Tag: politics

Political Missteps

(upbeat music)

So Ninja Ninja Japan is here.

We have not disappeared.

We have not disappeared because we
have not been crushed by an earthquake.

We haven’t been crushed by an earthquake
because the prediction by the mangaka

that on the 5th, the 4th, 5th, I
forget, that’s how unimportant it is.

On the 4th or 5th, that there was
going to be a massive earthquake.

So if you remember in the last episode,

we talked about there was
a manga and in her manga,

this woman had dreams and
she would just draw her dreams.

And she predicted the Fukushima disaster.

She predicted the earthquake
and it would be a big, big disaster.

Then she predicted that this year on
the 5th, there was going to be another one.

And it was going to be at
four o’clock in the morning

and it was going to make
Fukushima look like nothing.

Well, guess what happened?

Nothing.

So this is maybe one of the problems
is when people make predictions

and those predictions
are coincidentally accurate,

other people see that as
something they should believe.

People from Hong Kong, specifically in
Taiwan, were canceling their flights to Japan

because of this prediction that was made
in a manga that this weekend on the 5th,

there was going to be a massive
earthquake and destroyed Japan.

Like the way it made it sound like
Fukushima was just like the warmup.

This was going to be the big event.

And then nothing happened.

But people don’t remember the prediction
where it doesn’t actually come true.

They just move on and
they look for the coincidences

and the prediction
where it actually happens.

So what you should do is
not believe any predictions or I

should just make a new job
where I start making predictions.

And eventually you make enough volume.

You’re going to get one
or two that are accurate.

And then people will think you’re prescient

and you can actually
tell the future and stuff.

That’s really dumb.

Don’t believe any of that.

(upbeat music)

That being said, don’t
believe in something.

I don’t believe in like
tarot cards or readings.

I don’t believe in astrology
or any of that stuff.

It’s very hard to say
that like everyone born

at the same time has
the same personality traits

because I have met people
born within the same timeframe

who did not have the same
personality traits as I do.

But one of my students actually said
that she has a friend who can read auras.

And I’m really interested.

So I said, can you take my
picture and then have my aura read?

And then I tried to make sure
I had a completely flat face.

No emotion, no expression at all.

So that I could get a completely
neutral reading of my aura.

I’m very excited to see what
my aura actually ends up being.

I don’t know how long this will take.

This is certainly not going to
be a priority in my student’s life.

They may just forget.

They might look in like I
have a really weird picture

of my teacher on my phone of him
just staring blankly at the camera.

But should that occur, I’m very
excited to find out what my aura is.

I have, I did for a while.

The problem was I actually
watched one on TikTok.

It had a tarot reading where they’re
like, oh, if you came across this video,

it was just, it was the
universe reaching out

and has a message for you
and they’d read your tarot.

And I found that interesting,
completely inaccurate.

So I don’t know if I
actually get the results.

Should I get the results?

I will share the one in his new
Japan, and I’ll let him actually said this.

And then if you’ve listened
to an in his new Japan

for the last 350 episodes
or however many we’ve done,

you can then say like,
I’ve gotten this sense

of what Chonk maybe have
just is as a person who he is.

And then is the aura reading
accurate in my opinion or feeling?

Or maybe it like brings
out some dark inner secret

that you don’t actually know about.

That would be
interesting in itself as well.

It is the beginning of a political
season in Japan and Japan.

They do their politics in, there’s
good points and bad points.

The good points is it’s
a very short set period.

It’s like a couple weeks.

You can do sort of your speeches.

You can put up your posters.

You can do it during
this period and not before,

and not after, and
otherwise it’s sort of illegal.

That is good, keeping it limited.

So in America when it’s
like a two, three year long

process leading up, it
means like politicians

who are supposed to be
in doing their jobs politically

are actually like campaigning
and stuff half the time.

That means they’re not doing their job.

So Japan’s kept it down to a couple
weeks a month or something like that.

But the bad side is it
means they give speeches.

Those speeches tend to
be standing on top of a van

make with loudspeakers just completely
annoying everyone around them.

I’ve actually been in
the office where I work.

The way the political
speeches work in Japan,

they get on top of a van,
they get loud speakers,

and they just boom,
those as loud as they can.

Because almost seems like
there’s no noise laws in Japan.

Because I’ve been in my
office in like three blocks away,

you can hear the speech happening on
the corner with some low level politician.

Also, they drive around
and they don’t say speeches.

They have these vans, they drive around

and they just say the politicians
name over and over again.

And they go like,
“Toshio Suzuki.

” “Toshio Suzuki.

” “Toshios,” they just do that
over and over and over again.

And again, with these,
we’re incredibly familiar.

This is the closest I’ve
wanted to come to getting a gun

to shoot something ’cause I
would love to shoot those speakers.

I guess the idea is that if they
can get a name into your head

when I go to vote and I
don’t have a particularly strong

political stance, I’ll just vote for
the name I remember the most.

I’m hoping that’s not how politics works,

but it does seem to be, since a
lot of the parties are very similar,

it does seem to be like
the very small differences

between the differences
between the groups.

But since we have
speech time, the other good

point for an engineer’s
Japan as a podcast means

we have comments by
politicians trying to get attention.

And I don’t have to finish most of these.

I could just start them
and that would be enough.

And weirdly, all the controversial comments

seem to be coming from the
right side of the political spectrum.

But we have the Democratic
Party for the people.

I find the names of the
parties to be kind of dystopian.

It’s almost like if I was going
to write a dystopian future story

and I needed political party names,

I would use the names sort of
like the ones they have in Japan.

The Democratic Party for the people leader

was asked why his party
receives little support from women.

I don’t think I need to go much further
for you to actually like fill in the blanks

for what a Japanese traditional
conservative right-wing person

is going to say, but
we might as well say

it ’cause we might as
well get it out there.

I think our policy is good, not
only for men, but also women.

But I think it’s very difficult
to understand for them.

So, so the dude is saying, why
don’t women support your party?

And he goes, well, ’cause
they’re kind of dumb.

And then he wonders why this is a problem.

So of course the next day he had to come
up with a apology saying he like misspoke.

I regret that I used a poor expression.

I had no intention of being misogynistic.

Well, it’s an interesting
thing ’cause I don’t

think misogynists ever
intend to be misogynistic.

I think that’s just where they go.

He did say I’m not good in English.

So he does have a little out.

These comments specifically
were made in English.

And he’s saying he’s not good in English.

So he’s actually made a mistake.

But I’m gonna go ahead and
say, if you’re not good at English,

you should not be making political
statements with any sort of subtlety.

But let’s move on to
some other political parties.

We have the leader of the Sensato Party.

And he decided to one up our previous
friend from the People’s Democratic Party.

He was saying that only
young women can have children.

When I say it, some people call
discrimination, but it’s just biological fact.

This is a very Japan first party.

They are against
immigration and they are very

worried about the decline
in population in Japan.

Now it was interesting.

They had a YouTube channel going
and as he started making these comments,

the YouTube channel
just went to a colored bar.

So it’s like they had
an issue with their feet.

But then what it actually, they claim
it was because of the extreme heat

because they were
actually filming this outside.

And it’s very hot in Japan.

I actually just said, I’m
very hard trying to start.

I’m very hard trying to start.

I’m very hot trying to
start the podcast today.

Of course, they came to follow up.

I think this might have been just a court
some controversy to get some attention.

That’s actually what I feel happened there.

So he started making
controversial comments.

They cut it off.

Made it seem like maybe
someone else cut them off.

But then of course,
someone came up a reporter

came and actually
challenged him a little bit

and he said, you know, with
modern medicine and care,

women into their forties can
quite easily still have babies.

Four women in their 60s and
70s, it remains extremely difficult.

Which I would say is factually correct.

There is another issue.

I don’t know.

I don’t want to speak for
women in their 60s and 70s,

but certainly as someone in their fifties,
I do not want to start having children now.

If I had a child now, I would be in
my 70s when that child turned 20,

which means you know,
throughout my 50s and 60s,

I’d be doing the young
energetic time for children

and the teen times
when it’s maybe difficult.

If I was in my 60s and 70s, that’s not
when I would want to start having kids.

So again, I don’t want
to speak for other people,

but I think a lot of people at the same
age might be sharing a similar opinion.

Now pop that baby out, make that happen.

  • Dude, it was just, it’s the
    exhaustment, the exhaustion, exhaustment.

I’m not even doing English good today.

I’m like that guy in the previous story.

It’s the exhaustion of
having newborns and babies

and little kids in the
energy that goes with it.

I don’t think people in their 50s,
60s and 70s want that anymore.

I want to just relax.

I’m really glad my kids are of age
where they’re leaving the house now.

The interesting part is,
even though he’s doing this

in a horrible way, he actually
had some points I agree with.

And the points, and this is again, trying
to differentiate, you know, controversy,

opinion, reality, fact, things like that,
he was saying, we need to make a society

where young women are
comfortable having babies.

And I think that’s true.

I just want to take out the young part.

I think if you want to have babies,

we need to make a
society where you are

comfortable and feel
supported in having babies.

I agree with that aspect of his statement.

I just don’t agree with what or how
he was saying any of the other stuff.

Let’s move on, NHK party.

NHK party has been a fan favorite on Ninja
New Japan because they created a party.

It’s kind of a 50% joke
party, 50% serious party.

So they’re always doing stuff.

The leader of the party
last year was attacked with a

machete, not by a foreigner,
but by a Japanese citizen.

He said, oh, he put on a mega hat.

So that’s already giving
you a sense of where he is

in the world, and he started his
speech with, “I’m afraid of foreigners.

” There’s a problem now.

I realize if I’m doing quotes

and someone clips the bit
with the quote and no context,

I could actually get in trouble,
but I’m afraid of foreigners.

You might not feel as
much fear with white people.

So that was like his intro to his speech.

You know it was gonna
get better after that.

It’s scary when groups of black people

or people with Islamic
background gather and frolic

in front of the station, I do have
to admit, I like the word frolic.

I mean, I gotta admit, people
frolicing sounds like a good time.

He says they don’t understand Japanese,
you don’t know if they understand Japanese,

so it’s scary to have those kind of
people hanging around the station.

This is a man who has
promoted genocide as a solution to

overpopulation, but he’s also
part of a non-serious party.

So it’s really hard to take
any of his statement seriously.

I think again, he just courts controversy

by just saying whatever
he thinks he can say

and get away with, just
saying stuff to see what sticks.

This is the same group
that last year was like,

let’s put up porn posters instead of our
regular posters to try to get more attention

and they sold their sort of
advertising space to people

who just wanted to put up
pictures of their dogs and stuff.

And that actually created a new law
where you’re not allowed to do that.

So that actually might be the strategy.

Let’s just see how far we can push the
limits and then see what happens after.

One more speech we have
to look at and that is the

conservative party of Japan
talking again about foreign people.

There is a big concern.

And the big concern is
that the Japanese population

is in decline and we
need to fix that problem.

But the one thing we don’t
want is foreigners coming in

and actually intermixing
with Japanese people

and Japanese culture and
having babies and stuff like that.

They don’t want me because I came
to Japan and I produced two offspring.

So if you take myself and
my wife out of the equation,

we’ve actually produced one child
to replace my wife and one child extra

because I don’t count
because I’m a foreigner.

But we have increased
the population of Japan

and they’re like,
that’s not the solution

because those kids,
they’re not pure Japanese.

They don’t understand Japanese culture.

This is the irony is that
these kids who are born

and raised in Japan are
as Japanese as kids get.

That’s not the point of
what we’re talking about.

The conservative party of Japan

really bland title compared to
all the other ones, but whatever.

Foreign people disrespect Japanese culture,

ignore the rules, assault
Japanese people, and steal.

In Northern Kanto, there
are towns that are no gosones.

I now absolutely want
to find one of these no

gosones and go to them
because as a foreigner,

I might be able to go there
and go to the no gosone.

But these statements under Japanese law

because they are so clear actually
can be construed as hate speech.

So the leader of the conservative party may
have committed hate speech in his speech,

which may actually end up getting
him in real trouble down the line.

(upbeat music)

It’s good to learn about scams.

It’s good to learn about scams because
know that what scams are out there

and how the scams work
and how they kind of get you.

So there is a, it’s called the
adult site cancellation fee scam.

And I hadn’t actually heard about this one.

So what happens is a man saw a thumbnail
on his smartphone and he pushed the button.

And that was probably his first mistake.

And you can only go, you can go to
trusted sites if that’s what you’re into.

I’m not actually like King
Shaming or judging anyone

for their sexuality or
their viewing habits.

If you wanna look at
that and it’s all legal and

above board, I got zero
problems with it, you do you.

But gotta be careful.

The adult site cancellation fee
scam means you’ve pressed a pop up.

Oh, you’ve pressed a
thumbnail and then there’s a

pop up and the pop up
says registration completed.

Now, in that there is also another sub
button that says accidental registration

and then you click that button
you’re provided with a number.

Well, that number and
you say I have accidentally

registered at your site
to cancel your registration.

You have to temporarily register

and then you can sort of
unregister your registration.

And this costs 450,000 yen.

Now, I would take a pause right there

because if I pushed a
button on the, on my phone,

there is a, I guess a suspicion that
maybe they got my credit card number.

But there’s no way they’re
gonna get a 450,000 yen

charged through and then there’s a promise
of a full refund after the processing.

So basically you give them 450,000 yen.

They then cancel your
membership that you just

created and then you
get your 450,000 yen back.

If it’s 450,000 yen, that must
be the best porn in the world.

So I actually, if I was getting
told that this is a 450,000 yen

thing that I’ve just registered for
and I haven’t actually paid anything

and I could call my credit card company
and I actually blocked that payment.

