NinjaNewsJapan

All
right, now we got to wait for the cough
to subside. I woke up this morning with
a bit of a cough. And of course, like
everyone who gets a cough, my hope is
that I end up with a grally, sexy voice.
But I think really what’s going to
happen is I’m going to get about 30
minutes in and then my voice is going to
get all squeaky and maybe start coughing
a lot, which I I don’t want that for you
to listen to. So, I’m going to do my
best and power through. I was thinking
of skipping today, but I Well, you get
all the personal updates. My on the
computer basically just died on the
weekend. I had to get rid of the old
operating system and then get in a new
operating system and it was very
stressful and I almost bought a new
computer which might have solved my
problems but also not because most of my
problems are emotional.
Anyways, what you’re here for, what I’m
here for, what everyone’s here for is
the Japanese news.
Japanese man scheduled a tweet.
uh
I’m dead and go would be the translation
of it. Uh this is very memeoriented
uh speech.
The would be his death rattle and then
he said I’m dead and then the go which
is a very Japanese meme. Uh there was uh
a baseball player Rodrigo some Dominigo.
So and he embarrassed himself. So this
is almost like you add this to the end
of words when you’re embarrassed. So
he’s basically saying I died. I’m a
little embarrassed about dying or how I
died. And the fact that I’m dead is also
a little embarrassing in itself. So that
is the tweet. In 2023, this guy was 20
years old and he was diagnosed with a
very rare form of cancer. His profile
said, “I like cute girls. I also have
cancer.” So, he was maintaining a sense
of humor about it, which I think we can
all appreciate how hard that must be to
do. So, there is a very bittersweet tone
to all the jokes he’s making about
having cancer and dying. And he still
likes cute girls because he’s a
20-year-old guy.
He scheduled the tweet every day. So,
basically, if he died, he wouldn’t be
able to reschedule the tweet and then
the tweet would go out. So when it went
out,
all these people noticed, but it started
garnering a massive amount of attention
online. And it turns out it set off a
series of people donating usually with
something like
uh here’s my donation go or my
condolences and go and things like that
in reference to this tweet. And they’re
saying 30 to 40,000 donations came in as
a result of this tweet. So it is tragic
that this young man died at a very early
age unfairly of a very rare cancer. Uh
he maintained a sense of humor about it
but it was inspirational enough to
people on the internet. The other meme
like this is the positive side of meme
culture. Other people got the meme, they
joined in on the meme. They got his
feelings right away and they said, you
know, this guy did this. I could donate
some money. And it set off this massive
donations and people want to say thank
you. And honestly, I wish I could do
something as positive with my life.
Bear attacks have been a massive issue
in Japan. Like way more so than I would
have thought. Like when they started
talking about bears coming down from the
mountains into the towns in northern
Japan, that’s a lot. Uh bears are scary.
I grew up in Canada. We learned how to
defend ourselves from bears in the very
realistic way of don’t get involved with
bears. Uh you when I used to walk my dog
in the forest, I used to have put a bell
on the dog and have a bell on me so the
bear would hear the bell and avoid you.
They’re telling kids when they walk home
from school, get a plastic water bottle
and like scrunch it as you walk. And
this is again, you grow up in different
places. I have a friend who grew up in
Florida and he learned about, you know,
being safe from gators. You run
serpentine because gators are very fast
in a straight line, but they’re very bad
at their turns. So basically they must
have like uh stock engine with uh they
haven’t lowered for the turning ratio. I
should have actually thought about that
joke and gotten some words right before
I started it. But there is the rhyme. If
it’s black, fight back. If it’s brown,
stand your ground. And if it’s white,
say good night. So if it’s black, fight
back. So black bears do what’s called a
false charge. So if you when they come
at you, if you kind of like go like
you’re about to fight them, they’ll
often just turn around and run away
saying like, “Oh man, I thought this was
going to be easy and it’s not easy.” If
they charge you and you run away,
they’re like, “Oh well, this worked
out.” So they’re actually just testing
to see if you’ll fight back. Brown bears
are uh stand your ground. So if it’s
brown, stand your ground. And so you
what you want to do is that’s when you
stand, you make yourself big, you make
lots of noise, and you try to scare away
the bear. Uh, basically the bear isn’t
scared of you, but it’s like, nah, that
thing’s way too much trouble to kill and
eat, so I’m just gonna go find something
easier to kill and eat because bears are
fundamentally lazy. I understand bears.
Like, I understand the need and the
desire of bears to want to do the
minimum amount of work because that’s
how I’ve lived my entire life. Uh, if
it’s white, say good night because a
polar bear will just kill you for fun.
Uh, they might not, but it’s completely
up to the polar bear. There’s nothing
you can do to stop it is basically the
idea.
So remember that rhyme. But the problem
is these bears are coming down from the
mountains. They’re hungry. In a previous
episode of Ninja News Japan, I actually
talked about something that I didn’t
know. Farmland used to be a barrier. So
it used to be mountains, sort of forest,
farmland, and then cities. But because
young people are abandoning farming as a
trade, they these there’s a lot of empty
farms. There is now no more cushion. So
the bears come down. There’s no farms.
There’s like emptyow fields. So they
just walk into the city. So there’s no
sort of barrier or transition zone to
keep the bears out of the cities. Now
there are not enough beach nuts.
Basically, apparently in Japan, all the
bears are eating nuts. And if there’s
not enough nuts from the trees and
around the area where they live, they
don’t have enough to get, you know, fat
for the winter. So they start coming
into the city. So this is the problem
that the the crop of nuts that they eat
wasn’t enough this year. So they’re
working their way downs in the city.
This is sounds funny until you realize
13 people have died this year in bear
encounters. Like there’s two 300 people
have been injured but there have been 13
deaths. So this is a very serious thing
like people are dying on a regular basis
whereas before like two years ago zero
there would have been zero bear deaths
in that year. The self-defense force has
offered logistical help because legally
the self-defense force is not allowed to
shoot bears. So this was an interesting
thing. It came up maybe last year, the
year before Ishiba, the previous prime
minister when he was a minister, brought
up the issue of whether you could employ
the self-defense force in Japan against
Godzilla. And it’s because you’re
allowed to employ the self-defense force
for an invading army. Uh, but Godzilla
isn’t an invading army. So, there’s a
couple of movies where Godzilla is
controlled by like aliens. That’s an
invading army. You could use the SDF in
that case. But if it’s just a natural
event, you’re not supposed to be able to
use the SDF. So you have to work your
way around that. So in this case,
they’re offering logistical help and
they don’t have weaponry that would
actually kill a bear. Like that all the
weapons they have designed for the
self-defense force in Japan are for
suppressing fire. So I’m sure it could
still kill you, but that’s not actually
the intent of the weapons that they tend
to carry. So you need the hunters to
kill the bears. and they’re trying to
put in this special emergency rule that
police can carry a gun that would allow
them to also kill bears because they
can’t use the SDF to do it. But the SDF
can come in and help lay traps. They can
do logistics. They can do it like lend
their intelligence to the locals while
they take care of it. Which is a very
interesting problem because they’re
doing this properly. It’s not like Trump
in America who’s just like, I’m going to
roll the National Guard into Portland
cuz I want to. In Japan, it actually
makes more sense. We have literally
people dying. We have literally uh
animals that need to be trapped and
relocated or shot and killed in the
worst case scenarios. They still won’t
do it because legally they’re not
supposed to be able to do that. Uh the U
the SDF can be used for defense
operations. So again, invasion from
another country. Uh public security,
which this is kind of public security,
disaster relief, and civil support. So
in this case, they’re actually offering
civil support. Uh GEU, a different
prefecture a little farther south. in
order to deter bears from entering GEU
have now employed drones that will fly
along the border the northern border of
Gefue and they are making dog barking
noises to scare away the bears. So that
is a interesting technological use of uh
to to try to deter them from coming here
which I find very interesting. Uh
they’re trying to stop the bears by
making it seem like there’s dogs around
but the problem is if you live in one of
those areas and a drone’s flying around
making barking noises all night that’s
problematic in itself. So, I don’t know
if it’s honestly the ideal solution, but
it is better. I don’t actually want the
bears to get shot. I would love if they
were trapped and relocated. I think that
is kind of the more humane way to do it
because they don’t want to come into
town and hurt people. They just like are
surprised, the person surprised, the
bear does what a bear does. It attacks
the thing when it’s surprised. One of
the issues that’s come up on the
internet because the internet is a
cesspool is people have been using AI to
make fake bear videos. So, they’ll have
a fake bear walk through a town and then
they’ll say and then they’ll post it
online going like, “There’s a bear in
this city right now.” And that’s
problematic because people in that city
will now panic. Uh there’s people making
baby bear videos where the bear comes up
and is super friendly, basically just
behaving like a dog, and they hug it and
they can pet it and stuff, but that’s
teaching people that it’s safe to
approach bears, which they don’t want to
do. So, the government’s actually going
to crack down on this version of AI. In
the last episode of Ninja News Japan, I
talked about Japan’s laws on deep fakes
and deep fake porn and stuff like that.
They haven’t actually caught up to the
reality of people making it. So, that’s
problematic. But this is a different
problem. This is a public security,
public health, public safety issue.
They’re going to need rules about that.
It turns out there is already a rule
though that if you do something that
encourages risky behavior or panic,
that’s already illegal in Japan and you
may face prosecution.
Uh, what I read this morning just before
I started Ninja News Japan was that
delivery drivers in northern areas of
Japan where there are bears are delaying
deliveries because they don’t want to
take the chance of running into a bear
by accident.
There’s a new drink in Japan called
water
tokosi which is special water,
functional water. The way it was
translated was functional water, but
when I looked it up, it actually just
said special water, which is a very
Japanese way of naming something. I
think it’s just special stuff. Uh, and
what’s special about this water? Well,
it has hoopas. Uh, h ma. And the idea is
for people who sit at their desks all
day, you get this sort of gut. I
actually have a little bit of one even
though I do exercise pretty regularly.
And it says that if a regular intake of
this kind of water with hoopas will I
guess the hompala loompas go into your
stomach. They redistribute the fat. So,
it doesn’t say this was a very
interesting sort of thing that I
noticed. It didn’t say it gets rid of
the fat or helps you process the fat
faster or something like that. It helps
redistribute the fat. So maybe you got a
little gut, but you’re actually thin
everywhere else, which is something that
happens to people. If it redistributes
that fat equally all over your body,
you’re actually going to look way better
overall. So I’m actually doing running
an experiment. So this month, the month
of November, I am drinking one Tokosi
bottle, which is 600 milliliters, 150
yen, every single day. They have done
testing and it says that if you drink
this regularly, now they don’t say what
regularly is. They don’t say how much it
is. So, I’m doing one bottle a day every
day, but it is supposed to redistribute
the fat around your body. Uh, it comes
from
it comes from a brand from rice included
in this water. I think it’s fermented.
And I It’s one of those things like in
Japan, everything comes from a fermented
bean. All the like health benefits
fermented beans. all this like magic
cures. Fermented beans. Like I’m going
bald. I could probably rub fermented
beans on my head and Japanese people
would say that’s going to make your hair
grow back. I don’t believe it. I don’t
think this is really going to do
anything. I made a mistake of I’m
dieting at the same time as I’m drinking
this water. So, I’m not 100% sure. Like
I could lose the fat in my front because
of the water or I could lo fat in the
front because I’m basically being more
careful about my diet. Again, I don’t
know if it’s going to work. Uh, if you
see me at the end of this month and I
look much more spelt or my clothes are
fitting a little better, maybe it’s the
Humpas, maybe the Humpa Lumpas have done
their job.
Nintendo, the owner of Pokemon, has been
suing Powell World for about 6 months
now. I think it might even be longer
than that. Uh, because Pow World
basically ripped off all the mechanics
of a Pokemon game. So, you want to go,
you collect a monster, use that monster
to fight and do stuff and build it up.
and they decided to make it a little
funnier. They have like depressed ones
and they have ones with weird special
abilities and the evolutions are very
odd. But what Nintendo is suing over is
the actual mechanics of how they capture
the Pokemon, the monsters in Powell
World. And that has been dealt a
significant blow because the Japan
patent office just rejected the monster
capture mechanic as not being original.
Now, there’s lots of games that use
catch this thing, use a capture system,
but they were trying to say this is our
system. We have the patent. We’re the
ones who invented it. Anyone else is
ripping us off. Now, here’s the thing.
If you go back to the beginning of
Pokemon, there were other games doing
the exact same thing, and they actually
copied them. So, nothing in Pokemon to
me is actually original. And that’s not
a terrible thing because obviously
Pokemon did it well. But when you start
suing someone else for ripping off the
thing that you ripped off, I actually am
like, “Hey, maybe you’ve overstepped a
little bit. Maybe you don’t really know
what you’re doing.” Uh, some of the
references to other games that are doing
something similar like the Monster
Capture, they said Monster Hunter, Ark,
Kenti Collection, Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go
is actually made by a different company
than Nintendo. So technically, Pokemon
Go would be guilty of ripping off the
systems that are used in Pokemon, which
is a very interesting problem to have
because if you successfully sue POW
World, you could then actually go after
Pokemon Go and successfully win. But
they’re saying because these are used
systems are used in other games, in
other systems, that it’s not really
original. It’s not your mechanic. Uh,
and that actually means they might not
win their lawsuit.
Super Senti series. Super Sententi
series. Super Sententi series has been
going for 50 years. So I’m 53 right now
as of recording of this podcast, which
means I was three years old when the
first uh Power Rangers is how you would
probably know it show was started in
Japan. And every year they swap out with
new characters, new people, a new team,
a new theme. Like my kid went through
the same process where he like fell in
love with the bug one. I actually really
wish it wasn’t the bug one. They had
bugs and trains and trucks and all these
other things that kids, little primarily
little boys is the target audience, but
