
to keep the clinic afloat.

This is just now all come to light.

He’s been busted for fraud.

And I hope he’s treated like shh,

because just digging
around in people’s mouth

for no reason just to
get money is pretty often.

Japan has a single adult doll
museum, which I didn’t know about.

I only learned about this
when I heard this story.

Now, the problem has arisen
that it’s in a private residence.

Which means you can’t just like go there

and like it’s not an open
museum to the public.

You have to like make an appointment.

You have to call the guy and say like, I
would like to tour your adult doll museum.

I would like to see
all the adult sex dolls.

And then you make an appointment and you
come visit and maybe he guides you through.

I’m not sure how it works.

I haven’t looked into it too closely.

I don’t know if I would
be really comfortable going

to someone else’s house
that has been arranged

as an adult doll museum
from being really honest.

If it was like an official sex
museum like they have in

Europe sometimes, that’s
a different feeling, I think.

But if you think about the
internet, this is prime content.

This is the salacious
content that gets clicks.

This is stuff people want to see.

It’s really weird that it’s
in this guy’s house, you can

go ahead and assume this
guy might be a little odd himself.

He’s dedicated a big portion of his life
and his money to creating a sex doll museum.

There is a VTuber agency called Nijisanji

and they started bugging
the owner for an interview.

So they started calling
him and sending him emails

and saying like, hey,
we want to interview you.

And apparently they
were getting aggressive.

He actually called the emails disgusting.

And you said like, I don’t want
to do an interview with you.

I don’t like the way you’re
sending the messages.

I don’t like the way
you’re dealing with me.

I don’t like the way this is being handled.

This is disgusting.

I don’t want to work with you.

But someone from the agency
showed up anyways with no appointment

because, of course, they
could find out where his house is.

It was the chairman of the
VTuber company and another person.

They showed up and they
started trying to harass

him, trying to get
him to do an interview.

Apparently previously,
a VTuber had showed up

and gone through some
obviously made an appointment

and gone through and filmed,
which you probably weren’t

allowed to do without permission,
and filmed so that he had content.

And again, this is a private residence.

See, they basically
wanted to someone’s house

without permission to
film and started filming.

I know that’s very illegal in Japan.

So this guy has just
banned the entire agency.

The Nichi Sanji agency has been
banned from the adult doll museum.

I did have one question.

VTubers being virtual YouTubers.

If they’re going to go in and do this,
how do they get the VTuber into the video?

So I’m guessing that must be an
overlay they do later or something?

It seemed very weird to me.

I guess there’s
going to just be some

post-processing editing
that goes happens afterwards.

But these guys, again,
the internet has now

gotten into this vague
harassment territory

where it’s like, we’ve
got to push the limits.

We have to find more stuff we can
do and more people we can annoy.

And hey, here’s a guy who
has a very odd life he’s chosen.

Let’s disrespect him to get more clicks.

And now they’ve just got a blanket ban,

but I’m actually betting
that if they keep pushing it,

which if they’re modern YouTubers,
they’re probably going to do.

I bet this ends up with
some sort of legal issue.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There’s a man standing at a station.

That doesn’t sound
like a very exciting story.

And the police were like,
huh, it’s really hot right now.

This was June 17th.

We’re getting into sort of the beginning
of the really hot period in Japan.

We’re just hit rainy season now.

But June 17th was a hot day.

Now this guy has his long
sleeve shirt and a vest on.

So that’s really hot.

They do have these
like air-conditioned fan

vests, but he wasn’t
wearing one of those.

So a policeman’s like,
this is very unusual for him.

He doesn’t even like roll up
his sleeves to alleviate some

of the temperature problem
that he must be experienced.

So this guy looks– he just looks
hot and not in a sexy, cool way.

He looks hot like my guy that guy saw it.

So the cop goes over and talks to him.

A lot of people coming
from other countries–

again, I’m talking primarily to Americans–

have this false belief that
the way things are handled

in other countries are the way they’re going
to be handled when you travel overseas.

Like, I’ve seen people–
Americans in the UK,

and because the
police speak English and

stuff, they think that
the rules are the same.

So they start talking about
like first amendment rules

or like read me my
rights and stuff where

none of that actually
exists in that country.

In Japan, I think
there’s actually the belief

that you are guilty
until proven innocent.

I don’t think they follow the
innocent until proven guilty rule set.

So they see you, and they
see something suspicious

that guy– that guy suspicious
looking he’s guilty of a crime.

Let’s go check it out.

That is a perfectly normal, reasonable
way for police to behave in Japan.

It is very annoying, and it’s scary,

because that means they
can stop and talk to you.

Foreign people,
often, if they’re walking

down the street, get
stopped and questioned.

That is not an issue in Japan.

And you can say it’s profiling.

And police have gotten
in trouble for it in the past.

But police manuals that
has come out, have said like,

oh, you see foreigners, they’re
more likely to commit crimes.

So they should be checked out.

Statistically, that doesn’t hold up,

but that doesn’t matter, because the
stereotype is there, and the police believe it.

So they’re going to
treat you like a criminal.

And again, in Japan, that’s OK.

They can get away with that.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

You do have rights, but a lot
of the police don’t necessarily

know those rights or don’t
treat you as if you have those

rights, and they can get away with it
which is how we’ve gotten to this place.

Anyways, this guy has a
long sleeve shirt and a vest on.

He looks hot.

Please ask some questions.

I’m like, I’m not answering your questions.

So that’s more suspicious,
because if you had nothing

to hide, this is again
sort of the antithesis

to the– if you have nothing
to hide surveillance state

that we might be living
in, what’s the problem?

He’s like, I don’t answer questions.

He refused to answer the
questions he walks away.

He gets in a taxi.

He goes to a train station.

He gets on the train.

He goes to the shinkansen
station, the bullet train.

He gets on a train going to Nagoya.

The police now at this point have
followed him through all these places.

They have called a
helicopter to follow him.

Because of the way, he just refused
to answer questions and walked away.

They’re like, something
suspicious about this guy.

While they’re following
him– so again, a helicopter

is following this guy– who technically,
as far as we know, has done nothing wrong.

Cops back at headquarters
have been radioed.

And they’re like, you know,
check security footage.

Let’s find out what this
guy was doing this morning.

So they start looking to this
guy back tracing where he’s been.

They find out he’s taken out 500,000
yen from an ATM using someone else’s card.

So he has actually committed a crime.

So here you get to the problem.

Like, I don’t actually
care about the crime.

The crime itself is not that
story, not that interesting.

He got someone else’s card.

He took money out.

OK, yeah, that’s a crime, sure.

But the police’s behavior
of following this guy

has now retroactively
been justified by the

fact that they’re like,
we were suspicious.

This guy is committed a crime.

We went to speak to him.

He behaved more suspiciously.

We went and checked.

Now we’ve found out he has
actually committed a crime.

You can see there’s like a
minority report justification

for the way the police behave because
the way they behaved is uncovered a crime.

When the guy gets off the bullet
train, he’s immediately arrested.

And we’re like, we know you’ve
taken 500 yen out of an ATM.

We know you, someone
else’s card, you’re under arrest.

The questions remain.

Should cops put so much effort
into someone wearing warm clothes?

So he was wearing suspicious clothes?

Should they have put that
much effort into following him

because he had technically done
nothing wrong in view of the police?

But as far as they were concerned,
he was behaving suspiciously.

That’s something to remember.

When you go to a new country,
when you go to a different country,

the rules from your
country do not follow you.

The rules may be different.

If this was all justified as far
as the police were concerned,

they are not going to
get any trouble for profiling

or whatever you might
want to call it, of this guy,

because they’re like, he
was behaving suspiciously.

You can actually say like
the cop has experienced

there was more to it
when they spoke to him.

He became more suspicious and
that’s why they followed up on it.

But in Japan, you should
be aware that I think

you are treated as guilty
until proven innocent.

You can interact with the police.

Most of my interactions with
the police have been very minor.

I’ve never been stopped on the
street by the police in question.

Like a lot of the people I know have.

I have gone to the police multiple
times and had very positive experiences.

So again, maybe I just exhibited different.

I’m maybe I’m not suspicious.

Maybe that’s it.

I just don’t exude that suspiciousness

that the police would take in
because of my friendliness and guy.

Although every time
I’ve traveled to another

country, I have been
treated like I’m a drug mule.

So that’s maybe everywhere else.

I just seem like the suspicious guy who
is carrying a kilo of drugs up his butt.

A man was arrested for selling a
colorized, pirated version of Godzilla.

So you were talking about the original
Godzilla, which was filmed in black and white.

And now with AI technology,
you can throw the video up online.

And AI will colorize it for you.

He sold it on a flea market website.

On the website, he claimed the colorized
films had their copyright expired.

So this was perfectly legal.

Like there was no copyright on the film.

Godzilla’s copyright
doesn’t end until 2031.

So actually, he’s pretty
close, like six years off.