I might wanna take a look around
and see if there is any actual porn.

Worth 450,000 yen in that
website, which I’m betting or isn’t.

But what of course happens then?

The victim goes through the
450,000 process, sends them e-money.

So again, they didn’t ask for
money, they didn’t ask for credit card.

They were like, go to
the convenience store,

get Apple pay cards or some
other kind of Amazon pay cards.

450,000 yen worth and then read
us the numbers over the phone.

So if anything, if they’re not
doing through credit cards,

I think that’s it ’cause they
don’t have your information.

If they need you to go buy
a card and then send you the

information on that card, they
don’t have your information.

So that should be the
first piece of information

we send out into
the world right there.

If a scammer, you don’t know their
scammer, you think they’re legitimate.

But if they’re asking you
to send them money via

cards, it means they
don’t have your information

which means they can’t
get any money from you.

There’s also the question of like, if
an older person or this person comes in

and goes to buy 450,000 yen worth
of cards from a convenience store,

the staff should be like, whoa
dude, you’re getting scammed.

Now there’s been a couple of
really sort of feel good stories

of convenience store workers
or banker workers and stuff

and they’ve actually
stopped scams this way.

Yes, unfortunately a lot of
older people fall for these,

but that means if an older person,
again, we can’t make people do this.

But if an older person
came to a convenience store

and said, hey, I would like
450,000 yen and Apple pay cards,

you might wanna stop and go,
hey, I know it’s none of my business,

but what for because
I think you really need

to rethink who you’re
sending this money to?

Now the reason the porn scam
works more than anything else

is because the porn scam
comes with the shame

of anyone finding out
that you look at porn.

I once got one of those
emails, when it was a

new thing, I got one of
those emails that said,

hey, we accessed your
webcam while you were jerking off

to porn, we have the
video if you don’t send

his Bitcoin, we’re going
to release the video.

I actually told to my wife
saying, look at how bad this is,

and she goes, yeah,
because if they actually got

a porn video of you jerking off to porn,

you would have no problem with it
being disseminated on the internet.

Like, there’s no way I’d pay for that.

I actually might actually tell my friends,

hey, I got caught in this
porn, everyone check it out.

So she actually was like, yeah,
they’ve tried to scam the wrong person

with the wrong thing because you’re
just like, yeah, go ahead, man, I’m down.

I would just post the link on the internet.

It would be in my link tree the next day.

I have thought about
putting an engineer’s

Japan on only fans,
’cause I stream it, right?

And I can do a stream.

I stream on Twitch and Kick.

I have actually been thinking like,

maybe I should like try
stream Twitch Kick in OnlyFans,

which would just be funny, not because
I think I would actually get footing there.

I don’t get footing anywhere, but it
would be funny just to have that happen.

Maybe someone watches on OnlyFans.

It would be fun to have only fans account.

I think that’s actually more than anything.

Maybe I should drop, ’cause I
don’t wanna overwhelm my internet.

That’s actually the thing that I
would be most concerned about.

So I should stick with Twitch,
’cause I have a core group of friends

that are actually on Twitch,
that I actually do enjoy talking to,

not Carson Uw, I’m not
really done with that guy.

But starting an OnlyFans and
have people come in from OnlyFans

would be really funny, but
we’re not gonna do that right now.

It is something that’s popped
into my head more than once,

so you know that actually
seed has been implanted.

They call back the next day saying
they haven’t received the refund.

The next day, the scammer
demanded 400,000 yen saying

they had been registered
at a different site,

so they actually had to
make an account on that site

so then they could process the refund
and then get them the actual refund.

This is one the guy was like, look,
I’m clearly being scammed at this point.

Maybe the first one was legitimate,

but then just asking again
and not giving my money back

before, I’m being
scammed, goes to the police.

The problem is, they can’t catch him.

Because he sent the codes from the cards,

there’s no way they
can actually trace that.

So in this case, the
person actually got away,

I don’t want to embarrass
the person who actually was

the victim of this kind of
crime of victim of scams,

but I think it is really important for
scams to be disseminated information-wise,

so everyone can recognize
when a scam is occurring.

(upbeat music)

Another way to recognize a
scam is when you’re talking

to an incredibly famous
person and then they ask you

for money because
it’s weird if they’re that

famous and have that
much more money than you.

A man and a father posed as Shohei Otani

to try to scam an 80-year-old
woman out of money.

Shohei Otani has more money
than anyone else in the world.

That’s not true, it’s an excited,
but you know what I mean.

Shohei Otani is probably one of the
highest paid baseball players in the world.

So him asking you for any
kind of money is problematic.

There’s no way he’s going
to be asking you for money.

He doesn’t need money,
he doesn’t need your help.

So the way they did this,
they found her on Facebook

and then they connected to her via Facebook
and then got her to move over to line.

Line is the chat system on your phone.

They talked to her over several
months, so they were putting the work in.

I mean, most scammers are very lazy and
they bailed really quick if it doesn’t work.

But, someone is willing to put in the work.

I mean, you gotta have a little
respect for the dedication to the scam.

They said, as Shohei
Otani, I’m the best in the

world, so my insurance
premiums are really high.

I’ve paid tens of millions
of yen, but it’s not enough.

I want you to pay me 1
million yen in premiums.

Why would Shohei
Otani ask an 80 year old

woman for a million yen
to cover his premiums?

It just doesn’t make sense.

Now, there’s older woman,
don’t know her situation.

She might just be enjoying the attention.

She might actually believe it.

She might be in some stages of dementia.

There’s no way we
know the actual situation,

so I have a lot more
sympathy for the victim

in this place because it might
have just been the connection,

the attention that she
was just desperate for,

which is how you get a
lot of these older people.

She called him.

She, so online has a telephone
function, so you can actually call people.

She tried to call him multiple times.

They would avoid it by
saying the game is about

to start, so I can’t answer
the phone right now,

because of course, these
were not Japanese people,

so maybe their Japanese
wasn’t going to be as perfect

as Shohei Otani, so if they
actually got on the phone

and she heard their voice,
this scam would be up

because it’d be like, “Hey, you’re
clearly not a Japanese person.

” Maybe these big
Japanese really really well,

but they’re gonna have
an accent or something,

and they were very scared
to actually get on the phone.

This got so far that they
said, “We’re going to send one

of my managers to your house
to pick up the million yen,”

and then that’s how they got caught,
because when the guy showed up,

one of the relative was around the area and
saw something going on and went to check,

and then they called the
police, and the police were able

to pick up this person, turns
out to be a guy and his son.

It was the son doing this scam,

but the father supported
him because they had to

trade off the phone, I
guess, every now and then.

The father and the mother are
the owner of a Nepalese Curie shop

that since COVID had
sort of decimated the

business, and they were
in great financial straits.

This is the big problem
for them as a family.

We don’t know if the mom was involved,

but the father and son
obviously came with this scam

to try to supplement their
income and have been arrested.

(upbeat music) A Lamborghini.

That’s already already,
like Lamborghini, man.

If you have enough money
to buy a Lamborghini,

don’t get in trouble
’cause you’re a stupid car.

I tried to get in and out of a Lamborghini,

I’m quite tall, so getting into a
Lamborghini was really difficult.

I did not enjoy the experience.

And then getting out, I look really stupid.

I’m never going to be able to just,
like, cooly step out of a super car

’cause they’re so low to the ground,
especially my knees are not getting better.

A Lamborghini was modified to
shoot flames out of the tail pipes.

I mean, if you’re the kind of person
who goes to buy a Lamborghini,

I bet you think flame shooting out your
tail is really important, so they did that.

They also did the undercarriage
lights, which of course,

I didn’t actually think realized
those are actually illegal in Japan.

Shooting flames out of your car
is an illegal modification to Japan.

Japan’s very strict about it,
like tinted windows and stuff.

They are very strict
about that kind of stuff.

But then the undercarriage
light kit is also illegal in Japan.

Six people ended up
getting arrested for this,

which is crazy how
many people got arrested

for the modifications, but it’s
because this car was brought

to an inspection site, and
so passing the inspection

means there was fraud committed on
the manager of the inspection site shop.

There’s the guy who put in the illegal mods

and probably his crew, and
then there’s the owner of the car.

So you’re looking like four
people just right up there.

There’s the owner of the
car, the modification guy,

the guy who does the mod,
and I assume one or two

of his employees, and then
there’s the guy who owns the shop

that does the inspections, and
he just was like writing stuff off.

And this is all fraud for bypassing
the regulations on cars in Japan.

If you have enough money, they’re probably
able to pay the fines, but I’m wondering

if they’ll pay the fines for everyone else,
or if you actually lose your licenses.

This being Japan, I bet they end up
losing their licenses and their stores.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So there’s a really famous night
view place on top of a mountain.

So if you’re the city, you want
to encourage people to go there.

This brings tourists to the place.

They can come and go
up and look at the lights

of the city on the
top of this mountain.

It’s very romantic, but you
also want to make it kind of fun.

Maybe I have something for the kids.

What you do is you create
a 30 meter slide, 30 meters.

It’s like 60 feet.

I’m just going to go with quick
double, but that’s not correct.

Anyways, a 30 meter slide sounds super fun.

Turns out they had to close it
because four people broke bones on it.

So not very romantic, not really fun.

Turns out one employee
used it before it even opened.

So if you have an employee’s like, hey,
I’m going to go test out the new slide.

Maybe they weren’t supposed to do that yet.

Slide down and they break a bone.

That might have been
an indicator right there.

Maybe we shouldn’t be opening this slide
that’s breaking people’s bones and bodies.

98.5 feet.

Do you want to make that into slang terms?

Is that a ton of feet?

So there should have
been already a question.

Before we’ve even
opened this up, a couple of

our crew tried it and
one of them broke a bone.

Then it turns out a two
year old being held by a sister,

they went down the slide together,
a two year old broke his bone.

A 70 year old man went down
the slide and he broke a bone.

This came to light
when a tourist in their

30s went down the
slide and broke their shin.

So I don’t know if
this was too steep or it

went too fast or like
you stopped too suddenly.

They don’t actually
say, but four people got

done by this slide and
they had to close it down.

It was getting everybody
because it hit all the demographics.

It hit employee, which I don’t
know what that person was.

It hit a female tourist in her 30s.

It hit an old man in
his 80s and it hit a little

kid in the twos hadn’t
even hit broken double

digits yet, but they had
already broken a bone.

October 2023, a live
streamer got drunk and

fell asleep in the street
and then was sleeping.

But the stream was still going
and then some thieves came along

and stole a smartphone
with the stream still going.

Then they went and they
reported back to their boss,

that they had stolen this
phone and been really successful

and stealing from this guy
who was sleeping on the street,

which counts as a confession
because it was captured on stream.

Now, the police didn’t
have who these guys were.

Maybe they didn’t like turn
the camera to their own face

or anything, but they
do have, they are thieves.

They know who sort of they were talking to.

They had a lot of information.

They were able to connect this to a crime.

The priming that was broken this year.

So this is 1.5 years later,
you’re actually getting this

information was being
held on to so they could

then connect a couple
of different crimes.

Just recently, the head of a
crime syndicate was arrested

because he was leading a group
that targets passed out people.

And this is, okay, so my views,
yeah, who used to be very romantic.

I was grew up in the ’80s
watching movies in the IKEA

who were like a really
consistent set of bad guys.

And they were all super powerful
doing really big scary crimes,

lots of drug running and people
trafficking and stuff like that.

And so like stealing smartphones
off drunk people who’ve fallen

asleep in the street, really
sort of like overdoing engineers

Japan, in my opinion of the
IKEA has diminished significantly.

But this is the kind of
thing it makes me go like,

should you even really be calling
yourself IKEA Coos anymore?

So what they would do is
they’d find past out people.

They would take their
wallet and their smartphone.

And if they could, they
would use the wallet.

Oh, sorry, I got to take a
break and watch Dave settle in.

I like him settling it
under his own portrait.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo.
Oh, oh, oh, go the other way.

Come on, buddy. Oh, there you go.

Settle. All right.

What they would do is
they would take the cards

and try to use the cards
and then buy luxury items.

And they were maybe
buying items from their

own pawn shops just to
get money moving around.

Then they would try to open
other cards based off those cards.

So trying to like open new credit cards

so they could use those
as quickly as possible.

It was interesting because we
got a bit of a Japanese slang.

So the people who were
falling asleep in the street

were referred to as
maguro, maguro is tuna fish.

And it’s sort of what you use for sushi.

So maguro is a kind of sushi.

But these then referred
to themselves as fishermen.

So they were maguro fishermen going out
finding the tuna and stealing from them.

Just I found that really just a cultural
point that these guys use that terminology.

The police when they were
able to connect these guys

to the live stream from
a couple of years ago,

then had enough evidence to be
able to go in search of their houses.

They found items stolen from 456 people,
which means they were keeping the stuff.

So I mean, this is one of those things

where once you’ve used
it, you gotta get rid of it.

Again, Ninja Ninja Pan, quite
famous for giving advice to criminals.

So if you are a thief
and you’re stealing things,

if you are a maguro fisherman and you’ve
been successful, don’t keep the stuff.

Like you gotta get rid of it.

So if you steal cell phones,
get everything you can’t

off the cell phone and then
get rid of the cell phone.

If you’ve got the credit
card, use the credit card,

but once you can’t use
it anymore, get rid of it.

They seem to have been keeping
these like trophies, which is ridiculous.

Do not keep stuff from your crime.

But then again, there’s a
reason I’m not a criminals

’cause I would have thought
of something like that.

(upbeat music)

This should be maybe
the warning, the last

story is always the
weirdest, gross, sexual one.