things that they like and that gets
integrated into the suit and their
powers and whatnot. But the originals
were just like the real basic five
colors, the fivecolor team and they’re
all different people and they all have
different problems. Uh Jade has just put
in, damn, you’re as old as I was when I
had my first crush, the pink ranger. You
see, here’s the thing.
Being me who I am, I was into the yellow
ranger. And the yellow ranger when they
turned into the Japanese part was a suit
was actually a spelt young man which
gave me very confused feelings when I
was a teen in watching Power Rangers.
But I watched Power Rangers. I was
really too old for it. I just thought it
was really interesting that how they’d
cut a Japanese TV show into the American
actors. But Triny
had a thing for Triny. I had a
girlfriend at the time and she was a
little disturbed by that.
But it’s coming to an end next year
which is actually really sad. Any show
that lasts 50 years is kind of an
institution. Basically, everyone in
Japan has grown up with some version of
Power Rangers in their life, the Super
Senti. The sales of all the extra stuff
is waning, which is showing a lack of
interest in the series. And that’s
probably where they make all their
money. Like the show itself has always
been really cheap. And they actually
kind of never brought it up a level in
quality because
that’s how they made their money. They
made this cheap show and then they sold
all the stuff and all the stuff sold and
that made them all the money they made
to make more shows. That’s how it lasted
50 years. It was a solid plan. People
are buying less and less. The last
series is called number one sentuger
gauer. I don’t know how to say that.
It’s G O Z Yu G- Raziger. They always
choose really weird names. Sometimes
they come from like German or something
else. I’m probably saying this not
butchering it just in English,
butchering it in multiple versions of
the languages. Uh is going to finish
next year. It’s going to be the last
one, but I guess if you’re gonna end
your show, doing it on the 50-year mark
is pretty solid.
Heroins is a group of idol groups. So,
that’s already like an inception of idol
groups. So, you have heroins is made up
of smaller bands that probably come
together to be a super band every now
and then, much like our previous store
story Super Senti. Um, run by a company
called Imaginate. Now, Heroins Ken Qus,
I think that’s the name of the band. Uh,
there’s a 17-year-old member who has
been let go because of severe
contractual violations, but they didn’t
give any details. So, they went on
Twitter. They said, “Here we have this
17-year-old girl. Uh, we’re cutting her.
She’s she’s broken her contract.” Now,
they posted just this on Twitter. She’s
not going to be part of our band
anymore. Now, everyone’s trying to
figure out why is she getting fired.
Well, she’s getting fired because she
posted a picture of the snacks she had
when she was going to a movie. Now, in
the clear plastic cup cover of her Coke,
uh, you could see a reflection of a male
figure. And then fans immediately
deduced that that male figure must be
her boyfriend. She was going on a date.
You’re not supposed to go dating when
you’re in one of these idol bands.
You’re not supposed to have a
relationship or a life outside of the
band. You’re supposed to say stay
weirdly available for the fans to live
this fantasy like they could have you in
their life. and that’s all part of the
contract, but it isn’t because it was
made illegal. So, they’re not allowed to
say that anymore, but they are still
able to like find another reason to fire
you. So, they think because she was seen
in public with a boy, but again, the
fans are so creepy, they’re like zooming
in on the reflection of her cup to see
who she’s with, they fired her for that.
That’s the assumption. Now, we don’t
know if that’s actually true, but I’m
betting it’s actually true because once
it came out that she probably has a
boyfriend, 17-year-old girl meets a guy,
she’s going to go on dates with the guy.
I think that’s really normal for
17-year-old kids to do. I have no
problem with it. But I’m not a freaky
freaky idol fan. Freaky freaky idol fans
want to keep this idea that their idol
is pure and waiting for them in some
way, which is how you end up with these
really weird parasocial relationships
between the idols and the fans where
they’re not allowed to have a life
outside of the group. A lot of people
were like, they should have just lied
and said like it was her bodyguard, it
was her manager, it was her brother or
someone else because no one else
actually knows who this guy is. But I
saw the picture of the reflection. It
was really hard to see. So you couldn’t
make out who it was. So they could have
said, “Yeah, she went to a movie with
her brother. She went to a movie with
her manager and then just covered up
that way.” But they do have these rules
and they’re trying to say that these the
government’s saying like you can’t tell
people they’re not allowed to have
relationships anymore. You’re not
allowed to put that in the contract, but
they can still not put it in the
contract. tell them they can’t do it and
then if they do it, fire them, which is
what exactly seems to have happened to
this poor young woman who just wanted to
sing songs and have a life.
So, we have our new prime minister,
Takahuchi, and I am still really torn as
to whether I’m on board or not because
she said a lot of stuff that I disagree
with. She she doesn’t want to maintain
the work life balance that’s already
been established in Japan. She actually
wants to make it worse instead of making
it better, which I am very pro- work
life balance because I think the people
in Japan work unnecessarily long hours.
I don’t think they’re more productive. I
don’t think this is actually the
solution. And it again, baby problem,
all that other stuff goes into it as
well. I’ve said this a million times. I
don’t really want to say it anymore.
When she was on the campaign trail, she
said it she wanted to revise the public
servant renumeration law and cut cabinet
members salaries, including her own. And
one of her first things she’s going to
do is cut her own salary and then cut
the salaries of all the cabinet members
that work for her. And so she’s not your
So there’s lawmakers in Japan and then
there’s cabinet members and they
actually have different renumeration
package packages. Cabinet members often
get a lot of bonuses and extras because
you know they travel and they do extra
stuff. She’s saying cut all that out.
You get your pay and nothing else.
There’s no bonuses. There’s no benefits.
Lawmakers and cabinet members should
make the same amount of money including
herself. I have a lot of respect for
that. She’s actually made a promise.
She’s keeping the promise. And the
promise is technically hurting her and
the people who work for her, but that
means we’re spending less money,
taxpayer money, on the people who are in
power. I’m really on board with that.
So, I’m really torn. This might be a
case where this is like a real life
situation where she has good points and
bad points. I’m just hoping at the end
of the day she has more good points and
we get to see more of those later.
Uh DL site is a kind of spicy little
website that I’ve mentioned before. Uh I
mentioned before in a previous episode
when we were talking about Mastercard
and Visa trying to do what would be
called financial censorship. So
basically, if you run a website that
does uh specific documentaries about the
reproductive cycles of humans, uh you
would not be able to use credit cards,
Mastercard or Visa on your sites because
they’ll say like we don’t want to
promote that. Our advertisers don’t want
to be connected to that. So you can’t
use your card discard system unless you
get rid of all the porn. This site, DL
site, wanted to resist these censorship
efforts, which I okay, I think if you
want to look at it, you should be
allowed to look at it. It’s just that
simple. So, I don’t think there should
be a lot of censorship as long as
everyone involved is consenting. Like,
if they’re consenting adults, they want
to do it. They can do it. Uh, I don’t
agree with manipulation.
That’s a lot harder. It’s a much grayer
zone. So, they they have decided, okay,
we’re not going to use Visa Mastercard
because they want to censor us. So, what
we’re going to do is create our own
essentially internet coin that you can
use. So, you can buy credits and you can
use those credits towards actually
buying content on that website. They
have just come out with a Twitter clone.
So, it’s called Pomu and Pomu is
basically a Twitter feed and it’s a
friendly secret hangout for otaku. Now,
it’s not really secret because they just
advertised it, but they’re trying to
integrate like a social service, so a a
social website into their other
services. And of course, you can use
their coin on both. Now, this has been a
very friendly website to people who make
a certain kind of art. art depicting
maybe,
how can I say in the most gentle terms,
uh, the human form. It does have a nice
thing though, one feature. So, up in the
top right corner, it has a little
button, and it’s a little button where
you can toggle R18, which is restricted
to 18-year-olds and not. So, you can
basically have a safe for work and not
safe for work button, you can turn on
and off. Apparently, when you turn off
the not the safe for work button and
turn it on to not safe for work, the
feed changes dramatically. But again, if
that’s what you want to look at and
everyone’s consenting, I’m on board with
it. I think you should be allowed to do
that. Apparently, the website has
already been flooded with, and I put
this in quotation marks, art, and I’m
sure there is a lot of art. Uh, you can
register with a Vivian ID, which is part
of their alternate payment solution. Uh,
they’re creating a whole sort of corner
of the internet that isn’t ruled by
censorship, isn’t ruled by Visa,
Mastercard, or this financial
censorship. And while I probably won’t
spend a lot of time on that website, I
am all for it existing.
78-year-old man had an obsession with a
woman in her 20s.
And I I just I worry that I’m going to
be that 78-year-old man. I’m in my 50s.
I’ve held it together so far, but I’ve
done so many stories about men in their
mid50s who just lost their and just
started doing weird weird stuff. I’m
like, is it an inevitability? Am I going
to be that guy? Maybe I make it through
my 50s and it happens to me in my 60s,
but it looks like this dude in his 70s,
late 70s, exactly the same issue. He’s
known her for about two years, and he
says he developed feelings for her. He
was already arrested for breaking into
her home and stealing perfume. So, that
shows the weird level of obsession that
this guy already has. He had done this.
He’d been arrested for it. He got in
trouble for it, but he still had these
feelings for her. So, how does he
express his feelings? But let’s say
let’s say age gap isn’t the problem.
Let’s say that he does have a chance.
You have to show your sincere and honest
love for someone. What is the one thing
you can do that will generally have them
change their opinion about you, make you
think you’re a better person? He set her
car on fire. And then when he was
arrested, he said, “I’m dissatisfied
with being arrested.” Which is a very,
very entitled old Japanese man thing to
say. I have just set a woman’s car on
fire because I find her attractive and
she’s not returning my affection despite
the 50year age gap, which should be
enough to explain why she’s not as into
you as you think she should be. I mean,
let’s say I’m in a situation like that.
I look at someone way younger than me
and I find them attractive. I’d be like,
my first thought is they will not find
me attractive. They would have to come
with a sign that says, “Chunk beef
chest, I find you attractive.” and that
it’ be like,
“But are they telling the truth?” So
that self-doubt is actually a benefit
when you get into these older years
where you could be doing really weird,
dangerous stuff and just letting the
obsessive aspects of your life take
over. Because this guy, he’s 78, I’m
assuming retired, has a lot of free
time. He’s just sitting around
obsessing. And that’s where this has
gone wrong. Totally. But then when he
gets arrested to complain about the fact
he got arrested because he set a woman’s
car on fire. I’m dissatisfied with being
arrested. I think he should not be
allowed out anymore.
Two teens were arrested, 17 and 18 year
olds, for a fishing scam. Every episode
of the last like five, six months has
had a scam story involved in Engineers
Japan because it is just it’s taking
over the country. uh they found people
online and they would say, “I’m looking
for a companion to go to an idol
concert.” So, they’re targeting a very
specific group that has uh money to
spend on things like idol concerts.
Uh they said, “Let’s talk about how to
pay for the tickets. I’ll get the
tickets. Uh I’ll send you one yen on our
like uh payment system so you can get
like it’s a real address. It’s legit.”
And then you put the money in to this
fake website. and they put the money
into the fake website and that’s how it
collected their credit card information
and then the teens could take the credit
card information and then drain their
bank accounts from one account they
drained 500,000 yen. So the 17-year-old
would transfer the money from their
account to the other kid’s account
uh and they seem to have got this is not
a confirmed number but at least 13
million yen in total. So this was a very
very successful scam. The thing is
they’ve used a lot of AI tools to create
the website. So they created a website
that looks real. They’ve created used
the tools to make stuff that makes it so
that they can collect the information
and it’s made it very easy because they
can basically just go into AI. I bet
you’re not allowed to say I want to make
a fishing site, but you could say I want
to make a site that looks like this that
has this aspect and it just builds it
for you and then you just post it on the
internet and then now that it’s been
shut down, they can go make another one
in a few minutes because they have AI do
it for them. The 17-year-old is the
better criminal. I’ll be very honest. He
said, “I don’t remember the incident.”
So, he’s just saying, “I ignorance. I
don’t know. You have to do your job as a
police officer and prove the crime. I’m
not going to help you with that.” The
18-year-old, not as good a criminal. He
admitted fault right away.
85year-old man grabs another guy and
tries to stab him who’s 65 years old.
So, he’s the younger person in this
because he had been sent to take money
from him. Except that guy was actually
just going to work. So, the old dude,
86-y old, knocks over the 65year-old and
tries to stab him a couple times. So,
the guy ends up with his hand up. So, he
gets some minor defensive wounds. Uh, an
offduty cop happened to be jogging in
the morning doing his morning workout.
He saw this and intervened. Turns out
the guy had a kitchen knife in his right
hand as he was attacking the 65-year-old
and two more knives in his left hand.
So, he had again hit this weird paranoid
level. He he had hit this weird paranoia
just kind of like our previous old guy
story where he’s like all up in his head
and he’s now thinks that’s reality where
the reality is no one’s coming to take
your money but he is so locked in that
this guy’s coming to take my money he
brought three knives with him. I don’t
know how you’re holding two knives in
one hand like is it one blade out of
each one? Is it like just two so that if
you drop the hand that drop the knife
that in your in your dominant hand you
can just swap out really quick? He
clearly walked out of his house that
morning wanting to stab stab somebody
for something and then had this weird
paranoia. So the police arrested him.
He’s not made any comment other than he
thought that that man was sent to take
money from him. So like some kind of
fishing scam. But that guy was just
walking to work that day and he got
attacked by a knife. So luckily no one
was really hurt. He got again a couple
cuts on his hands and stuff, but nothing
that was like life-threatening or
particularly dangerous. He’s going to
heal from that just fine. No problem.
the mental trauma. I mean, you get
tackled by an 86 year old and you have
to fend him off because he has multiple
knives in his two hands. That is a scary
way uh to live. And be careful out there
of everyone, especially old Japanese
men.

