I’m in a bit of a weird mood today, so I don’t know how this is actually going to work out.
I don’t know if it’s going to make the podcast better or worse, but let’s find out together,
shall we?
A 54 -year -old man.
This is like all these crimes in Japan, all these weird things in Japan.
It’s always 50 -year -old men.
I’m 50 -something.
You wouldn’t know from looking at me.
You’d think I’m gorgeous and young, but I’m not.
I’m actually really old and gross.
So this 54 -year -old dude wanted to climb Mount Fuji, which is fine.
I’ve never climbed Mount Fuji.
I don’t really get it.
Because if you see Mount Fuji, it’s a beautiful mountain.
And so being at the base of the mountain or in the towns around the bottom of the mountain,
that’s pretty cool.
You get to see the beautiful mountain behind you.
You climb up on the mountain and you see clouds or weather or just the city.
It’s not very good.
And then people are always like, oh, we want to go up for the sunrise.
We want to watch the sunrise from Mount Fuji.
It’s the same sunrise, guys.
It’s not worth it.
But it is a mountain, and so it’s tough to climb.
On July 11th at 2 p .m., he called the authorities and they went to him.
This guy, 54 years old.
This guy, this guy, this guy.
This guy was 54 years old.
He’s an experienced climber.
So we don’t expect to have any trouble.
But at 2 p .m.
On July 11th, he called the authorities and they went to him and they’re like, dude, go
to the rest station.
So he was between 7 and 8.
He was closer to 8, but they seem to have tried to take him down.
They said, look, just stay at rest station 7 and then climb down when you feel better.
He slept for 11 hours.
Now, I haven’t slept for 11 hours for a long time.
But damn, that sounds pretty good.
Like, I think if I slept for 11 hours, I’d be in pretty good shape to do most things afterwards.
This guy, he gets up the next day after sleeping for 11 hours.
He walks 300 meters in one hour.
And then he gave up.
He goes, look, my foot hurts.
I’m too tired to move.
You guys got to come get me.
So they have to go all the way up the mountain again twice.
So he called for help twice in two days.
And then they walked him down the mountain, which means he could have walked down the mountain
himself.
He just had to have some friends with him.
And it makes me wonder if he was really hurt or if he’s like, this is it.
It’s hard to tell.
Maybe he was in actual distress.
Maybe he just needed to use authorities to get some human contact.
And that’s something that’s come up a lot is I think people just need human contact.
And the way they’re getting it is through this negative stuff.
Like I said, my brain’s in a weird place.
I don’t really know what’s going on.
There’s a guy who gave me.
I don’t have a lot of like Apple podcast reviews and stuff, but there was a guy who gave me one.
He gave me four out of five.
And he said, loves the podcast.
One of his favorite.
But he hates the transition music.
It’s too loud.
So because of that, I actually turned it down.
But he sent me a message later.
I think it was on Facebook.
And he said like, you know, I love the podcast, but the transition sounds too loud.
He just doesn’t want a transition sound.
And I felt really bad because I actually did an episode without a transition sound to try to satisfy a single listener.
And then all like five, six other people sent me messages going like, I like the transition sounds because it helps delineate the stories and stuff.
So I went back and I feel bad.
Like you can’t make everyone happy.
And I think this guy is like almost wants to be a fan.
But he’s just the fact that I’ve done the transition sounds really is throwing them off.
And he hates my guts for it.
But last time we talked about train spotters and how they like trash this guy’s car.
And I said like train spotters get violent on a regular basis.
Well, turns out saying that out loud was a bit of a curse because they got violent again.
Some train spotters, four teens were arrested for assault after luring a guy to a park to photograph trains.
So this is a park where pretty famous for train photography.
So it actually was a legitimate seeming reason.
But this guy had released personal information online, or at least that’s how it was interpreted.
I’m not actually sure what happened because they didn’t give the details.
These four guys got upset because they said he released their personal information online.