So if you’re not into that, stop now.

But of course, if you’ve come to
the end, you’ve probably come for this.

There was this girl live streaming.

They don’t say on what,
so I’m like Instagram

or TikTok or something,
live streaming on.

They said social media.

Live streaming in Japan
usually is Instagram or Twitter.

I guess I should start saying X.

Or maybe one of the Japanese sites.

I have no idea.

They just said streaming on social media.

A spiritual medium sent
a message to the woman

who was watching streaming on
social media and said in the comments.

So I never get the comments like this.

You are possessed by the living spirit
of a man and are in a dangerous situation.

It is surprising that you are still alive.

You cannot be exercised in
an ordinary temple or shrine.

And then of course, made an
offer that I will exercise you.

They then made arrangements for the man,

the spiritual medium to meet at
her apartment to perform an exorcism.

So let’s just be clear.

If you’re on social
media, if you’re streaming

and people start making offers and
whatnot, don’t let them come to your house.

Don’t let them come to your apartment.

If you’re going to do an
exorcism, do it somewhere else.

Somewhere public.

I mean, let’s face it.

Since you’re already into streaming,
you might as well stream the exorcism.

That’s 100% what I would do.

If someone said to me,
“Hey, shall I leave chest?

” You’re possessed by a spirit.

You need to be exercised.

I’d be like, great, let’s meet somewhere

and let me stream the exorcism
so we can actually happen.

What I want to do is
actually go to one of those

McDow Joe martial
arts things where they do

the no touch kung fu and
actually take the guy on.

I would 100% want to do that.

No, the camera will interfere,
but you don’t tell them.

This is the schemy part of me.

This is where I am
able to give advice to

criminals because I do
have the criminal mind.

I just know the crime is
not worth it most of the

time because you just
can’t make enough money.

So it’s not worth actually doing the crime.

But I do have that element
and that element put together.

I could be the scam buster.

I wish I had more time and I had enough
money to actually do stuff like this.

Because I would love to go get
someone to try to exercise me

and I would, you know, set it up.

And yeah, the camera will continue.

You hide the camera.

So she’s already made a ton of mistakes

in the social media landscape
because you don’t have strangers

from the internet come to
your house for any reason.

So you started out reading sutras.

Now, if you’re not spent any time in
Japan, not familiar with Japanese culture.

Sutras are when the
priests in the temple go,

another saying stuff, I do
not have the Japanese skill

to hear what they’re saying,
but it is something that you do.

I remember when I had a
child and we took them to

the temple and we had
them blessed and they went,

did they read some sutras and then in
the sutras you could hear your kid’s name.

So the only bit I could
pick out is when they said,

said my son’s name,
which was really interesting.

And they wave some like
branches over their head and stuff.

It was a bit weird because
they blessed my child.

And then went over and
blessed a minivan, which I felt

sort of diminished the value
of the blessing on my child.

So it’s one of those
things like, if you’re gonna

bless children, get a new
branch to bless the car.

I mean, just ’cause, I
don’t know why it’s just,

it took a down a notch for
me and then I leaned over

and I asked my wife, can
you get anything blessed?

And she was like, yeah, I
mean, it’s just a blessing.

So it doesn’t really matter what it is.

And I was like, so can I bring in
my PlayStation and get a bless?

She’s like, you pay them
the money, they will bless it.

And I was like, I could have
the priest come over and go,

“Shall my name, no head shots, head shots,
some run, no, no, “Choke McBeaf Chest.

” Get back to the story.

He was reading sutras
and then started sexually

assaulting the woman saying
that I can’t exercise you,

I can’t exercise the
spirit unless I use my body.

So he was hoping she
was so locked into this.

She would actually let him do
whatever he wanted to do to her body.

She was not pleased by this.

Apparently he tried like three or four
times and she rebuffed him multiple times.

And then called the police,
when he was arrested,

he said, I left salt in
the house and read

sutras, but I never
engaged in sexual acts.

Now, here’s the semantic aspect of this.

I bet he could mentally justify it by
saying, those were not sexual acts.

It was part of the exorcism.

It was a religious act.

And that’s the kind of
semantics that these guys

sort of like used to justify
all their behavior because

the police are saying, “Did
you commit sexual assault?

” He could say, “No.

” I committed a religious act.

And let’s just be clear.

If anyone wants to
exercise a spirit from me,

we can meet in the park, but I’m gonna
video it and you can absolutely try to,

I don’t think you can absolutely
try to sexually assault me.

I’m dumb.

That’s not how I wanna end this episode.

What am I gonna say?

I’m gonna cut that, cut that, cut that.

If you wanna exercise a
spirit from me, I’m ready.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

Fully Autonomous Podcast

The Gunma Prefectural Convention – I mean,
you talk about Japan being wild in the 90s.

I don’t think those guys
ever understood what

it was going to be like to go to a
political convention for Gunma Prefecture.

Of course, there got
wild, an 88-year-old man

decided to tell everyone how
to fix Japan’s birth problem.

I’ve talked about it many times.

The government trying to get
people together awkward and weird.

The government is trying to
give people money to have babies.

Okay, it only works if you really
want to have babies in the first place.

They’ve had some solutions this guy.

He’s like, “You know what, shut up.

I’ve got this.

I’ve got it solved.

I’ve got it worked out.

You don’t need to talk anymore.

It just doesn’t mean everyone.

Shh.

Listen to the man speak.”

He said, “It’s not the
government’s job to

supplement the economic
burden of having a child.

” I mean, I guess very
technically that could

be true if the government didn’t
want people to have more babies.

So if the government wants the population
to increase, if the government wants people

to have babies, then
it is the government’s

responsibility to try
to make that happen to

try to support people in
their efforts to make babies.

Little wages in Japan have
dropped for 26 months in a row.

So, basically, inflation has gone
up, wages have been stagnant.

So your real earning
potential has dropped

every month for the
last two years and more.

So then what is a solution?

He’s saying, “Look, we’re
not giving you money.

Giving you money
isn’t going to do it.

” And I actually think partially right, I
think giving money is a good idea because

you want babies that are
born to have food and stuff.

So they survive into
being more than just babies.

So what do you do?

If men have their act together, women
will, without fail, have their children.

Even if you don’t ask,
they will think, “I want

to have a baby for the
sake of the husband I love.

” Do men ask for babies?

Like I would say, if
you took the most

traditional view of the
male-female relationship,

it’s generally the woman
who wants the babies.

I’m not saying that’s true.

I’m not saying it’s
universal, but I’m saying

it’s a stereotype and a stereotype
based on just a drop of reality.

It’s generally not the men who
are gung-ho about having kids.

I actually know a couple of
people who do guys who do want

to have kids and they want
to have more and more kids.

So 100% I know that’s
a real thing, but I’m

thinking, if we’re talking
about the population

of the country, so we
have to broad strokes,

general swaths, men don’t tend
to go around asking for babies.

They do ask for the baby making process,
but they don’t ask for babies themselves.

He’s making it sound like
having a baby’s reward,

and while I wouldn’t say it’s a
punishment, he’s absolutely not a reward.

It can be rewarding, but I
would say that comes later.

He’s also very much
in heavily implying that

money is at the issue, but I
don’t think money is the issue.

I think work-life balances the issue.

I’ve talked about this a billion times
now, so I’m very hesitant to say that

the same thing again and
again and again every week.

So I haven’t said it in a long
time, so I am going to say it now.

The work-life balance in Japan is the
reason why people are not having babies.

People are not having babies
because people do not get together.

People do not get together because
they don’t have time to get together.

They don’t have time
to meet people and form

relationships and have
relationships outside

of work because they’re
working all the time.

Therefore, they don’t
think about having kids.

They’ve created a situation where women are
so career-focused, but then give them no

support if they want to have
children as well as a career.

They don’t give enough
people enough options and

this is, again, the
government’s responsibility.

If the government
wants the population to

increase in Japan, the
government is going to

have to do something to make that happen
and I think the first thing they need to do

is put a really significant
restriction on overtime.

They have found at maximum people tend to
be able to work for about six hours a day.

There might be like,
again, unique individuals.

They can do 12, 13,
14, 15 hours of solid

work that’s really
good for the entire time.

The average person isn’t and you’re not
hiring individual rock stars all the time.

You’re hiring average
people most of the time.

So making them stay and
work late is not beneficial to you.

It’s not beneficial to the company.

It’s not beneficial to the population.

It’s not beneficial to human relationships,
which is what, at the end of the day, this

is all about, which is exactly what this 88
year old man does not understand because he

has not changed his thinking since
those wild parties in the 80s and 90s.

Previously we talked
about a Chinese man who I

think he was iron-headed
something, iron-head

dong maybe, he came to Japan from China
and he went to Yasukuni Shrine and Yasukuni

Shrine is very
controversial because it is

where soldiers, veterans
and stuff, they are

on tomb there is where
people go to pray for

them but World War
II, a lot of war crimes.

So it is seen internationally,
China and Korea

specifically, as a place that
has enshrined war criminals.

So politicians going to pray there is very
controversial internationally and whatnot.

This guy came and he said
I’m going to make a statement.

His statement didn’t match his actions.

His statement was that they shouldn’t
release water from Fukushima into the ocean.

He said, “Since you
guys are treating the

world like a toilet,
I’m going to treat this

place like a toilet and he climbed up on
like a thing that said Yasukuni Shrine like

a big pole made of stone and he peed
on it and he spray painted toilet and red.

” He went off back to
China, didn’t get arrested

and the Chinese police are saying, “Yeah,
which I actually think is a fine response.

Since there is no
extradition treaty and the

relationship isn’t
that good, I don’t see

why you would extradite
one of your citizens

back to Japan, but there
were two other people involved.

“

So you know there
was someone holding the

camera and the police want that guy
and they have all three other names.

There’s also the guy who
bought the spray paint.

That guy was arrested the other day.

Now, here’s the question.

They did in total 4.2 million
yen worth of damage to that post.

So the spray paint, I
guess they have to clean

it off, pee, I mean
you just wash it off.

I don’t see how that
comes to 4.2 million yen.

I’m not arguing because I
don’t know anything about it.

I guess trying to get the paint
off without damaging the rock

and maybe it’s marble or
something special, I don’t know.

But are they going
to lay it all on this

one guy or are they going to try to
use that to lure the other guy’s back?

Because the other
guy, the first guy, the

guy in the video said very clearly,
“I’m not going back to Japan.

” Why would I?

I went there, committed a crime,
filled it, filmed it, and stuck it online.

So yeah, it actually makes
sense that he wouldn’t come back.

I don’t think he is going to come back.

I think his friend who’s been
arrested here is screwed.

The question is, do they get the
guy who filmed it, the cameraman?

That’ll be an interesting question.

But if that guy’s smart, he’s
back in China already as well.

We have also talked about, this is kind of
like an updates of recent stories episode.

We’ve talked several
times over the last

month about the gubernatorial election
process in Tokyo where they put up posters.

The NHK party, which
is a legitimate, in its

sense party, because
it’s a real party, they’re

just not particularly
serious about the issues.

They’re not actually trying to
push things through in a serious way.

They’re there making a
mockery of democracy,

which I actually don’t
have a problem with.

It’s just I sort of think
some of the stuff they say

could be useful to actually
say in a serious way.

That’s a whole side issue.

I think underneath they
have beliefs, but they’re

not actually getting those beliefs across,
which I think is a wasted opportunity.

What they did as a party is they
bought all these spaces on these things.

So for a very limited
period of time in

Japan, you’re allowed
to put up a poster, your

election poster, as you want to
become the governor of Tokyo.

They bought up a whole bunch of extra ones
and then they sold them to just anybody.

So we had a girl who’s like a kick box or
a girl who wanted people to follow them in

social media, someone
who put a picture of

their dog up, someone
who just put up a poster

the same poster many,
many times, a woman

who’s in the NHK party,
who is a adult actress.

She put up pictures
of herself very lightly

censored in a full spread
Eagle pose, basically.

So then went out to
the people and they said,

Hey, do you think we
need to change the rules?

Not surprisingly, 76.2%
said they feel there

should be a revision
in the candidate posters

law and the rules that
govern them therein.

I mean, I actually think this has proven a
weird point in that you got to kind of take

the government stuff seriously if you
want people to actually take it seriously.

So again, I do believe
there is value to

people trying to exploit
these rules and trying

to show make a mockery
of government, but

at the same time, I’m also,
I flip flop back and forth.

I mean, also how else
are you supposed to get

anything done if you don’t
start taking it seriously?

Japan last week, I mentioned that
Japan introduced new bank notes.

There’s a thousand yen,
5,000 yen, 10,000 yen note.

There’s new ones very exciting.

I got paid last week.

I went to the bank and I got a whole bunch
of money up, did not get any new pills.

I don’t expect to
actually see one for a

while, someone’s going
to roll into the office

and be like, Hey, I
got the new bill and

everyone’s actually going to
crowd around and look at it.

I do get vaguely interested in it.

It’s only exciting for about 10 minutes,
but still, you know, it’s a new thing.

So everyone wants to see the
new thing and maybe look at the

new security features and
hold it up to the lightning stuff.

But a new run of money
means that people who

collect things like money got
a new thing to be interested in.

And I learned a little
bit about the money

system, which was
interesting on Yahoo auction.

If you go on Yahoo
auction, you can buy 1,000,

5,000, 10,000 yen
bills, but it’s auction.

So the price is going up and up and up.

Some of these are
selling for more than 40

times more than the
actual value of the bill

itself officially
collectors add value by

saying, you know, it’s
rare or I want this thing.

What do the collectors want?