Golden Crotch

Shoutout to Lone Listeners [00:00:16]

I don’t check the stats on this podcast very often because, honestly, you get obsessed with the numbers going up or down, and it makes you feel really happy or sad. But I was interested, I was just looking through the numbers and it was showing me where people are from. The ones I find most interesting, it’s when it’s like a single person from a place is listening. So you think of an entire country, and in that entire country, there’s one person who’s listening to Ninja News Japan. So if you are from Oslo and you are listening to this podcast, you are the only person in Oslo listening to Ninja News Japan. And I personally would like to say thank you, single person in Oslo, for listening to Ninja News Japan. Because that’s kind of cool. You’re there, I’m here, talking about Japan, having a good time. I love you. I don’t know what your feelings are about me, but if you want to let me know, that’s fine.

There is one person in Paraíba, Brazil who listens to Ninja News Japan. Now, last month they only listened to one episode, but that was enough. I mean, I got the one number from you and I’m like, hey, I don’t speak Portuguese, but if you’re listening to the podcast, I assume you speak English. If you don’t, this is a very weird sleep aid you have going on. But, drink one for me.

And the final one I wanted to reach out to, there are two people in Punjab who are listening to Ninja News Japan. And I would like to say, hey, I enjoy you and I hope you can continue to enjoy me. I hope I make my enjoyment possible for you. I don’t know what I’m saying right now. But what I really want to say is thank you, Oslo, Paraíba, and Punjab for taking the time to listen to the podcast. I think that’s really cool. If you’re in a country where there’s a whole bunch of people listening, meh. That’s such a mean thing to say. But it’s kind of neat. All I want to say is thank you for listening. It’s just one of those things where it’s places, cities, countries I haven’t thought about people listening to this podcast that are. It is the beauty of podcasting. The beauty of podcasting is you are sending out your message to the world and someone in Oslo is picking it up. Someone in Paraíba in Brazil is picking it up. Someone in Punjab is picking it up, and I think that’s kind of cool. I just want to take a moment and say, I would love for a single listener in every country. More than a mass of people listening in one place, I think it would be extra funny if it was just one person in every country listened. That’d still be like, what, there’s 300 countries, 300 listeners? Not bad.

Fukuoka Assembly Members’ Gold Pins [00:03:00]

Fukuoka assembly members used to wear 18-karat gold pins. Now, this is something that if you come to Japan, you’ll notice maybe that guys wear suits, and on the suits, they’ll have a lapel pin, a little usually circle, something like that. And it’s the company they work for. And those can be made of brass, but the high-level ones, expensive, rich companies, they make them out of gold. Well, assembly members in the government, they made theirs out of gold because they’re fancy people. You get them for being a lifetime employee, you get them for being on a certain contract type that says you’re dedicated to this. You get it for passing the bar exam and being a lawyer, that kind of stuff. Any sort of membership will have this kind of thing.

I’m going to be really honest, the first time I knew about them, I learned about them was actually after I’d come to Japan, and it wasn’t from living in Japan and seeing people wear them, it was from the Yakuza games. No, it was Judgment, Lost Judgment. That video game, they make a very special “I’m a lawyer” move where he like flips over his jacket and you can see the pin to prove that he’s a lawyer and not just a private investigator. And that was the first time I really like looked at them and tried to find out what they were. So I’d lived in the country for a long time, seen them before and just like, ah, it’s a pin you get for the company you work at, who cares? No, it’s kind of a bigger deal than that because it represents that you are dedicated to that company in some way.