But in six years there,
I’m sure there’s some

loophole where they can
like renew the copyright

or re-release the film
or something like that.

Godzilla’s copyright will never go out.

They’re never going to let it lapse.

The original Mickey Mouse
has, which I actually was

thought through by Disney
being as big a company as is

would have done something
to make sure that didn’t happen.

But yeah, there you go.

The old Mickey Mouse is now copyright free.

We need the poo, they did
those horror movies and stuff.

That came to mind because we have a, we
need the poo story coming up in a minute.

He was selling these for
3,000 to 30,000 yen each.

So I’m assuming it wasn’t, like the
price difference wasn’t for the same film.

Like he was doing different films,
colorizing them and then selling them online.

He was selling you a DVD.

I’m assuming, yeah, like a Godzilla
movie was expensive 30,000 yen.

And then some other
movie that wasn’t as

popular was 3,000 yen
in somewhere in between.

He had made 1.7 million yen in five months.

Police can’t, it became aware of this.

They have police who
basically apparently just troll

websites and stuff, cybersecurity police.

Yeah, they’re finding a
lot of cyber crime this way.

There’s working very hard
on copyright crime lately.

This has been a big set of
stories, this copyright copyright.

Japan’s doing everything it
can to protect its own IPs.

As promised, a 59 year old man, I
was kind of like gonna stop there.

59 year old man.

This is where we do another quiz.

Like what do you think the
59 year old Japanese man did

considering our theme of 50 year
old Japanese men and what they do?

Well, he was winning the pooling it.

So we knew the pool is famous
for wearing a jacket and no pants.

This man was walking along with a shirt,

sort of the upper body
covered the way it’s supposed

to be and his lower
body completely exposed.

It was two o’clock in the morning.

He was just walking around
apparently just airing himself out.

The police found, now I would normally
would have assumed he was drunk.

This is just sort of standard.

They found no alcohol or drugs detected.

So maybe he had something
in his system, we don’t know.

But he was just walking
around in the night air,

kind of like just getting
that all out in the open.

Just be careful, you walk around at night.

That is something you might run into.

(upbeat music)

Again, I could do a quiz.

The 16 year old went to a sushi restaurant.

And again, film the blank.

So you know it was for social media.

We could do a little bingo thing.

Like you know what you know
without me telling you the story.

You know he did something stupid.

You know it was on social
media and he posted it

to make his friends
laugh or to try to get viral.

And you know the police
saw it or the company

saw it and they just
went and picked him up.

Like, ’cause he did it on his own account.

Like, that’s already set.

I shouldn’t even have to like
say those things anymore, I guess.

The question, I guess
the devil’s in details.

Kuna sushi is one of those kite tennis
sushi places so it goes around on the loop.

And then after you have your plate,
you put your plate in this little slot.

That’s already, so you can put stuff in it.

It’s gonna slide down a little
thing, go in and get washed.

And that’s, I don’t know
what the mechanism is.

There’s some Rub Goldberg machine
that actually washes it just behind there.

I don’t know.

He’s like, I’m 16 years old, I’m dumbish.

And I’m not actually excluding myself.

I think every teenager is dumbish it.

I think I was dumbish it at 16.

I did some really dangerous stupid stuff.

Social media wasn’t really a
thing when I was a teenager

which I think is a good thing ’cause I
think I would have been one of the victims

of I wanna be famous
for doing dumb stuff online.

If I think of some of the stuff I had
done when I was 16 and I’d filmed it,

it probably would have gone viral and
it probably would have ruined my life.

So the popularity would
have filled my head.

I think it’s really good that
I didn’t grow up in this era.

I think I would have
been absolutely a victim.

I would be one of the people I
talk about now on this podcast.

He’s like, I’m gonna do something funny.

I’ll put something in the slot.

What can I put in the slot?

Well, he opened a condom
and put the open condom.

It wasn’t used.

That’s a generous, thankful for all of us
’cause then I would have had to go through

the whole thought process of how did he
get the condom to the place but whatever.

We don’t have to deal with that.

He opened a condom,
put the condom in the

slot, took a picture
of it, and then ha ha ha.

I’ll post that on X and
I’ll get really popular

and it didn’t include a sushi the company
which of course recognizes their own slots.

Reported it to the police,
he was immediately picked up

and he was arrested for
obstruction of business by fraud.

I do wanna know what part of that is fraud.

I’m still trying to find
a lawyer I can speak

to just to have these
questions worked out.

I’ve realized the problem is if I just,

as chunk of a beef
chest, send a message to a

lawyer, they’re just gonna
ignore it and then like,

hey, I can’t pay you,
they’re gonna ignore it.

I mean, these are lawyers.

So I get why it’s so problematic.

What is the fraud aspect?

‘Cause I can obstruction
of business, he’s doing

something gross that is
making the business disrupted.

100% on board with that.

But where’s the fraud in that?

He didn’t put a plate in the plate slot.

Is that fraud?

That’s the question I have.

Like, where’s the fraud aspect of this?

I’m not thinking he
should not get in trouble.

He should actually get in trouble.

I think they should like really make
sure that this stuff stops happening

because these sort of
shared spaces and restaurants

being abused like this makes it gross for
everyone else to go to these restaurants.

But I do want an explanation
as to what aspect of this

is legal and illegal, what he
did specifically, that was illegal.

Making a dirty thing dirty.

I don’t see that as being fraud.

That must be something else.

Again, the obstruction of business.

(upbeat music)

Company president of a staffing
agency is walking down the road.

He’s got 7.8 million yen in his bag.

He’s gonna pay his staff.

It’s a staffing agency.

He’s gonna pay somebody.

It’s pay day for people
wearing masks and plastic

gloves run up behind him
and smash his face with spices,

which is already to me a very interesting
way of trying to assault someone.

Then they grab the bag
and they try to run away.

Company president doesn’t let go
of the bag and he starts screaming.

The four guys, they take off.

Well, it turns out it was for Indian
and Nepalese people who were arrested.

The fact that they stole the
money and tried to use spices

just leads us into this like weird
racist joke territory but they did it.

I don’t know what to do.

I was like trying to make
jokes and I’m like the

joke sound bad but this
is based on a real thing.

So what do I do with this information?

They didn’t get the money.

They didn’t get away.

So again, there’s CCTV everywhere.

They’re surveillance video.

The police just checked.

They backtracked it.

Just like that guy who is
suspicious on the trains platform.

They can find you anywhere now.

So I’m now thinking like any crime
in public is just already automatic fail.

You gotta figure something else out.

One of the Indian guys actually
worked for that staffing agency.

So they’re pretty sure
that he knew it was pay day.

He knew that the company president would
be carrying the money to go pay staff.

So these paying staff and cash, I guess.

Like I work for a company that gets
transferred automatically to my bank account.

I don’t actually ever
really carry cash anymore

and I pay with everything with pay pay
which is again, also an automatic transfer.

So they must be dealing with,

again, if the guy’s
Indian, he’s dealing with

immigrants and stuff, maybe
they’re paying them cash

’cause they don’t have
bank accounts or something.

But him knowing that and
then abusing that information

but then also like how
can we like disable this guy?

And on those, again, in a non-violent
way, we’ll just stuff spices in his eyes.

He had to take a week
to actually heal fully.

I’m just sure it was
inflammation and stuff.

But that’s pretty unpleasant.

He wanted to do pepper spray,
but didn’t have pepper spray.

So we were like, we’ll do some homemade
smack it in his face and see what happens.

It does not work out.

That was a really bad plan.

Don’t do that.

There’s a company called Neocorporation.

They do electricity.

So wiring and stuff like that.

They have a promise of an average
salary of 14 million yen, which is huge.

The average salary in Japan
right now, 4.5 million yen a year.

So they are talking like
more than double triple

the average salary if
you work for this company.

So that sounds really good.

That’s going to appeal a lot of people.

If you offered me three times more money,

I would be very interested
in working for your company.

They’re being sued by five ex-employees.

So that’s, huh, if they pay so well,
why would these people sue them?

Because of course, that amount
of money means they think

that you’re going to
put up with a lot of crap.

You’re going to put up with a lot of crap.

That’s going to mean power
harassment, sexual harassment.

It’s like all these stories now.

It’s now just become like, again, a given
as to where this story is going to go.

There was violence on a daily
basis is what they were saying.

They had severe punishment.

So if you got a traffic
violation, so you’re in electrician,

you’re going to have to drive two
places to do your electrical work.

If you do a traffic violation, you
lose your commissions for that month.

So that’s not just a
job, not the job you’re on.

You lose all your money for a
month because you like ran a red light

or got in trouble or in
some way, but you’re going to

be driving all day, that’s
going to have it by accident.

Like you roll a stop sign or something.

If there is a client cancellation,
you lose your commission.

You had to pay your commission back.

So you got your commission,
but you have to pay it back.

But they canceled, there’s
probably a cancellation fee and

stuff like that, which probably
includes your commission.