So this was the bit I
wouldn’t have known

nothing about the serial number on the
first run of bills has a double a on it.

So be a and that means that is
part of the first run of those bills.

When it gets all the way
through, it switches to a B.

That’s the second run of bills and then
a C and it keeps going and going going.

Once it gets to ZZ,
so it goes through the

whole alphabet, they hit the start again,
but they change the color of the ink.

So that was another
thing I didn’t know about

if you get AA and AA
and you compare the

two ink colors, you can tell which
one came first and which one came later.

A 1,000 yen note
with 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 on it.

That’s six sevens I may
have said more I didn’t count.

I count people shooting bullets in
movies, but I didn’t count the sevens.

I just read off a piece of paper.

Six sevens on in a row is
right now worth 28,000 yen.

So the serial number itself, if it’s
unique, collectors will pay for that.

This one I don’t understand,
so I’m going to go looking for it.

If you have ZZ, 555,
Z, that is worth 500,000

yen, half a million yen for a
bill with that serial number.

So should you get one
of these new bills, take

a moment if it’s still
early days and look

at the serial number,
maybe you got one of

those double A’s, maybe
you got an AA with some

unique lettering in it, you might be
able to sell that online for a profit.

I do know license plates,
like you can pay for

license plates in Japan and the
Yakuza always get dot, dot, dot, eight.

So it basically has
nothing, just a number

eight in it and those I think
are super, super expensive.

It’s funny to me that it’s a Yakuza
thing to get this license plate.

The government sells
you that license plate

for money, but then
you’re basically telling

the police, I am or I think I am a Yakuza,
which doesn’t seem like the greatest idea.

I think maybe Yakuza are not
very good criminals all the time.

Japan editors from
Kodansha went to California

and they went to a
convention, they started

speaking to up and
coming, want to be artists

like I want to be a manga
artist, I want to be a bit mean.

They want it, but they
want to be manga artists.

They would start talking
about like how do you

improve, how do you
improve your skills, how

do you improve your
art, how do you improve

your story, how do you
improve your structure,

how should your
character design reflect the

character in the book, how
does it affect the side character?

These are all really
useful, interesting stuff.

These guys obviously know
what they’re talking about.

Then they got into
Americans, spend too much

time making merch for those of you
in the audio version of the podcast.

I am now pulling my
shirt back to make sure

the chunk of McBeaf
Chest Academy martial arts

shirt I am wearing is seen
within the borders of the video.

Again, there’s a difference in the way
the world works or how the cost of living.

I don’t know specifically, I’ve never lived
in America and I certainly haven’t lived

in America in modern
times, but I’m going

to go ahead and guess
it’s more expensive to

live in most places
in America than it is to

live in Japan, Japan
has a lot of services.

Despite our earlier
story of declining wages

over the last 26 months,
if you have the same

salaries before and you live a
frugal life, you actually live quite well.

All the stories I read online though, it
is stories online, so I don’t want to make

any strong statements about
what it’s like to live in America,

but I’m betting making money is
important to survival in America.

If you want to be a
manga artist in America,

let’s just say it is
unlikely you’re going

to get a massive payday right away, so you
have to find some way to supplement your

art to make money for your art, and it seems
like the way to do that would be merch.

So I do sell chunky
beef chest t-shirts, I have

books that I am
publishing that I’m selling,

I have other things
I’m trying to do, I’m

just, I’m not trying to
be greedy, I’m trying

to supplement my income so I
can do this stuff that I want to do.

If I ever got to a point where I could
quit my 40 hour a week job and do this full

time, that would be like
a dream come true for

me, but realistically
speaking I know that’s

not likely, so I keep
the 40 hour full time job.

Some people would
say that means I don’t

believe in myself, but
I have to feed children.

I have a very realistic view
on the chances of success

in any format, podcast,
YouTube, streaming or whatever.

I know the reality
and therefore I know, I

should keep my 40 hour
a week job, retirement

could be really good for
me, because most people

who work and work and
work and then they retire,

they don’t have to do
them with themselves,

whereas I, if I just
keep doing this, I would

have a full set of
things I enjoy doing in my

free time and now it
becomes all my free time.

So then maybe it could actually be popular,
it could be one of those really old people

who gets popular on
the internet for just being

old, those people all seem
to be good at something.

I’m actually thinking about the streamers
like, there’s the Call of Duty Granny

lady, and then there’s the old guy who used
to be like a sniper in the military and

he streams, but he like
uses actual calculations

and has like a notepad and then it
starts nailing people miles across the map.

Yeah, they have skills
and the granny’s good.

She’s really good at Call of Duty.

I’m not actually good at anything.

I think now I’ve actually seen my actual
fatal flaw as to why I have to keep my day

job and it’s not because
of dedication or belief

in myself, it’s not
actually good anything.

Oh fuck, that was the saddest
story I’ve ever done in my life.

Japanese government has set a policy
on fully autonomous weapon platforms.

This has actually
come up in NATO, so it’s

not like Japan just
did this out of nowhere.

I cannot talk about
any military aspects of

Japan and not immediately start
thinking about are they developing Gundam.

As we all know, Gundam or piloted, it’s an
AI system that learns as it does combat and

connects with the pilot and then
they sort of feed off each other.

I think that’s a really interesting idea.

The movie Atlas that came out very recently
on Netflix, very mediocre movie, not bad.

I mean, people were trashing it.

These are not
terrible, it’s just there’s

nothing new or interesting
in it really, nothing unique.

Had the same sort of premise, like you had
to sink the pilot and the machine and the

AI and then working
together, you could be

a more effective fighting
machine, touch up.

That kind of stuff.

They were saying that
human control has to be

a principle and should
be maintained because

human involvement is required
because humans can be held accountable.

So once you make a machine and that machine
makes a decision and decides to like kill

an orphanage, you can’t really
hold that machine accountable.

You can turn it off,
but no one actually

gets punished, no one
has to think about it.

That does imply that
there are everyone involved

with weapons is moral, might be an issue
as far as I’m concerned, because there are

bad people and bad
people would do bad things

even with non-autonomous
weapon platforms.

Then weirdly, they got into the benefits of
autonomous weapon platforms because there

would be less human
error and they have

significant, it would
actually deal with significant

manpower shortages which ironically is
exactly what Japan is dealing with right now.

Japan’s population is shrinking.

The military is not
particularly a tractive career

path, very few people
are joining the military.

Therefore, the military
in Japan is shrinking,

is having more trouble
getting people, autonomous

weapon platforms
would actually be the

solution, but here’s where
you get them because

they’ve done manga posters in the past, and
they weren’t particularly successful, but

you could get nerdy dudes,
manga fans and whatnot.

The nerdy group is what
they’re actually going for.

When they made manga posters,
there was a target audience.

That target audience didn’t
go for the posters alone.

They did try to collect
the posters and maybe

went and collected some
military paraphernalia,

but they did not
actually join the military.

These are the people
who are like technology

and computers, and
if you sell it that way,

you will be piloting
technology and computers

and things like that
working on a computer

in your comfort zone and
contributing to the military.

That might be more appealing.

This is where the, it’s
not going to be a gun

dome, it’s going to be
more like a guy sitting

at a desk with a
bank of computers and

monitors and keyboard
and controller and stuff.

Controlling systems from afar, but he would
be in his comfort zone and probably very

effective because this is sort
of the environment he’s used to.

There is a way to make this work
if they are actually serious about it.

Here’s the last story, I wanted
to cleanse our palette a little bit.

The most popular pet names
from last year, for male dogs, for

the last nine years, the most
popular pet name has been Leo.

I guess Jeff needs to be Leo, but I think
it’s like lion, the most popular female dog

name.

Over the last year,
nine years, so these two

names have been the
most popular names for

the last nine years in a row
together, running in parallel.

Female dog name, cocco, so you have Leo and
cocco, if you have two dogs, it’s a male

and a female.

The most popular male cat
name for the last nine years.

Can you guess what it is, given
the hints that just came previously?

It is Leo, the most popular
female cat name for the

last two years, so this
one’s going to be different.

We found this interesting
because my first

thought is, I’ve heard
this name before, Luna,

which is I believe is
the cat from Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon’s quite old,
but it’s come back in a

couple of iterations, so,
or maybe it’s still back.

I’m not watching a lot of
Sailor Moon these days.

The most popular combined
names, so this could

be male dog, female
dog, male cat, female

cat, just overall, combined
pet name in Japan

is, oh, this is where I
should have done the quiz.

I did do a quiz today because
I didn’t organize myself.

I actually had a holiday yesterday.

That actually seems to
have made my organization

worse because I do
everything set on schedules

and I took yesterday and did a
different project because it was a day off.

Did not organize a quiz.

I do need people, if you would like to join
the quiz, because it’s like a 10, 15-minute

Zoom call, we could do it on
Discord, send me a message.

I’m going to be
interested in gmail.

com, speakpipe.com,
speakpipe.com/chongandbeefchast.

I would love to have anyone who listens to
the podcast on and we can do a little quiz.

The quizzes are not meant to be hard.

We have a little chat, we do the
quiz, I tell the story, give the answer.

If we can get more people doing it,
I actually might start keeping score.

It’s going to be an engineer
in Japan versus the world.

And then when I get real serious
about those quizzes, it can be hard.

My only concern though
is we run into a story

that the person I would be
speaking to is already right about.

So that’s going to be the hardest part
of managing that if I get to that point.

But the big reveal, the
most popular combined

male female dog cat
name last year was Mugi.

I feel like there should be
some sort of flourish after

that, but I don’t know
what the flourish would be.

It’s going to turn
us up, popcorn, it’s a

pretty good name for a
pet, Fukuru, and Giorno.

I think it’s Japanese
would be Giorno, but if

I read it, it looks
Italian so I say Giorno

and I have to do the
do a hand gesture with it.

Now, surprisingly
non-emolist, Dave, best

animal pet name ever, I
mean any animal should

be called either Dave
or Stephen, regardless

of gender, I mean,
gender is irrelevant.

If you’re going to call it, if you have an
animal and you want to give it a name that

I would prefer, like a
Penelope, but then you

just can call it pen,
something like that.

But single syllable is
to me one of the more

appealing aspects of a pet
name, it should be single syllable.

And I do know from my days
working in dog food when I

read training books, it
should have a hard sound in it.

So that’s why Dave
is a good name for an

animal because the animal
doesn’t often know their name.

They hear that syllable in that tone
and that’s what gets their attention.

So when you’re naming your next pet, popcorn
would actually be really good because

the pop is probably
what’s going to get their

attention, Leo, not a great choice
because it has all kind of soft sounds.

Cocoa, pretty good,
two hard sounds in a row,

Luna, cats aren’t paying
attention to you anyways.

Cocoa, it’s the key, it’s the key,
is going to actually probably get it.

So if you’re thinking
about naming your pet,

certainly I would not
recommend using the

most popular names in Japan,
but I think it should be Dave.

[MUSIC]

Podcast Name de wa nai

(upbeat music)

Japan’s having a lot
of issues with tourists,

and it’s over tourism, but at
the same time, the problem is

Japan really wants people to come
to Japan and spend their money.

The weak yen is actually making it

so that people can
come here and spend a lot

more money, which is
good for the economy.

They are finding, though, that again,

these cultural issues
tend to crop up regularly,

and so now cities are
starting to make some changes.

Shibuya, probably famous
for being a party place.

They banned drinking at Halloween,
so you weren’t allowed to drink in public.

A lot of people, when they
come to Japan, most places

they come from, you’re
not allowed to drink in public.

I’m Canadian.

You’re not allowed to just walk
down the street and drink alcohol.

In Japan, that is technically legal.

That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable,

like it doesn’t mean you
should be doing it all the time.

I have found when I first came, and
when other foreigners first come to Japan,

they’re like, “It’s legal,
therefore it’s acceptable,

“therefore I can
do it all the time.

” So they have like a drink
on the train, they have a drink

on the walk home, they’re
having drinking constantly outside.

It is fun and exciting.

Japanese people tend to have
limits, like, “Okay, we’re going

to have a picnic, “we’ll have
some drinks with our picnic.

“We’re taking the shinkansen.

“It’s appropriate to drink
a beer on the shinkansen.

“That’s kind of like
a tradition almost.

” So you run into,
yes, it is legal to drink

in public, but is it
socially acceptable?

And the foreign people come here and they’re
basing their decisions on what is legal,

not necessarily what
is socially acceptable.

Not massive problems until,
of course, it gets out of hand.

Shibuya drinking in public,
it’s gotten way out of hand.

2019, they did a small-scale
version on Halloween,

because the previous year
there was basically a riot.

They, I think, pushed over a car, set
a car on fire, don’t remember exactly,

but they damaged property, they
smashed some windows and stuff.

It just went way too far.

This wasn’t foreigners, though.

Like foreigners were certainly included,
but this was 90% Japanese people.

So at first, it was just Halloween.

Then it was Halloween and New Year’s.

And now they’ve decided it’s not going
to be just Halloween and New Year’s.

It’s going to be all year round.

They’re making a larger
punishment area, so basically all of

Shibuya, it sounds like you will
not be allowed to drink in public.

So what happens?

Japan has a very interesting
way of dealing with laws.

There’s no official punishment for getting
caught drinking in public in Shibuya,

because you haven’t
changed the national law.

It’s just been prohibited locally.

So if a police officer approaches you

and you have like a can of
beer and drinking the can of beer,

he’s going to ask you to have the beer and
he’s going to pour it out in the street.

This is actually what happened.

I remember this, I was a teenager,

and if we went downtown
in Ottawa for Canada today,

you could see a stream of alcohol, like
combined alcohol, just running down the road.