Gold has hit an all-time high, not just in Japan, everywhere. So in 2018, a single gold badge, this little pin that you put on your lapel, 32,400 yen. That is way too much money for a pin. Like I’m just going to be really honest, like you could make it out of a way cheaper material, it would look just as good. In 2022, because the price of gold had gone up, and 2022 was the last time they made them, it was 66,000 yen per badge. That’s a PlayStation. So they’re wearing a PlayStation in just that little pin on their chest, which is really dumb. The next time they have to make the pin is going to be two years from now. The assumption is the price of gold is going to go up between now and then, which will make it even more expensive. How many pins do you have to actually make? You have to make one for every member and old members and things like that, like people who are still connected to it, maybe alumni, that kind of thing. That means the pins are going to cost 30 million yen total. So you’re not buying, it’s not like 66,000 yen is one pin, that’s one pin per person and there’s lots of people who are in the assembly. So 30 million yen, and they’re like, we’ve now hit a point where we can’t make them solid gold, that doesn’t make sense. So we’re going to go from solid gold to plated gold and it will bring the price from 30 million yen down to 2 million yen, which is very sensible. This is actually responsible government. This is guys going like, yeah, we’re big fancy people who do a big fancy job, but at the end of the day, we’re using taxpayer money to pay for these little badges. These little badges, they don’t need to be pure gold. They can be plated, they could be gold-coated of some sort. 30 million yen is silly, let’s bring that down to 2 million yen. It’s a way sensible thing. It shows that there are actually some sensible politicians out there.

Japan vs. OpenAI [00:06:10]

Japan versus OpenAI. Now, this has happened already because it had OpenAI had that whole trend basically last year where it was like, you put in a picture and our AI will turn it into Ghibli-style art. Ghibli-style art, the style cannot really be copyrighted so clearly. So you can copyright an art style, and so Ghibli has basically done that since then, which is probably why that trend went away. But, Japan versus OpenAI. Now last year, there was a big trend of you take your picture and you put it in OpenAI and it will change it into Ghibli-style art. Now that Ghibli-style art, that art style is technically copyrighted, but it’s very hard to prove because it’s hard to copyright a style. You can copyright characters, you can copyright images, you can copyright, you know, I have done copyright on this thing, but style becomes a much harder thing to copyright. So that’s kind of where this was a little in a legal gray zone.

The Japanese government’s been like, no, you guys are going too far because what you’re actually doing is taking away from Japan. Japan’s art, this is a piece of Japan that you’re ripping off. So they’re talking about mainly manga and anime, and they don’t want OpenAI to be able to replicate manga and anime. Sam Altman has said that OpenAI has a huge debt to the remarkable creative output of Japan. So basically saying that, oh, we took all the stuff Japan made, we stole all that, put it in our AI, and now we’re able to replicate all that stuff. We owe them a huge debt, one we have no intention of paying. Like we’re not giving anybody any money from that country that produced all the stuff that we can make really cool stuff with now. The Liberal Democratic Party has said that this is a serious legal and political problem, as in they as a country are now going to go after OpenAI if they keep doing this. Article 16 of the AI Promotion Act says they can demand disclosure of Sora 2 specifications. So basically they’re saying, if you keep ripping off our artwork, we’re going to force you to let us look at the specifications, the internal workings of your AI, and then we can rip that off. So basically, you rip us off, we’re going to politically force you to let us rip you off, and then what happens? What’s going on, buddy? And I actually think that’s a very interesting tactic to take. We’re not going to sue you for money, we’re going to sue you for your technology and then have access to your technology, and then Japan will be able to make a technology that will maybe outdo OpenAI or something else. But OpenAI wants to be the one and only, and they can’t be that if they get sued by Japan the country, and then Japan the country’s like, you now have to, if you want to function within our borders, let us look at your specifications.

Japan’s New Prime Minister on Work-Life Balance [00:09:20]

Japan recently got a new prime minister, and it’s a lady-type prime minister. Woo! Now, at first, I was kind of excited about having a female prime minister, and then I realized like she is way more conservative than most other people. So I actually think that our new lady prime minister might be bad for ladies. It’s a very interesting predicament to be in because I want to support women, but I want to support women who support women, not women who will end up oppressing other women. It’s a weird spot because I don’t know enough about her politics. I only know the most shallow version that I get from the news. And this is an interesting thing that I know that the new prime minister, Takaichi, is very conservative. And one of the first things she said is, “I will throw away the phrase ‘work-life balance.'” And then immediately said, “We should relax limits on overtime.” So right now, the limit on overtime legally is 45 hours a month or 360 hours a year. There’s a cap. And she’s like, let’s remove that cap. And she said, “On the premise of maintaining physical and mental health and respecting employee choice.” As in, employees should decide if they want to ruin their mental health. Employees should decide if they want to work themselves to death. And the thing is, this is a country that is already working itself to death. And I don’t think there’s the benefit from it. So like, people in Japan work massive amounts of hours. People in Japan work themselves to death, but they don’t actually produce the wealth that they claim to be producing. Japan as an economy has not been growing, and obviously this amount of work hasn’t been doing it. And then you have the baby population issue with a declining population and not making enough babies. And I think, as a non-expert, that that is directly correlated to the fact that people work themselves to death.

When she said, “I will throw away the phrase ‘work-life balance,'” I don’t think she meant for the country. I think she was trying to say like, I am going to work so hard for the country that I am not going to consider work-life balance a thing. I am only going to work. I’m going to work the LDP like a workhorse, is one of the phrases she said. The next day, with a big smile, she says, “I encourage everyone to have value, a work-life balance.” So, I think there is sort of a misinterpretation. So she was saying, “I’m going to work my team to death to try to make this a better country.” But she wasn’t saying that for the whole country, but then she turned around and said, “I want to have a proposition that we remove the cap we’ve already put on work-life balance.” So it’s very unclear what she actually means. I think what she’s saying is, yes, I’m a conservative politician, I want companies to exploit the worker. This is what a lot of politicians think, and I think we should be honest about it. And that’s her premise and that’s her platform, and if you support that, okay. I don’t support that. I actually think there should be caps on how much people work because people work themselves to death and that creates all the problems that you have in the modern Japanese society. But, she didn’t, when she made the statement, “I’m going to throw away the phrase ‘work-life balance,'” I don’t think she actually meant everybody. I think she meant for herself. I think she was saying, “I’m going to work super hard.” And this is one of the problems with the misinterpretations and back and forth of modern media and one of the problems you should be aware of it. So when you read stuff about politicians and what politicians say, you need the context of what they’re talking about. But then also look at their policies, and her policies actually support the negative thing she just said. So where are we now? I still don’t know. I pretty much don’t like her, let’s put it that way.

Sexual Harassment Case Involving “-chan” Honorific [00:12:46]

That said, I don’t really like any politician most of the time. This is a story that just hit my feed over and over and over again. And it was a company employee harassed a younger coworker by using the honorific “-chan.” So, I think you know if you’re into Japan in any way, you know about, you know, “Ah, Mariko-chan,” and it’s a nice way to talk to a girl. And it’s usually young girls. So when you have kids, you have “-chan” is girls, “-kun” is boys. So I would be Chunk of Beef Chest-kun, and then my the girl my age, I could refer to as “-chan.” As the children, it’s all very innocent. Now, when you start dating, you often refer to your partner as “-chan.” So I have my girlfriend, and I would go, “Girlfriend-chan,” and she would be like, “Oh, he’s using this like cutesy way of talking to me, and that’s really nice.” It can happen from older people to younger people, but it takes on a slightly creepier feeling because you’ve, you’re not talking adult to child anymore or superior to like a lower, inferior person. You are talking to someone who is fundamentally an equal because you’re both working at the same company and you’re both like adults who are working. But it’s because you go through that phase in your teens and 20s and 30s where you refer to your sexual partners as something-chan, that is the issue because it changes the tone of that word.

The feed said that this guy got sued for using this and this was sexual harassment. Now, that alone legally is not enough to constitute sexual harassment. Now, because of what I just said, it can have a sexual tone, it cannot have a sexual tone. So his defense would be like, “I meant it in an innocent way. I wasn’t saying anything else. I was trying to be familiar. I apologize,” end of story. Now that’s, of course, you need the more details. So there’s a great website called Bengo4.com. Bengo4 means lawyer, and it’s lawyers talk about political issues. I’ve actually only been able to get into this website recently and actually find some of the details. They were talking about this. What makes this sexual harassment? Sued for sexual harassment because he referred to girl plus “-chan” is a great headline because that’s going to catch a lot of attention. But it’s of course not, that by itself is not enough. So what else did he say to constitute this being sexual harassment? Well, he said, “You have such a great figure, while I’m so skinny.” So, commenting on someone’s physical appearance in that way is, could be constituted sexual harassment because it depends on how it makes the other person feel. You might think you’re complimenting someone and they are made uncomfortable by it, that is sexual harassment. That’s actually pretty clear-cut. He also said, “I can see your underwear.” Now, we don’t know how what he meant by this, like you’re wearing white clothes and black underwear, I can see your underwear through your clothes. I can see the outline of your underwear, your unsightly panty lines, that kind of stuff. How this is said is also could be or could not be sexual harassment. Like, “I can see your underwear” might be actually like, “Hey, just to let you know, I can see your underwear, maybe you want to be more careful next time.” That could be good advice or helpful. But I think combination “-chan” plus “your figure” plus “I can see your underwear” is clearly a pattern of sexual harassment. So that sets up the pattern, that makes it sexual harassment, that’s what makes him guilty.

The woman wanted to sue him for 5.5 million yen, which is a lot of money. She got 220,000 yen. So basically, again, the lawsuits in Japan are not like the lawsuits in America where lawsuits in America, they try to take you for millions and millions of dollars and you’ll get millions and millions of dollars for like all the mental anguish you’ve suffered. In Japan, it’s punitive, but to a degree that is reasonable. It’s punishment for the thing and no more. She went into a depression, she quit her job, she sued the guy. The guy had not touched her or anything, so it was only verbal, but he was the cause of the source of this pain. So he said, so the judge granted 220,000 yen. Now, the company did not stop him from saying this. So the company also got sued and they got, they had to pay 700,000 yen for not creating a safe workspace. So that’s another interesting thing that the company actually got punished more than the actual individual who was doing the sexual harassing because the company is responsible for stopping the man, punishing the man, telling the man not to do this anymore. If she had reported to it, I assume she had said something to someone, otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten any money. If she had just kept this quiet, she could have sued the guy, maybe got some money, but again, you can see, not very much. But she must have reported it to a company and that the company didn’t do anything about it, so she got more money from the company.

