murder – NinjaNewsJapan

Murder in Japan 4

(upbeat music)

Okay, so we did a previous
episode of Murder in Japan where

we talked about the girl who
essentially used her family.

She had full control over
her family and their situation.

And she basically forced her father to
drive her to a place where she found a guy,

got him to a love hotel,
killed him into Capitated him,

put his head into a suitcase
and brought him home.

The dad basically knew this happened.

So the mother and the father
are both on trial for murder.

Or at least connected to the murder.

I forget the word.

I just started this, complicit,
complicit in the murder.

But so the father was,
the psychology behind

this is actually the
biggest part of the story.

He helped her practice the murder.

So he let her tie him up and then sat there

and then she practiced splitting
his throat like she’d seen in movies.

She watched the terrifying and
then some other horror movies

to get sort of like where she
should cut or how she should do it.

And then she practiced with her dad

and then she got her dad to drive her to
the place where she knew this guy would be

and then got him to go
to a love hotel with her.

And then she murdered him.

So the question is, how
complicit is the father?

‘Cause he kind of knew
this was gonna happen.

And he said he actually was
praying that it wouldn’t happen.

But he did assist in
almost every aspect of it.

He was found guilty of
abandonment and mutilation

of a corpse, which
comes with a one year,

four month prison sentence that
has been suspended for four years.

So if he doesn’t do anything
wrong over the next four years,

he’s actually not gonna
get punished at all.

Now, I think his home life and everything,

there’s a lot of punishment
going on there anyways.

They were both, the mother and the father

were completely subservient
to the murderer in this case.

And it is absolutely terrifying.

But as these cases are finished, I
think it’s good to follow up to see

like how complicit they
were, how much trouble

do they get into, what
is the actual punishment?

It’s interesting to see those facts.

(upbeat music)

The second update was
for a story of two girls

who bullied another girl and basically, it’s
hard to tell whether they pushed her off

or bridge or she jumped,
but they forced her to do it.

Now, what happened
was this girl took a picture

of a group and one of
the bullies was in the group

and she said after that
was posted on social media,

said I didn’t give you permission
to post that on social media.

So I’m now gonna cause
you an immense amount

of terror and pain
over the next two days.

So her and her friends were bullying her,

torturing her, pushing her around,
beating her up, that kind of stuff.

And over the course of two days,

this accumulated with
them being on a bridge

out in the countryside
’cause they said like,

come out to this place, if you apologize,
we’ll stop and we’ll just let it all go.

So if she sees an opportunity
to get this to stop, she goes out.

They’re like, sit on
the edge of this bridge.

So climb up on the railing.

She’s sitting there and then she fell.

Now, it’s unclear as to whether she was
pushed or fell or just slipped or whatever.

But she was up there
because these two girls.

It seems like she was pushed.

So this is murder.

This is not attempted murder.

It’s not, the girls involved have basically
admitted that they pushed her off.

But there’s no actual
visible evidence of that.

The admission is pretty clear.

Prosecutors asked for 25
years in prison, the judge gave 23.

So bullying someone for
two days and then pushing

them off a bridge,
23-year prison sentence.

The girl is in her 20s.

She’s not gonna get out of
prison until she’s in her 40s.

The crime was extremely
cruel and malicious.

They showed no respect for the victim’s life
and integrity, which is absolutely true.

I mean, if you’re bullying someone for
two days and then push them off a bridge,

you’re not showing a lot
of respect for the person.

This is the more interesting
aspect of this case

is that the girl, she was only about 19
at a time, the bully, was 19 at the time,

and she was having a relationship
with a married police officer,

which cast a lot of aspersions as
to what was going on with this case.

It seems like that cop
tried to bury this case.

He was in a financial division of some sort

and he had this murder
case moved to their group

and then basically tried to suppress it.

So there’s a whole other aspect of this
case that was going on at the same time,

but at the end of the day, she got
caught, the other bully got caught.

She’s still on trial, so that
actually hasn’t been determined yet.

And the police officer has been fired,
but we don’t know he’s actually been

arrested or punished.

That’s the case, I actually,
I’m more interested in,

because this guy clearly was trying to
help this girl get away from with murder,

which actually would be a crime in itself.

I assume, but I don’t know
enough about Japanese law.

I gotta find a Japanese lawyer

who will just talk to
me for a couple of days,

so I can ask a whole bunch of questions,

because as we do these
stories over and over again,

I end up getting more and more sort of
detailed questions, but I’m on the lookout.

I don’t know how to find or track one down,
but if you, anyone knows a Japanese lawyer

who’ll be willing to talk
to you and introduce

Japan for like an hour,
every couple of months,

man, I would love to do that.

It does sound like the plot to a movie.

It actually sounds, it’s
one of those ones where

the movie, you’d be like,
well, that’s a bit much.

Like a lot of stuff in it, it’s like
almost like too much to be realistic.

So this is a story about a
murder that happened last week,

and the shocking element
more than anything

else, is that this woman
was live streaming,

her walk around the Yamanote line.

So there’s this very famous train line
in Tokyo that basically goes into loop.

People will ride it, get
off, take a little walk,

they’ll go to the next
station, they’ll write it for a bit.

It’s kind of a cool tourist thing to do.

A lot of Japanese people do it.

If you’re into trains, you
really know what this is.

It’s a very famous loop around Tokyo.

She was walking on one of the side streets.

There was no one else there.

She was streaming to about
6,000 people when a man came out

and started stabbing
her with a hunting knife.

He stabbed her for a full
minute up to 30 or 40 times.

Now, they always say
how many times they were

actually stabbed, but
it just shows the intent.

I think that more than anything else,

when they start talking
about like she was stabbed

30 times, it shows that
his intent was to kill her.

Because of course, when he was arrested,

he said I did not intend to kill her.

Because he doesn’t want
to be arrested for a murder,

he wants to be arrested for manslaughter,
which is a much lighter sentence.

When he was arrested and they asked
him, why did he murder this woman?

He said he had lent her
more than 2 million yen.

It seems like 2.5 million yen.

He had asked for it back and
she refused to give it to him.

So this was an act of revenge.

I saw the preview of a stream where
Sato went on foot around the Yamanote line.

So he said I saw her on stream.

I saw she was in Tokyo.

So what had actually happened
is she announced that tomorrow,

I’m going to go around the Yamanote line.

He was living in different
cities like tomorrow.

I’m going to go to Tokyo, find
one of those stations where she is

by watching her stream
hunter down and kill her.

When she was on the ground, a witness said
that he was aiming his phone at her face,

and they claim that he
said are you dead yet?

So this actually is
immediately counter to what

he said, what he
didn’t intend to kill her.

If he stabbed her that many times
and then the last words he said

to her corpse at this point
probably is are you dead yet?

Which I’m assuming the
stream was still running.

Because when she got
attacked, she dropped the phone.

It’s hard to say whether or not
they could actually still see it,

but they could certainly
hear what was going on.

And it seems like the last thing he
said to her was are you dead yet?

Then the police showed up very quickly.

He just put up his hands
and just immediately gave up

on immediately admitted
to being her attacker.

So because this is
such a high profile case,

we got the background of
the guys situation with her.

We got a lot of information
about the background of the victim,

and then we got sort of the
aftermath of what’s happening.

He saw her stream first in 2021.

So she was out streaming,
doing live streaming 2021.

In August 2022, he started
visiting bars where she worked.

So he had created that relationship.

So he’s like I’ve watched
this girl on stream.

He’s probably very attracted to her.

She was 18 at the time. He was in his 30s.

He was 38 and he said
I want to meet this girl.

I’ve watched her on stream.

I feel like I have a connection to her.

If I meet her in real life, you know
what was really going on in his head.

He’s like I actually already love her

and probably has convinced himself
that she actually already loves him.

He goes to the bars where she works.

Now she works at Cabaret bars.

She works at the kind
of bars where the girls

are paid to make you
think that they like you.

A Cabaret bar is where you go
and you sit down and you drink

and you buy drinks and you pay at thousands
and thousands of dollars for champagne.

And the more money you spend, the
more time you can spend with the girls.

So for the girls’ profits, she wants
you to stay there as long as possible.

So she wants you to fall in love with her.

This is the sort of weird
parasitic relationship

of the whole host club
Cabaret club system.

Where you’re manipulating
people to fall in love with you.

So they’ll give you money.

Now this goes back to last
year when I was obsessed

with the leading gen story
where she was scamming

guys online, trying to get
them to give her money.

This is to me only one step away.

Now I think because it’s a Cabaret
club, you should know going in

that the girls don’t actually like you.

They get money from like a
percentage of the money you spend.

So they’re trying to get you to
spend as much money as possible.

But he fogged by the love,

probably also fogged by the idea that
he’d spent so much time with her online

that he knew her that she
wouldn’t be treating him that way.

He’d convince himself to this.

She said she needed money.

She needed money for living expenses.

She needed, she has the
loans she had to work out.

She was having a lot of problems.

He took out two loans of a million
yen each and gave them to her.

So they found bank transfers and stuff.

She said she was going to go back.

She was going to pay you
back as soon as she could.

She’s also making claims
that she’s making tons

of money streaming,
which is probably not true.

There is a certain amount of
duplicity here on both sides.