‘Cause the cops would
basically walk around, find people,

usually underage people or
teenagers and stuff, drinking, they

would take the drinks, they
would just pour it out of the street.

They didn’t issue fines,
no one got arrested.

They’re just like, look,
you’re not allowed to do that.

Losing the alcohol you brought with
you was probably punishment enough.

It’s not even all day, it’s
technically only in night.

So it’s between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Which means if you really
want to push the limits

of what’s acceptable with
this rule, you could go and

have lunch drinks in Shibuya
and get wrecked in public.

I don’t know if that’s what you want to do.

If you want to be one of those people,

so now I’m expecting
honestly a live streamer to go

and get super drunk
in the middle of Shibuya

in the middle of the day
and then when the police

approach I’m going to
ask him, what’s going on?

He says like this is legal,
you can’t stop me, ha ha.

I’ve found the loophole and
then they’re going to get you

for a public disturbance
or obstruction of business.

I mean, they just go for the
classic obstruction of business.

But what they’re actually
doing by not making

a punishment, they’re testing out
like how effective this is going to be.

Do we need to make punishments?

Because if this works, people,
you just walk up and be like,

hey, you know how to
drink, please give me a drink,

I’ll pour it out in the
street, thanks on your way.

If that’s enough, they’re
not going to make it anymore.

But if it isn’t, then
they’ll start doing fines.

Then they’ll start doing jail time.

Then they’ll start increasing
punishments over time.

And that’s how Japan
tries to find a balance

between the rules
they’re making and reality.

So they’re hoping that they
don’t have to do anything.

They’re hoping that, okay,
here’s a rule, follow the rule.

No one gets in trouble,
nothing happens, that’s great.

But realistically speaking, people are
going to immediately try to push the limits.

As we’re going to hear in
our gubernatorial election

section later on, which is just people
trying to push the limits across the board.

Welcome to the quiz.

Yes, I need to get some no-pass.

My concern is I know that you
have paid attention to the news.

So you may have read that
this is actually something

I haven’t thought
about is I have to, like,

check that my participants have not pre-read
the news that I’m going to talk about.

But there was a thing called
the Ninja certification exam.

Have you heard about that?

Has it a Ninja new certification?

No, completely unrelated.

I am planning on suing.

No, I haven’t heard of the
Ninja certification exam.

And just to put your
mind at ease, I often read

the headline and don’t
actually read the details.

I waited on the podcast.

Honestly, that’s even better, because
then we can talk about the details.

So there’s a thing it’s called
the Ninja certification exam.

It’s a written test.

There are three levels that
cover history and ninjitsu.

So I’m assuming the history of
ninjitsu is not just history in general.

And then ninjitsu, which I
don’t know, like how to disappear

in a cloud of smoke, I’m not
actually sure what that entails.

I haven’t been allowed
to take the exam yet.

The question is, what could
you do to earn extra points

at the lowest level,
the lowest level ninjas

or want to be ninjas could do
something to earn extra points?

There are three options, OK?

A, hit a target with a shoot again.

A B, cosplays a ninja.

Or C, cast a spell using kuji kiri, which
is those Naruto hand gesture things.

Do you know what I mean?

No.

Oh, like the– Yeah,
yeah, exactly that.

You were just doing rings,
but it’s usually like pointy

fingers and then curl
your fingers in a monkey.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of
that stuff, a lot of that stuff.

So you could hit a
target with a shoot again,

you could cosplays a ninja, or you
could cast a spell to get extra points.

What do you think they did to give the
lowest level potential ninjas extra points?

You can ask questions, we can have a chat.

Yeah, what kind of spells
are we talking about?

Well, it’s like a joke spell.

So it’s you cast a spell on
the examiner for extra points.

So it’s, again, even like
cosplay and even hitting a target

with a shoot again,
they’re all kind of jokes.

Right, OK.

And this– is this ninja school– is
it just for– is that a two-ish thing?

Like a wee– My belief, because
the article was a little weird,

because it said they
had the exam, but didn’t

actually technically
say what the exam for.

But I know in like Iga,
there’s the ninja village.

And they have tour guides
who dress up as ninja.

I went to visit it.

And they have like the female ninja,

whereas a bright pink uniform,
which I was like, that’s not hiding at all.

But they have like a ninja show.

And then Iga Castle has
like a ninja house they’ve

built that shows like the
hidden passages and stuff.

So there are tourist opportunities.

And I know some towns that
like claim to have the origins

of ninja or the area, they’ll
have like shows and tourist bits.

So I think that’s what it was for, because
you have to be able to explain stuff.

Right, OK.

So it’s training to be
sort of a tour guide.

My initial sort of thought was
it would be hitting the target.

Hitting the target would shoot again.

That was my initial thought.

Because I thought I’ve been to Iga as well.

And they dragged me in another
gadget out of the audience.

Like, oh, these, you know, these
gadgets won’t be scared of taking part.

And I had to throw a thing at a thing.

Yeah.

So did you hit it?

No, no, way more important.

Forget the quiz.

How did you do it?

Oh, good.

Because at Iga Castle, I went there too.

I took my mom and you got
three shots with the shooting can.

If you hit the bullseye, you got a t-shirt.

So it was actually surprisingly hard.

I got the t-shirt.

It was a medium.

But I didn’t complain.

I was happy to win a free t-shirt.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I did it.

And I stuck in the thing in the target.

That’s pretty good.

The guy said that was so goy.

Sorry, I should not mean I could
potentially be the training ninja.

Well, you could take the test at least.

The written test.

Of course, it’s a written test.

It being Japan, there’s
always a written test.

There’s always a written test.

Yeah.

Cosplay is an ninja.

Cos, that’s just that’s just
putting on a ninja costume.

Yes, it’s a super Japanese
thing to do, though.

So it is, but is that worth extra points?

It seems like he’s just giving
someone three points at that for that.

There’s no actual skill or
anything involved, is there?

I personally think
that’s the lamest option.

So I’m going to, I’m going
to, no, it’s definitely not that.

Cos it’s just, cos you
would have to show you

they’ll have to wear an ninja
costume to be in the ninja school.

You already went.

So, yeah, you’re getting
three points just to turn up.

It’s just going to be the hand
gesture or the target thing.

This is some heavy
thinking we got going on.

Yes.

Straticizing.

So I was dragged down
the crowd and got to do it.

And there’s no, no lower
level than ninja than me.

Yes.

And the book… I hope it’s not
insulting that I agree that quickly, man.

I’m wearing black.

Yeah.

But the hand gesture
thing does take a bit

of coordination and thoughts and
studying to learn how to do the hand moves.

I, as a joke, tried to learn
some of the hand moves.

There are 81 hand symbols
and nine primary ones.

So if you learn the nine primary
ones, there’s combinations.

And just as a joke, I tried to learn
one or two, so I could do it to kids.

And I honestly couldn’t do it.

My fingers are not nimble enough.

So that sounds like
it’s higher level than…

I felt like that was actually kind of hard.

Which makes me think back
to my gut reaction of the target.

But then again, Japan is a safety country.

Are they going to let
basic trainees do that?

I’m going to start hucking stuff around.

I’m going to go with
my initial gut reaction,

while I’ve hit in the target
with a shooting camp.

Where is this?

Right.

You are incorrect.

It is B.

It is the lamest one.

If you cosplay doesn’t ninja, you got
extra points on your ninja written exam.

So there’s all these potential
tour guides sat in a thing, in

a classroom somewhere, taking
a written exam dressed as ninjas.

Yeah.

I mean, if they put the effort in, it would
be weird to me if you were going to go for

that exam to not put
that effort in, though.

But it was also only the low level ones.

I guess there’s an
expectation that the

higher level ones are
doing, because there

are three levels,
which I would like an ex.

This is the problem with some
of this news, is there’s only so

much explanation that goes
into these sort of fluff stories.

But if you pass the exam, you get
a scroll and the title, “Cocan Ninja.

” Nice.

So you get to call yourself “Cocan
Ninja” for the rest of your life, I assume.

Surely.

Well, unless they have
the test on a different

day, or it’s not in
the actual ninja, ninja,

ninja series stuff area, it’s
in that kind of office building.

There was a picture, and
it looked like a classroom.

Right.

So I bet it’s just like
a tourist office, and

they have like a conference room, and
they throw them in the conference room.

That would be my guess.

There is an extra point, though,
so you can try to make up for it.

How many participants, middle of that?

How many participants do you
believe participated in the ninja exam?

It would include all three levels.

Are all three levels all written?

What they were talking
about is the answer is yes.

It was an exam.

There were three levels
of the written exam.

Thank you.

How many, so how many sought the test?

How many, so all one big group, how many
people do you think were in that group?

I’m going to say 47.

47.

How did you came to that note?

How did you come to that number?

Well, I think it’s Japan-wide.

It is Japan-wide.

Twoism is booming, so
there’s probably a need

for people dressed as ninjas,
plastic ninja stars around.

Yep.

I agree with all that.

So there’s probably already quite a lot of
ninjas who are already trained, and I know

that a company that
I used to work for

usually brought in around
100 teachers a year.

Mm-hmm.

So I’m going to say
half of half of that about.

That’s what that was my thinking.

It is 124.

Ah, I thought a lot
of ninjas had a whole

clan of ninjas, but they
might not hold past though.

That is true.

We don’t get the failure rate.

I was trying to look
up for any sort of

results, but once they’ve written
their piece, they can move on.

So I didn’t get how
many actual ninjas passed

the exam, because we have
no idea if it’s a hard exam or not.

When they say history, it
would be pretty easy to fail the

history part if you didn’t
take history very seriously.

And then in Jitsu part, who
knows what they’re asking on that?

Yeah.

And, yeah, Kenji might
have turned up and he

might have forgotten his ninja
costume, and he didn’t eat it.

Yeah, he didn’t get those extra points.

He was always two points shy,
and then he didn’t wear his costume.

You know, if you’re
going to be a ninja,

you’re going to need to get over the
shyness of wearing a ninja outfit, I think.

Well, once you’re a real ninja,
no one will ever see you again.

That’s true.

I figured the high
level for extra points,

you have to turn in your exam
without anyone seeing you.

Haha, yeah.

It just appears.

I don’t want you to come from.

Yeah, yeah.

You’ve got to manage to
get to back home through

an elaborate underground tunnel
system without anyone knowing?

Without anyone knowing.

Yeah.

I was like, I wonder if
other countries have

like like there’s a
like the Italy has like

a little Roman region air school,
because all those places need.

They need people to dress up.

Yeah.

Because Canada has
Edmonton, Edmonton has

this like rodeo festivals, one
of the biggest things in Canada.

So they got to have people
dressed up as cowboys.

Now, in that area,
people dress up as

cowboys anyways, but I’m
assuming there’s no actual exam.

Japan to me is a
very like, let’s make a

paper exam for it,
because I think in Calgary

stampede, which is
what this festival is

called, they’re getting
actual people who

work with cows, like
they’re actual cowboys.

I did judo in Canada, I
came here and I wanted

to do some tests here
to get a higher level.

There’s a paper test in Japan.

There’s no paper testing, Canada, you go
out and you do fights and you do like this

like presentation thing
of showing how to do

something really, really
well, and then they grade you.

In Japan, you do those two things and you
sit for a paper test, which is all Japanese

and really hard old kunji, which
I couldn’t read, so I gave up.

What’s this?

There’s always a test.

It’s always a paper
test, it’s such a Japanese

thing to do, taking a sport
and making a paper test.

I’ve had students in
the past, they wanted

to be tour guides, take
like a world heritage

site test, yeah, but
you’re going to be talking

about in Japan, why do you need to learn
about the Taj Mahal, maybe they can do

comparisons, they go,
here’s our castle, it’s like

the Taj Mahal of Japan,
which is what they

would do in Japan, they’d always
be comparing it to something else.

Look at this Edo
wall, it’s just like the

great wall of China,
it’s a really good wall.

All right, well thank you
for your participation,

your participation in the
test, we’ll count that up.

I actually have to start keeping track of
success and failure rate of this, but yeah,

thank you for your help, no
problem, thank you, all right.

Being about tourists, he made
you castle, fairly famous castle.

Last year had 1.48 million visitors, so
that’s a lot of people, and they make a lot

of money, because all those people
pay money to go see the castle.

450,000 of those people
were foreign tourists,

now I didn’t take time
to do the statistics,

and it was like a million
Japanese people and

half a million foreigners, that’s
going to do very rough math.

The current entry fee to the
castle is 1,000 yen for everybody.

The mayor is suggesting
that foreigners only

pay 3,000 yen for
entry, and a lot of people

are saying, why would you
charge foreigners more?

This is one of the
issues that’s going on

restaurant, some
restaurants are deciding to

charge foreign people
more, we did a story

previously where if you
were a foreign person, there

was a foreign menu
with a foreign price, and

then a local menu with a local price, and
it’s divisive, because is it acceptable to

force someone who isn’t Japanese to
pay more money for the exact same service?

The mayor’s justifying
this suggestion by

saying he’s comparing
it to the Louvre or spots

in Egypt, so the Louvre
apparently, if you’re

local, it’s free, and if you’re
foreign, you have to pay.

I don’t know about
Egypt, but I’m assuming,

again, foreigners have
to pay a certain amount

of money to go see
things in Egypt, whereas

maybe locals pay a Louvre fee, similar
to what he suggested for his major castle.

He’s also justifying
it by saying they need

money for maintenance, but there is a concern
that it may turn off foreigners, so if

foreigners find out they
pay more money for this

attraction where locals pay
the same amount of money,

well then I’m not going
to go to that attraction.

It’ll actually take away potentially half
a million visitors a year, so is it worth

increasing their price
for less people to show

up, and maybe less
making less money overall.