So he basically doxed them.
They said, hey, come to this park.
We’ll take pictures together.
I’m pretending to be friends, which is, yeah, you got to be careful of friends.
You got to be careful of everybody.
They immediately demanded 500 ,000 yen.
The thing is, he’s in his third year in middle school.
So he doesn’t have 500 ,000 yen to give.
And then they said, give us your camera.
And then they started beating him up.
They took 5 ,000 yen, which is a pretty normal amount of money for a kid to have at that age.
That’s actually quite a lot.
And then they stole his camera, which is worth 150 ,000 yen.
So I get it’s a hobby, but a kid that young, I don’t know if they should have a camera worth 150 ,000 yen.
That’s maybe a side issue.
That’s a parenting issue.
But I can guarantee he didn’t deserve to have it stolen.
He doesn’t deserve to get beat up for it.
Yeah, the train dudes got to calm down.
An interior contractor was arrested for stealing 29 air conditioners.
He went to multiple unoccupied apartments and stole 13 indoor and 16 outdoor units with a total value of 29 ,000 yen, which that number doesn’t sound right.
29 ,000 yen to me seems like the price of a single air conditioner and a cheap one at that.
Air conditioners are expensive.
Now in Japan, heating and cooling is garbage.
It’s one of the worst aspects of Japan as a country is this culture of we build a house.
The walls are really thin.
We air condition every room individually.
So like my room is air conditioned.
Now I open the door to go to the hallway.
It’s 35 degrees in the hallway.
And so like I lose all the cool air from this room.
The air conditioner has to be on all the time for it to maintain cool.
If there’s no insulation.
So it’s really cold in the winter, really hot in the summer.
And you have to like heat and cool each room individually, which is really inefficient.
It is because of earthquakes.
So the building philosophy of houses are, they need to be flexible and shake and stuff.
It’s part of it.
But also people don’t buy old or used houses.
So they’re not actually built to last.
So when I get to my old age, this house, there’s an expectation that it doesn’t get
passed on to someone else.
It just gets torn down and rebuilt on the land.
So the land has value, but the house itself doesn’t.
So it’s a very different philosophy from other countries when it comes to houses.
But this guy had visited apartments to provide consultation and renovation work, saw all the
air conditioners and thought, huh, I want to have the single coldest room in all of Japan.
Took all 29 air conditioners, put them all in one room and just froze.
He was himself to death, which would be kind of awesome, actually.
Like, that’s what I need in my life.
I’m a cold bath guy.
And I try not to talk about it as much as I want to, but cold baths are the best thing
in the world.
Someone was walking past a parking lot and noticed masks, like full face masks.
So my first image is, of course, Halloween or one of these horror movies where they wear
a mask, like a Michael Myers mask that they would be wearing to cover their whole face.
Bank robbers, heist movies would be wearing them.
They called the police though.
So like, I think if I was walking past a parking lot and saw just full face masks, I would think
that was like someone left them there or someone forgot them there.
I would not think to call the police.
So this is an interesting reaction because they actually maybe have done the right thing,
which I wouldn’t have done instinctually.
The police came and investigated and they found three full face masks, crowbars, and
other items hidden in a bush.
So other items hidden in relation to let’s go rob a house kind of stuff.
The three people were arrested had actually been questioned two days before.
So they didn’t say if they did like a stakeout and waited to see who came and got the masks
or what, but they already had a connection to the people who were in the area because they
had been questioned days prior for a different crime.
So these were suspected criminals.
There was in the area a house that was 3 .5 kilometers away that had been burgled four times,
which is every element of this is really weird because if it has been burgled four times,
it means all the stuff’s been taken unless this is like a practice burglar place.
Like, oh, hey, you’re getting your wings when it comes to burgling.
Burgle this house.
It’s a great practice house to start with.
The police believe they were going to burgle the same house again,
but then they said they don’t know why this house.
So to me, it would be like this house has been burgled so much they don’t have any money.