Now I’m not going to imply that
she deserved to be killed because she

absolutely did not.
She probably deserved to be arrested.

She probably deserved to have her funds
taken away from her and given to the guy.

He sued her in 2023 and at
that time the judge said, yeah,

she should have to pay back the
2.5 million yen that she took from you.

You have proof of how
much money you’ve given her.

It’s all pretty clear she
should pay you back.

Then she disappears.

Now the problem with
disappearing and making

your primary source
of income or your life

streaming is that the
situation where you say,

“Tomorrow I’m going to go
around this yamanote line in Tokyo,”

means that the people who watch
you know where you’re going to be.

So you can’t really disappear
if you want to be a streamer.

That is falling in line
with a lot of the stuff

that’s actually happened
over the last two weeks

where really famous streamers
have had people break into their house.

They’ve been attacked on the street.

Live streaming seems to have
suddenly become more dangerous

because these, I think we’re
being honest, it’s primarily women,

attractive women.

These guys follow them online.

They’ve given money.

They feel like they have a connection.

They feel like you owe them something.

Then they start hunting
for you on the streets.

I don’t think any live
streamer who’s a female

should be going out without some
form of security, like someone with them.

They could stay off stream, but I think
they should actually have someone there.

But of course then you
can have to pay that guy.

And this woman, the victim here,
was clearly not good with money.

Now she does have a tragic backstory,
like there’s no good aspect of this.

She clearly did not
intend to pay the guy back.

People are terrible at
not doxing themselves.

That is true.

Like I know if you collected,
I never leave my house,

but I know if you went
through back all my podcasts

and all my streams
and all this other stuff,

you could figure out
probably exactly where I live.

Or at least you would know like the
city you would know this other stuff.

I mentioned to go a lot of times
because I don’t live in Nagoya,

but I bet you could
piece together a lot of

information about me if
you actually wanted to.

I’m lucky in that no one is interested
in a 50 year old man in that kind of way.

I’m not going to have to worry about
that sort of parasocial relationship.

She never intended to pay him back.

And so again, she deserves
to be punished for that.

But when you actually hear about
her life, there’s a lot of sympathy there.

The thing is, online, the
sympathy wavered back and forth.

This woman was killed.

She was murdered on the street.

I saw a vlogger show one shot
of the outside of their window.

And I immediately knew
which building in Chicago.

It’s the only window which is lucky.

And there’s usually just a judo suit there.

There’s a story way back in this guy.

Oh, wow, there was this guy who took a
picture from Instagram of some woman,

so I assume a woman
he found very attractive.

He found in the background some
stuff and then a reflection in her eye.

And with that information, he found
a way to triangulate where she was.

And that meant, since she was, you know,

the post was probably
like getting off work, going

home, that meant it was
close to where she lived.

That’s how she found out where she lived.

Essentially the reflection in her eye
is how she found out where she lived.

And when I read that
story, I was like, if you use

that power for good, he
could help so many people.

But of course, it’s just
all awful, selfish stuff.

The victim here had a pretty tough life.

I mean, that’s just, I think, fair to say.

The mother of the victim was an
alcoholic and she left the girl on her own

when she was a child
to take care of herself.

And we’re implying from when she was, like,
just two, three, four, five years old.

She was already on her own.

Her mom’s already an alcoholic.

She’s already trying to,
like, having a tough life.

She started working at a cabaret
as soon as she became an adult.

And that actually probably
means before she became an adult.

Before it was legal for her to
work there, she actually started

working in a cabaret, which
is where you start drinking.

So at a very young age, she starts
drinking a lot regularly with the customers

to keep them buying stuff
so that she makes money.

The mother would come into
the cabaret where she works,

drink all evening, and then say, my
daughter will pay for it and then left.

So her mother, even after her
daughter starts making money,

starts supporting herself, is already
created this situation where it’s like,

well, I’m going to put more on her
because she’s making money now.

Now we’re both kind of living
this sort of very tragic lifestyle.

She has a baby, but
she’s a really hard drinker.

And so she neglected her child and
then pretty much in the same way.

She would leave her
daughter in daycare and

go out drinking and
then not come back like,

staff at the cabaret, a place where
that is designed to abuse customers,

would say you need to go
get your kid, but she’s drunk.

So she would show up drunk to get her kid.

The state then eventually
took her child away from her.

This made her break down.

She then sort of does
a left turn and says like,

okay, I’m going to still
keep working at bars.

We’re going to start streaming
because streaming seems

like a good way for people
to be able to make money.

I’m assuming if she’s working at cabaret
clubs, she is conventionally attractive.

She’s attractive in some way.

That’s going to get you a
lot of traction on a stream.

She’s like, I’m going to put this together.

One of the things her friends said
about her was she was a hard worker.

So all these negatives you
can talk about, she was lying.

She lied to people.

She was now alcoholic.

She was willing to put in the work.

So that’s how she built up an audience
of 6,000 people watching her per stream.

The problem is because of the
sentiment of these crimes in the past,

like the these each,
where she was scamming

men, this seems like
she was in the same line.

She was just taking money from guys.

No intention of giving it back,
seeing it was perfectly acceptable.

If they give me the money, that’s fine.

That has actually created a
lot of online hate towards her

and a lot of sympathy for the guy
who actually committed the murder.

Now, the guy had
did a lot right against

giving her money was
probably not a good idea,

but then suing her to get it
back probably was the right idea.

Going through the legal
means to get your money back.

When she disappeared, I always run into
the problem of he was able to find her.

That means he could point the police
to her and actually catch her that way.

So instead of getting a knife
and going and hunting her down,

he should have called
the police and said, hey,

this person who owes me 2.5
million yen, I sued her for it in court.

She owes it to me.
She’s on the street right now.

I would like you to go get her.

And then like, I don’t
know, again, garnish her

ways, wages put
something on her, arrest her.

I don’t know something to push her
to pay me back before you jump to the,

I’m going to get a knife
and hunt her down myself.

Because he was able
to do it, he was able to

point the authorities
in the right direction.

And I think that’s where all
sympathy for him goes away.

Because of course, 2.5
million yen is a lot of money.

I’m sure he wasn’t rich.

He had to borrow money
to be able to give it to her.

He still don’t need to
kill someone for that.

So this was streamed live.

He said the reason he did the attack was so
that people would know about the situation,

so that people would know that she
was, she had stolen money from him.

But then as soon as he was arrested,

the first words out of his mouth
were, I did not intend to kill her.

So I am going to follow on this case.

Devil’s advocate, he told the
police and they wouldn’t actually.

Okay, if he had told the police, I think
that might have been because again,

I read 20 versions of
this story to make sure

I got all the little
subtleties back and forth

because I want to be
able to say what’s true.

And what’s true is going to be the
consistent throughs lines of all the stories.

I don’t know, no one
mentioned him calling the police.

So I think if he had done it,
one of the multitude of stories,

especially when they started
looking into his and her backgrounds,

like we got more background information
on this from Tokyo reporter and on the

the same Japan than any
other murder you’ll actually read.

Like now that this is
kind of what I do on my

day off is just collect
stories and read stories.

I know how much
information I’m usually going

to get and it’s usually
not very much because I

want all the information so that it’s
because that’s the more interesting part.

Like how did we end up in this situation?

Because the first story
is just guy comes out of

nowhere and kills woman
while she’s live streaming.

Then you find out they
had a history and then

you find out that she
was manipulating him,

then you find out that
like he had this idea

that they had a relationship
that did not exist.

Then your attitude goes
back and forth, but then I

never want to just end up
with a conclusion of who’s

right and wrong because there’s
still probably information I don’t know.

The internet being the
internet, all these like

in the cell guys are
taking this anti-female

stance and saying like she
manipulated him, she deserved it.

There’s guys jumping on
the memorials that were

put down like the flowers
where she was murdered.

There’s some people have put out memorials.

There’s guys like kicking
it over and jumping on

and stuff just being as
awful as they possibly can.

Because they have this
negative view towards

women because of the whole in-cell
community is just decided to band together.

She’s not completely innocent but
she did not deserve what happened.

But the guy absolutely
could have taken steps

because she was streaming because it
was right there out in front of everybody.

It was not too hard to find where she was.

She said, “I’m going to be
going around the Yamanote line.”

He could have called the police and said,
“Hey, this person owes me 2.5 million yen.

He’s going around the
Yamanote line tomorrow.

Could you please pick her up and
try to get someone money back?

” And that would have been a way better
resolution than what actually happened.

Basically, I’m just going
to keep following the story.

So in six months or another
year because of course,

justice system views
very slow in every country.

I will come up with follow-up, just like
I did at the beginning of this episode,

where it was the
follow-ups to the father of

the woman who committed
the murder in Hokkaido.

And the two bullies, one
has been convicted and

the other one is still
the trial is ongoing.

I’ll follow-up with those
as often as I can and

keep this series going
because this is essentially

an extra episode, an
extra series, murder in

Japan, where we just
go through the facts.

I don’t want to make
too many strong opinions,

but the interesting part
for me is how this system

works and how much
information you don’t get

before people form a
judgment and then how

more information changes
your opinion back and forth.

But I still think we
can always end up with,

we shouldn’t really
be committing murder.