Smuggling Gold in Underwear [00:17:30]

A former Osaka police, we got two stories about cops who should have known to stop while they were ahead. A former Osaka police officer impersonated a Kyoto police officer for a very classic scam where they call up someone, usually an older person, in this case it was a man in his 70s, and they said, “Your cards, like your debit cards, your cards that you’re using for your credit cards, have been used in fraudulent withdrawals. We are going to send a police officer to your house. He’s going to get your cards and he’s going to cut them, cut the magnetic strip so they can’t be used anymore.” So this guy pretended to be a Kyoto police officer. He knows the how you’re supposed to talk, how you’re supposed to act because he used to be an Osaka police officer. So actually, you think he’d be really good at this scam. But he made a point of saying, “I’m going to cut your cards, cut the magnetic strips so they can’t be used anymore.” And then he cut the cards in front of the 70-year-old man, but he didn’t cut the magnetic strips. And I was like, ah, he shouldn’t have drawn attention to it. He should have just said, “I’m going to cut your cards so they can’t be used anymore,” cut them and then not cut the strips. But because he drew attention to it and then didn’t do it, the 70-year-old man was like, “There’s something suspicious about this.” He called the police, found out that this guy does not work for the Kyoto police, and then the man was arrested. Now, he is a police, a former police officer, so he knows what you, I’ve complained many times about criminals in Japan who just come out and say like, “Yeah, I did it and I did this and I did all that.” You’re not being a good criminal then. You have to keep your mouth shut. So, when asked for a statement, this former Osaka police officer said, “I’ll think carefully before I speak.” Chef’s kiss, that is the perfect response. I’m not talking to the cops because I know you don’t talk to the cops. Doesn’t matter what country you’re in, do not talk to the cops. I don’t care if you’re innocent or guilty, they’re trying to pin something on you, do not help them do that.

Connected to this, an ex-Tokyo cop, his job was inspecting fire investigations. So there’s a fire, he goes there, he looks around the building, he tries to figure out, was this arson? Was this for insurance fraud? Or was this just an actual accidental fire? And he going around the house, he stole cash. Now, he did this while he was on the job. He did it eight times and he got 9 million yen because again, lots of older people in Japan, they still keep cash. Now, this is the opposite of our previous cop where our previous cop said, “I’ll think carefully before I speak.” This guy, once he was caught, decided he was just going to spill the beans everywhere. He said, “I was worried about money, and when the money appeared in front of me, I was tempted and thought, ‘If only I had the money.'” So basically, he’s going around a burnt house, he’s finding where these probably older people are keeping cash in a box, in drawers and stuff. He’s checking all the things. He’s like, “That’s a lot of money. I know someone who could use money. This guy.” And then they’re going to think the money’s been burned up in the fire, they’re going to get the insurance, they get their money back. Victimless crime, who gets hurt? Well, you do when you get arrested for stealing money. He said, “There’s a saying that goes, ‘The net of heaven is wide and loose, but nothing escapes it.’ I knew that if I kept doing this, I’d be found out someday.” Which actually is true because he kept doing it and then he was found out. But he wasn’t found out for any of those massive sums of money that he must have been stealing from houses because to get eight times and 9 million yen means like for a couple times, he was getting more than a million yen per theft. Like I don’t remember how much a million yen is in actual money, but it’s like a big sum of money. The thing is, a firefighter saw him take 1,000 yen from a pouch. We’re talking like $7 and put it in his pocket. So during the investigation, he was walking around, there was a little pouch of money, there was 1,000 yen in it, he pulled the 1,000 yen out, he put it in his pocket, a firefighter saw him and reported him for that, and that led to the investigation that got him caught for this other 9 million yen. I mean, guy, you just got to, I mean, why even go for the 1,000 yen? It’s not worth it. It’s not worth stealing 1,000 yen to get caught when you’ve already taken 9 million yen and you were home free. You just had to stop. And this is the problem with every criminal across the board, you have to know when to stop.

Smuggling Gold in Underwear [00:21:48]

As far as knowing when to stop, this is interesting. Four people were arrested for trying to smuggle 8 kg of gold, which I just said recently hit an incredible high. So that’s actually our first story was how about they’re not using gold in these little badges anymore. 8 kg of gold is worth 98.7 million yen, and they were trying to get it from Hong Kong to Japan. I think the market for selling in Japan might be better, which is trying to smuggle it in. Like you think you would, the value of gold is pretty universal, so selling it in Hong Kong makes a lot of sense. So it must be a reason to actually bring it in. It’s 8 kg, so each person had to bring 2 kg of gold. And I’m like, wow, like a 2 kg bar is probably not that big, but it’s going to be very hard to hide on your body. But what they did is they had powdered gold, so it was gold powder, and they had sewn it and filled in their underwear. So they were wearing 2 kg of gold in their underwear that they were then trying to go through security with and stuff and walk naturally. And I would just, I now want to get myself, not gold, but a pair of 2 kg underwear and see like, how do I walk that day? Is it distributed evenly? Like 2 kg is not a lot, but it’s also right around your groin area wearing as underwear is a lot. This one guy recruited three women, said they were going to get so much money and he was going to pay for tickets and stuff. They all got caught. We have a beautiful picture of the 4 kg of powdered gold, which I now know has been in underwear and around someone’s crotch, which actually makes it kind of gross, piled up and a display on a table that the police, they do this after they catch anyone with anything, they put out like a nice little display. There’s the guy who lays things out, that’s his job. But honestly, I kind of grossed out now knowing that was crotch gold.

“Stealerium” Malware [00:23:34]

You could not have a more on-the-nose name for malware than Stealerium. So, steal-er-ium. This is a thing that used to be a scam, it was like a phishing scam. You’d get an email, I got a couple of these, and it was, “Hey,” and it would have like your username or something that’s taken off some website, maybe get your real name from your email or something, and go, “I have hacked your computer and I turned on your camera while you were masturbating and looking at porn, and I have a video of you, and if you don’t want that video released, you have to get Bitcoin and send it to me or I’ll release the video.” The funny part was, if you got a video of me masturbating to porn and posted it on the internet, I would be like, okay, go ahead. Like no one cares. No one wants to see it. No one wants to see this in action. You’re not going to get any money from me. You’re not going to get any money from anyone else. You’re going to, I would actually probably tell everyone, “Hey, there’s a video of me.” This guy got a video of me and thought he was going to threaten me and put it on the internet. Everyone go look at it and maybe I could get some like internet clout out of it. You can watch the Ninja News Japan guy jerking it to weird porn. Like that wasn’t a threat to me. So you have to like have the right audience. But of course, it’s just like that was just inserting your name into an email and mass emailing millions of people hoping to get some response.

Stealerium is malware that does that actual thing. So it comes in an email with an attachment, and if you open the attachment, it can actually install malware on your computer that can turn on your camera and give the other person control as to when it turns on. When you go to an adult website, it logs your login information, which probably includes your credit card, which is what they probably really want more than anything else is your credit card information. But it can turn on the camera while you’re looking at the stuff and probably screen capture that stuff and send it back. So this thing that used to be just a phishing scam has now turned into, like inspired someone to make real malware that actually does the thing that they were threatening to do in the first place. All you have to do though is not open any attachments and you’ll actually be safe from it. But this is a real thing that’s happened that actually came from a story. So be careful on the internet.

AI Deepfake Pornography Arrest [00:25:48]

A 31-year-old company employee has been arrested for creating deepfakes porn with AI using famous women as sort of the base image. He’s been publishing them online. So he’s made 20,000 images of 262 different celebrities, and you could subscribe to his channel. I they didn’t actually say what channel it was on, like was it an OnlyFans or some Japanese version of that or just some porn site. But you could subscribe to him between $1 a month and $100 a month, and he would accept requests, I think at the higher tiers, for custom jobs. So, I don’t know if he was good at this. I didn’t actually get to see any of the porn. I’m not particularly interested if I’m being really honest. But the problem is, AI deepfake pornography is new technology, so there’s no laws actually on the books. So if he had actually followed Japanese laws and actually maybe, I don’t know about copyright laws with using someone’s image, if he had actually stuck to that, because there’s revenge porn laws, but this isn’t technically revenge porn, so he’s outside of that. He might be getting copyright issues for using a famous person’s face, but it’s very hard for a famous person to copyright their image. If an image is out on the internet and it’s like distributed everywhere and then you use it for something, it’s actually very hard for them to catch it and sue you for it. And then the actual deepfake, the porn part, if he’d followed Japanese laws, he’d actually might be safe there. But he was doing full nudity in his AI porn, which is illegal in Japan. So he’s not getting caught for the AI part, he’s not getting arrested for the deepfake part yet, because they’re actually working on laws on that right now. He’s getting arrested for making illegal porn in Japan. And then producing it and distributing it are all other laws and other rules as well. That’s all going to be a whole other thing.

But this is not a professional guy, he’s not like a tech guy. They arrested him and found out that he basically used tutorials online to get the images and put them into the AI and use the prompts and what prompts you should use to actually make the AI porn. And then he was actually making money online. He made 1.2 million yen. They didn’t really say over what period of time, but he was trying to start a business. So this might have just been the initial launch, this might have been just the first bunch. But 1.2 million yen just out of nowhere for having AI tools do a whole bunch of stuff for you, that’s free money as far as he was concerned. This has pushed up a lot of the attention for AI in Japan. This has pushed up a lot of what do we have to make rules about, what do we have to make laws about? There’s going to have to be protecting people from deepfakes. It’s going to be protecting people from having their image used in pornography. It’s going to have to be the pornography that’s produced, is that acceptable using AI? That kind of stuff. This is all stuff that’s hitting Japan now. If you remember Johnny Somali, he’s actually in trouble in Korea because they already have deepfake rules on the books. So he’s actually getting in trouble for creating a deepfake of him kissing another streamer that didn’t actually happen and distributing that on the internet. And that’s actually a big problem. That could be seven years in prison in Korea. In Japan, it’s a little bit behind, but now this kind of case, bring it to light, 262 famous people are on the other side, they’re going to have lawyers, they’re going to go after this guy. Those laws are going to come into place really soon. I’ll be really interested to see what kind of rules, punishments they make for AI deepfakes going forward in the future. You should do the opposite of what I’m doing right now and not put your face out on the internet. But I mean, again, sort of like the previous story, no one’s going to want to see this do that thing, so I think we’re okay if you’re an old dude on the internet, you’re safe from deepfake porn.