So I think you were paying back money
that you should have gotten regardless,

because maybe you were not the
reason or at fault for their cancellation.

They had recorded verbal abuse.

So apparently this was like a daily thing,

like every meeting just
included them shouting at you.

One employee said if they
were not meeting targets,

they were ordered to
send a full body nude.

And that full body nude was then
circulated around the company.

Now I think if someone,
if I was at my company

and they were like, you’re in trouble now,
you have to pay, you have to pay as back.

So you’re gonna send us a nude.

I think I would sub out my genitalia
part and send them someone else’s,

maybe a person from the internet,
so that it was particularly impressive

and be like, yeah, send that around the
office and see who feels bad about it later.

I think there’s a way around that one.

Like these guys are legitimately doing the
things that they were being told, I guess,

’cause they were being abused
physically and emotionally.

So they’re not in the
same mind space, I am.

Whereas I was like, oh,
here’s an opportunity

for everyone to think
that I am, you know.

With that, they think that I
am more of a man than I am.

One ex-benders said, it was very common,

if you couldn’t intimidate
your subordinates,

they didn’t think you
were management material.

One guy said that while
he was being berated,

that his manager would grab his
testicles and squeeze them really hard.

The manager says he didn’t grab
them that hard, it wasn’t that painful.

I don’t think that’s
his thing to interpret.

The company, when this
all started coming out,

said that we believe
these claims are based

on one-sided interpretations
and perceptions.

Now, it is very difficult to misinterpret

my manager grabbed my
balls and squeezed and hurt me.

And even if it is my-sided perception,

he hurt my balls is pretty
easy for me to prove.

It’s not a one-sided
perception that I had to take

a picture of my genitalia
and mail it to my boss,

who is then gonna
share it around the office.

I assume to try to humiliate me.

And again, I’m pretty on board with, let’s
just sub everything out or make me sell,

you know, I might set up some lights and
try to make it look as good as possible.

But, you know, that’s not
a one-sided perception.

This is something I had to take a picture.

I sent the picture to my manager, that
picture then made it around the office.

There’s no perception there, that happened.

So, now that this is going to court,
more of these things are gonna come out,

I bet we get a lot more crazy stuff
coming out from the new corporation.

Still, three times
more salary, if all I gotta

do is send pictures to
my junk around the office.

I mean, that’s something
I’m kind of doing anyways.

(upbeat music)

Oh, that’s in focus now.

So, I know I have a Dave Cam, Peter Cam,
Dave Cam, Peter Cam, this is kind of cool.

I don’t know how I’m gonna use this
yet, but just having a second camera

that I’m using for this
is gonna be kind of fun.

Dave Cam.

Yeah, he’s got a little
bald spot here where I

had to put medicine
’cause he has a little bump.

But the bump’s going away.

Look at this guy.

Oh, I was, he wants me to
scratch his belly, I’m sure.

And I think he puts his head here ’cause
it’s the metal in the glass of the desk.

It’s cool.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Mood Harassment

(upbeat music)

Whoa, black barrier, bam,
blam, and I can’t do that.

All right, anyways, the
big black barrier that we

talked about last week and
maybe even the week before.

It was found, like literally the next
day or two days later with holes in it.

The holes, suspiciously, are at eye level.

A spokesman for the town said, we
thought this might happen someday.

Just not this soon.

So they underestimated the sheer resilience

of tourists coming
to ruin their little plan.

A barrier, I didn’t actually think

of like a curtain barrier,
fabric thing was gonna work out.

My assumption actually
was people were gonna hold

their hands above the
barrier to take the picture.

Poking holes in it, I
wouldn’t have done that,

but I actually would have
assumed it was gonna happen.

So what do they need to do?

They need to make a Kevlar barrier
that they can’t easily cut through.

Now there’s a plan to repair the barrier

and then put a sign up
asking people not to touch it.

I think they might be, again,
underestimating people’s

respect for other things,
because if these are the kind

of people who are
willing to poke holes in a

barrier to take the
picture that they want,

they’re also the kind
of people who would be

willing to ignore a sign
to not touch the barrier.

‘Cause anyone who’s gonna
do basically vandalize something,

they’re not gonna care about a sign
that says, “Please do not vandalize this.

” They are talking about
putting up a new screen.

So that screen costs 1.3 million yet.

And they’re saying like, maybe
we should put up a new one.

I assume they’re talking about
a different material or something.

They didn’t get too much into the details.

They are talking about a different color.

They are thinking about
changing the color from black

’cause maybe the black
is a bit too intimidating.

It’s a bit not very aesthetic.

To a blue or, what did
ninjas use to pen say

when they talked about putting
out the barrier in the first place?

A green.

So they’re going to put up possibly
a green screen in front of Mount Fuji.

So my first thought was for the animators.

So you take a picture of
Mount Fuji with the green screen.

And then you can
superimpose an anime version

of the same Lawson and
then put yourself in front of it.

And now you’re in the dream anime.

You’ve imagined all your whole life.

And that’s pretty awesome.

I mean, let’s be straight up.

That’s pretty cool.

Then, of course, people
are going to get more

creative than that and
do weird and gross stuff.

I assume because let’s
face it, that’s what people do.

Man was arrested for stealing
cyanide from a university laboratory.

Now at first I was like, do
they keep a lot of cyanide?

But this is like a lab.

They do lots of stuff.

So they’re going to have lots of chemicals.

So cyanide does make sense for
it to be in a university laboratory.

Universities, not a big
surprise, they keep track

of how much lethal chemicals
they have very closely.

He took 25 grams.

So they noticed 25 grams
of cyanide was missing

and then started tracing
it back to him right away.

He took the cyanide
because he wanted to kill

his father who was
nagging him to get a job.

So this was a 30 year
old man still in university.

His father’s like, dude, I
can’t support you anymore.

You’ve got to get a job.

And he got really annoyed by that.

He’s like, you know what I’m going to do.

The most sensible course of action is
steel cyanide from the university I go to.

Take that home and kill my father.

No one will know.

No one will ever figure it out.

It’s the perfect plan.

The scary part, though, is that the
cyanide itself has not been recovered.

So there are still 25 grams of cyanide
out there in the world roaming free.

So be careful.

So you go to a famous Japanese restaurant.

Japan is famous for its food.

So the good restaurants
are really good in the food.

The food’s famous.

So it’s the good foods, even
more famous, even more better.

And Japan does have good food.

I’m not going to– I’m not
going to rip on it for that.

You want to go to a ramen restaurant.

Ramen’s very famous in Japan as well.

So you know the most famous ramen restaurants
are going to be really, really good.

Imagine you’re sitting
eating this delicious ramen

that you’ve probably waited
hours for outside the restaurant.

You’ve gone in.

And you’ve maybe even
made a trip here to get to it.

Wow.

You start eating it.

And then smoke starts to fill the room.

What do you do?

Do you abandon the ramen that
you’ve put so much work into obtaining?

Do you just give up on
this dream that you’ve

had of eating this very
specific kind of ramen?

No.

You keep eating.

There were no instructions
from the staff to actually leave.

There were about 15
customers in the ramen

restaurant when smoke
started filling the room.

No one said any.

Only when the flames got higher– this

was what the article
said– only when the

flames got higher where
people told to leave.

Apparently, staff started to panic.

So I’m betting what
happened was there was a fire.

And then the staff were like, well,
we should get everyone out of here.

And then a manager is something’s like, no,

we don’t want to ruin
their dining experience.

And then the staff
were like, dude, I am not

dying for what I assume
is a minimum wage drop.

Maybe it’s a high-end restaurant.

So you’re going to
get paid a little better.

But still, you’re a waitress
or waiter or something.

You’re not getting paid that much.

Certainly not enough to risk your life.

So what happens?

You’re like, I’m getting out of here.

And when you get these people
out of here, no one was hurt.

The flames did get high
enough to touch the ceiling.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So the situation– yeah,
this is quiz number two.

So this is all clearly very successful,
because we’re doing it again.

During a student council speech, a student
did an imitation of the vice principal,

including how they talked
and sort of their gestures.

So it would be like doing a Trump
imitation, not flattering, I assume.

So how do you think
the principal dealt with it?

And you have three options.

So this is a very uptight, I
assume, older Japanese man,

who’s used to being a position
of authority with children.

These are middle school kids.

Middle is our elementary school.

Yeah, they’re not old.

They’re not– he maybe
is at the upper end of 13,

because it’s a mixed elementary
junior high school of situations.

He might be.

I told you how one of the teachers dealt

with my daughter, a challenging
and better school council thing, right?

If you’re willing to put that on
the air, I’d love to hear it again.

Yeah, I’d love to.

I’m going to go ahead.

They had a school council
meeting, and all the kids

wanted to know why the
girls were only allowed to have

a hair above their shoulder
or hair below their shoulder.

They weren’t allowed to grow it,
if to make it below their shoulder.