So if they don’t have any money, because it’s been burgled, it’s been pre,
everything’s been taken that’s of any value, seems like the logical assumption.
So you’d want to go to a different house.
I want to go find a different rich house.
The only thing I can think of is that they were practicing.
They were practicing burgling this type of house or something like that
for them to be able to burgle more effectively in the future.
The Criminal Investigation Department Mobile Investigation Unit.
That’s a very convoluted name.
The C -I -D -M -I -U.
Kid M -U.
Kid M -U.
The Criminal Investigation Department Mobile Investigation Unit.
If you’re going to be in that group.
So this is the group that will like stake out places.
They’re mobile.
They’re undercover cops.
And the idea is that they’re going to be in an area where they think a crime is going to happen
or they’re staking out a place or something.
They’re the guys who are just like, you know, hanging out.
But you have to be patient and curious.
And if you’re patient and curious, there’s a kind of game in Japan that would be very attractive to you.
So that would be the crane game, the UFO catcher, where you have to use the joystick to get the claw over the toy that you want
and then drop it down and then get the toy and then bring it back.
And then you win the toy and you feel so good.
But really what happens is it drops it.
And those machines are all rigged.
When I came to Japan in 2001, I had an incredible record of winning at those games.
And then about three, four years later, by the time I had played it like three or four times.
Because I remember the first or second time I went, I won like six toys off one machine.
And then I went back and I couldn’t win anything because I think the crane, I think, I know.
The cranes are designed to drop everything X amount of times.
So you have to get that one time for it to be successful.
Or you have to use like special techniques like locking it, knocking it off the edge to get it into the hole or something like that.
All I know is that they’re not worth the money now.
Like it’s really, really impossible to actually win at those games.
This officer for the Criminal Investigation Department Mobile Investigation Unit
spent his time, killing time, waiting, staking out, things like that, playing crane games.
But if you’re playing a crane game, you’re very focused.
So you’re not watching the area, you’re not watching criminals, you’re not, you know,
I guess if you are technically just on call and ready, and if you want to waste the time,
you are playing crane games.
That’s bad.
Cops on duty should not be sitting around playing crane games.
But I’m actually fairly forgiving of that.
If he’s just waiting for a phone call, it’s okay, in my opinion.
But I don’t think that if you’re in this unit, you’re just waiting for a phone call.
I think you’re in an area for a specific purpose or looking for a specific thing.
Then he got in more trouble because he was accused of power harassment because he made a younger sergeant help him try to get a specific prize.
So he’s like, I’ve been trying for like an hour to get this one figure.
I haven’t been able to do it.
You do it.
I’ll pay for the game, but you got to play the game because you’re younger and more agile and maybe you’re a hand -eye coordination.
But it didn’t work out.
The guy didn’t win the prize and he got angry at him.
He’s like, you’re not taking this seriously because you’re not playing with your own money or something like that.
But maybe the guy didn’t want to play, but this is power harassment.
You’re forcing someone to do something they don’t want to do based on your authority.
That’s power harassment, even though you’re making them play like quite a fun game.
I’ll admit, I do love crane games and I would play them more if I thought they were fair.
But I basically have stopped playing them all together because I don’t think they’re fair.
I think they’re completely rigged.
You cannot win unless you get that like one in a thousand chance where the claw is actually going to hold on to the toy.
So in the Yakuza games, the Like a Dragon Yakuza games, I actually spent an inordinate amount of time playing crane games because those ones are fair.
He then went a step further and reported the crane game time as overtime.
So he was getting paid extra to play the crane games.
We don’t know how much money he spent on crane games, but he was trying to make it back by claiming overtime of the time he spent playing crane games so that it would all blend together in this one perpetual motion machine of crane game activity.
And he got a 10 % pay cut.
I actually think you should get a lot more than that.
The 10 % pay cut comes up a lot.