Assurances

New computer with a new OS. Have to figure out another way to get the subtitles.

Confession Heavy Episode

I think I have 13 stories,
but I’ve incorrectly

used the numbering
system of how numbers work.

Which is a terrible
embarrassment that I didn’t

have to tell anybody,
but one thing we are, an

engineered to pan, is open and
honest and kind and sarcastic.

In Ikeda, Osaka, there is a Tori
gate and it’s called the Sky Tori.

It’s Tori gate, Sky Tori,
or whatever, anyways,

it’s one of those
very classic red gates,

I think this one’s actually
gray, but you know what I mean?

If I say the red gate,
it’s got the two pillars

and then it’s got a couple of slats
across the top, very iconic Japanese thing.

If you come to Japan, it’s great to get
a picture of everyone about a year ago.

A young person came
over from another country,

sort of doing chin ups
on one, doing a little

show off for their Instagram,
gotten a lot of trouble.

That of course does
not dissuade other people

from doing the exact
same thing, a pair

arrived by taxi, they hung
around the gate, so they were

clearly at that point thinking
like, should we do this?

I guess one got brave
enough, the other one

got his camera out,
guy jumps up, blasts out

some chin ups, because
that’s what you do at

any sort of religious
site is just show off

your physical prowess,
that’s what religion’s

all about showing off
your religious, showing

off your religious
prowess, showing off your

physical prowess, it’s going to be
the whole day today I can tell already.

The thing is in this
case, another tourist

filmed these tourists
blasting out their chin ups

on the tortoise gate,
went to the police

and reported them, so
Japan now has had this

problem where there’s
too much tourism, tourists

are causing a lot of
problems and there’s

a lot of complaining
about tourists, but now you

have tourists who are
very respectful of Japan

who loved Japan so
much, they are going to

start ratting out the
other tourists, this is an

interesting like, or a
borealis, or a borealis,

this is why you write a script, so you
don’t try to say words you only vaguely know

in the moment, I
think I’m smart, but not

as smart as I think I am, that might be the
problem, because I keep trying to say stuff

that’s above my own capabilities,
anyways, this is tourists eating.

Self-policing other tourists, that could be
an interesting new future for Japan, where

the Japanese people
don’t even have to get

involved, the tourists start like lambasting
the other tourists, but of course, the

problem is over tourism,
so there’s too many

tourists around, so
you’re going to get some

bad ones and some good ones, I
think that’s a pretty much unexpected.

Then we have Kelton G, he’s a kick streamer,
and as soon as I say kick streamer now,

that already
encompasses a lot of like

preconceptions, kick
streamers are the trouble

streamers, they’re the
streamers who cause

problems, because if you
do this stuff on Twitch,

you get kicked off,
you do this stuff on

YouTube, you get kicked
off, you do this stuff

on kick, you may get kicked off, but it is
less likely, so they cause more problems.

Now this was very
interesting, he was sitting

in a priority seat on a train, now these
are priority seats are reserved for older

people, people with
injuries, pregnant women,

you know, people
who need to sit down, I,

interestingly enough,
I’m almost always injured,

so I should get the
priority seat all the

time, but if you looked
at me, you would never

know I was injured, so I understand
why no one would get up and stand for me.

But honestly, if no
one’s sitting in the seats,

if no one’s standing up, there’s actually
no problem sitting in the priority seats,

it’s just the expectation
is if someone gets

on the train who needs more to sit down
than you do, you should let them sit down.

An old man, so
there’s a clip that went

around the internet, it
was an old man coming

up to him and sort
of stick in his finger

in the guy’s face, this
streamer’s face, and

then the streamer gets
up and he pushes him

away, and then he
pushes him again, now this

is interesting because
he claims self defense,

he actually ended
up going to the police

starting to the police and he didn’t get
in trouble which would sort of explain that

maybe he was right, but the clip we saw
was old man pokes him once, guy gets up and

pushes him twice,
which would seem sort of

like an overreaction
considering what happened.

So it’s interesting
because I live in Japan,

I’ve been on trains
with Japanese people,

little Japanese men
are annoying as shit, so

it turns out this wasn’t
the clip that we saw

on the internet wasn’t
the whole situation of

course, I mean the
guy’s probably streaming

for hours at a time, now he was maybe being
loud or being annoying because he had his

stream up while he was on the train, which
a lot of Japanese people think that’s, you

know, impolite, it’s not illegal, so I mean
that’s actually sort of the thing you have

to deal with, there’s
a difference between I

don’t like it and it’s
illegal to do or it’s

prohibited and you shouldn’t do it, there
are big differences there, old Japanese

men think anything I
don’t like, you should

not be allowed to do
and I should be allowed to

walk up and sort of,
in your face basically.

So what happened is
this old dude comes up

to him three times, so
he comes up and talks

to him, goes and sits
down again, comes back

and talks to him again,
doesn’t get the reaction

he wants, goes back
and sits down, comes up a

third time and then he
starts getting physically

aggressive, starts sticking his finger in
his face and then pokes him in the face.

This product of reaction,
so clearly the guy,

the old man was not
going to back down, but

this young guy gets
up and he pushes him,

and he pushes him pretty
hard and the old man

goes back and he goes to the second
his chair, he then pushes him from behind.

Now I think the second push is where he
crosses the line, the first push, I actually

am on board with, he
touched you first, you’re

just saying get away
from me, but then when

the guy’s backing off, now you’re in this
sort of gray zone where it’s like, no, this

is not okay, you shouldn’t
be doing this anymore.

I was on a bus and an
old man and I had a DS or

something, I was a game
system and his old man.

I didn’t speak very good
Japanese yet and so

he started pointing
at it and then pointing

at me and doing the X, now in Japan, the X
is the universal symbol for no, they don’t

realize that not every country uses it that
way, so they’ll walk up and go, and you

don’t really know what
they’re saying unless

you’re imbued in the culture enough
to actually know what that means.

So he thought I had a cell phone and he was
trying to tell me that you’re not allowed

to use your cell phones on the bus or in
public or on the train, which of course you

actually are, it’s just sort of maybe rude,
it’s impolite, but I think really when they

say don’t use your cell phone,
most people are saying don’t

speak loudly on the phone in a
public setting, so on the trains.

So I can understand someone
kind of getting upset for that.

If I am silently using a PlayStation, a DS,
I’m silently using my phone to play a game.

I don’t see how anyone
could rightly complain

about that, old Japanese
men will and they

have no problem getting in your
face about it because they have

no problem, they don’t think
there’s going to be any consequences.

I’m an old Japanese man, the
world is designed for my satisfaction.

I can do whatever I want.

This is kind of how these old guys think.

And then as soon as there’s any pushback,
they just have no idea what to do.

So I’m not saying go
around pushing old men,

but stand up and look them straight
in the face and be like just go away.

I bet that has an impact.

The streamer, again,
he went to the police and

the police didn’t charge
them with anything

and they let them go,
so I’m thinking I have

to always kind of end
up being on the police

aside because they actually know
what kind of things they’re making.

I also know what it is
to deal with a Japanese

man, an old Japanese
man who just decides

that he’s going to make you
the target of his afternoon.

Think?

Yeah, I think the push is too much.

This is a personal opinion.

The push is too much, but a
stand up, face him and just tell

him to like say something in
English, tell him to go away.

If you speak Japanese, tell him to
go away in Japanese, that is all fine.

It’s perfectly deserved.

And if you end up in that situation,
something you should think about.

It’s a word that I took
years to learn how to say.

It’s actually funny because
it’s in the commercials.

It’s a food company.

They make food stuffs.

They have a home delivery
meal, so almost every

big company, you know,
it’s like a package meal.

They send it to your house.

They get all the time.

They decided, you know
what we’re going to do?

We’re going to give these meal prep things,
these pre-packaged foods to influencers.

They can eat it.

And they like it.

They can talk about it.

This is called stealth marketing.

Now it’s because it’s not
sponsored marketing now.

If you go on most like
Instagram, they have to

say if the post is being
sponsored by a company.

If I give you a product
for free and you

use it and you talk
about that product, that

is technically a
sponsorship because you’ve

gotten something for the
service of making a post.

These guys, at Genomoto,
was trying to say

like, we didn’t tell them
to review our foods.

We didn’t tell them to do anything
with the food we gave them.

We just innocently gave them the food.

They just happened to
have a million followers on X.

They happened to have a
million followers on Instagram.

And if they happen to talk about
our food, well that’s just a quinky dink.

That is not legal in Japan.

So if you do not disclose a sponsorship,
so you’ll notice that when you listen to an

engine in Japan, I never disclose a
sponsorship because I am not sponsored.

Which is why I get to say
whatever I want though.

But should you want to sponsor me Doritos,
I would be willing to take Doritos money.

Because I could tell
you without a shadow of

doubt, I’d be more than
happy to promote Doritos.

It’s the only American thing
that I actually would buy.

So I’m Canadian and the sort of
ban on Canadian American products.

I’ve actually joined on that.

Now for me, the biggest change
in my life has been very small.

I no longer buy under armor sports clothes.

So I basically, I had all under armor
sports clothes for my workout routine.

And when I had like
rash guards for judo and

stuff, it was all under armor,
I had under armor slides.

Now I’m not dumb.

I didn’t throw them away because
they already got that money.

So there’s no going back in time.

But I no longer buy under armor goods.

I had to buy some workout clothes.

I bought Mizuno, which
is a Japanese company.

I’m like, I’m in Japan.

I’m going to buy a Japanese company.

And they had stuff to fit.

So I am now head to toe
dressed in Mizuno when

I’m actually buying my
sports clothes from now on.

Even my moral principles
will be pushed aside

for Doritos because
Doritos, okay, a rum and

coke into ritos is
like my dream evening.

The best night in the
world for me would be

pizza for dinner, rum
and coke with the pizza.