So if they went to the school, and the
hair was short, had to stay short forever.

And the girls are like,
that’s a really stupid rule.

And they brought it up
at the council meeting.

And my daughter was the representative,
so she had to present it to the teachers.

And they said it, and then the teacher
in charge, who was like a veteran, veteran.

Yeah, I’m assuming, yeah.

He was like, it is 60s.

Awesome.

You know, he loves having rules challenged.

He teaches.

It’s best one.

Because almost all the
engineers Japan stories

about teachers, like
90% of them are P.E.

teachers who are hitting kids,
because they’re not Olympic athletes yet.

And then though you
know, those teachers are

just fat all of the
crap of pieces of shit.

My biggest complaint in judo
is you get this group of older

black belt dudes who just stand
around and shout out to people,

and they can’t physically
do anything anymore.

And I’m like, I understand you still
have the knowledge, but you could try.

You could try and spread
your knowledge without shouting.

I participate even though
I’m like one of the older guys.

To me, it’s like just
to maintain my ability.

So if I can show people things physically,
here’s how you do it, to done done.

But yeah, they bugged me.

I just stand on the side.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, so after
she presented this question

and wanted like from a human,
why instead of just a rule book.

Yeah.

He just turned to the whole school.

The whole school, yeah?

The whole school.

It’s like, can you believe
the stupid question

that the stupid little
girl just asked me?

Can you believe what a stupid question?

And then my daughter
just stood there like, what?

This just happened.

Yeah, that’s someone who
doesn’t have an answer who’s

trying to make the question
stupid and not the answer stupid.

Because the answer is, there is no reason.

It’s an arbitrary rule.

Yeah, I don’t know.

It’s the way it’s been.

It’s like the challenge it.

Yeah, it’s like all the other
rules that have been like getting

basically overturned over
the last couple of years.

Like, for this like, sock business
underwear, but it’s just everything, yeah.

Like, they’re not allowed
to wear like long socks

that my daughter was
school either, but they have to.

So they have to have
bad legs through winter.

Yeah.

Which I think is really old.

There’s a lot of schools
now that the cool thing

is they’re doing unisex
uniforms so they get pants.

They all just get pants.

It’s like so bad for so many
girls and the schools there.

Yeah, absolutely ridiculous.

They did do a survey as good as if they
could wear like, like, tights or something.

Well, there’s a lot of girls
you see when they go to school

or wearing track pants under
their skirt, which I think is smart.

But the shortest skirts, they
did a survey and it’s Hokkaido.

The coldest place in Japan.

Jesus, what?

Those are hardy women who are beefing
themselves up for the upcoming Ice Age.

Yeah, right.

I don’t know what’s going on there.

Because yeah, I do remember coming to Japan

and seeing the school
skirts and just nothing.

Like just bare legs
and I’m just like, that is.

I’m wearing like an overcoat and, you know,

I’m like considering long
johns later on, you know.

Yeah, you’re Canadian.

Yeah, no, it’s, it’s not even cold.

It’s wind and the wind cutting
straight on your skin is really bad.

Okay, so you have firsthand
experience almost of authoritative

teachers, just not except,
yeah, teachers being thickheads.

That might be the title of the episode.

Okay, so how did this man deal with it?

Three choices.

A, okay.

He hit the student.

B, he made a speech
and copied the students.

So he made a speech
and imitated the student.

So he basically did it back.

Imitating himself.

Yeah.

No, no, no, he imitated the student

and like started doing
the students gestures

and stuff, basically
making fun of the student.

Oh, go down, okay.

Or C, he demanded an apology.

Now you know demand an apology
actually has like extra steps to it,

but yeah, and why don’t I just
want to say all of the above?

Oh, no, this is, I am
willing, I, the student copied

them and then tonight
I’m doing a lot of money.

Oh, what order would you do it in?

I would, I would make fun of the student
then hit them and then demand an apology.

If I was going to do all three of those,

I think it would be because
you get the joke out

first and then whack them
when they’re not ready.

And then be like, now you.

I’m the G and then hit them.

(laughing)

Oh, you actually though it
makes a demand an apology

when you don’t get it
right away, smack them.

That would actually make sense to me.

All right, I’m going to go with B.

B made this speech and
copied the student is incorrect.

He demanded an apology, but his
apology consisted of, I couldn’t sleep.

If I have to take leave of
absence because of this,

you’ll have to pay the
damages for my absence.

And you may be sent to a
juvenile delinquent detention center.

You may not be able to finish high school.

The boy during this time was
apologizing profusely and crying.

Yeah.

He then, the mother came to the school,
I think the same day of the next day

for an unrelated issue and
then the teacher talked to her.

Then he found out the mother
helped the student with the speech.

He then said to the mom, I may sue you.

We may end up having
to settle out of court.

So in some weird way, he’s already
decided he’s one and they’re settling.

Like, not we’re going to actually
go through a whole court case

where this could get
thrown out because they’re

just like, dude, you’re
being unreasonable.

No, I’ve already won and
you’re going to have to settle out

of court and give me whatever
amount of money I demand.

So he, he did some cool shit afterwards.

So the kid won the election.

So he removed, he took
down the election results,

remade them and took
that kid’s name out.

So he just like messed up the election.

And then he was ordered
to stay home by the

school board because
he’s going a bit too far.

He’s like, because he’s a psycho
because he’s going way too far.

I don’t know.

Like, I guess you just live this life.

It’s a weird kind of like,
you just are the authority

and these kids can’t
push back and they can’t

argue with and you get
into this mind from move.

Anything I do is okay.

I think this is the thing
I hit most regularly now

is these guys have
lived this life and got

to a point where
anything I do is reasonable

and it’s weird that people
would react negatively to it.

I had a conversation
with the Japanese women

about what she thinks of
the worst neighbors to have.

She said, retired police
officers and retired teachers.

Yeah, retired police officers are bored

and looking for infractions that
they can then cause you trouble with.

Yeah, they want to create drama.

Yeah, just do it around their neighborhood.

Yeah.

And then I retired teachers
make sense because again,

they’ve lived this
life where they’re the

authority and everyone
should listen to them.

Yeah.

And they can’t accept
you like, no, get off my lawn.

Yeah, someone pushes back,
because you have no authority over me.

It is funny when, like,
as an adult, you go into,

there’s a point where
you may be going into

a school and you see
the principal and stuff.

And for a moment,
you do feel the principal.

It goes away when you realize,
no, that’s just like a dude.

And then it goes away even faster
when you’re like, he’s younger than me.

But there is a moment.

I remember the first time
as an adult going to a school

and then like seeing the principal
and being like, ooh, the principal.

And I was like, ooh, I make
more money than that guy.

So I read a lot of Japanese news.

That’s how this podcast came to be.

And one of the things you find
out in Japan is that everything,

literally everything is some kind of
harassment at the end of the day.

And there was a new
one that I hadn’t heard of.

And it’s called mood harassment.

And I was like, this is
getting a bit ridiculous.

Maybe I’m just one of
those people who’s just like,

at a point in their life
where everything, because it’s

becoming so extreme to my
view is seeming sort of ridiculous.

They are saying that
if you create a negative

mood in the office, that
is a form of harassment.

So if I’m in a bad mood
and that mood affects

your mood, that is a
form of mood harassment.

And the example they were using was siding
is a form of psychological harassment.

So you’re talking to me
and I go, that’s harassing you.

If I have a grumpy looking face,

which I think I naturally have a
grumpy looking face, that puts you off.

And that is a form of mood harassment.

Unintentional siding is a
form of power harassment.

So let’s say I’m a supervisor
and someone’s talking to me

and I go, geez, I don’t
want to deal with you.

That is a form of power harassment.

They also pointed out lip
smacking and face making.

So the lip smacking like something like
that, I guess you’m just like smacking.

That sort of disc sound.

Face making, again, I run into a problem
with that because I have a grumpy face.

I think if I’m not smiling,
I look really unhappy.

I’ve gotten to an age where
I started to get wrinkles

and face lines and stuff and
they all draw everything down.

So I look more unhappy as I get
older, which I guess is also true.

People tend to be
unhappy or as they get older.

I don’t know.

The problem with this,
so like sexual harassment,

you know you’re
doing something sexual.

Maybe you even know you’re crossing a line.

Power harassment, you
know you’re being aggressive

towards like an underling as a
supervisor, something like that.

Sighing lip smacking and face making,
the perpetrators are often unaware.

And it’s very hard to
get some sort of legal

thing on this, like
how do you define it?

And I think one of these things, they’re
casting the net so broad that literally,

if I come into the office
and I breathe too much,

I’m now harassing my
coworkers and they consume me

or they consume the
company or something like that,

that seems problematic
and I think personally,

maybe this one is
going a little too far.

A YouTuber was arrested.

So we did a couple of stories.

It was Johnny Smolley doing stuff in Japan.

He ended up getting arrested.