It’s very hard to tell.

It will be interesting to see, A, do they
go through with it, because they’re just in

the discussion phase
now, or B, do other

places start taking on
this model where then

any tourist who comes
to Japan suddenly is

paying more for everything, as opposed to
paying the same price everyone else pays.

And then I’m in the Union situation
where I’m a resident of Japan.

What do they do with me?

Because I’m a white guy,
do I have to pay more?

Because I live in Japan, I live in Japan
for a long time, do I pay the Japanese fee?

How do you know the difference?

I do have a residential card.

So I have a identification that says I live
in Japan, I live in Japan for a long time.

That probably would
be enough to get me to

the local rate, but I could see myself
getting annoyed that they even suggested.

Even though again, quite
obviously, I am not Japanese.

We’re going to talk about bears.

Bears have actually cropped
up a lot in stories recently.

Bears versus Japan.

There was a town.

It’s a small town and they have
basically a Hokkaido in all these places.

They have like hunters associations.

These are the people
who legally own firearms.

They can go out and
hunt animals and that would

include bears that have
encroached on society.

So you got bears coming
into towns, you need

someone to scare away or worst
case scenario, actually kill the bear.

These are the guys you got to call.

You got to pay these guys.

Now hunting a bear,
fighting a bear essentially

is dangerous and this
town and the hunting

association closely related to that
town could not come to an agreement.

They wanted to give
them 3000 yen danger pay.

So they’re like, “Hey, we want you
to go face this very angry, hungry bear.

” I’ll give you 30 bucks.

It’s one of those
things, it’s like as dare

you’re like, “Well,
that’s not enough money.

” Like if I get mauled by the bear, 3000
yen isn’t going to do that much for me.

It’s not really worth it.

So now they’re in the weird situation where
they are not going to protect the town.

Now I guess you call
the cops, but the cops

again, they have
very small pistols and

they’re not equipped
to really take on a bear.

So that means the
bear now in this town has

free rein in a different
city in Fukui, a bear

entered a house and the woman called
the cops and she crawled out of window.

So the bear, it sounds like
came in through the front door.

Maybe the front door wasn’t
locked or the front door was left open.

It is getting close to summertime.

It’s hot.

Maybe trying to get some
air flow through whatever.

I have no idea why or how
the bear got in the house.

The woman calls the cops and
then she, she haulsed it out of window.

Pretty good move on her part.

I don’t know if she did a flip.

I don’t know why I suddenly thought that.

It’d be cool to flip
out the window as you

run away, but it’d be
even cooler to backflip.

So the cops then surround the house.

They’re on standby outside the house.

That was it.

There was no follow up.

They don’t say how long they’re on standby.

They don’t say anything happens.

So if we take this
story at face value, those

cops are still standing
outside that house.

And I guess that bear just
owns that house now, be weird.

We see our houses as safe places.

That’s kind of the whole point of a house.

Then once a bear is
come into your house and

he’s lived in your
house for maybe as long

as you have because he’s
apparently not left the house.

What happens then?

Do you feel safe in your house anymore?

Do you get like, I’m going
to lock the doors all the time?

That kind of thing?

Who knows?

Yeah, I don’t know how I’d feel.

I don’t deep sleep.

When I was a little
kid, my dad made me a

bedroom in the basement,
which was really cool.

He liked to build stuff.

I like to be slitter
apart from the family

because I was a
rebellious, weird little kid.

I was like nine years old.

But that meant my bed was sitting
under one of those little basement windows.

If you were going to
break into a house, you’d

generally go in through one of
those little basement windows.

There was one night I was in
bed and a man stepped on my head.

He came in through the window,
came down, stepped on my head.

I screamed or freaked out and he ran away.

Very technically nothing
happened, but also someone

broke into the house
and stepped on my head.

Since then, fairly
traumatic experience, I

think that’s fair to
say, I do not deep sleep.

Any sound that happens
during the night, I

will wake up and this
is like 40 years later.

And that’s it.

It’s just the rest of my life.

I’m assuming till I die, I will
be an incredibly light sleeper.

I will never know what it is to deep
sleep ever again because of that.

So I’m wondering if this woman maybe has a
similar situation with her bear experience,

or if maybe now she
just knows she’s going to

lock all the doors, how
do you be more careful?

It’s a bear.

So you’re walking along the coast.

You’re with your family.

It’s really nice.

And then your young child, your
son, slips and falls into the water.

Now it’s a six foot drop into the
water off this like coastal walkway.

That’s already a rough fall
for a kid, but he’s in the ocean.

The ocean is going pretty hard.

A 26 year old, Filipino man, just immediately
jumps in after and he saves the kid.

So they get some nets
and stuff down so they

can help him climb up
and they help the kid

climb up first and
then the man climbs up.

He saved his kid’s life.

That’s pretty awesome.

The parents wanted his
name to say thank you.

It’s very traditional like if
someone finds your wallet or

does something for you, you
send them a thank you present.

So like if you find something and turn into
the police and then the person shows up and

they get it back, they’ll
send you a thank you.

I found a wallet turned it into the cops.

I ended up getting a cake the next
week just showed up in my house.

So this is a normal
Japanese thing to want to

say thank you in some
way, usually by sending

some, you know, it’s not cheap, but
it’s not nothing, it’s a little present.

The Filipino man said,
and this is a phrase

that he probably learned
from anime, this being

a non native Japanese
speaker, there’s already an

assumption that he’s
using this sentence because

he’s either watched
a ton of old samurai

movies or he’s really
into anime where they

say this kind of thing
translated into English.

This means I’m not important
enough for people to know my name.

So when you win the
big fight, when you save

the town, when you protect
people and they go like, who are you?

This is the phrase
you use in these sort of

old movies and in your
anime and in your manga.

I can’t say it cool,
I got to actually get

an example of an anime
character saying it so

I can copy that because
I’m sure my inflections

wrong and my spacing
of the words is wrong.

But I’ll say it one more
time, super slow so

that you can get it and
you can practice this.

No, no, no, no, no, day, why, night, okay?

So you can take that,
take some time, practice

it, coerce it to yourself,
maybe find some

examples of it on the
internet and awesome.

You can now say this
really cool thing, but

you have to do something
cool first, you can’t

just walk around
saying that, you have to

actually do something cool, this might be
the problem for most people saying doing

something cool and then
saying something cool.

Also it kind of means like study your anime
because everyone on the internet who heard

that he said this
after doing this really

cool thing was like, dude,
this is the coolest guy ever.

He’s using the lines,
he’s using the lines

properly, I, he’s representing the
humble hero, which is really cool.

I have only said two cool lines in
my life and it was totally by accident.

And so I once gave my
judo suit, both related

to judo, of course,
I once gave my judo

suit to my wife because
she was going to wash

it that night and she
said, oh my god, so

much blood and I looked at her
and said, don’t worry, it’s not mine.

That was awesome.

And again, because I didn’t intend it
to be cool, it turned out super cool.

And then once I was
doing like a meeting

with some people who
just come to Japan, and

of course judo comes up because
it’s like, what are your hobbies?

What do you do?

I do judo tatata.

Everyone goes, have you ever broken a bone?

And I looked and I said, do you
mean mine or someone else’s?

Ah, that was awesome again.

For me, it was legitimate inquiry.

Have I ever broken
one of my own bones or

have I in judo, which does have like arm
locks and stuff broken someone else’s bone?

But because again, it
was unintentionally cool.

I didn’t try to be cool.

It was actually way cooler that way.

Scandal.

No, this is the least scandalous
scandal I’ve seen in so long.

Some top Japanese skateboarders
took part in underage drinking.

I, 14, 15, 16 was a very,
very serious skateboarder.

It is basically at
that point in life, I

thought, the job I’m
going to have for the rest

of my life is going to be
professional skateboarder.

I was trying to figure out
if I could move to California.

I made a little video of myself
skateboarding that I could send to Dogtown.

No, I wasn’t that good.

Like I was, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I was very, very good
for a complete amateur,

but I was nowhere
near professional quality.

And I think by the time
you’re 15, 16 in the skateboard

world, you either have it or
you don’t and I did not have it.

I was good.

I was always going to be okay, but I
was never going to be professional.

This was during an Olympic
qualification trip to China.

And in Japan, the drinking age is
20, in China, the drinking age is 18.

So if they’re all 18 or 19, in China,
it’s perfectly legal for them to drink.

So I think this is what happened.

They didn’t give everyone’s
age because they said group.

I think they were all 18, 19,
20 year olds, skateboarders.

I guess this is it, skateboarders are
going to drink if you let them drink.

They were in a different country
where it’s legal for them to drink.

They’re like, hey, let’s
go out and legally drink.

So they went out and they legally
drank and they had a good time.

And Japan has got
this weird idea of holding

people to Japanese laws and
rules even when they leave Japan.

They have said that
if you go to a place like

Canada where marijuana
is illegal and you

smoke marijuana or take a brownie
or cookie word of it, they deliver it in.

And then you come back to
Japan, you’ve committed a crime.

They say if you go
overseas and you create

unsensored pornography,
you’ve broken a law in Japan.

And so this is it.

They have this weird idea.

And I don’t actually know
how you would prosecute this.

That might be why
these guys are just getting

trouble because they are representatives
of Japan in another country.

So they’re probably partially
funded by the government.

I don’t know how well that goes because
if you’re going for an Olympic qualifier,

you probably have
taken money from the

government, which does
mean the government does

have a little say in
how you behave or sees

you sort of like an
ambassador to your country.

You have to behave
better that kind of thing.

One of the skateboarders
themselves were

reprimanded the coach was,
which I think is pretty fair.

He didn’t get fired.

He didn’t get in trouble in any real way.

They’re like, dude, you got
to control your skateboarders.

You’re probably looking at them going like
these are like 19 year old adults overseas.

They’re taking care of themselves.

I don’t know really what you want me to do.

So I think reprimanding
the coach, having

him say like you should have
kept these guys inside and stuff.

I think that’s fair.

As long as he doesn’t get into any actual
trouble because again, no law was the way

he was presented when I saw it in Japanese
news was like a crime has been committed.

Like they’ve broken the law, which they
actually very technically had not done.

And you know, technically
right is the best kind of right.

I cannot hear the voices out there.

When I was a skateboarder
and I was 14, 15

years old, did I ever
under age drink, never.

It’s actually funny.

I talked to Canadians, I’m like, how old
are you when you had your first drink?

It seems like 13, 14 is really normal.

I had one beer.

I don’t like beer.

I don’t do acquired tastes.

I had one beer when I was like 15 years
old or 14 years old and I didn’t like it.

And I was like, nope, never had beer again.

So that’s actually probably a good thing.

If I had it later, I might have liked
it and then be a beer drinker now.

And it was, we’re on
to the gubernatorial

election news and this
is actually quite a lot.

And aid to the current
Tokyo governor, Yudical

Koike, claims that
she faked her degree.

How do you become the
governor of a prefecture?

And they don’t know if you’ve
actually got a degree or not.

So now there’s this
big thing out there like

this is someone who worked for
her who claims she faked her degree.

The claim is that she did not
graduate from the University of Cairo.

Koike and response said
she’s unhappy at the allegation.

She says she will continue to list
herself as a graduate of Cairo University.

Now, I looked at that sentence.

I’ve done a lot of political
stories on the Engineers Japan.

I look very carefully
at what they’re actually

saying because that’s
the more interesting thing.

How they say it.

What they’re saying is the important part.

In this case, she has
not denied the allegation.

She said I will continue to list myself
as a graduate of the University of Cairo.

That doesn’t mean she actually got her
degree or could prove she has her degree

from the University of Cairo, which is
a very interesting, very small distinction.

Another interesting thing
she’s done lately is on x.com.

She started posting
short videos of her

explaining her policies,
but it’s not actually her.

It’s actually an AI
version of her moving her

mouth and face and then speaking her
policies within AI version of her voice.

And that is an interesting
thing because now

these videos of her
explaining things can

be generated by her staff and put on
the internet like she’s talking to you.

And a lot of people, again,
this is very mixed feelings.

AI is a big issue right now
generating a lot of mixed feelings.

Should she be doing it personally?

Is this good enough?

Is AI a threat?

And she’s saying, look, we have
these technologies at our hand.

We should use technologies
that are available to us.

I’m using this technology to
get my policies out into the world.

And then of course,
the first set of comments

under her videos are,
did you have AI generate

your degree from the
University of Cairo?

Which is awesome.

In Tokyo, it’s gotten very specific
and this is primarily about poster.

So in Japan, most of
your election knowledge,

most of my an actual
election knowledge

comes from the American system, which
is all blasting ads and news and stuff.

America dominates the news
cycle even in other countries.

So a lot of what I
understand of politics is

influenced by heavily
by the American system.

The Canadian system honestly
very similar, but way more low key.

There’s a lot of TV advertising stuff.

Japan has very strict rules.

You can’t really do the same thing.

There’s a couple of weeks
where you can get out

on top of a truck and then speak into
a microphone and shout it out that way.

You can’t just plaster
posters or ads everywhere.

There is actually a set like
big board and then you as

someone running in the race
can put your poster on that board.

It’s very weird the first time you see it
and 99% of these posters are nondescript.

It’s some very Japanese
looking businessman,

thumbs up in the camera and just
looking forward with a very awkward smile.

Sometimes they’ve got some
kind of like hook and like I used to

play soccer so he’s holding a
soccer ball, something like that.

So they’re trying to
put as much personality

as they can into a very
awkward photo shoot.

This system has been hijacked in Tokyo.

56 people have entered
and they can put up posters.