And I think it is not enough, if I’m being really honest, because this is a cop who’s supposed to be on duty protecting the citizenry of Japan.
And what he’s doing is messing around, and that’s not cool.
Three people claimed they could predict lottery numbers.
This is a very old scam.
As long as we have had lotteries, we’ve had psychics and stuff claim they could help you win the lottery.
I have entered the lottery the last four, five years around Christmas time, because that’s the big one in Japan, the New Year’s lottery, and I have yet to win anything.
So I guess if you told me you could predict the numbers, I might try it, but I would expect to win as much as I have already won, which is very little and or nothing.
If you buy the pack of 10 tickets, they guarantee that one of those tickets will win you 300 yen, which is the price of one ticket.
So I don’t think that’s fair.
I don’t think that should be called winning.
They basically made spam emails, and they said, you are guaranteed a massive lottery jackpot.
And if you responded to that email, they sent you to a website.
And if you logged into that website, then they would start doing consultations.
You could buy points on the website.
And from that website, when you bought points, you could then talk to some people, and they would give you numbers or try to string you along.
Because again, they want you to buy more points.
They would talk to you.
And there was a 70 -year -old woman who ended up paying 7 .5 million yen on the services they were offering.
They believe there were 20 victims, and they took in over 80 million yen, which makes me think there’s a legitimate way to do the same thing.
Because this is going back to people being lonely.
I think these 70 -year -olds, they’re lonely, and they want to talk to people and interact with people.
So you give them some way to interact with you, and they would pay you for it.
And then be willing to pay 7 .5 million yen.
Now, they are promising a payout, which I wouldn’t promise.
But I could either do fake psychic, but say this is for entertainment purposes only, and then just talk to you and do sort of cold reading stuff and tell you, like, oh, you seem lonely or you’ve lost someone or something like that.
And the people are like, oh, my God, he’s psychic, and then just talk to me and give me money.
I think that’s a better business plan than Ninja News Japan, which is actually only for a cost.
Because I had to pay for the domain name, and I have to pay for the hosting.
So Ninja News Japan has actually lost me money, whereas being a fake psychic actually probably made me quite a bit of money.
I think we’re going to change what this podcast is from next time.
15 -year -old.
This story hit my feet hard this week.
A 15 -year -old used ChatGPT to make an app that unsubscribed people from the streaming service Bandai Channel.
So 46 ,000 people were unsubscribed because of this app when the kid deployed it.
He built it with ChatGPT.
So he didn’t actually know how to code specifically.
He got interested in coding, but he used ChatGPT to sort of fill in the blanks.
He managed to make a thing that then attacked this streaming website and unsubscribed people, but it also gave him access to a lot of login info, which is going to be emails and passwords and maybe even credit card information.
He doesn’t seem to have done anything with it.
So this might be an actual case of a young person interested in computers and hacking and all this kind of stuff.
They don’t actually want to do damage, but they want to find out what they can do.
And then when they do it, it’s a lot bigger than they actually thought because there’s always going to be thousands and thousands of people, you know, using a streaming service.
And then if you get that information, you’ve actually like committed 46 ,000 individual crimes by stealing their information.
He actually said when he was arrested, I have no grudge against the victimized company, but he did still manage to bring it down.
So like when 46 ,000 people suddenly unsubscribed, the streaming service had to basically shut down and then try to like fill in their security holes.
If you look at it that way, he actually did them a favor.
Like they had to fill in a security hole that they had, but yeah, man, I just AI and kids like his, they’re saying that this generation is less mentally acute than previous generations because chat GBT and AI things have been filling in blanks for them and teaching them not to think.
Whereas before you were taught to think, and then you had to learn how to use a computer and stuff.
But there is going to be that one little savant kid who’s really good at computers and does think and knows how to manipulate computers and AI and then puts it together and then brings down the entire world.
A man in his seventies met someone online.
And so again, it’s just, it brings me back to lonely.
I mean, I keep going back to this area.