And I don’t know if he
was actually deported

but he left and he’s probably not
coming back to Japan anytime soon.

There was these people who tried to
like cheat the train system and you know,

steal food from hotels,
breakfast and stuff like that.

So there was a lot of bad behavior
from live streaming YouTubers.

And that seems to have moved
on to either other countries

or it’s just not happening
here as much as it was

and probably because these things
are punishable in Japan for sure.

It was interesting a lot of the
streamers I read about before

went to countries where
they are essentially more strict

and more harsh in their
punishments than Japan.

I think Japan was attractive because
it was sort of a first world nation.

It’s relatively safe and you assume
not much is going to happen to you.

Realistically though, you
can only go so far in any

country before something’s
going to happen to you.

This YouTuber was Japanese.

So it’s maybe shifted from foreign YouTubers
coming and behaving badly in Japan.

That’s actually sort of
relates to the first one.

So this is maybe a shift from foreign
people doing bad things to Japanese people.

Now emulating those foreign
people who did get famous

and get a certain amount
of money for doing the stuff

and copying them or it’s probably
been happening all the time

but the foreign YouTubers
are a better story.

This is a forcible obstruction of business.

I’m going to ding that one.

Car alarm, sorry going off.

Doesn’t look like the mic’s picking
up so I’m going to keep going.

He was drunk.

He’s decided to get up
and stand on the tables

and while drinking he would spit it
out and spit alcohol onto the table.

So this was of course ruining his
night disturbing other customers.

That’s forcible obstruction of business.

When he was arrested he said I got
carried away because I drank too much.

A man had a restraining
order placed upon him

by a woman who had rejected his
advances and he had continued to it.

(laughs)

What, he shot, he took a shot.

He just didn’t know when to give up.

She’d rejected his
attempts at communication.

He had been hanging around outside her
office, trying to talk to her again and again.

She said too much, got
a restraining order on him.

He showed up at her work.

When he was arrested, which
thing did he say to the police?

So A, I didn’t know she worked there.

B, I went to her work place, but
I didn’t go there to see her or C.

I thought if she saw me,
she’d changed her mind.

So he’s clearly been on her
case if there’s a restraining order.

It was seen primarily he was texting her

but then he was hanging around
and that made her nervous so she

contacted the police and had
a restraining order put on him.

Then he went to the workplace
after the restraining order.

He shows up at her workplace.

So did he say, I didn’t
know she worked there.

Did he say, I went to her workplace,
but I didn’t go there to see her.

Or I thought if she saw
me, she might change

her mind ’cause you
don’t look at this package.

Yeah, they look like I’m in check
this check on what I’m offering then.

She’s not gonna refuse this.

Ah, I think we come on.

Like anybody that is that
exists has to be that blind.

The excuses are always really.

This is basically where
the quizzes are coming are.

How do these people talk to the police?

Because there’s almost
like a set of answers

that you get regularly,
which is the bit I enjoy.

So, oh, man, I think it’s C.

C, I thought if she saw me, she
changed her mind is incorrect.

Yeah, he’s really.

Yes, he said.

So persistent.

Yeah, he was doing that.

He must have been like, she just doesn’t
realize how much he loves me, yeah.

Well, what’s the correct answer?

I went to her workplace, but
I didn’t go there to see her.

But it’s such a lame
excuse because like you have

a restraining order so
you know she works there.

You know you’re not supposed to go in.

He’s like, but I had other business.

They didn’t say where the workplace
was, ’cause I would have liked to know

if it’s like a place where
individuals actually go in.

Yeah, like if people could be there,

or if it was just like we sell
industrial drills to countries.

And like individuals don’t
walk in off the street for that.

So that would be like,
yeah, it does not make sense.

But if it was like we sell products,
then you could almost make an excuse.

Like I buy stuff here, yeah.

This is just the closest one in my area.

I’m kind of just playing
it by that answer though.

Yeah, I most vanilla answer of those ones.

I did like that he’s like, I just
happened to know where she were.

I’m trying to develop the game as it goes.

I was trying to think like, should I
stick to just three or should I just,

the other way we could play
this game is I give you the

scenario and you just try
to say what the answer is.

And then we see how close you can get.

Maybe a hint system almost.

A hint system.

I don’t know, let’s, there involves
a jacket, sorry, and a boot, yeah.

Yeah, that’s, I’m working on evolving
the game now from just multiple choice.

A Chinese YouTuber came to Japan.

Since we have two stories about
YouTubers, I thought it was nice again.

The local born native live
streamer getting in trouble

and now the international
live streamer getting in trouble.

He went to Yasakuni Shrine,
which is a memorial for World War II,

which means it is also a war
memorial for war criminals.

That is problematic for Chinese people.

Every year, members of the government will
go and pay their respects at the shrine.

And what they’re doing is in a way saying,

“Thank you war criminals for doing
all the work “you did in the past.

” The Chinese government,
the Chinese people,

one of the places that
was invaded by Japan,

things like this is something
maybe you should not do.

It’s very difficult water to
tread, but the Chinese have

got a firm stance and I
don’t actually think it’s wrong.

I don’t have an answer
to this one for sure.

I think if I was a politician,

I probably wouldn’t go there
just to not upset other countries

’cause it’s not just
China, it’s any country

that Japan’s invaded probably gets
annoyed by the South Korean stuff.

And they’re trying to build relations.

This YouTuber goes by the name
Ironhead, which I have a pretty cool name.

I can’t make fun of him since my
name’s he chunked my beef chest.

He decided the best thing to do
would be to make a little speech about,

and he said this
was in protest of the

Fukushima water treatment
of the water release.

So the Fukushima power
plant had a meltdown.

They have all this irradiated
water and they have a plan.

They’re releasing it
bit by bit into the ocean.

And it will dissipate enough, hopefully,

that it doesn’t actually
negatively impact anything,

but they still can get
rid of the irradiated water.

China has been against this.

They’ve clearly reported to their people,
this is a bad idea, we shouldn’t do this.

Their alternative was to
shoot it into the atmosphere,

which maybe works the exact
same way, but in my head I was like,

that seems just as bad
if not somehow worse.

I mean, I don’t know enough
about the science behind it.

The scientist said the amounts they’re
doing and the way they’re doing it is safe.

I don’t know.

I know bananas are radioactive, so that’s
another whole other thing going on there.

So he wants to protest the
release of the Fukushima water.

He’s come to Yessakuni Shrine,
which is essentially a warm memorial

enshrined for World War II soldiers,
and therefore includes war criminals.

He filmed himself doing this.

This is the issue, so he’s getting caught,

because there is actually
footage of security footage

of him doing this, but
the way he got caught

is he posted it on the
Chinese version of Instagram,

so China has their own version of all
the apps that we know and love so much.

Instagram, and then he took it down
when it started getting some heat.

That video was taken
down and shared outside of

China, so actually it
got captured elsewhere.

So he gives a little speech
and he says that this

place, he wants to treat
the world like a toilet,

he’s going to treat
this place like a toilet.

So he climbs onto a
pillar and begins to urinate,

and then spray paints
the word toilet on the pillar.

If he gets caught, so it seems like
he’s escaped and gotten back to China,

so he’s probably not
on the country anymore.

But if he comes back, he could be caught.

You could get three years in
prison, and a 300,000 yen fine.

His protest, again, I think this is
an ineffective way of protesting.

That’s something that maybe
people need to think about.

Like if you want to protest stuff,

it needs to have some sort of impact
beyond 10 seconds and getting you arrested.

You need to have some
sort of something in place.

Like I don’t think most
protests are particularly valuable.

I don’t think they’re
particularly effective.

But this one, peeing on something, I
mean, I think he chose yes, Kuni Shrine,

because it was going to
get a lot of traction in China.

But at the same time,
since it started getting

traction in China, it
means it got really popular,

and once it got really
popular, everyone was seeing it,

he had to take it down because
he was going to get in trouble.

There is no extradition treaty, but I’m
betting the Chinese government’s like,

you made us look bad, and in
China, you can actually get in trouble

from making the country
or the government look bad.

Like you can lose your
social status and stuff.

So I think maybe he thought
this was going to work out.

This was going to make it more popular,
and then it did, and then he realized,

oh, it’s maybe popular
with this base group,

but also the people who would
feel obligated to punish me for it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Podcast Harassment

[music] Harassment.

The breadth and variety of
harassment I have discovered on

Engineers Japan doing all these
stories over the last few years,

has been impressive, and yet I keep finding
new ones, new ones that I didn’t think

about or didn’t know about, and as some
are justified, some are not. I mean, I’m

basically working on podcast harassment
right now, where it’s either would be a guy

who has a podcast, tells you about his
podcast all the time, or podcasts are just

annoying you. I think it would be the guy,
because it has to be a person that harasses you.