[MUSIC]

Expulsion Room

(upbeat music)

We have an update to a
previous story and it was

about the two friends
and one showed up dead.

So we had the two guys and they had
bonded 30 some years ago over baseball.

They both love baseball.

And all signs pointed to murder.

You had one guy was basically in
control of the other guy’s income.

He had access to his bank account.

The police made him a person of
interest when he after the death

of the first person that he went
to the bank and started taking

trying to take money
out of the bank account.

He was also the primary receiver of
life insurance should the person die.

So all signs pointed to murder.

I mean, this is it.

They’ve been friends for
a long time but here’s the

guy who had some money
and there’s an opportunity.

They’re down by the water.

And it seems like he pushed him in.

Now, one thing that was in the news reports

that I read that I didn’t say
because it wasn’t clarified.

They talked about him having weights
with him, the guy who was in the water,

but they didn’t actually say the weights
were in a backpack weighing him down.

So because they didn’t say it,

I didn’t feel actually
comfortable putting that out there

as a fact, but it turns
out in a follow-up story,

the reason for his drowning,
he had a backpack full of weights

on and that’s what weighed
him down so that he drowned.

Now, it turns out there’s a
very interesting change in this.

So the friend was arrested
for suspected murder.

The update has been that the murder
has been downgraded to assisted suicide.

This is suicide is still illegal in Japan,

but it’s not exactly the
same caliber as murder.

So that gives us a big hint into
what was actually probably happening.

So the prosecution has looked at all
the facts, talked to the suspect and gone,

we think this is a case of
assisted suicide, not murder.

Suicide is still illegal in Japan.

You’re not allowed to
help people commit suicide.

And it was the life insurance
claim that brought it all

because the guy requested
like how do I find out,

how do I get the money from this
life insurance claim after my friend dies.

So while no further
information has been given out,

the fact that it has been changed from a
murder case to an assisted suicide case

actually gives us a
whole lot of information

that we can kind of see what
probably was actually going on

in the time, if again, the
facts turn out to be accurate.

A clothing store, Shinamura has
released a curvy branded hoodie.

So it’s got sort of, it’s a pink hoodie
with Kirby’s eyes and mouth on the front.

He’s not a very complex character like,

you know, Kirby was
actually a placeholder for

a character that was
never actually developed.

So they’re like, we’ve
been working with this blob

for so long, we kind of have
fallen in love with this blob.

They put the blob game out and everyone
falls in love with the blob as well.

Everybody loves Kirby.

So of course, a branded
shirt makes a lot of sense.

You have a hoodie and
it’s got Kirby’s face in

the front and it says
Kirby across the top except.

The Japanese pronunciation
of Kirby is a lot more like copy

and copy if you were
going to spell it in English,

you would put K-A-R-B-Y, or maybe
a double-eye or something like that.

And so if you were a
Japanese person working

in a Japanese company and you
made the very Japanese mistake,

a whole bunch of other
Japanese people might

not notice the mistake
and release the hoodie.

So the release of this hoodie
actually said, K-A-R-B-Y

across the top, which is
technically a misspelling

because all the games
have been released in English,

all the games have K-A-R-B-Y written
on it so it should match those games.

The company will offer
refunds, but now the way I’m

looking at it, this is a
limited edition misprint.

So if you get one of
these, I would hold onto it.

I would keep it for a while
and then sell it a couple of years

down the line when it’s
impossible to get this kind

of thing, maybe make a
couple extra dollars off it.

It’s been on sale since September 25th.

So it hasn’t been that long
before someone actually noticed

a mistake or someone actually brought the
mistake up to the attention of the company.

The company was like,
we’re going to recall those,

we’re going to refund
anyone who wants to refund.

They didn’t just replace it.

They offered a refund not a replacement.

I guess you just go buy the correct
spelling of the hoodie if you still want it.

I would still keep the one that says copy.

I like these kind of things with
little mistakes and weird stuff in it.

It makes it more
unique and I think that

uniqueness is something
that I like in the world.

So if you have one of
those copy hoodies, I would

recommend not returning
it, not getting a refund.

So keep that, ’cause that’s
unique and individual and cool.

(upbeat music)

Overtureism is a story we’ve talked about
multiple times on the ancient New Japan

because it’s become a
major news story in Japan.

People are kind of upset
that foreigners come over

and they don’t sort of abide by
Japanese rules and sort of social norms.

I think this is understandable because
when you come to another culture,

you’re sort of expected to
fall in line with that culture

to a degree, but also you’re
here to have a good time.

You’re having fun, maybe you get excited.

Maybe this is the kind of place.

You know, you just wanna live that life.

Usually it’s drinking or just
behaving badly or being really rude.

It’s really clear.

This one, the behavior itself
doesn’t bother you as much.

It’s where the lady did it.

So this is now a national
news, a former gymnast.

I decided to show off
some skills for Instagram.

This is apparently something she does.

She travels around and she does athletic
feats for her followers on Instagram.

She has 140,000 followers, making sure
that everything she does gets out there.

So people are gonna see what she does.

This may be fall into
the like, maybe video it,

and then check with some
people before you post it.

That actually might be a good idea.

She was visiting a shrine, and then leading
up to shrines, there are tortoise gates.

These are the very classic
Japanese painted red gates.

Often they get smaller, so it
looks like it sort of zooms into this,

like middle distance kind
of thing, which I really like.

I really like the tortoise
gates, to be honest.

It’s one of those things.

It’s very Japanese, it’s very iconic.

They’re cool.

I like them.

She’s decided to show off some of her
skills, some of her calisthenics, I guess.

So she jumps up and starts doing,

what I would call controlled
chin-ups on the tortoise gate.

She, there’s a song going.

She pulls herself up about halfway.

She moved to the left,
she moved to the right.

She moves her legs around, and
then she comes down very slowly.

Clearly a very physically capable woman
with abilities, but doing it at a shrine,

which is a religious site,
could be seen as disrespectful.

I knew that.

I would consider myself
fairly ignorant of most things.

If I’m being really honest, like
when it comes to religion and stuff,

I don’t know that much,
but I know don’t pee on stuff,

don’t go to religious
sites and start working out.

It’s just one of those things.

It’s just seen as disrespectful
by the people who do take it.

Like maybe I don’t take religion seriously.

Other people do.

Therefore, I’m not gonna do
anything in a religious setting,

just so I don’t piss off the
people who do take it seriously,

’cause they are taking it seriously,
’cause they’re there at that time.

She says she did not realize she was at
a sacred place and acted without thinking.

Now, I can promise you
half of that statement is true.

She did, she did act without thinking.

She acted without
thinking because this is

something she has done,
this has become her schtick.

She goes to places
and does physical things.

So for her going to any place is a platform

for her to do a physical thing
and show off a bit for her followers.

She knew this was a sacred place.

She knew this was a shrine.

She knew these gates
were part of the shrine.

I mean, that’s why you go there.

I’m not getting particularly angry about
it, but this part of the apology is a lie.

You went, I mean, you looked up on
the internet or you looked up some maps

or you tried to find
some stuff in the area.

You were looking at for tourist locations
and it said something’s something shrine

and the tortoise gates
lead up to the shrine.

So she knew where she was
going that day and what it was.

I just, I cannot believe she did not
know she was going to a shrine that day.

I can’t believe that she didn’t
know that a shrine is sacred ground.

So I don’t mind the apology.

I think that’s fine.

She did something, she said, you know what?

I was disrespectful, I was
caught up in the moment.

I was excited about what I was doing.

This is kind of my thing.

I didn’t really connect the two things in
the moment and I did it without thinking.

100% kind of believe that.

I apologize for it.

I take responsibility for it.

I would be okay with that.

The I didn’t know smacks
of a little bullshit to me.

Because she has a fairly
large following 140,000 followers

on Instagram, I mean, she
might have other platforms

where she does the same
thing, like TikTok and stuff.

There was, of course,
a lot of Japanese people

found out about it,
probably got spread out.

It was in Japan, so it’s gonna get
spread to a bunch of Japanese users.

There was immediate backlash with people
telling her not to come back to Japan again.

So she has done this thing, gone back home,

probably posted it from
home or at the end of her trip.

Oh, gone back home and
now people are like sending

her messages, like, please
never come back to Japan.

That’s, I mean, from a Japanese person,

that’s like one step
down from a death threat.

They don’t do a lot of
death threats in Japan.

When they do, it’s actually illegal.

That’s something else we should talk about.

I mean, we’ve talked about in the past,

but be very careful
about giving death threats.

But just saying, like, hey, we
don’t appreciate what you did.

Don’t come back to Japan.

It still hurts.

Having a whole country turn around
and go like, we don’t want you here.

Please don’t visit us again.

That’s gotta be a lot.

So she posted her apology.

I think her apology again.

I, when you throw some
bullshit into your apology, it’s hard

to take your whole, it sort
of ruins your whole apology.

You gotta just own up to what you did.

Be honest about it and then take
responsibility for it and apologize.

And then we could
maybe accept your apology.

Maybe I still don’t want you
to come back and visit Japan.

Going to a shrine and saying, you
didn’t know this was a favorite place.

I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it.

Bendy namco.

It’s a big Japanese video
game coming to do other stuff.

Video games is kind of what they’re
famous for in the world at large.