I think this is the last couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about this, like just old people being lonely, which is really tough.
Now the person that he met online said, if you get me pregnant, I will reward you 30 million yen.
I want someone with excellent genes.
So there’s the compliment of you have excellent genes.
There is the compliment of you being 70 years old and I still would like to have your DNA material for my own purposes.
There’s probably, again, I believe a lonely factor where he would like to be with someone and someone who, again, this is a scam.
So I’m betting they used like a young, attractive picture and playing into the fact that he was older and lonely just actually made it worse.
The victim paid deposits and processing fees to a fake lawyer of 2 .9 million yen.
But then they kept asking for money and he wasn’t getting any booty.
He wasn’t getting any action.
He wasn’t impregnating anybody.
And that’s when he contacted the police and that’s when they shut down the scam.
But they don’t actually, they haven’t been able to actually arrest the people yet because this was all done online and he transferred money.
And it makes it really hard for them to catch him.
But I’m in my 50s and for a man in his 50s, I’m not horrendous looking.
But I just go through life assuming younger women do not look at me that way anymore.
That just has to be the base assumption.
And then should someone give me that attention, it’s just like an extra compliment.
It’s a bonus.
But I think the expectation, because when I was in my 20s and 30s, I got fairly good attention regularly.
That does not happen anymore.
Like I can walk into a room and I am just invisible to all the younger, more attractive people in the room.
And it’s hard for your brain to let go of the thinking of when you were in your 20s now that you’re in your 50s and it’s no longer applicable.
But it is real life and that’s just the way it goes.
So, yeah.
If anyone says they want me to impregnate them and they want me to pay X amount of money to do it,
at least hopefully my brain’s going to be like override what hormones I have left and say,
no, that’s not actually what they want.
They just want your money.
A 44 -year -old woman in Koga.
This is a huge story right now.
She’s been arrested for sewing her housemate’s lips together so that she couldn’t talk.
So she couldn’t talk.
She was just going to be really cheap.
She had three or four people who sort of lived there and then other people who seemed to come and go.
And like neighbors said they heard sounds like people practicing boxing and stuff.
So like people hitting each other or something.
We don’t know that.
Like this is all just what they heard.
It’s supposition.
We don’t know that.
So we don’t want to say it’s factual.
But the woman who had her lips sewn together put on a mask and ran out when the woman who owned the house was out at work.
She ran to a convenience store and she gave them a note that said,
please help me.
I’m in trouble.
Please call the police.
They called the police.
An ambulance showed up.
They took her to the hospital.
They said she’s not like in her injuries are not life threatening,
but they had sewn the lips closed with a thread and needle from the inside.
So like from the top part of your lip down through the inside.
So it wasn’t very visible.
But when she was running and escaping from this house,
this like horror nightmare scenario,
when she was arrested,
she denied sewing the woman’s lips shut.
But it’s one of those things like how does someone get their lips sewn shut?
Like the done.
Okay.
We’ve talked about criminals.
This is how I end every episode.
If you’re a criminal,
you should deny the crime.
It’s the police are there to prove it.
But you are in so much trouble now because they’re going to now go into your house
and search the house.
And I am waiting for the follow -up story of all the weird stuff they found in the house,
video recordings,
weird things,
stuff like that.
But what they’re going to be looking for more than anything else is a sewing kit.
And this is like horror movie stuff.
And it’s really weird to think of it in real life.
But I think that’s why it became such a big story,
because in general,
Japan is such a safe place to live.
There’s so little crime.
A crime like this is so dramatic and so big that it just destroys the news.
It just goes everywhere.
And so I saw it like 10,
13 times.
I am waiting for the follow -up,
waiting for the rest,
the follow -up in the court case.
But that means we’re not going to have a conclusion for like two more years.
But if you find yourself in a weird situation and someone tries to sew your lips shut,
you can go to a convenience store and pass them a note,
and they will help you out,
which is pretty nice.