Harassment has to come from
someone and lead to something else, so it

would have to be, yeah, that guy who
has a podcast, who’s constantly telling

about his podcast, trying to take you to
check out my last podcast. I try not to be

that guy, but it happens, because sometimes
we’ll talk about something, let’s say, in

my office, and it’ll be something I did
talk about on the podcast, and I want to

either say the same thing, but I want to,
like, if you’ve already heard the podcast,

I don’t want to tell you it again,
because you know my thoughts and ideas.

But then I worry I bring it up too often,
but I think the fact that I worry that I

bring it too often, I think the fact that
I bring it up too often, which is a fact,

shows that I’m probably not bringing
it up too often. I hope that’s my goal.

My hope, my desire, is to not bring things
up too often when it comes to the process.

I don’t want to be one of
those podcast guys, when I am

absolutely definitely one
of those podcast guys.

Lots of stories this
week, thematically.

I was drawn after I did a couple
of harassment stories in my notes.

I was drawn towards
the harassment.

Pretty good. There’s
some other stories,

but harassment is our
main theme for today.

I normally, for people who
are viewing on the internet,

try to keep the notes
a bit farther away, so

it’s under the camera,
so I’m actually usually

holding it like right
here. I’m half blind now.

I don’t want to get
into my personal issues,

but if I hold my notes
too far away, not only is my

handwriting messy, I just
can’t see them anymore.

So you’re going to see
a lot of me reading the

notes whether relatively
up close to my face.

It is the sad development
of the constant degradation

of the human body, which I
am experiencing in real time.

I’m okay with it though. You know
what’s shitty though, the worst part.

So right now, my
right eye, it’s fuzzy.

And if you want the
story, I’m going to tell that

story in the Seeming
Bee, so if you want the

actual story, which has
some honestly traumatic

elements, you can listen to that episode
that’s going to come out after this one.

But I, it’s not, I’m blind.
I’m fuzzier than normal.

So my eyes are already
garbage. I’ve been wearing

glasses since I was 16,
but my left eye basically

can’t focus right now.
So what it’s doing is

my right eye can’t focus.
My left eye is now doing

all the heavy lifting.
I’m pretty sure that’s

what was happening before
anyways. But as a result,

everything’s a little
fuzzier and I actually

would be easier if I just
had a patch and couldn’t

see. Like that, I actually
would be better visually.

Like if I just had this eye closed and it
was just reading or doing normal stuff,

it’s actually clearer
than having this eye open.

But I’m pretty
sure that’s also bad.

There’s no good thing here.
There are no good things here.

Dave is here.
Dave’s a good thing.

Dave is sleeping my lap.
He’s been very annoying today.

I think I’ve started this
a half hour later than

I normally would have because Dave
would not leave me alone. Harassment.

It’s, it’s, pet harassment.
I’m going to be trying to

frame everything in
some kind of harassment.

Some of the harassment
I’ve learned about there

was a maternity harassment.
So you’re having a baby.

You want to go
on maternity leave.

So they harass you. You get
pregnant and they harass you to quit.

There’s men going
on paternity leave.

They harass you not to take the paternity
leave that you are legally obligated to.

But we’re going to get
some interesting ones today.

The first one and this
is again, this was new.

So I do enjoy new things
in direct power harassment.

And so this, what is
it? It’s actually the kind

of the first question.
What is indirect power

harassment? This is when
you’re forced to watch

verbally abusive behavior
towards a subordinate

which causes you
emotional distress.

So basically you’re in
an office. Most Japanese

offices are open concept. I
work in an open concept office.

I fucking hate it.

I understand the idea
of the concept office.

I don’t think the
reality matches the idea.

I think the idea is that we’re
supposed to be like collaborating

and working together.
But really what happens is

I’m trying to get some
work and the dude behind

me is having a conversation
on his phone and his

voice is way too loud
when he’s on the phone.

The people are in the table,
the desk across from me

are having a different
conversation and they’re

speaking in normal tones. But
that’s just now cross volume.

There’s a dude in the far corner and he’s
decided that this is the perfect time to

open an incredibly crunchy
plastic bag where he’s

going to pull out Sembe
and eat the Sembe as loud

as humanly possible,
eating with his mouth

open, filling the office
with a smell of shrimp,

this powdered shrimp, I
also hate, honestly makes

me feel sick, and then some
there’s some drama somewhere else.

That’s the reality of
the open concept office.

I think the second
part is the open

concept office means that your
boss can see everybody in one go.

So it’s not like a micro-managing thing,
but it’s kind of like if I can see you,

you can’t be fucking
around too much.

If I was going to fuck
around, I would just get up and

relieve the office and
look busy. The interesting

thing, if you’re working
on an open concept

office and you are constantly
in meeting rooms and

conference rooms and
stuff, they think you’re but

this is not advice. Although
you could take it as advice.

If you are constantly
in meeting rooms,

watching YouTube videos
or TikTok or working on your

novel, other people will
see you in that room at

a computer writing,
working. You’re a busy guy.

I’m not saying anyone
has ever done that, but

there’s if you walk around
with paper in your hand

or a notebook and you
walk with determination,

people think you’re busy.
People thinking you’re

busy is more important
than actually being busy.

As long as you get you
or all your work done,

all that extra time
that could be like filled

time, what the fuck
am I talking about?

This guy worked at a
company. It was a government

inspection agency and
he said it was painful

to feel complicit. So
he basically, he’s working

on an office, his boss is
standing behind him with

these bosses subordinate
and his boss is just reaming

this guy and he’s sitting
there in silence and he

says that complicity
caused him pain because he’s

like, I didn’t stand up
for him. I just sat there

and that caused me
emotional distress.

April 2021, he said he
witnessed daily abuse.

The boss was calling
this subordinate a rotten

human and he said he
should give his salary back

because he doesn’t
do any real work.

And then he said like you
should quit or it would be faster,

you should just go hug a
female passerby or expose

yourself below the belt
and get caught by the police.

There’s a couple
of interesting things.

These are very, these
are Japanese insults.

So Japanese insults,
they don’t tend to actually

say anything like that you
would consider directly offensive.

It’s how you talk to
people, not what you say.

So him saying
like you should give

your salary back. I mean,
that’s that’s a lot of pressure.

You’re a rotten human being.

That’s insulting, but not
terrible. But this last one is

like, let’s expedite, expedite
your removal from the company.

Just go commit sexual harassment

and then we’ll be done with
each other and get arrested.

It does lead you to his interesting point
is if you’re the guy sitting in the chair,

what do you do? Do you
stand up for the guy or

do you just like accept
it? So this guy basically

he’s saying, I just sat
there and that caused me

stress that indirect
harassment caused me enough

stress that I’m suing
this government agency.

He filled in a report in
December and by January,

the harassment stopped.
So actually, this guy

who’s making this claim,
he took action and he

didn’t like step in
because I think stepping in

just puts you in the
target. So that’s actually

probably not actually
the best way to house.

He sent in a report. There
was an investigation in

the harassment stopped.
So this boss got in trouble,

but what happens to you?
Well, his evaluation that

year, which was normally
an A, which I assume is

the best, went down to a
B and he says this was an

unfair evaluation and
it’s because he put in

this report to stop the
harassment and everyone’s

going, no, no, no,
no, that’s a fair, fair

evaluation of your work
and your efforts and stuff.

So he’s in a tough spot
and he says, look, he

was treating this indirect
harassment caused me stress.

I had to report it
and then because of

that report, I got a lower
evaluation, that lower

evaluation, of course means
less of a bonus or whatever.

I’m losing money.
So the government

court case isn’t finished
yet, but it is interesting

because I think there
are some valid points

here because it’s not
when you like scream at an

employee in an open office thing, it’s not
just the employee that has to take it on.

It’s the other people like
they get that stress, they get

that sort of reflected
stress. And what do I do

and how do I handle this?
That is all problematic.

So indirect stress, I actually
think there is a validity to it.

I don’t know, I think the problem is like
two people could have an argument, like a

legitimate argument, a
disagreement, whatever,

and then I’m in the
room, do I then claim that

that is indirect harassment because it
caused me stress because I heard them argue.

So then you could see where
it could be taken sort of out of

context, but I think this
case when you get down

to the details because
this guy filed a report

and then it came back on him
and directly everything was in direct.

That’s a very Japanese
way to handle stuff.

It was all indirect.
The boss couldn’t

harass him anymore, but he can
mark him down on his evaluation.

He says this is all unfair.

I think this might be a legitimate
case. I started, I read that title.

I was like, there’s no
way that’s a real thing.

You just got to like buck up and

stuff that happens to another people
you ought to ignore it. And I was like, no,

I work in an open concept
office. I want to murder

half the people in that
room half of the time.

It says 25% murder rate. I
guess if I was successful,

I don’t really want
to hurt anybody.

I just want silence working in the
same place for as long as I have.

I now notice the
quirks of other people

so much that the very
innocuous things set me

off. I’ve always hated
the open concept office.

I don’t think cubicles
are better because I

work with a team and I should
be able to work with my team.

I don’t necessarily think
we deserve an office.