They’re mostly politicians, but 19 of
the 56 places are from the NHK party.

Now this is not the actual NHK party.

They used to be called the anti NHK party
because they hated NHK and the fact that

you had to pay fees to this
national broadcasting company.

They’ve become a party
that’s essentially trolling

politics, trying to get
messages out there

that are not big issues or overly popular,
but they’re still actually a lot of ways

kind of important because
there are things people

are either embarrassed
or too shy to talk about.

So the first one that I really
enjoyed was a female kick boxer.

She took up half the slots.

So if you have like 60 spaces for posters,
30 of those were the same posters she paid

for, and it’s just her
saying like, I’m a kick

boxer, not even like I
want to be governor.

I’m a kick boxer and I’m a
really good kick boxer and

you should follow me on
Instagram and watch me kickbox.

Another candidate
got a warning from the

police for making a
poster that is of an almost

nude woman posing in what
they called a very sexy pose.

Their platform is talking
about censorship in Japan.

This is the same group.

I did this story
previously, but I can’t

remember how long ago,
where they talked about

how if Japan would open
up its censorship laws

and not use pixelization
in their pornography

that Japan could make a lot more
money with the pornography that they have.

We have done stories
where it’s like the

ranking of pornography
has come out from Pornhub

and it’s always like Japan or
Japanese is really high in the ranking.

So this guy is saying
we should capitalize on

this love for this thing
our country does make

and we are holding it back
by being too conservative.

He’s teamed up with
actress Sakurai Miyu, a

very specific kind of
actress if we’re going

to be clear and they
wanted to end nudity

censorship laws and
promote freedom of expression.

Because she was basically
naked, I think they had

little flowers over the bits
that need to be censored.

The police came and said you
have to take the posters down.

So then this guy who had decided like I’m
going to promote this porn star and put up

these posters and make my issue censorship,
he’s like I’m going to pivot since I’m not

allowed to put those
posters up, I’m going

to pivot to making
cannabis legal in Shibuya.

So marijuana cannabis is illegal in Japan.

It’s actually still very seriously.

They don’t they don’t like
classified drugs in order.

It’s just drugs bad.

So heroin and marijuana are in the
same group as far as drugs are concerned.

So if you smuggle in heroin and you smuggle
in marijuana, same punishment across the

board, which a lot
of people are like ah,

that you know other
countries they like grade

it like marijuana is
not as bad as heroin in

Japan that’s considered
like a slippery slope.

So they’re just like no
drugs bad if it’s a bad drug.

You did a bad thing.

You get the exact same sentence.

So he’s pivoted his platform to try to make
posters he also puts on face paint like the

Joker and stuff that actually in
itself makes me take it less seriously.

If you wanted to do
this seriously he should

just wear a suit and
look as normal as possible

and they start very seriously talking about
censorship laws and don’t even get like

salacious on the posters
and I bet you’d get

a lot of support because
one of the hardest

things to do is it
takes something that is

essentially embarrassing
like I look at pornography

and I want to de-sensor pornography
again he’s thinking of the economy.

I’m actually kind of on
board with this as a concept.

If there is an economic
gain for the country

by doing this thing it
might be worth doing.

Sure regulate the industry.

I actually have no problem with that.

I think safety is very important but because
he like dresses up and puts on a face

paint and tries to look
at the Joker and stuff

it immediately goes well
why would I take you seriously.

So he’s actually undermining his own
potential of actually getting one of these you

might be considered a
side issue into the forefront.

Of course there’s commentary.

The news did interviews
with people on the

street and one man says
it does not communicate

their policies at all
and I was like well no

it does because the
kick box or her policy

is I really like kickboxing and kickboxing
is cool and you should follow me online.

It’s a pretty clear policy it doesn’t apply
to Japan in any real way unless you want

to make kickboxing
like a national thing

that everyone has to
do which would be crazy.

And then the censorship one
with the almost naked lady on it.

I mean the policy is pretty clear
we would like to stop censoring this.

There were a lot of
complaints that they were

putting up like basically a naked lady on
a poster where kids go by which again I’m

actually on board with
that which is another

reason to do it in a
more serious vein where

people actually might take a moment and
actually listen to what you’re talking about.

And the policy is I like
kickboxing and I like sexy ladies.

Thank you.

you you.

you.

you you you you you

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

She’ll be drinking in public
has gotten away and I’ll have.

Does mean the
government does mean the

government does mean
the government does have it.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

A Podcast to Damage your Dignity

[Music]

Got a lot of politics today.

It’s actually the,

essentially the fallout from the guy who threw the pipe bomb at the prime

minister last week.

Of course, the very first thing I said was what was his actual motivation.

So the fact that he threw a pipe bomb, it didn’t go off properly, which is a

good thing,

because there was a lot of people there, and a lot of people would have got

hurt and killed.

What was his motivation for doing it?

Now, he has not admitted to a motivation, but they’ve looked into his

background and come up with some interesting facts.

He had filed a lawsuit last year for mental distress after he was unable to

file for candidacy for the House of Counselor’s election.

So he wanted to be a politician.

He was unable to file to be a politician,

and was so upset about that, said it was

mental distress, and then he tried to sue them.

This is where we get to learn some of the requirements to be a politician.

You actually have to be 30 years old. That’s, I guess, fair.

I actually don’t think age should be part of it.

I mean, I think if your teenager goes up there and no one wants to,

a teenager to be their counselor or governor or anything,

then you won’t vote for them.

I don’t, I actually don’t necessarily, this is a good personal opinion.

I don’t necessarily agree with an age requirement.

I think it would make sense if you were over 30,

have a little life experience, maybe done some work,

but I don’t think that should be a requirement.

I actually think there should be a end point,

a retirement age for becoming governor,

because right now in America, I was noticing the prime minute.

It was just how Canadian I am.

The president, he’s in his 70s and Trump is in his 70s,

and all the guys are trying to be president in our own their 70s.

I think that might be too old.

I mean, they talk about, you know, Trump being feeble and stuff,

but I think when you have a mandatory retirement age for work,

being 60 or 65 or something like that,

that should also be the retirement age for service in public office.

I think a certain amount of youthful vitality is important.

So this is why Obama was good.

He was a young president, Justin Trudeau,

even if you don’t agree with the politics, he’s a vibrant leader,

which is, I think, important.

So the must be at least 30 years old, I disagree with that,

but I think they should have an upper limit

of how old you can be to be president,

or public office.

And this is actually the more important part.

You have to pay 3 million yen.

So if you want to run for office in Japan,

you have to put a deposit of 3 million yen.

The man’s claim was that this violates

the constitutional guarantee of equality.

And I sort of agree with that as a philosophy.

If you have to pay 3 million yen to run for office,

then only people with 3 million extra yen can run for office.

In which case, if you are of, you know, strict means,

if you’re poor, you’re not allowed to run for office, which is unfair.

I don’t know what the 3 million, it says deposit.

So maybe you get it back if you fail, I’m not sure.

But it seems interesting that I actually agree with kind of his claim.

He also submitted a letter opposing Abe State funeral.

Now I was actually against the State

funeral when I found out how much it cost.

I wasn’t against the State funeral because Abe was a prime minister.

He, whether you agree or not with his politics, he did work for the country.

And what he believed was the best way.

Whether or not you agreed with Abe’s politics,

he was doing what he thought was best for the country.

He was a state official for a very long time.

So I didn’t have a problem with the State funeral.

And then I found out how much they cost.

And I was like, the taxpayer shouldn’t be paying that much.

Abe in the government want to want a State funeral.

So he submitted a letter opposing Abe State funeral because it was forced

through and not Democratic.

So my problem with the State funeral was how much they cost because the

taxpayer shouldn’t be

footing that bill. The government wants to do that. They should find some

other source.

The family should pay for it. Donation, something like that.

Off you go.

He’s saying that the people didn’t get to vote on the State funeral.

And therefore it wasn’t Democratic. And that made him upset.

He is a failed politician.

And I think the thing is, so he wanted democracy and he says he wants to be

a politician and he

wanted things to be done right. But he’s also failed in his ideals because a

great politician or

whatnot, they would not use a pipe bomb to push their ideas through. So that

‘s the unfortunate

reality is this man has failed in two ways. He’s failed as a politician and

he’s also failed

to live up to his own ideals as what he claims a politician should be.

So since there was a pipe bomb thrown and last year Prime Minister Abe was

assassinated,

campaign speeches will only happen indoors now. So they’re not, they used to

do, this is actually

what I thought was quite sad about this whole thing. They had politicians

with the Prime Minister

very high level people out walking amongst the people, talking to people in

crowds and they were

all safe. It was all good. The secret service in Japan were primarily

trained to stop knife attacks,

which is why the home made shotgun actually worked and why the pipe bomb,

like it got really close

to the Prime Minister. The guy, the security guy I saw in the video, he

actually did his job properly.

But you know, also it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. So now

they’ve decided like we’ve

had one politician murdered another one attacked. We can’t keep going like

this. They want to create

a controlled environment for these sort of speeches. So they’re all going to

be happening indoors.

now. There will be metal detectors and every all the bags we get checked

before he can come in.

Street speeches will still happen. So what happens in Japan is these vans go

around and then they

stop and then they stand on top of the Van and they get a microphone with

these loud speakers

and they give a speech from the top of the Van. Those will still happen but.

they’re going to have a

sheet of bulletproof glass up in front of them. So I guess that’s not too

much of a difference because

the guy standing up there, he was quite far away anyways. You weren’t going

to get that close to him.

The bulletproof glass isn’t going to be much of a change, but it is sad that

we’ve had to actually

do that in a country where again a year ago, Abe, the prime minister,

whatever they were walking

around in crowds of people shaking their hands and like talking to people

and just being in and

amongst the people was really nice. They’re going to enforce like a 20 meter

space away from the Van

to make it just that much harder to get sort of leave you want to throw a

pipe bomb let’s say.

It’s going to you’re going to have to be able to throw at least 20 meters to

get your job done.

But it’s I’m a bit disappointed that’s had to happen because it’s like this.

violence is changing the

nature of politics in Japan, which is too

bad. Now on to more honestly more in the

news, Japan style news and the LDP official, so the liberal Democratic party

official. He’s up,

talking up one of his co-workers. There’s

sort of campaigns going on right now.

And he says, “Oh, I’m talking about my friend and then I start talking about

his wife and then the

rival, the rival of his friend as a woman.” He says, “I’m glad she’s not

really pretty either.”.

So he’s basically saying like, “Here’s my friend, his wife is hot, his.

competition, she’s not hot.”

So vote for my friend. He’s obviously a better person because he’s got the

hotter wife. This of course.

sexist and it’s going to piss people off. So the complaint was that his

comments damaged her dignity.

He later retracted his statement. So he made the remark and then the guy was

interviewing him and they.

said like, “Did you mean to insult her dignity? Did you mean that she was

unattractive?” He said, “No,

I totally do her.” But of course that’s not what he said. That’s actually

what I wish he said. I

wish he actually doubled down on it. He retracted his statement and he said,

“I said it inadvertently.

I retract everything. I apologize for offending the dignity of both.” So he

‘s talking about both the

rival and the man’s wife. But then he said, “Come on, she’s got a bit of a

hog face.” I just sat there going

like, “Okay, I’ve talked about this so many times. I actually think I have

to stop talking about it.”

Retracting statements. It’s not like the thing he said goes away because of

it. The apology means

nothing. I don’t get how this is acceptable. There’s almost no fallout and

no responsibility for the

dumb shit politician say. But it happens all the time and they say the dumb

shit. You just don’t

comment on people’s looks. And yet, when I think back to Trump, that’s his

whole deal. It’s commenting

on people’s appearance and their attitudes and what they’re like. So maybe

just politics have changed.

Certainly, Trump has changed the landscape of politics in America. But has.

it had an impact over

here? Because, no, because again, like five years ago, I was still doing the

Ninja News Japan.

And they were all saying racist stuff. So I guess they’ve just shifted. They

don’t say the racist stuff

out loud like they used to. They still get away with misogyny. And they’re

going to get away with that.

But now people are calling them out from misogyny. So I guess that’s going

to be on the chopping block

next. Politicians in Japan, they’re being held to a much higher standard.

Like the stuff Trump says,

he would not be able to get away with it in Japan. Like it just would not

fly. He would not be a.

successful politician. There is a group that supposed to promote gender

equality. And they had a

poster. And it was up about consent. And it had the first picture. And the

guy’s like, “Mm, she’s

into me.” And then the second picture was her going, “Ooh, I’m not into him

.” And it was about,

you know, you have to get consent before you start to do stuff to other

people. The problem is that

promotes the gender stereotype that a) men are the aggressors. Men are not

capable of reading

the signals of women. They don’t understand women. And that they are always

at fault in these sort

of sexual relations. It doesn’t suggest that the woman should get consent

from the man. It only

suggested that the man should get consent from the woman. So that is

promoting gender stereotypes.

In a group that is supposed to be promoting gender equality, they should.

know better. So the people

started complaining. So they took down the poster. And then they started

saying, “Oh, not only does it

promote gender stereotypes, it also has copied the art style of another

artist.” So they took

all the posters down. The company,

the group, the gender equality group said.

, “We apologize

publicly, so there’s your public apology.”

But then they blamed the printing company.

Not to actually take responsibility for you shit. That’s not cool. The

artist who is sort of the

one being, you know, copied in this case said that the apology and taking

down the posters is enough.

I don’t know. It’s weird that gender equality

in Japan still means gender stereotypes.

just that men should behave better.

But again, that is the gender stereotype.

that is being promoted.