They have been accused of using.

Oidashi Bea.

And these are called any
English would be expulsion rooms.

And this is a very Japanese
way to handle a problem.

So they want to reduce their staff numbers.

And maybe they don’t want to pay severance

to those staff members
that they want to get rid of.

So they do this Japanese thing.

And I’ve heard about this,
but I’ve never seen it done.

My company apparently doesn’t
do it, which is a good thing.

But I’d heard about it from other
people that it happens in other companies.

So I was wondering if it’s real.

And so this is an accusation
of sorts because this

is sort of an underhanded
way to handle the problem.

What they do is put you in a room
and they don’t give you any work.

And now at first, that
sounds like a dream job.

You’re getting paid to do nothing.

But the idea is to give
you nothing to the point

where you get so frustrated with
doing nothing, you actually quit.

And if you quit, you don’t
get your severance package.

That kind of thing.

So it’s not them letting you go.

It’s them frustrating you
to the point where you quit.

Bandai Namco is being accused
of wanting to cut its workforce.

So it’s sending workers to these floors.

These floors, these rooms have just a
room, maybe a desk and nothing to do.

They might have a computer
on it because something

that says later, so it
means it has a computer.

It has a computer.

See, this is it, you could mess around.

But if you’re messing around,
you’re messing around on work time.

So if you’re not doing
what you’re supposed to do,

if you’re messing around on work
time, maybe then they could fire you.

So if I start just like reading Reddit all
day, every day, and they go, well, now,

we can accuse you of just messing
around all day and not doing the task.

But you say, but you haven’t given me
a task, but your task was to do nothing.

Yeah, they see, it’s stuck in a loop.

They’re trying to create a situation

where they can get rid
of you, and it’s your fault.

200 people so far have
been sent to these rooms.

100 have quit.

So it’s been relatively successful.

If they want to get rid of all
200 of these people, they’re

had a 50% success rate,
and they’ve really just started.

I mean, they don’t actually say in the story
when they started because this is like,

the people of quit are now making
the accusation of the company.

So how long do they
actually stay in those

rooms before they
actually ended up quitting?

The idea is to pressure
them to leave voluntarily,

and this is used as ammunition
to cut severance when you leave.

Some people use the
time to look for another job.

So guess, they don’t have to necessarily
give you a computer to look for another job.

I guess you could do that on your phone.

Phones are pretty powerful nowadays.

So yeah, I can see them
putting you at a room

with a desk and you
start using your phone.

But then again, using your
personal device on company time,

that could be a fireable offense if
they set it up that way in the beginning.

So it leads to a whole bunch of questions.

Bandai Namco did release a statement.

Our decisions to discontinue games

are based on comprehensive
assessments of the situation.

Some employees may need
to wait a certain amount of time

before they are assigned
their next project.

So this is what they’re saying.

Like these people, they’re
not being put in these rooms

so they don’t do anything
so they get so bored they quit.

They’re just being put in a holding pattern

until we give them the next exciting
project, the next big step in their career.

We’re not doing anything wrong.

We are setting these people up for success

because we want to put the
right person in the right place.

But we do move forward with
assignments as new projects emerge.

There is no organization like
Odashibaya at Bandai Namco Studios

designed to pressure
people to leave voluntarily.

And it’s almost like, if
you say it that blatantly,

you’re more likely doing
the thing you’re not doing.

That’s actually the thing
for me for the statement.

The statement is so
clearly like, no, no, no.

We’re not doing the very specific thing.

It makes me think you are absolutely doing

the very specific thing
you’re being accused of.

(upbeat music) Train nerds.

Train nerds are a big thing.

I said a conversation was gray last week.

We didn’t actually put it into the podcast,
talking about some of the bad behavior

of these incredibly enthusiastic
train fans that live in Japan.

So I’ve always found like, Otaku,
there’s kind of like two versions of it.

There’s Otaku, I’m a big fan of something.

I love it, you know, that’s it.

Then there is Otaku, the
person who is obsessive,

who the person who,
this is their entire life.

They don’t care about anything else.

A lot of these train
fans fall into that second

category where they’re
obsessive over it.

And this is a subset
of that called todi tetsu.

And these are the guys who love
to take pictures of train specifically.

So their hobby is
taking pictures of trains.

They’re gonna go to special
locations to try to get a

picture of, let’s say, a
train coming out of a tunnel.

There have set up spots
where you can get a picture

of the entire shinkansen in
one shot, that kind of stuff.

They pay thousands of dollars for cameras.

They’re learning techniques.

I mean, these are people
who, their whole life,

outside of work, maybe,
maybe not even work because

they’re so obsessed over
it, is taking pictures of trains.

On October 15th, 100 people
crowded around a single train crossing.

So you gotta imagine there’s
the road, there’s the train crossing.

Those little sort of single
barrier arm things come down.

These people were all
over the train tracks.

And when the arms came down, which
you’re supposed to be standing behind those

for your own safety, a whole bunch
of people still were on the inside of it.

And they had train staff like pushing
them out and getting really angry at them

and shouting at them because again,
we don’t want you to get hit by the train.

The, we’re crowding to
see a very specific train.

Now, this is a black train.

So all the trains in
Japan, basically they’re

all kind of white or red
or something like that.

This is a entirely painted black train.

And the reason is a special
train is because when a

train derails, this is the
rescue train that goes out

to get it to pull it either
back on or push it on.

I don’t know what it actually does,

but it is the train that
goes out to deal with derails.

Now this has a very rare thing in Japan.

We have train accidents.

We have earthquakes and stuff, but 99% of
the time that just means the train stops.

So let’s say a car gets stuck on the road.

The train will hit the car ’cause
the trains don’t stop very fast.

It won’t derail.

You get accidents of other sorts.

The trains stop, they
don’t necessarily derail.

You have an earthquake.

The train will stop.

It won’t derail.

There’s a lot of safety measures in place
to make sure that trains don’t derail.

So a train derailing and therefore the need

and the use of the black train, the
rescue train, is an incredibly rare thing.

So for these guys who the whole
lives are taking pictures of trains,

the opportunity to take this
single picture is like a lifetime event.

The reason this train
was traveling this route

on that night wasn’t because
there was an accident of any sort.

It was because they
were changing train yards.

So it was sitting in one train yard.

They were moving it to another train yard

just for, I guess, to
make it more accessible.

Should there be an accident in the future?

There is a similar train.

The shinkansen, the
bullet train, they’re all white.

I mean, they have blue accents and stuff.

But basically, all the
bullet trains are white.

And then there’s one yellow one.

And this is called Dr. Yellow.

And this is the shinkansen, the bullet
train, that sort of checks the track.

So it goes down, it goes at those speeds.

It has no passengers.

It just got, it has computers
in it, measuring like

how much the vibrations
are, how fast are we going?

Are there any things we should check?

Are there any tracks that need to be fixed?

It basically is checking
the health of the tracks

at the shinkansen runs on, which is why
the shinkansen itself is so safe to run.

Again, very similarly, they don’t
publish the schedule of this train.

They don’t make it clear
when this thing is going out.

So seeing Dr. Yellow is a very special
event for these massive tote tetsu.

But they also are breaking
the rules of the sort of train

etiquette by standing on the
tracks, going inside the barrier

when it comes down and getting
shouted out by stations staff.

The stations staff knew
this was going to happen.

And there have been like scuffles.

So like they push each other,
they try to get the best picture

when someone gets in the way
they get really angry at them.

They actually had a guy
right in front of a fairly rare

train that comes around
this one very specific curve.

And he was in the shot and
they all started shouting at him

that he should pay them
money for ruining the photograph.

That, I mean, he didn’t know.

He was just riding his bicycle
home from work that day.

And he was basically one
guy versus like 100 nerds.

I mean, still quite scary for being honest.

It’s an issue because sooner or later

someone’s going to hurt, but I
actually had a second thought

because they want to
see this train so badly.

What if a nerd took it so far?

They actually tried to
create a train decoupling.

So they would know where
the decoupling happened

so they could actually wait for
the train, the rescue train to come.

If that is not actually happened,

I was like, that would be an awesome
police manga episode in the future.

A 35-year-old man was arrested
for stealing 150 kilograms of onions.

I don’t know why that caught my attention.

There’s actually been a spake recently.

I guess this is a harvest
season of people stealing

like peaches and fruit and
vegetables from farmers.

Last week, I didn’t actually do the story.

Was like 150 kilograms or 200 kilograms
of rice was stolen from like a warehouse?

Like, this is worth a lot of money.

So 150 kilograms of onions
was worth 100,000 yen.

Now, not a massive,
massive amount of money,

but I guess if you were going to just go
resell it, I mean, it’s pure profit for you.

So that’s just 100,000 yen in the bank.

The man who’s been
accused claims his innocence

and that he has no
recollection of the crime.

So I guess if you didn’t commit the crime,

you would have no
recollection of the crime.

So that’s actually pretty
good stance to take.

He became a suspect after the police
looked at security footage near the field.

So we’ve now hit a point in modern society

where stealing stuff from
what would look like an

empty field means you’re
still caught on camera.

So that to me is one of
the biggest inhibitors to crime

is there is so much, so many
cameras in the world now.