So there is an interesting problem because
for me, the cross chatter, the noise and

stuff, I’m sensitive to it,
I guess. It really bugs me.

I find it very hard to
concentrate. And then we’re

also in a situation where
if I stick on headphones,

I’ll get in trouble. Like
if I stick on just my

noise counseling headphones,
not even listening to

music, they would probably
complain about that.

But in, I’m interested to
see where this case goes.

I’m pretty sure he’s
going to win something.

I don’t think he’s
going to get that much.

The problem is, does
he have to go back to his

office? He wasn’t his
50s. So he might be like

changing sections or retiring
soon or something like that.

I don’t know. But it’s a very tough
position to be in it. It gave me a lot to

think about because I
started out thinking like

indirect harassment. That
sounds like some just wuss stuff.

And then when I actually got the deals,
I’m like, no, because he actually felt he

had to take action and
write a report and then

was kind of punished for it. I do think
this might be legit. More harassment.

This, I think we all
know this. We’ve seen it.

It’s basically Karen’s. They’re
calling it customer harassment.

And I think we’ve
all experienced this

via the internet. So this
experience was not a surprise.

I don’t think this
is a new thing.

But this was about companies
being like, we have to

set up guidelines when
people come into our

stores as customers
and act as at like assholes.

How do we deal with
them? So a lot of them

are like, well, you get
the manager and stuff.

But these are, these are,
okay, we have to define

it. And that’s actually
was the bit to me that was

most interesting is how
do you actually go about

defining what constitutes
harassment? Because

also it’s all conceptual
and about feelings and stuff.

So that makes it a
little more difficult.

It’s essentially
customers losing their shit.

They did a survey in 2017
of 50,000 people. That’s

a pretty good sample size. These were
all people who worked in customer service.

70% said they had
experienced some form of the

following harassment,
most of it being verbal.

So it’s people just
talking, shouting, getting

super angry at some
customer service person.

And this is always bugged
me. I did customer service,

but I had a very positive
experience overall.

I’ve mentioned this before
when I was university.

I sold dog food in
a dog food store.

We didn’t keep dogs. We just sold food.
So dog food cat food, other kinds of food.

People would come in, people with pets,
people would bring in their dogs mostly,

and they were super
chill. You give their dog a

snack, a cookie, and the
owner was really happy.

Everyone who came in, 99% of the people
was super chill. I didn’t have any of these

care and experiences that
you see on the internet.

But I think the dog
food selling industry,

it’s a different customer
base. And as long as

you treat their animals well,
they’re super happy about it.

In Japan, it got to
like people throwing

money at the person and
them crying as they pick it up.

That was one of the
stories that was in there.

And there were several demands that people
get down on their knees to apologize.

Like the bowing sort of you’ve
seen in a movie, bowing to the

emperor, seza, kneeling
bow. I’m sorry, put

your head on the ground kind
of thing, which is demeaning.

It’s supposed to be
and not something

that a customer service
person should have to do.

Because as we all know
deep down in our hearts,

that minimum wage
employee has no power.

They’re doing as they
are told, they’ve been

told what they can and
cannot do and it’s mostly can’t.

And you’re angry at them and you’re
angry at them because you’re not getting

instantaneous
satisfaction for anything.

And you think, oh,
Japan’s very polite society,

Japan’s a very great
place. It’s got its fair

share of shitty people
and those shitty people,

it turns out are a specific demographic.
One that if you’ve watched an industry

in Japan before, you will know what
is coming next. There was a statement,

“Someone grabbed me by the
collar and threatened to kill me.

” So that’s problematic.
The 2020 survey

found that men are
75% of the offender.

So I think in the west,
because of the internet primarily,

we have an image of the
Karen. It’s an older female

who is trying to assert
her power in the world.

In Japan, I think it’s an older
Japanese man, 75% and over 40.

So it’s 40 plus where
most of the people

I think it’s different.
I think they’re trying

to hold on to the power
of they’ve gotten so

entitled because now
they are an older man and

the hierarchy of the
world has built around them

in such a way and
respect and whatnot.

So at any time, they can fly
off the handle and they think

they should just
be forgiven it for it.

They should they think they
should just be forgiven for it

because I’m an older
man and everyone should

respect me and do what I
want and make me happy.

That is the the
patriarchy in action.

90% of the people who do this
kind of behavior are over 40,

75% of total are men.
So not a surprise to me

that older Japanese men
are acting like shit when

they get pissed off.
Because yeah, they have

been raised in a society
where they get to this

point where they think
everyone should do what

they want if they
don’t do it instantly.

They think that’s a problem. I think
some people need some ass cakings.

It’s the final harassment
for today, which is very nice.

A GSDF member, so
a ground self-defense

force member, a member
of the Japanese military.

He was forced to write a 10,000 character
paper reflecting on his self as a penalty.

This was interesting. So he’s
in the military and they’re like

you’ve done something bad.
I kind of want to hold back

on what the bad bit is.
You’ve done something bad.

I want you to reflect on
that. So I’m going to make

you write an essay like
a child in high school.

That is your punishment.
He joined the military in 1986.

This incident happened in 2017.

So if he joined when
he was 20, this incident

actually happened.
He would have been 51

when the incident happened.
The commander was angry

that he had gained
weight. So this guy who was

51 years old in the
ground self-defense force.

His commander was angry at
him because he gained some weight.

I don’t know what
they didn’t say

how much weight. He might have
been a chubby guy, might not be.

This guy claims
they were trying to

get him to quit. He had a
bum leg probably because

he was in the military
and did activities and got

hurt and that hurt never
really healed properly.

I as someone who’s done
judo my whole life have

several injuries that
never really healed properly.

So he’s got a bum leg.
His room was on the

fifth floor with no
elevator. So he had to take

five flights of stairs
every single day up and

down to get to his room.
And they knew he had a

bum leg and they put
them there anyways.

And then they’re like, hey,
you got a bum leg, clearly,

you’re not going to
be able to exercise as

much as you used to
when you were 20, you 50,

one year old piece
of shit. You fat fuck.

So I’m going to make you
write an essay. They wouldn’t let

him leave until he’d
finished the essay.

So he had to work on
this for nine hours straight.

They wouldn’t let
him go to sleep.

And he’s saying like this
was all just different kinds of

harassment to try
to get him to quit.

The government argued
that this was a legitimate order

despite the fact that
like they’re just nigh him

sleeping stuff and they
know he’s got a bum leg

and they’re doing
all this other crap.

He’s suing them for 1.5 million
yen. The court has been like,

absolutely, this is
power harassment.

You know he’s got a
bum leg. He’s 51 years old.

He’s with a bum leg, which
means yes, he’s going to gain some

weight because he can’t
exercise like he used to.

He’s not a 20 year old recruit anymore.
You guys have put him on the fifth floor.

Fuck you guys.
1.5 million yen to him, please.

Shouldn’t you be able to leave the
JSTF after a set number of years?

I mean, you should be
able to leave, but I think

this guy was he probably
done X amount of years

and wanted to stay because
he wanted his pension.

I don’t know. I don’t
know this system because

it’s not the same as
the military in America or

other countries. So
he could have retired.

Yes, but I bet he was
wanted to stay and this has

been his whole life.
Like this was clearly

if he’d been there for 31
years, this was his first job.

I bet to a degree
for most of that,

he liked being in the
ground self defense force.

And he wanted to hit
where he was getting, he’s 51.

He’s like X 65 is
going to be retirement.

He’s going to hit
that retirement age.

And then he’s going
to get a bigger pension.

And then I bet these
commanders like you,

I don’t like you. You’re not like as active
as the other 20 year olds running around.

He probably hasn’t
gotten to this highest level.

Again, and my mind
keeps going back probably

because he was injured.
He couldn’t just do stuff.

So he got a desk job and
he worked as a desk job.

Maybe he was competent.
Maybe not. I don’t know.

They wanted him out.
The thing is weird to me is

the pension set by
the government it’s paid

for by taxpayer money. It doesn’t negatively
impact these the commander of the base.

It doesn’t make him look bad
if this guy hits retirement age.

That’s the weird part to
me. The only reason the

commander of the base
would have done this is

because he did not like this
guy. And that is power harassment.

That is it. Like I’m
in a position of power.

I don’t like you. So I’m going to make
your life worse. He could have quit. Yes.

At 51, though, in Japan,
you’re probably not

getting a different job.
So unless he’s ready and

financially capable
of retiring, because 1.

5 million yen, because we
use the M word, the million,

sounds like a lot. If you
put that into American

money, that’d be about
$10,000. That’s money,

but it’s not life
changing money.

It is pretty shit. I think the
more I read into it and the

more sympathetic I came
to be towards this guy.

Because I bet he was,
again, that fifth floor bit,

that’s one of those little
like just every single day.

He’s got a bad
knee list to run him

down, run him down, run
him down. And that’s years

and years and years.
He lives in that dormitory.