And then maybe a
couple hours later Doritos

because it’s almost
like not pizza, but it’s

got like the same, it’s
the same flavor profiles

pizza, but it’s also
now crunchy and crispy

and you’re having, um, man, see,
now I’m going to go and buy Doritos.

So I do enjoy, uh,
when people take moral

stances because it’s always
funny how mutable morality is.

And I, you know, like to think
of myself, I’m a moral person.

I have more, I don’t depends on
the situation, depends on the time.

And that’s phase that I
haven’t given up Doritos yet.

So this law that’s
actually being broken by

stealth marketing is the
act against unjustifiable

premiums and
misleading representation.

So it’s the misleading representation.

So it’s like this influencer
gets this meal prep thing, eats

the meal prep and talks to their
audience about how good it is.

It’s misleading that that isn’t
sponsored is what the actual problem is.

The company deleted
questionable posts, uh,

and is totally now
complicit and will remain

complicit far into the
future is what they’re saying.

They got caught.

They’re going to not
do it for a little while

and then try again later, which is a
pretty normal business thing to do.

It was all over, uh, all the
news feeds for the last month.

And I didn’t really
want to talk about it too.

There’s a city in Japan
that passed an ordinance

that you cannot use
yourself full and for

more than two hours a day
for entertainment purposes.

So if you’re using it
for work, you can use it

if you’re using it for
research, you can use it.

Uh, but the city ordinance
was there is a limit of

two hours a day for
entertainment on your cell phone.

Now, this ordinance
came with no punishment.

This ordinance came with no enforcement.

So a lot of people are
saying like it’s useless.

Why would you even do it?

And a lot of people
were saying like the

government shouldn’t be telling
me how long I can use my cell phone.

The government
shouldn’t be telling me how

I could do spend my
time in my private life.

There was a surprising
amount of push back

because this is again, the government is
actually telling you how to live your life.

Uh, it’s officially a starts from
tomorrow, October 1st tomorrow.

This city in Japan will
not allow you to use

your cell phone for more
than two hours a day,

especially children
and it has for children

and they actually have like before
nine o’clock or before us other times.

And the mayor who
actually introduced this was

saying, uh, the reason
isn’t actually to enforce it.

The reason isn’t
actually to get people to

stop using their cell
phones because they’re

not going to spend
any money enforcing it.

The idea was to get people to think
about how much they use their cell phone.

So he was talking about
like I was at the dinner table.

I’m looking at my phone and
my daughter’s looking at her

phone and we’re not actually
having any communication.

Kids are staying up too late.

They’re looking at their phone.

They’re scrolling on their phone.

He heard about
incidences where kids were

staying up all night
looking at their phone and

they wouldn’t go to school the next day
and they’re actually kind of dropping out

of school because they were
spending too much other phone.

So he didn’t put this
Sydney ordinance into place

to actually stop people
from using their phone.

He put it in so that
people would take a

minute and hopefully think about how
much their phone is impacted their lives.

He wasn’t even saying cell phones are bad.

He’s saying these are
amazing pieces of technology.

They’re useful.

They’re amazing.

They give us like the coal
internet at our fingertips.

We can see everything in the world.

We can learn a whole bunch.

Cell phones are amazing.

But they also can and have
taken over huge aspects

of our life where we
don’t spend quiet time.

We don’t spend time with our family.

We don’t have time when we’re bored.

And that’s actually something that’s
really important to human creativity.

And I thought, okay, at first I was like,
and all there’s more than one ordinance in

Japan where there’s
actually no enforcement and

no punishment and it
seems kind of pointless

and I’m very against
doing pointless things.

But when he came out and explained the
reason was to just draw attention to this and

it has worked because
again, like I said, the

entirety of the last
month has been Japanese

City, it makes a law
and that law is banning

cell phones and it
was just, you know, of

course, internet titling
is way out of hand.

It’s all saying stuff
that has got a grain of

truth in it and then blowing it
up so people actually click bait.

The reality is the mayor
is being conscientious

and saying, look, I’m
not stopping anyone

from doing this, but
if I can get a couple of

people to think about
it, if I can get people

to think like, hey, maybe my kids
shouldn’t be using their phones before bed.

That might be worth
doing and so he went ahead

and do it and it doesn’t
cost them anything

to pass this law, this ordinance, so
he thought, yeah, it might as well do it.

So while I was against
at the beginning because

I’m against doing things
that are essentially

pointless, I understood his
point of view and I let it go.

So you’re welcome.

I have a theory that
Japanese society in the

military in Japan or
the self-defense force

is primarily focused on leading towards
the creation of a Gundam in real life.

Now they’ve had
satellites and giant robots

in these different technological
innovations in Japan.

The one that has really caught my attention
as far as is that very recently, they have

been working on a railgun and to me, a
railgun is one of the most Gundam things you

can have because of course
they don’t shoot guns on a Gundam.

They have to shoot
a railgun, it has to be

like amazingly more
powerful than everything else.

It has to rip through an enemy’s
Gundam giant robot machine.

But last week, a ship
mounted electromagnetic

railgun successfully
hit a target vessel in a

test, which is super anime, but
also real life, which is a bit terrifying.

The projectile traveled
at 2.3 kilometers per

second and it’s 70
times the speed of sound.

So that’s just giving you a sense of
these guys haven’t gone like full anime.

They’ve gone like full, fun anime.

They’re like we’re going to send a
piece of metal as fast as humanly possible.

It’s going to hit our enemy target.

It’s going to explode.

It’s going to do a cool anime explosion.

It’s going to have that
big circle that comes

out and then pauses
for a second and then

all the fire comes out and
all the explosions and stuff.

It’s going to be super
cool and then we’re

going to mount it on
a giant robot and we’re

going to walk into battle and
Japan’s going to take over the world.

Oops.

And she’s a real guy, a
man stole 50 fire hose nozzle.

It’s such a weird thing to steal.

So like this sex stuff, like a stealing, we
have a couple of those stories coming up.

But like stealing the underwear and stealing
like things and all the gross purses.

I cannot understand it.

It’s like a weird fetish
and this one, because

these fire hose nozzles
are made of brass

or a combination like a
smelting of brass of some sort.

So they are vaguely valuable.

So if you were stealing them to sell
them, I would understand that as well.

This 57 year old man
was arrested in the act.

So he was actually
stealing a fire hose

nozzle and he was caught, red
handed, stealing a fire hose hose nozzle.

And in a search
of multiple locations

connected to the man,
so he probably had like a

shed, he probably had like an apartment,
he probably had some family stuff.

He had, you know, multiple places
he could hide fire hose nozzles.

They found 50 more.

So if they found 50 more, he
wasn’t stealing them to sell them.

He was stealing them
just to have them, just

to take them away
from the fire department

or whoever needs them
in an actual emergency.

He’s now suspected in 81 similar
cases in this surrounding area.

In Hiroshima, there
were 57 threat theft, in

Hiroshima there were 57 thefts, but
they admitted they stole them for money.

And the current suspect
just seems to be keeping them.

So I’m wondering is this
just like he wants there

to be a fire, like he’s
one of those fire bug guys.

He wants the fire to get in a hand and when
they try to use the hose, it doesn’t work.

And he’s just sort of like anarchy.

Is this a weird sex thing?

These are the questions
I got to know, I got

to find a way to start getting interviews
with these people who get arrested.

Like what are you doing with them?

But of course they never going to tell me.

They’re going to be like yeah man, I love
licking the inside of a fire hose nozzle.

The Osaka police have
started to patrol on

motorized scooters because being
intimidating isn’t part of the job.

So there’s actually, this
is truly an interesting thing.

But I think of Canadian
or American police,

actually when I think of Canadian
police, I tend to think of the RCMP.

The RCMP in Canada is like
the highway patrols and stuff.

They do the national police, they
wear gear and look intimidating.

Not to the same level as you’ve seen on the
internet as the American guys who are like

in full battle, again
they’re like one step

away from like being in an
anime with helmets and stuff.

Japanese police are
not trying to do the same

thing, they’re not trying to
look intimidating in the same way.

They wanted to, again
bring to light that there

have been a lot of
incidences and accidents

and stuff involving
motorized scooters lately

because they’ve sort of
taken to the streets of Japan.

I’ve actually seen them around
the city where I work and to go yeah.

I know they’re in Tokyo.

And so now people are
using them regularly, of

course there are
accidents, there are people

driving drunk on their
motorized scooters.

These are all problems.

And so like the best
way to bring it to light

would be to take a
whole bunch of cops and

put them on bright green scooters
and have them patrol to see you like that.

It’s actually a fairly sensible
way to get around for a cop.

It just doesn’t give that intimidation
factor that we’re kind of used from a western

culture being like this isn’t
how cops present themselves.

In Osaka there were 4,540
traffic violations involving scooters.

There were 59 accidents and
62 injuries like in the last month.

They want to encourage people
to take videos and lead by example.

So this is again, it’s the different
philosophy of these kind of people in charge.

So they’re like look if we’re going to tell
people to be safe on scooters the best way

to do it would be let’s
get ourselves on scooters.

Let’s put our helmets on, let’s drive
responsibly, let’s go around in our scooters.

Yes it’s not going to be scary,
it’s not supposed to be scary.

We’re cops.

We’re not actually
supposed to be intimidating

people and here’s a
thing that maybe everyone

in the west who’s listening
to this is something like what?

No cops aren’t supposed to
intimidate you, they’re supposed

to be the ones you feel
comfortable coming to for help.

I don’t know how
personalized you get into this.

My daughter was in a bit of an accident,
she was hit by a car and basically she was

not hurt, there was
no one hurt but she was

very freaked out and
then of course the police

had to come and take a
report and then they had to call

my wife and she had to
come and pick up my daughter.

Now that meant there
was a drive which meant

they had to wait so
the police waited with

my daughter and to try
to get her to calm down

because again she had just
been technically hit by a car.

They were chatting
to her quite calmly and

trying to get her to
distract her and trying

to be really nice and
this was actually one of

the nicest stories I’ve had about
an experience with the police.

The police in Japan started talking to my
daughter about things she’d done, she said

I’d been to this beach and then that’s
where I confessed my love to this girl.

And she rejected me which made my daughter
laugh so this young sort of 25 year old cop

is relating to my
daughter and trying to

distract her and making
her laugh and she felt

a lot better and isn’t
that more like what’s

police are supposed to
be so while I was initially

going to make fun
of how silly the police

looked on their scooters
I’m way more on board

with that than them wearing like
body armor and having machine

guns and walking around like
they should be terminators.