So many crimes are
solved by police just going,

well, here’s this guy
that’s following him home

and then they go to his house and
pick him up and go, did you do this?

Nine times out of 10, they
actually confessed in Japan.

But this guy, at least
he’s holding his ground,

he’s saying, no, I
didn’t steal any onions.

I don’t know why I found it funny,
but he’s also an onion farmer.

So this is an onion
farmer who went to another

onion farmer’s fields and stole
his onions and gets brought it back.

It would be much easier
to hide the evidence though.

So like, if I just really turn going to
like, if I wanted to hide dead bodies,

it’d be good if I worked in like a mortuary
’cause it’d be dead bodies everywhere.

It makes way more sense with onions.

Onions are much easier
to hide and much harder

to identify, I guess,
than a human body.

My brain should not have gone
there is what I’m feeling right now.

Several onion thefts have
happened over the last couple weeks.

A man in his 20s was arrested last month.

So this is not like an isolated incident.

There are a lot of people
out there stealing the onions,

which led me to the second
part where if he actually gets

convicted and arrested of the
theft of 150 kilograms of onions

and he’s in jail and he’s in
with like a hearted Yakuza killer.

Although, although Yakuza stories recently,

it’s all like 50 year old men stealing
Rolex watches and getting caught right away.

My image of the Yakuza having now covered
a bunch of Yakuza news is gone way down.

Like, they’re just not as
scary as they used to be.

Especially ’cause they all
seem to be really old now.

Like, I’m 50 something.

There are all 50 somethings.

I’m like, it’s not as impressive.

You need that like, vigor of youth to really
create your site, your crime syndicate.

Why no idea what I’m talking about now?

Yakuza are getting old.

I think that’s what I’m saying.

They need some new blood to make them
scary again because it just gets to a point

where it’s now just a bunch of old
men sitting around trying to steal cars.

And it’s just not the
same as the organized

crime of our image from
the movies and stuff.

But you’re in prison
and you’re in with your

cellmates and it’s
like, what did you do?

I killed a guy with my bare hands
’cause he talked to me the wrong way.

What would you do?

I stole a laundry, kilograms of onions.

I don’t know, I immediately went into like,

almost like a Midwestern
accent there for a bit.

I just, I don’t think
you’re gonna be getting

a lot of clout in prison if
onion theft is your crime.

A man is using a toilet and train station.

Perfect start to any story.

You hear someone outside sort of
like tapping and he gets pissed off.

It’s like, I was trying to rush me, man.

I need to relax to have my functions at
their best, I need, you know, personal time.

Why are you rushing me?

So pisses them off.

So he finishes up, he
goes outside, he sees the

guy who’s in the bathroom,
he’s, you know what?

This is a train station.

I’m gonna kick that guy in the waist.

I guess he’s just not very good kicking.

Like, ’cause if you’re gonna kick someone,

the waist is maybe
the least effective place.

Probably kicked him just
in the side and he is waist.

If I’m thinking about
it more logically now.

In a train station though, that’s a problem

because if you hit someone and they fall
into the tracks, that is attempted murder.

So that’s actually a whole different issue.

It didn’t go that far.

The guy who got kicked
wasn’t actually injured.

Then, after the guy
kicked him in the waist,

he ran away and he hit
in the bathroom again.

So we’re not dealing with
the like bravest criminal

or his passion and fury overtook him for a
moment and he kicked the guy in the waist.

And then reality setting is
like a whole bunch of people

just saw me kick a
random person in the waist.

I’m gonna go run away and hide now.

So this guy’s not, his
thought processes aren’t great.

Turns out the reason the man was
clicking was because he was blind.

This was the multi-use toilet.

He was blind.

He was using his cane to
find his way into the bathroom.

So he wasn’t actually
trying to rush that guy.

He was just trying to find the bathroom.

Maybe perfectly fine with waiting.

Maybe he didn’t even
need to use that toilet stall.

We don’t know what was happening there.

We do know that a blind man was in
using the like more accessible toilet.

This guy misinterpreted.

It got pissed off.

Went and kicked a blind guy on
the platform and was arrested for it.

When he was arrested, he said, I heard the
clicking and thought he was pressuring me.

Oh, no, no.

I heard the clicking and I
thought he was rushing me.

I got angry and kicked him.

I didn’t know he was blind.

Now I’m gonna go ahead and put it out there

that him being blind is not the
important part of that statement.

You shouldn’t be kicking anybody.

Like blind or not blind.

Him being blind makes it slightly worse
because he can’t really protect himself.

And he was completely innocent
in the first part of the accusation.

So he’s saying like, if I
had known he was blind,

I wouldn’t have gotten so
pissed off, which I don’t believe.

I think he would have just maybe not kicked
him, but he still would have been angry.

So there’s certainly some
emotional issues going on there.

How did they find him in
the bathroom so quickly?

Well, it turns out security footage.

So related to my previous story, you’re
not going anywhere we’re not being videoed.

So this guy, the police were
like, let’s look at this video footage.

They see the guy, kick the blind guy.

They see him run away.

They follow the cameras
back to where he went.

Well, he’s gone into the bathroom.

They go into the bathroom.

He’s arrested immediately.

So again, an engineer’s
Japan is all about

the crimes and I don’t
know what are we about.

We’re not about the crimes.

We’re about not committing crimes.

I just want people to think,
no, I got no conclusion.

Don’t kick blind people, I mean, given.

Don’t commit crimes.

I’ve done that one a million times.

You’re being watched.

That’s it.

We have our lady who decided to do
chin-ups on a 20-gate and gotten trouble.

She’s being watched.

She posted on the internet.

We got a guy stealing onions.

He was in an empty field,
still was on security cameras.

We have a guy kicking
people in the train station.

You’re on camera.

You’re on camera all the time.

You’re gonna get caught.

You gotta realize you have to, I
don’t care about morals anymore.

You’re gonna get caught
’cause you’re being filmed.

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Punchy People

This is a bit rushed.
Normally I record tomorrow.

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

episode out early, but
this is going to be the

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

Try to edit tonight
and tomorrow.

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

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

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

keeping a regular schedule.
But to make me happy,

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

It means I get to
hear your voice.

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

of the people who actually
have another podcast.

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

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

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

Please update.
That would be sick.

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

Chongveveachast, now
you do get a links to a whole

bunch of stuff that you
probably are not interested

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

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

So if you want to join
the discord, you can

go to the link tree,
join the discord there.

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

It is actually just helping
me out because there’s

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

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

I don’t mind doing it.

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

but the maintenance
that goes into social media,

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

I want to put it out
there on the internet.

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

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

That’s actually the thing.

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

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

started using, am I
advertising? If I was getting

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

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

I have promoted your
product for free, but I would

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

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

have to go to work
tomorrow, not even forever,

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

I usually record
Tuesday morning.

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

affected the sounds up.
I’m recording this morning

because I have to work
tomorrow because I have

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

So this is the fifth or
sixth start to this podcast

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

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

I do appreciate anyone
pointing out any issues

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

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

issue going on right now.
I have stat tracking issues

going on right now,
knowing that the discord link

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

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

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

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

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

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

that people listen to
this before they go to bed

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

Uh, the dirty or more
violent stories are

at the end, which means
while you are drifting into

sleep when you are when
you are mind is sort of

your body is closing, but
your mind is opening is

when I start talking
about the dirty weird stuff.

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

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

I think Gray is a
way better of what

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uh, secondary proposal,
I could write the podcast.

You could record the
what you could do the voice.

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

Yeah, I would like
to show up on one

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

And it would be
cool to fuck around.

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

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

been doing quizzes and
the quizzes, I’m already

trying to change them
a little bit last week.

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

Japanese lesson. Uh,
my friend Tom joined and I

showed him a couple of
words that were sort of

new Japanese words.
He took them back to his

students and he tried
them on his students.

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

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

to update your Japanese
and he’s saying that to

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

So I’m not going
to just do quizzes.

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

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

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

send an email to
chuggavelefchest@gmail.com.

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

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

And we can arrange to record.

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

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

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

to fit it to your schedule
because I recorded

outside of the live
recording that we do on

Twitch, usually on Tuesdays,
but today is Monday.

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

I’m just not getting
anything right.

Let’s start the show.

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

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

I’m actually already
a little bit more calm.

We have an update.
We have the story.

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

We have the NHK
does national news and

they do it in multiple
languages and they do it in

Chinese and they had a
guy doing the national news

in Chinese and he decided
to sort of just go off

script for a bit. He
switched to English.

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

of statements like the
Senkaku Islands belong to China.

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

So he was basically saying
like we have to remember the

awful history of Japan
and there are these disputed

islands between China and
Japan and they belong to China.

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

when your radio show
represents the government of

Japan because it’s a
national broadcast system.

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

certainly are working
for the government.

An executive had to quit
to take responsibility for this.

Two other executives had their
pay cut because this happened.

And I actually in
the last episode when

we talked about it said
like this seems unfair.

The executives, unless
they were sitting there

with like hovering
their finger over a mute

button with a seven
second delay or something,

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

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

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

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

So that guy and
many of his co-workers

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

They might have been
doing it from overseas,

but that contract was
ended. So that guy killed

that contract for multiple
people, which I think

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

So his friend should
be angry in him.