So I don’t know how
much money he has, but

$10,000 while it is a
significant sum of money,

it’s not going to be enough to retire for
the next, let’s say, 20 years of your life.

You’re not living
off that for 20 years.

Prime Minister Kishita, he is pissed.
So they wanted to have a party.

What is it? The LDP, the liberal democratic
party. They have all the junior members,

they’re like, “Hey guys,
welcome to the democratic party.

” You guys are
awesome. We’re all going to

get together, have a
little party. Some of those

are going to dip out,
but you have a good time.

Then, so all these
young junior members of

the LDP are having
drinks this, like I assume,

fancy hotel, curtain
goes up, what happens? A

bunch of go-go dancers
come out in their underwear,

and then the party gets started.

And they got these young
politicians putting thousand

yen notes in their
mouth and holding it out

to the dancers and the
dancers taking it from

their mouth with their
mouth. So you know what

kind of party it was. Now,
this doesn’t really have

the optics that the LDP
really wants to be putting

out in the world.
Japan is suffering from a

lot of like, “Hey, maybe
our patriarchy bullshit

isn’t cool anymore,
maybe we got to stop that,

maybe we got to be
inclusive, maybe we got to

good people, we got
to stop fucking around.

” Back to the old men
issue. We got these old men

who grew up in the
60s, 70s, and 80s who are

still running stuff and
they don’t understand

the world has changed.
And so they’re still doing

dumb shit, like, “Hey,
let’s have a party where

people can take pictures
and have go-go dancers come

out, have them party
with the junior members

where people can take
pictures.” And you know,

that’s not going to get
out and cause us any

problems because we’re
all men having a good time.

So Kishida, the prime minister, gets up and
is like, “Guys, what the fuck? Seriously?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”
So the two guys who organized the party,

they had to resign.
They were out already.

So two guys who already
lost their jobs over this,

he’s actual statement.
He didn’t stand up and say,

“What the fuck guys?” I
would be a great politician

in that I would literally
stand up and go like,

“Guys, what the fuck?
What are you doing?”

What he said in no way
is this consistent with

the diversity the cabinet
aims for. So he’s like,

we’re trying to be
inclusive. We’re trying to

show that we are
equitable, that we care about

all the people of society, that
we don’t treat people poorly.

So objectifying
women is really just

not on the docket here. You
guys got to chill this shit out.

And since these old
dudes with money,

they don’t think they’re going
to get in trouble for anything.

They don’t think they
do anything wrong.

Guys had to sit down.
They had to sit down and

have a meeting to
organize this party like,

“Hey, two, three, 70-year-old,
60-year-old Japanese

men sitting in a conference
room like we got these

young guys out here. We want to
have like a welcome party for them.

” And then these old dudes are like, “Hey,
you know be awesome for a welcome party?”

Because let’s not even
take into account that at

this time, female
politicians, junior members

might not just all be dudes.
Because back when they

started, it was only
dudes. So they’re like

not in their brain. They
can’t even comprehend

that there might be women included in this
and this might be off-putting for them.

You don’t be a great party.
Back in my day in the 80s.

We had these ladies come
out and they were wearing

like basically nothing.
It was awesome.

They did a little “no,
no, no, no, no, no” for you.

And then we put money in our mouth
and it’s good money over our mouth.

And I was incredibly sexually
frustrated for like days afterwards.

The image is bad. Again,
two guys lost their job.

I’m just to imagine that
meeting that at the end of the

meeting, they’re all like
high-fiving each other

with what this great
plan they came out with.

And then when that first
picture hit the internet,

my god, the surprise
that like, whoa, people

are unhappy about this?
This thing that we did,

the way our government
has run, the only saving

grace of this is they
didn’t use taxpayer money.

This was actually all privately funded. So
at least the taxpayers didn’t put the bill,

which has been a
problem in the past.

All right, since we’re just
sort of talking about sexy,

sexy stuff, there was a
couple of surveys done

about the sexless nature
of Japanese relationships

and so we’re talking
about the birth rate is

incredibly low in Japan.
The step before birth rate

is the sex rate and that’s
something people are

not generally comfortable
talking about, but it is known now.

A lot of young
people are just losing

interest in relationships. So a lot of
young men aren’t going after relationships.

A lot of young people are
not getting into relationships.

A lot of young people are
staying virgins later into life.

This is all problematic because it means
those relationships are not developing.

They don’t know what they’re
doing. They don’t form solid

relationships and that’s why
they don’t have marriages,

marriage rates, also dropping.
There were two surveys done.

So this is why the
numbers don’t match up.

It’s interesting. They did not give the
number of the sample size, which could skew

things very wildly one
way or the other, but 48.

3% of married couples
do it zero times a month.

That’s it. So you’re married
and you just do not have

sex. This is a 16.4%
increase in the last 20 years.

So there’s always
couples. Maybe they’re

not particularly passionate.
They don’t have sex often.

They get a little
older. They decide that

it’s not really worth it.
It’s too much mental stress,

something like that.
There is an understandable

amount of people who
just don’t have sexual

relationships with their partner.
But nearly half is an amazing.

Oh, Dave’s making very
cute sounds down on my lap.

Oh, Scruffy. Oh, USA.

Really? Sexless. Okay, whatever.
Dave, you, Scruffy is not mad, Dave.

This is Dave. He is on
my lap 90% of the time.

Oh, he’s just stretched
his sexy legs out.

Check this out. Oh, you
get a little leg action there.

Okay, young people
don’t get married, but they

have sex all the time.
Once they get married,

Yeah, that’s weird. Okay,
you ask. Because it means

when you’re young, you
are a sexually active person,

getting married
should not inhibit that.

I could understand it the
number going down, like go

ahead from every day to
once a week or something.

Sure, that’s a significant decline, but
still, you’re doing it. I find it weird.

If I’m attracted to someone
being physical with them,

increases that attraction to me.

But anyways, let’s get back
onto the surveys. This is a very

survey heavy podcast
in general. So if you like

your surveys, this is
the place to come 13.

9% do it once a month. So
you have 48.3% or never doing

it all stick on top of that 13.9%
or only doing it once a month.

So that is 50 60% of people are
doing it less than twice a month. 24.

3% of men say their partner
has no response to them.

So basically they try to
get romantic or maybe they

don’t even know how anymore
because it’s been so long.

And their partner does
not respond positively

to their advances. 12% of the
men say they lack motivation.

So they’re too tired from work.

They come home. They
see their wife and like, I don’t

even want to right now
whether she wants to or not.

It seems like in these
sexless marriages, both

parties are in the
same situation where the

the men’s like, I don’t
have the motivation.

The women’s like, well,
neither do I. So there we are.

22.6% of women say
that it is mendoxy.

So mendoxy is the japanese
for troublesome or a hassle.

It is annoying. There’s a
couple of ways you can

interpret mendoxy, but
mendoxy is always negative.

There’s no good mendoxy.
It’s troublesome, too

much work, a hassle. So
like homework is mendoxy.

I don’t want to do
it. It’s too much work.

Living your life for a company
is mendoxy. It’s troublesome.

I don’t want to do it.
So they’re saying having

sex with their partner,
22.6% of women are saying

that is mendoxy. It’s
too much of a hassle to

actually have sex with
them. 20.8% say they’re too

tired from work. So that
there is 40% of women,

20% are saying it’s just
I don’t like it anymore.

It’s just too much work
and the other 20% are

saying I’m too tired.
And my argument about

the birth rate in Japan, I many times on an
engineer’s pan have directly linked that to

the work-life balance
culture in Japan because

they don’t have energy to
do things other than work.

They put all their
energy to work.

It means you don’t have
these other relationships.

These other aspects of
your life. A different survey

was done in 2024
and found that 64.

2% of married couples were
sexless. So that’s one survey saying

48.3% about 50%. The
next one is saying 64.2%.

So that is shockingly different.
That is a shocking number

because now we’re getting
65% of people who are

married just don’t have
sex. And that is normally

considered an important
part of relationship.

But to me, there’s the
other side of it where the

cheating culture in
Japan is so almost blatant

because love hotels exist.
Love hotels they claim

are because we
live in family units.

You got young people
who live with their families.

They can’t just have
sex in their apartment.

So they go to a love
hotel with their partner.

But realistically, that would
not sustain an industry.

So it’s got to be
married people having sex

with other married
people for the most part.

It’s that’s a bit shocking.
12.9% of students

who went to universities
abroad are sexless.

Compared to 53.4% of graduates
from Japanese universities are sexless.

So there is an
exposure to foreign

cultures that actually
increases maybe your drive

or understanding or
desire to have sex.

So it seems like having
experiences outside of Japan

broadens your view, which
also includes your view

of sexuality, which is
a very interesting note

and another sort of
commentary on where Japan is

struggling because if
Japan wants to fix anything,

it’s going to have to
fix its birth rate because

otherwise Japan just
isn’t going to exist anymore.