Yeah, it’s almost like people don’t know what gender equality is. This is

Japan. I would say when

it comes to gender equality, LGBT rights and stuff like that, Japan is

decades behind other countries,

Western countries. Like just even the equal rights men and women still aren

‘t there. Because I mean,

that guy just got away with saying that this other politician had a hog

phase. I’ve never seen a

picture of either of them, so I can’t really comment. It’s that low-key mis

ogyny that is just a

part of Japanese culture. And people, I think they come to Japan and they

have weird expectations

of what it’s going to be like. And I don’t think they realize, there’s a

whole generation that’s

still in charge that has not changed their thinking from the 1960s. And it’s

going to take another

generation or two before it goes away. There’s a man called “Boys Over

Flowers.” I’d never heard of it.

And then I found out it has the highest circulation comic series for girls

by a single author. It’s in

the Guinness Book of World Records. But then I was like, that is a very

specific. This is one of the

things about world records. It’s how specific the world records are. So the

highest circulation of

a comic series, that’s good. Four girls, okay, you’ve now just split out at

least two so that you

split it in half. So there should be the highest circulation comic series

for boys by a single author.

That one sort of makes sense. Because if it’s

a team, it wouldn’t have the same impact.

So I was like, because it’s a world

record, I could publish a comic series for.

white 50-year-old men with beards and get 100 people to buy it. And that

would probably be the

highest circulation comic series for white 50-year-old men with beards by a

single author. Maybe that could

get in the Guinness Book of World Records. Because that is how you finesse

world records sometimes. It’s

actually get something so specific. No one else is attempted to try it yet.

But then I saw she has.

59.4 million copies of her comic in circulation. Those are physical comics.

So like if you had a

comic on like an ebook or something, that would encounter. And I was like 54

, 59.4 million copies is a

lot. It just says physical copies published. It doesn’t say bought. So could

I do a self-run of 60 million.

comics of a series that I have written for girls by me and beat that record

if I didn’t sell any?

The very interesting question because technically I think I could beat the

world record. Since we’re talking

about world records, I have the number one highest rated karaoke version of

House of Pain’s Jump

Around in Japan. So we have a switch and my daughter wanted to do karaoke

and they have a thing,

a company called Joy Sound. And they do karaoke machines. And so they have

an app where you can do

karaoke through the switch. So her and her friends came over and did it and

they were on it. Me to do

an English song and I was like, this is going to be really bad. I only know

the words to like three

songs. And one of them is jump around. That came out when I was like in my

20s. So I did it. I got like

69% or something like that. And then it goes number one in Japan. I had this

like big fanfare and

everyone was super excited. And I was like, oh wait, I’m the only person in

Japan to have ever attempted

this song. That’s how I got the world record. Are the the national record.

Now back, way, way back,

I was the, I was doing video game reviews and an app came out and it was.

called poop ride. So it was

P-O-O-P-R-I-D-E. So either it was poo, P-O-O, Pride, P-R-I-D-E or poop, P-O-

O-P, ride, R-I-D-E. And it was this.

little game where you had poop and you slid it along the floor and you had

to get it enough power to

touch the line. But you didn’t want to go over the line. So whoever got to

the closest to the line one.

Now because I was doing video game reviews, I got the earliest version of it

on release day,

had to play it for a few hours, leveled up really fast, actually came up

with some strategies for it,

wrote my article. And then as I put the app down, I checked the rankings. I

was number one in the world.

So I have held both a national Japanese record and a world record. I’ve

never gone back to poop ride

to see if that record has been broken. I do believe Mr. Warm Hands purpose

fully went onto.

the Joy Sound app and with his kids and did jump around and I do believe he

beat my score. He may be

the number one in Japan now. But I held that record for years, mid-pandemic.

So at least two years now,

I’ve had the record for I should go back and do it again because I wasn’t

even trying. Imagine if I drop.

So the Osaka court had to pay $375,000 yen. That’s like $3,000, $4,000 to a

former inmate and his attorney

because they wouldn’t allow him to wear sunglasses while he was in a

detention facility and in prison.

So at first I thought this was a Yakuza guy who and they wear sunglasses.

They just wear sunglasses

all the time. I actually have a friend who married into a family that was

sort of extended family

was all the Yakuza and they said at the wedding, one side of the room was

all wearing sunglasses the whole

time. So this is a Yakuza thing. So that’s what I thought when I read the

article of the title and then

I went read the actual thing and I was like, “Oh, it’s actually quite

different.” So this guy usually wears

light purple glasses because of a light sensitivity. There’s actually a

really famous comedian

in Japan and he wore sunglasses all the time. His name is Tamori I think.

And it’s because he had

light sensitivity to his eye. So he wore sunglasses all the time because the

lights on the TV.

shows were too bright for his eye. It’s an actually constant pain. Now they

said you’re not aware

of loud to wear glasses in prison. So they wouldn’t let his wear his glasses

but that actually means

he wasn’t able to read documents and the light was so harsh like it would

cause some physical pain

and it made everything like he was told to do much harder because he wasn’t

allowed to wear it.

This wasn’t just like because he wanted to look cool. This was essentially

prescription.

medically necessary glasses. He had to carry out his sentence without

corrective lenses as the.

way he was phrased. The detention house says you can have shades that allow

up to 25 percent

blockage. In prison, colorless glasses are only allowed if there’s a medical

reason. But it seems

like this guy had a medical reason but they didn’t allow him to wear his

glasses in prison because

they thought oh this guy wants to be cool just like my assumption. We’re

going to say no but they’re

actually like violating sort of fundamental human rights. So you got to pay

up. 4000 bucks though.

So you think about like a lot of the stories where people sue each other.

The numbers are very small.

In America, something like this would be massive. It’s because Japan is just

not as litigious. And one

of the reasons are not as litigious is because the awards are so much

smaller than in America. I bet in

America if I went to prison and they said Peter is not allowed to wear his

corrective lens. So I’m

essentially blind the whole time I’m in prison making everything more

difficult. I bet I could sue them

and I get millions of dollars. In Japan, 4000 bucks shared out with my

attorney. I mean sometimes

you got wonder if it’s even worth it. But I think a lot of times in Japan

you sue them for the moral issue.

Not so much for the money. So there’s a new Pokemon show. Now I don’t follow

Pokemon. I do remember all

the conversations about you have like a 12 year old boy who never goes to

school who goes around

battling animals. And it was a lot of memes actually when I was in my

university and later day.

Because people were talking about the lifestyle of a Pokemon master. Zero

education beyond elementary

school basically. There was a lot of jokes online and I enjoyed them because

conceptually it was

quite interesting. The new hero it’s called Liko. Liko joins the school

which apparently Ash did

and then just never showed up like went to school and then was like well I’m

going to go be Pokemon

master. Bye. And then took off for the rest of his life. Liko joins the

school but then takes lessons

remotely which I found very interesting because they’ve really updated it so

they do have the child hero

who’s going to go around and do their adventures with their Pokemon. But.

actually still technically

get education. The only thing I can think is a problem is how many hours a

day are they expected to do.

these lessons remotely. How much are they going to show without online. But

they’re actually using a

tablet again updating the technology of Pokemon. They’re they’re they’re

they’re going to wonder

if they’re going to how much they’re going to actually bother with this

showing them actually doing

this. But one of the comments I really enjoyed was I hope Liko has an

unlimited data plan because

of course they’re not going to be hanging around somewhere where there’s Wi-

Fi all the time. It’s

a bit ridiculous. But I do like that they’re showing the kids like yeah even

our Pokemon heroes they.

still have to go to school. Okay so this is a new kind of harassment. So

Japan has a billion kinds of

harassment. So there was Seku Harada which is sexual harassment. There was

Paohara. Paohara harassment.

They’re actually using the English and then condensing it into a Japanese.

Then I learned about

I forget it was Akahara which is Akachana so that means baby. Maybe I might

have that one wrong. But

anyways there’s essentially maternity harassment. So you get pregnant and

then you’re pushed out of.

your company. I found a new one through an article today called Owa Harada

and Owa Di is finished. So

Owa Harada is finishing harassment and this has to do with recent graduates

looking for jobs. So they do

kind of graduate recruitment. All the companies every year when the students

graduate they do recruitment.

cycles. And they try to get new employees. In Japan again having fewer and

fewer young people they

need the competition for companies to get more young people to join their

company is part of keeping

their company alive. The competition is quite serious. Owa Harada. Owa Har.

Ada. What Owa Harada is. It’s

really hard to switch between English and Japanese like in one word. Is you

‘ve come and interviewed with

our company. We want you to stop. That’s the Owa Di part looking at other

companies. But we want

you to make a promise to stop looking for other companies. But that is

essentially saying to the

graduate recruit person looking for a job that we want you to limit your

options and only join our

company. We want you to stop looking because what if you find a better deal

if you find a better deal

you might take that job and not our job. So they try to get them to sign

letters of acceptance saying

like here’s a letter that says I will accept the proposed job that not the

actual job. So they’re

saying we’re not going to give you a contract right now to sign. We want you

to sign this letter that

says you’re not going to look for other jobs and then later down the line we

‘ll give you a contract

which is bullshit. If you’re not signing a contract it doesn’t mean anything

because they could say

we’re going to pay you millions dollars and then the contracts get slid

across the table. It’s got five

bucks on it. But you haven’t been looking for any other jobs where you could

have also got paid

millions dollars really unfair. They also require them to attend company

social gatherings and what

they’ve done is tried to make enough of these company social gatherings that

it’s difficult for you

to go out and find other jobs. So the government’s asking companies to stop

this. Now asking isn’t a

very strong thing but there was a survey done in 2021.10% of the students

said the experienced

“awada, awada hara.” Okay I’m getting it. “awada hara.” And then 10% oh 64%

of the 10% say they ended their

job search because of awada hara. 42.3% had received demands to provide a

letter of acceptance. So almost

half the people who went out to do recruitment said like really quickly they

were like “sign this

letter saying you’re going to accept a job from us and stop looking for

other jobs.” 11.6% were

harassed persistently. Some cases say they were physically barred from

leaving when they declined

an offer. So they’re like “here we want you to work for our company.” So you

know I’m not into this.

I’m going to go now and they like lock the door and say you can’t leave

until you accept our offer.

Which is of course no way legally going to hold up but they might actually

cause you problems

if you actually like end up signing something to just get out of there. I

would say if you’re ever in

a situation where someone just like you’re at work and then your boss locks

the door and says you

can’t leave until you do something. What you do is just call the police and

you say like I would

like to leave this office and they are not letting me. When the police show

up because that’s kidnapping.

I mean a lot of people don’t think about it but what they’re doing is saying

like you are not physically

able to go where you want under some sort of dress or threat. That’s

kidnapping. It’s illegal in

every Western country, every like sort

of Western legal system I know of. So.

just call the cops and

say like “Hi I’m in this room in this building. I would like to leave and

they’re not letting me leave.”.

You probably could just put this phone

on speakerphone and they’re going to like

have to let you go. Then you could probably sue them afterwards. The most

interesting part of this

though is that there is an article 627 of the civil code. It says even if

you sign a letter of acceptance

you can back out. So even if these companies force you to sign a letter

saying you’re going to accept

the job with their company. Legally you can back out at any time and that

letter doesn’t mean anything.

I find it interesting more though that because this is such a common problem

that it’s actually written

into the civil code. So this has happened so much in the past and they’ve

had so many sort of legal

issues I assume that they just wrote into the civil code that these letters

don’t mean anything and

that you can just back out. You don’t

have to take a job you don’t want to take.

There was a man caught on camera by a passerby who sent OG SONS photo. So OG

SON is an old man in

Japanese. And what this guy does is he takes the short shorts that girls

wear they’re called bloomers.

He takes the short shorts they wear and he wears them around the station and

this guy has a Twitter

account and he’s really proud of this. He wears like Lea Tards. He’s

actually I’m going to say a pretty

fit old dude. Someone took a picture of this guy sent it to his mom and said

oh my god look what I

can see at the station. This woman posted it on the Internet and she said my

younger son sent this.

photo to me saying there was an OG SON wearing bloomers at the station. I

didn’t believe him until he

sent this photo. It’s real. It’s just sick. And then she put pictures over

his face because you can’t

publish other people’s pictures in Japan without getting in trouble and

posted the picture with what

she tweeted on the Internet. The man himself shows up to her Twitter account

and says don’t censor

my face. So this dude he’s not only doing something that’s kind of weird. He

‘s super proud of it which

I love. And then it turns out his whole Twitter account is just full of

these kind of photo. I don’t

know why but this guy is doing the thing that makes him happy. Yes it would

creep me out but at the same

time I’m sure stuff that I like creeps out other people. I know like the jud

o I do. A lot of people

disagree with fighting and like beating the shit out of other people but I.

love it. And yeah

if people said stop I wouldn’t stop. There was a couple comments and one was

three cheers to this man’s

confidence and I got to admit he is super confident. You can really sense

the sort of strong willpower

from the bloomers ojisa. I mean he’s been doing this for nearly 10 years now

. He also says some philosophical

things or tasteful things sometimes on his Twitter. Just don’t actually

commit a crime please.

I’ve seen the man’s Twitter before. He’s actually quite intellectual and

well spoken which makes his

bloomers obsession even weirder which is so true because he’s not an idiot.

He’s not a dumb guy.

He just he knows what makes him happy and he’s living that lifestyle which

again I kind of had a certain

amount of appreciation for. And then the very last comment which I did enjoy

this is what makes Japan.

Japan and that’s a good thing.

Anti Mask Landings

Its mostly coivd new, but not all the depressing kind you are probbaly used to. Mostly it’s talking about what to do next and how that is going to make covid worse, as we did not learn from our post lockdown boom in Japan.

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