The executive quit, this
is a very Japanese thing

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

quit and you say, I
take responsibility for it.

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

We went through a period
around 2010 in Japan where there

were 10 prime ministers.
Because anytime there’s a

problem, the problem
would be like the prime

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

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

I realize that doesn’t
fix the problem.

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

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

step down and then the
next guy comes in clean.

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

usually have to fix the
problem and then quit if

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

just fix the problem. If
you fix the problem really

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

This is slightly different.
I thought it was weird

that the executive
quit, but then it turns out

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

they said they rehired
him because of his

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

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

experience was valuable. But
then it seems very convoluted.

So why did you let
him let him quit in the

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

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

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

is the same job,
which I find interesting.

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

convoluted way for him
to take responsibility by

resigning, but then
not actually taking any

responsibility because
he got hired back on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

but I’m assuming they’re
making enough money

that it’s not really negatively
impacting their lifestyle.

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

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

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

Was his salary improved?
Did what changed?

And then none of the
details came out in that.

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

public information. So
I kind of started going

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

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

research because I’m
wondering if in a weird way

this Chinese announcer
saying a very political

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

So he quit and
then he came back.

If that actually worked
out is him getting a raise.

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

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

do not seem like
living in the future.

There are some bits
that are super futuristic.

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

so I live in a Japanese
house and the heating,

cooling system of Japan
as a country just has not

caught up with
anywhere else I’ve lived.

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

Japan basically has air
conditioners in each individual

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

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

hallway and then either
all the cold air, all the

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

And the hallway is either
super hot or super cold.

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

I was on the train
the other day.

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

But a lot of the
community is cut.

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

So I’m thinking it
was an accident.

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

is officially fall. I
think it’s officially

fall now, but it still
feels like summertime.

Yeah, man. Japan has
this very weird thing where

people will change
their clothing and stuff

depending on the
season, not on the actual

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

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

my fall warmer clothes,
even though it’s still

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

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

I’m talking about soft bank.

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

So some companies when
crypto kind of went through

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

as part of your
salary. I think it was an

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

There’s some legal
issues with paying with how

you pay your employees.
Pay pay is one of the

payment systems in Japan.
I actually had a conversation

with this with some
friends last night about

and they know there
is no Venmo in Japan.

It’s not recognized by
the Japanese government.

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

Japan is very insular and
pretty much everything.

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

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

I use pay pay. I
used to use line pay

because everyone had line
and if you needed to share

money or send money,
it was very easy.

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

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

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

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

I was scamming them
for double points for a

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

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

and I got points on line
pay but they shut down

that system very
recently. So now I just use

pay pay exclusively.
But with the government

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

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

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

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

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

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

So you can get part
of your payment up to

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

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

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

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

That can happen as
well. 300 companies

have already contacted
pay pay about adopt about

adopting digital payment
systems. And I’m guessing

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

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

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

A nursing nursing
home care worker.

So I mean these are
people who are taking care of

old people in Japan. It
has a grain population.

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

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

who can get jobs in
this kind of care system.

They were arrested for
assaulting 105 year old patient.

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

sort of assault is going
to be significant if the

person is 105 years
old. So that is crazy.

It turns out they also
assaulted three other patients.

The youngest being 94.
So these are like 94 year

old people end up. And
this guy is like getting

frustrated with them and
punching them in the face.

The actual statement
was I was so frustrated

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

which makes it very clear
that you should not be

working in this industry.
The home care facility

they were working
at was for exclusively

patients with dementia.
So you I mean dealing

with old people can be
frustrating dealing with

people my age can be
frustrating. Dealing with older

people who also you know
have dementia is going

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

frustrated, you then think
punching him in the face

is the acceptable
response. And that’s going to

somehow make things better.
You probably shouldn’t be

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

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

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

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

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

bruise on one of the
patients. So they decided

to go check the security
camera. And it turns out

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

But because they checked
the security camera,

saw the assault take
place giving maybe different

injuries, different bruises.
So the person got caught.

So I’m like this other
person absolutely should

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

I should just go
check just to be

safe because again we’re
dealing with dementia patients.

We’re dealing with older people.

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

Maybe they bruise very easily.

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

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

I should just go check
the security camera.

Goes and sees these
older people getting

assaulted and then is
able to call the police.

So that second person
should get a raise.

But care workers are
not appreciated and that is

probably not going to
happen. Since we’re talking

about people punching
people who should not be

punched, I guess no
one should be punched.

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

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

But that’s voluntary.

So that voluntary aspect
changes the whole atmosphere of

the getting punched in
the face. If you are an

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

you expect or deserve
to be punched in the face.

I mean, okay old
people can be shitty too.

Sometimes they might
deserve it. But that doesn’t

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

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

should be allowed to
punch or not, which is

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

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

Because I think I
have good judgment.

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

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

talked about punching
old people on the face.

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

A teacher in Shiga was
arrested for hitting an

elementary school age
boys about 10 years old

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

He was reported to
police the same day.

So the kid went home
probably had a black eye because

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

The parents called the cops.

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

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

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

But I can absolutely
tell you the reason.

Without even meeting this
kid, without even knowing the

situation, he was being
a mouthy little shit.

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

things having had
experience teaching kids,

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve never punched
one of the face.

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

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

punched a kid in the
face despite the fact that

they were being mouthy little
shits and probably deserved it.

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

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

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

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

where teachers
just kind of lose it.

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

teacher and copying
him and the teacher just

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

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

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

They’re going to
get under your skin.

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

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

You get this little puff here sometimes.
Hello.

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

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

Then you would just
be looking at my nose

down and a sleeping
dog, which actually still

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

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

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

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

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

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

that it is sensitive to
me, they absolutely 100%

will make fun of it
constantly until I break.

A man was arrested for
violating stalking laws for

sending six text messages
to his ex-girlfriend.

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

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

usually the text messages
stalking stories are,

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

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

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

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

Like this was like an
insignificant amount of text.

It would be very easy to ignore.

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

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

Breakups don’t have
to be too sighted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

as an pick you up and
drive you somewhere and

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

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

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

It takes on a very
different meaning.

Again, being an outside
reader of this, we have

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

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

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

So I see this message.

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

understand the situation.”
But the situation is

that she had blocked him
on all the ways they had

talked to before and then he
started sending these messages.

So I will come and get you.

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

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

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

Like this is actually a
fairly well crafted threat

because you could say
once you get arrested

because you’re going
to get arrested for this,

you could say once
you get arrested that you

were not threatening,
you were just giving facts.

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

Like what does that
mean? That means I’m

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

to come and take you
somewhere. I think maybe

this guy was smart
enough that he was banking

on that working, but
any reasonable outsider

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

woman because she
blocked you and dumped you.

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

and having now seen
the way he’s responded to

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

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

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

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

These, this response
demonstrates why he was

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

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

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

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

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

at being ignored because
she had blocked him previously.

So I’m assuming
he got a different

phone or a different phone
number or something like that.

So he can start sending
text messages again.

Which again makes it
very clear the way he

must behave while
they were actually dating.

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

send her scary messages,
she wouldn’t respond.

And that’s why I
used a strong language.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

their cash drawers. But
that is the kind of thing

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

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

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

They’re going to have
ways of taking the

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

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

figured this out as
well and they try to like

randomize the times.
So that you never really

have peak money in
the cash, in the tills.

But at the same time,
they have to have a

certain amount of money
on hand. He held up the

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

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

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

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

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

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

knowledge of how banks
are run back 40 years ago

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

a regular adult. And
he doesn’t realize like

everything has been
updated. Like maybe he doesn’t

know that there are
silent alarms, the police

as soon as you start
watching movies, you actually

gain a lot of information
by watching like

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

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

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

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

Now I kind of ended that
last story with a gentle

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

80 years old and therefore
not much of a threat

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

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

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

we shouldn’t underestimate
your ability to threaten

or hurt other people.
A tax official started

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

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

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

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

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

attempts to run the tax
official down with his car.

In his car, he also
had a hunting rifle.

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

police arrested him, he
had foreign the house,

I want to get more
details about this guy

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

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

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

I’m not paying taxes anymore.

You guys go screw
yourself. Tax official shows

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that’s not a very big thing.

Like he get in
trouble. You get a fine.

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

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

Technically, two
different licenses.

But again, I think it
would just be rolled into

one thing, driving
without a license.

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

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

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

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

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

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

kerfuffle, which is exactly
what’s going to happen

when the police show
up. Please bang in the door

like hey, where the
cops cut lettuce in.

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

hit the ground and run
away. There is so much

in that sentence,
though. So first of all,

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

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

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

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

I know three stories
isn’t technically that

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

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

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

That’s going to be
really, really rough.

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

So no twisted ankle, no
broken foot, no nothing

that either that or
his adrenaline so high,

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

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

a semi organized
group of criminals now.

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

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

This one I’ve heard of before.

This is basically a loose
gang of individuals who

are willing to commit
crimes and what they do is

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

They commit a crime
to it with each other

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

the police to track down
the entire gang or any sort

of network because the
network is always changing

because I commit a crime
with you and then I move

on to another thing. And
then on the social media

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

And then I get
the support I need.

I get to commit the
crimes. But then none of

us are actually tied to
each other too closely.

So it actually depends
on how active you are,

how dangerous you are.
So he was suspected of

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

as much proof, but they
did have proof that he

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

they were going to pick
him up for because he was

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

11 cops were waiting
for him. Now the thing

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

you sort of get sort
of people in the area,

that kind of thing because
you only need two or

three cops to take
one guy into custody.

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

there were no cops out there.

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

So they had no cops
sort of around that side

of the building. I guess
they were all around

the front door expecting
him to use the front

door very politely as
they just walked him out.

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

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

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

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

Hey, there’s a guy
in his underwear in

this convenience store
buying pants or something.

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

you can buy t-shirts
in underwear and socks.

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

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

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

That is how Japan
convenience stores aren’t

literally more convenient
than anywhere else.

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, December
15th, a body was found.

It has been drowned. The
police suspected suicide,

but then they turned out
there was no real motive.

Like this guy didn’t
seem particularly

depressed when they
started looking into his life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

his bank account? Why
are you taking money out

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

That seems a little
suspicious. The man claims

he held the bank card
and obtained consent

before taking the money
out. He had the bank

card for sure because
he had to have the bank

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

This is now when it
gets really suspicious.

Why are you, how do
you have consent to take

money out of this dead
guy’s bank account?

Did you get consent
before or after he died?

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

have been managing
this guy’s finances for

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

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

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

So this is to me, one
of the more interesting

bits of this, they say
they became friends 30

years ago because
they both like baseball.

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

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

they became friends
over baseball 30 years ago,

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

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

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

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

this guy for the life
insurance, then he had to

make it look like an
accident, whereas the police

immediately assumed suicide
because he was pushed into a river.

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

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

it wasn’t planned out
well enough, whereas this

guy seems to have had
access to everything else.

So it seems like he would
have been in a position

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

He trusts him completely.

He did actually seem to
trust him with his finances.

It actually would have
made more sense to rip

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

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

pushing me into a river
does seem like suicide in

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

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

fundamental ways to
kill yourself in Japan.

One month before the
man drowned, the friend

asked how he would
collect on the life insurance.

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

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

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

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

accessibility. It
seems suspicious.

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

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

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

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

I took care of his finances.

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

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

accident, the suspicion
would naturally lay

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

they were apparently
seeing each other all the time.

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

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

pushes it towards murder
more than anything else

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

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

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

Over the last 10
days, that’s a very

long period of time not to
have contact with someone

you’re so close with and
then not get suspicious

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

murder correctly, he needs
to play into the fact that

he was essentially a
caretaker of his friend for the

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

be most likely to report it
to the police and therefore

get the police on the
track. But the problem is

then you are opening the
case. Maybe he was just

hoping he would disappear
and nobody would notice.

But then again, how
do you collect on the life

insurance if no one
knows the guy is dead?

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

very carefully as
much as I can because I

actually think there might
be enough doubt here

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

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

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

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

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

But it seems like he
has messed up this plan if

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

Maybe he didn’t
actually do it, which is

what great murder
mysteries we’re all about.

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

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

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

I would love to have
you on the show.

You can send a
message to speak pipe up.

You can send a message to
speakpipe.com/truckmanbeefchester

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

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

I do love interacting with
everyone who enjoys the show.

That might be the
caveat that I need.

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

So I actually was like,
I gotta work tomorrow.

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

I got the message from Graham.

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

So your interaction helps me
produce more and better shows.

So thank you to
everyone who’s listening.

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

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

speakpipe or Gmail, links
are in the description.

The link tree,
hopefully is all working.

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

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

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

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

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

Mental Gymnastics

(upbeat music)

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

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

Just to see if it was any good.

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

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

(humming)

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

Why am I, why am I getting AI?

When I have the natural
instrument of my body.

It was horrible.

Like every song was absolutely atrocious.

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

sounded even close to
what I would call music.

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

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

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

But you know what I mean?

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

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

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

of speaking and put it
together, clone my voice.

The podcast is automated now.

I don’t actually have to do anything.

But the theme song, you’re safe.

I’m still thinking about what to do.

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

Like I’m not rich.

This is an update on a
story from previous week.

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

I’ve talked about why.

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

We’ve talked about graffiti.

Is it bad?

And overall, basically, yes.

This guy, he sprayed, what did he spray?

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

I should’ve checked.

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

He was a little more honest about it.

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

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

I actually kind of
appreciate the honesty there.

He escaped back to China.

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

No, he’s going to happen to him.

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

You can read into that a
bunch of different ways,

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

But he did get arrested.

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

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

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

He committed a crime
and he is being punished.

He has committed two crimes.

He’s being punished for one.

Does that count for both?

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

So I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

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

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

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

You got to clean it up.

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

That’s a pretty fair punishment.

He was arrested on suspicion of extortion.

He was threatening people involved
in online streams for shopping.

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

You talk about them.

You move it on people can buy that product.

And he apparently was trying
to intimidate these people

into getting them to put
money into a bank account.

So just essentially just
extorting them for money.

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

I couldn’t understand the
politics behind graffitiing.

That’s a coony shrine.

I really can’t.

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

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

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

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

So good luck to him.

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

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

I was speaking.

It’s an actual Postman.

But also could be Postboy
because this Postman

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

It’s kind of a neat thing.

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

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

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

That is about it.

I’m sure there’s more to it.

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

I’m sorry.

I think it’s valuable job.

I think it’s important.

Japan Post is dedicated.

I once did an online thing.

It was probably for t-shirts or something.

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

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

So the Chinese script
wasn’t on the server

side of the system they were
using the payment system.

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

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

Two months later, this package shows up.

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

So that level of
dedication made me really,

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

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

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

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

are inherently lazy or
not capable or anything.

I don’t look at young people that way.

I look at individuals.

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

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

A teen Japanese postperson
dumped 2,378 letters

and 449 parcels in
seven different locations.

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

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

So I’m just going to take it here.

I’m going to dump it.

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

I’m going to take it over here.

1049 parcels, though, okay.

You’re a mail person.

You’re supposed to deliver the mail.

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

You start dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

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

I’m pretty sure this is a crime.

Just dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

You might as well steal the parcels.

I know I every
regularly say I should not

give advice to criminals,
but then immediately

sorry giving advice
to criminals, but it’s

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

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

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

There may be some
good stuff in the parcels.

Keep them.

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

Maybe someone sending
someone some money or something.

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

if I decided to just
start dumping stuff,

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

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

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

Less likely to get caught.

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

So the report came in on July 31st.

Someone found mail
and parcels in between

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

They found it, they
basically found one of

the places that the kid
was dumping the mail.

They called the post office and the police.

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

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

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

It’s too much.

Clearly should not have been a mail person.

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

I’m finding this the interesting part.

He’s not been arrested.

The post office is filing
for damages and that

means he’s going to have
to pay the equivalency

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

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

There were three parcels
that were so damaged

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

There’s three parcels
will not get delivered.

They’ve put the message out there.

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

Maybe they haven’t for you.

But at the end of the
day, it actually seems

like after 2,000 pieces
of mail go missing.

Someone should have
noticed a little sooner.

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

Battening down the hatches.

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

They get stricter.

Japan does not get
looser in its laws and rules.

They get stricter.

So what has happened?

Electric scooters became available.

They immediately started making
rules about electric scooters.

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

on and go through the –
supposed to be through

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

If you ride them in
the streets, they fall

under motorized vehicle
rules and you have to

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

That didn’t even make sense.

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

I have even watched those movies.

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

I don’t care about that.

I don’t know.

I like horror movies.

I like movies.

I never cared about the
final destination series.

Maybe I should – maybe
I should be my – maybe

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

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

There’s like six.

That’s a bad sign.

Anyways, cycling is very common.

So they have decided
to get a little stricter

with the rules for
riding your bicycle.

And it’s going to
be people riding their

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

So if you are cycling
while using your phone,

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

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

I go quite like that.

I bet it’s not very good.

I have the gold driver’s license

Japan has a tear system.

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

So I have never had accidents.

I’ve never had a ticket.

So I have gold.

My wife got one ticket.

She has blue.

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

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

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

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

That’s literally punishment.

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

I don’t.

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

I bet that course is miserable.

If you are found using
your phone on your

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

If you found our
phone to be a threat to

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

If you’re riding looking
at your phone and

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

So that’s a significant jump up.

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

If you’re drinking
and bicycling, it might

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

So riding your bicycle drunk
was therefore acceptable.

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

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

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

years in prison and
half a million yen fine.

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

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

There are four options.

Okay.

So the story itself is
there is a reporter, a

lady reporter for
business sort of daily thing.

She was arrested for breaking stalker laws.

She texted a reporter
at another paper 64

times between August
17th and the 25th, which

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

That’s dedication.

I don’t know.

Eight texts.

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

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

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

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

That’s crazy.

Okay.

But that those 64
messages came after she

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

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

It is.

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

Okay, and all anymore.

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

The way she sent
messages, so this actually

implies to me because
the information was not

in the paper in the
news story, was not

overlined or a traditional
text messaging thing,

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

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

She would send him
like one or two yet and

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

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

So for the American listeners
or whatever, it would be

like Google pay sending
it like a couple of pennies.

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

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

She’s pretty serious about it.

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

continuing to send messages
after she had been blocked.

So I have four options.

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

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

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

So it must have been okay on pay pay.

Or D, it was for a story on stalking.

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

Good.

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

This has been my biggest concern.

It hasn’t happened yet.

But my concern is I
start the quiz, get to

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

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

I would have to abandon
the whole thing anyway.

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

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

Do you remember the options?

She basically got a restraining
order against this gun.

It was one step lower.

So the police warned
her that if you continue,

you’re going to be
breaking stalking laws.

He hadn’t officially
gotten a restraining order.

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

think the message was
very clear you need to stop.

The police had warned her, that’s yeah.

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

I don’t know.

And I don’t know.

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

Does he see what do you have?

Okay.

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

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

Or it was for a story
I was doing on stalking

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

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

Yeah, it’s a payment app.

So I wasn’t sending messages.

I was sending payments
and you have to

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, he’s a reporter.

They are both reporters.

They work at different publications.

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

were at the same story
or at the same location

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

They did not.

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

story I was doing on
stalking, is incorrect.

When she was arrested,
the statement she

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

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

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

sorry, I’m not convinced
by the accusations.

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

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

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

So the police are just interfering
in her personal relationship.

They aren’t.

It has nothing to do with the guy.

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

Well, they might, but
I mean, what other

logics are like, the
police have come and told

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

me on pay pay and I
can send him messages

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

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

I see.

It was the line of mental gymnastics.

That was a, it’s a lot.

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

different justifications
to get to the point

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

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

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

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

But because she saw
this one opening that did

you ever see the German
guy who was in love

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

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

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

basically been given a
restraining order and he

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

It was given to me by
the management company.

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

It’s sure that Naio
likes me and that she

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

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

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

It did not come from Naio
and JYP Entertainment

tried to destroy my image
and tried to intentionally

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

Naio start a relationship,
but obviously that

would not be the case
because I would obviously

support Naio’s job as
an idol and stay with

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

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

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

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

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

I know one time I
accidentally leaked Cheyong’s

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

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

me on the internet
created from unprofessional

news outlets who
try to gain views with

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

But Naio is smart enough
to know that there are

a lot of fake news
about me on the internet.

Naio knows that I am a
good person and Naio knows

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

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

him but it is the management
company that is interfering.

Yeah they are just
going to stop us getting

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

That does seem like
it and so this seems

like on the same kind
of thinking, it is like

the police are trying to
stop us from getting together.

Why?

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

So she falls in love
with this guy and they

disappear and she is not
going to do music anymore.

But in this case, the
police, why would they

bother to interfere with
a personal relationship?

They do not care.

If you ever get a message
on pay pay from me

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

what you have actually
done is just open that door.

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

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

So that should actually be
out this afternoon or tomorrow.

So if you are listening
to this, you want to

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

You can listen to that as well.

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

We talked about movies
and comics and anime

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

So some new interesting insights into me.

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

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

Anyways, feel free to
check out Requiem Radio.

You get another two hours
of chunk of beef chest.

Don’t know why that popped into my head.

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

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

Japan loves Excel sheets.

They use Excel sheets inappropriately.

Like they use Excel sheets
that should be Word documents.

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

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

Maybe it’s the cells.

I don’t know.

I find it frustrating
not because it’s wrong

or bad, but I’m like
this actually would

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

And then the Excel
sheets I often get at work

are gigantic, like
incomprehensibly large.

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

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

And then make that
information more digestible.

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

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

It’s very relevant.

Like most Japanese
offices, this city hall was

keeping an Excel sheet
on staff performance.

Between 2020 and 2022,
it was called Progress

Report and it was
delivered to the department

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

This was about a specific employee.

There were multiple
categories, like words and

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

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

The marks were then
put into the Excel sheet,

making fun of one of the
employees’ appearance.

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

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

It’s disgusting.

It took me a moment
because was that, at

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

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

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

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

Anyways, someone felt
that that was inappropriate,

instead of speaking
to the man, put it

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

The thing is, this was
on a public network

within the city hall,
which means eventually,

of course, the man,
in this case of the

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

He reported the
harassment, the conclusion of

the investigation was
the document itself was

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

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

do well, keeping track
of things people do not

do well, so that we
can give them feedback.

That is appropriate.

They do continue, though.

However, it contained
sentiments unrelated to

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

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

is irrelevant and therefore,
that did constitute harassment.

They did meeting with the department head.

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

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

That’s an opinion.

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

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

is factual, but his
underwear is sticking up

also, I guess that is
technically a fact, but

I think he was trying
to cover it up, but

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

This is harassment.

When it became out
that this was harassment,

it kind of changed
his tune a little bit

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

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

had comments added to
it every single week or so.

He claims that this
thing he was sent every

week with new added
comments every single week.

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

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

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

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

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

Now, the department
head would have been very

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

You just have to be
very sensitive about it.

And you have to realize
like, does this matter?

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

This is what work from
home is actually taught us.

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

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

In some cases, being
comfortable might even

increase your performance,
but it’s irrelevant.

So I think this might
be a case where could

they have dealt with
this more deftly, probably.

What they could have
had is really sincere

conversation, maybe
constructive criticism of

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

Maybe when you’re
underwears hiked up, we

could actually suddenly
take you to the side

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

shirt down and your
pants up or something.

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

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

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

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

place where he needs
to take some pictures.

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

So he starts a fight
with three skateboarders,

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

Skateboarders do tend to be younger.

But one of the things I
know as a former skateboarder

myself, when I was in
my teens, skateboarders

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

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

skateboarder because
the other skateboarders

are going to join in
to defend their friend,

and they have big
pieces of wood with metal

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

The cameraman then kicked
one of the skateboarders.

Now the skateboarders,
good boys to be honest,

they did not retaliate,
they just chased

them down, they did
not like attack them, he

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

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

I know some people
might consider them a

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

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

they’re playing, while
others are playing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the things we
talk about is work life

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, we’re getting into the darker stuff.

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

and it was about murder
in Japan and on YouTube,

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

I usually get like
double digit views on the

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

It was never really
taken off, because I think

anyone who listens
to this, they’re listening

on podcasts, but to
try to make it worth

listening to, I had like
comments and stuff.

I used to not do any
murder on this, because

I tried to be so
flippant, and I realized

I’m not actually that
flippant, I just talk

and then give my opinion
and maybe make a joke.

So I did this episode
of Seamig B on murder,

and it got like triple
digits, 450 or 60 was

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It actually is very obvious.

Here I am 300 in whatever
episodes later, just

figuring out I can
decide not to make jokes.

I can decide not to be flippant.

It’s a revelation for me.

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

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

It’s a passenger ferry.

So you get on in Japan
and you take this nice

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

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

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

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

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

Now she thought, ah, I closed my door.

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

Clearly if she thinks
she’s closed her door,

she’s the kind of
person who closes things,

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

which I’ve asked him
to close the drawers and

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

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

That’s parenting.

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

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

She pulls back the
curtain and she finds a

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

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

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

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

But closing the
curtain to the only really

usable piece of furniture
in the room, I assume,

is not a good hiding
place, you get under the

bed, get behind the
bed, get above the curtain

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

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

going to catch you,
but imagine just pulling

back the curtain,
there’s just like this

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

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

So they were like
saying, let’s not involve

the police, please no
charges, they actually

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

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

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

worried about the
reputation of the boat,

we’re worried about
the duties, operations of

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

So they were trying
to pressure her into not

pressing charges to
try to keep it quiet.

I think that’s really it.

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

Is it maritime law?

Is it the South Korean jurisdiction
or the Japanese jurisdiction?

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

So is it the Japanese
boat means they should

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

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

So should they report
to the South Korean

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

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

interpol international police
come in and just deal with it?

Should they do maritime law?

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

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

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

So there’s float some in jetsam in this.

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

If you threw it off, it becomes salvage.

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

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

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

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

There’s also the stuff that syncs.

I forget there’s two names for that too.

Again, for the same,
some has been abandoned

and there’s no
expectation that it’ll come

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

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

because some is salvage,
some is not salvage.

In this case though,
the Japanese guy clearly

intended to steal, so
that makes him a pirate.

So he should be treated like a pirate.

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

to escape because he should
have been able to escape.

So I think he should
be treated like a pirate

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

Yeah.

Walk the plank.

It’s the only answer.

Oh, I did the song too, sir.

I didn’t know what keel hauling was.

Keel hauling is when
they would drop you

over the front of the
boat and then drag you

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

The stuff they scraped off.

Barnacles are sharp.

They cut you and then
this was before engines

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

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

but most people
died in that process.

They could keel hauling
him but see, there might

not be barnacles because
of modern technology

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

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

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

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

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

So she decided to do
the only logical thing.

She walked up and
started just punching her,

leading to the woman’s
death because it was

another older woman who
was sleeping in her bed.

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

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

So she’s walked into a room.

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

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

If she had looked
around, she might have

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

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

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

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

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

She should have gone
and gotten security and

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

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

Maybe that person came
into my room by accident

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

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

Who knows?

But immediately going to
fist a cuffs on a sleeping

person who is defenseless
is an unreasonable reaction.

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

She was arrested.

into introducing murder
as a story into the podcast.

So I cut it off pretty quick.

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

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

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