Talking about streamers of course
Japan has their own streamers.

News and streamers are
not an uncommon thing here.

They don’t tend to get
out in nuisance other

people though so they just
tend to make a lot of noise.

We did have the guys
who were like trying to

hunt down predators
which again it’s one of

those ones like maybe that’s
okay I don’t know it’s really hard

to say because you’re not
necessarily doing it the legal way.

You don’t have any
sort of jurisdiction here.

You’re just a guy with
a camera that doesn’t

mean it’s okay for you
to like tackle someone

and accuse them of
something and then it

turns out you’re wrong you should be
punished for that but they almost never are.

Azumaru is a nuisance
YouTuber who got into politics.

What could go wrong?

I mean his whole career
up to this point has

been based on making
a lot of noise about

nothing and now he’s in politics where your
job is to make a lot of noise about nothing

but they have rules in Japanese parliament
so is he able to follow those rules?

Well they were talking
about violence against

deer in Nada calling
for stricter penalties.

So basically they’re
saying there’s a lot of

overtourism in Nada,
there’s a lot of deer

and that’s actually what
attracts the tourists,

the tourists come
and they’ve been saying

that tourists are kicking
the deer or the deer

are attacking the
tourists in the tourists

like push back and so basically there’s
like tourists are fighting deer in Nada.

We have to punish people who are actually
hurting the deer because they are protected

species, they’re actually
protected by the city

and that’s why they’re
you know so comfortable

roaming around the city
in the parks and stuff.

The mayor responded
that maybe these penalties

you need to proof and this was actually
the big problem because it was very hard to

prove someone kicked
a deer because the deer

can obviously come
and like make a report or

give a confession of
any sort and then our

man, as Umau said, how the
hell can you call yourself mayor?

No.

In these proceedings
you’re not supposed to

be talking like that and that of
course then became a problem.

He got a verbal warning after the meeting
as the comment lacked the dignity expected

of an assembly member,
which is pretty fair.

Going how the hell
can you call yourself

mayor does not have a lot
of dignity connected to him?

He said, I spoke my
mind but in the end it was

intimidation which is showing a
certain amount of self-awareness.

It’s like the way I talked to him
was supposed to be intimidating.

This is probably again
how he got popular on

the internet but this
isn’t YouTube anymore.

This isn’t how I’m
supposed to be talking to

these people and it actually shows he
kind of understood where he went wrong.

I want to become a
competent politician and

then he sent a DM to the
mayor on X to apologize

and the mayor said, don’t get too
heated and do your best for the citizens.

Which is a super happy
ending to that story.

I actually really liked it because you have
this guy and maybe his reaction is sincere

maybe he’s just a
reaction to get like a

tension but he turned around
and he said maybe I did too much.

He properly went and apologized.

I don’t know if X was
the format, maybe like go

into the guy and be like
hey, kind of lost my cool.

I’m sorry.

But then the mayor didn’t turn
around and like admonish him.

He’s like look, you
are passionate about

politics and you’re
passionate about this city

and you’re passionate about this town, don’t
get too heated, do your best and we can

kind of work together and that really seems
like what politics should be and since most

of the information I
get about politics that

is not directly Japanese
is American, it’s

something we certainly
would hope for a 50-year-old.

I think we should just do
a counter for 50-year-olds.

I was doing a counter
for certain violations

and then they just sort of dropped off
when I started counting them regularly.

I bet they’re still
happening to the same

degree but those aren’t
the stories I’m doing anymore.

There’s certainly got
to be trends of stories

that come out and
trends of stories that

I pick up on but 50-year-old
men in Japan seem to be it.

They seem to be the newsmaker for
an engineer in Japan and me being 53.

I keep wondering if one day
I’m just going to lose it and

then end up telling a really
awful story about myself.

A 50-year-old man did 183 in a 60 zone.

This is the highest
speed violation since 2019

when portable detection
devices were introduced.

So basically in 2019
they got those like

laser guns, radar guns
where they can actually

track how fast you’re going
and those are going to do so.

Since that gives you
a fairly accurate record

of the speed of the car, I think
that’s why they started the record then.

But this is the biggest violation
since those were introduced.

I was going fishing the next day so I
wanted to get home quickly to sleep.

I mean, as far as reasons
go, that’s pretty fair.

I just don’t think you
adrenaline from driving

that fast in a zone
where you’re not supposed

to drive that fast
might be enough to keep

you awake but he’s
like, his priorities were

like I need to get home and
get to bed as quickly as possible.

Yes, a lot, please don’t prioritize getting
home 10 minutes faster to sleep over, you

know, murdering everyone around
you by smashing your car into them.

I do also wonder what kind
of car was that guy driving?

The 61-year-old man was shoplifting.

He shoplifted 11 items
and while leaving the

store, the staff chased him so
this is probably convenient store.

He dropped all the stuff and
he got his car to drive away.

The staff jumped on the hood of the car.

Now, I appreciate the
passion of the staff but

you work at like a grocery store or
a convenience store or something.

It is not worth it.

Just take the license
plate number and let him go.

So should any staff
member at any store listen

to an engine of Japan
and you are in a similar

situation, do not jump
on the hood of the car.

It’s not worth it.

Now for the man who’s driving the car, the
shoplifter, if you’ve stolen stuff and you

get in your car to drive away and someone
jumps on the hood of your car, if you drive

away in Japan, that is
now attempted murder.

So you’ve gone from
attempted shoplifting

because he didn’t actually
take the stuff all the way home.

I guess he wants it’s out
of the store at shoplifting.

So you’ve gone from shoplifting which,
yes, a crime but a relatively minor crime.

Two attempted murder
which is a much bigger crime.

He drove 30 meters before the man fell off.

When he was arrested
he said, “I really

wanted to drink and I didn’t
have enough money so I shoplifted.

” But he shoplifted
11 things, like maybe if

you shoplifted just the
liquor that you wanted

you might have got away with it
and they wouldn’t have noticed.

But when you have 11 things,
you’re not hiding that anywhere.

How did this shoplifting work?

Did he just like pick it up and walk out?

Because if you pick
up a bottle and try to

hide the bottle and
walk out of the store, you

might get away with it, why did
you go for the 10 other items?

Unless it was 11 drinks which would
have been pretty impressive in itself.

So I shoplifted but
I didn’t want to get

caught by the police so I drove away and
now I’m being charged with attempted murder.

Having your clothes stolen, socks,
I mean that’s just a straight up true.

We’ve done a multitude of stories of
underwear getting stolen off balconies.

We’ve done a multiple
of stories of people

breaking into houses and
apartments and it’s terrifying.

I, okay we’re going to get into
personal trauma now, I do not sleep well.

I have not slept well
for the last 45 years,

no less than that,
you’re like 40 years.

Because when I was about
nine years old, my father

very kindly made a bedroom
in the basement for me.

It kind of made me separate
from the family, felt really cool.

I kind of had the whole
basement to myself,

so I had my room and
there was little TV room.

It felt like I had my own mini apartment
when I was only like nine, ten years old.

This was the basement
so there was a little

window above my bed
that would have been like

almost like a little gutter thing and one
night while I was asleep, a man broke into

my house through that
window and stepped on my head.

So of course I screamed, man run
away, very technically nothing happened.

We called the police
and reported it but we

had no evidence, cameras weren’t like
a thing back then and I was freaked out.

I have never slept at the
end of the entire night since.

So this is like a deep-seated
trauma, I do not sleep well.

Any noise that I hear
I wake up, my wife has

found me walking around the
house at night, checking stuff.

I sleep better with a
dog in the bed because

I know the dog will
wake me up as someone

comes into the house but our dog right now,
Dave, bit useless, I bet I would wake up

before he does but I don’t know if
there may be a comfort element there.

You now know that I, Chuck, will be just do
not sleep in any real way compared to other

people who sleep, I guess,
all the way through an evening.

I understand sort of
the feeling of trauma of

people who have had
their homes broken into

and don’t feel safe anymore and then like
if you’re a woman in Japan, you’ve had your

underwear stolen,
like it’s really, it’s

just creepy and gross
and just the some fact

that someone’s touched
your stuff is awful.

A man came home and he
found someone had broken

into his home and was wearing
his daughter’s school uniform.

That is, take both
those traumas, someone

stealing your clothes
and someone bringing your

house and put them
together and you have this

guy, I do want to know
what he was doing.

Was he like spinning,
like, “Oh, I’m so pretty.

I’m so nice.”

I was like, “What was he doing in the high
school girl uniform in this guy’s house?

” Now, there’s
also another thing.

What’s going through this guy’s head?

He’s broken into someone’s house.

My feeling is you breaking into someone’s
house, you get what you want, you get out.

This is efficiency.

This is when you break
into anything, maybe I’ve

watched too many movies
and I’m not having a good time.

But it’s about getting in and
getting out as quickly as possible.

When I play video
games and you have a

stealth mission, get in, get
out as quickly as possible.

You don’t want to get noticed.

So if I were to break
into someone’s house, I

would want to make it as
quick and efficient as possible.

I want to know what I want to take.

I would try to take it.

I would try to get out.

If I’m trying to, you
know, ransack the place,

I would do as quickly as possible
so I could get out of there.

I wouldn’t dress up and
start lounging around

the house, but we
have had stories where

people have found like they had a crush on
someone, broke into their house, and just

sort of like lounging
around in their space.

So I guess they could
feel closer to the person.

The intruder was a 37
year old man who took off.

The father ran him down
and there was a scuffle.

I would love to save him.

Like I mean, if I was
running down a guy

who’d broken into my
house and was wearing my

daughter’s school uniform, scuffle
isn’t the word they would be using.

So I would like to know
kind of what happened there.

Turns out this man’s house
had been broken into before.

His daughter’s clothes
had been stolen before,

but they don’t know if
they were connected.

They don’t know if it’s the same guy.

But this guy was now peak
ready to take someone down.

If those were different
incidences, they’re still

getting blamed on this guy
physically in that scuffle.

The police are currently
investigating if there

are any connections,
but again, it’s going

to be very hard to put together
distant incidences together.

But we do know in Japan like once these
creepy dudes target someone’s home and house

or a person, they tend
to focus exclusively on

that person and go after
them again and again.

Kita Ogawa.

Now this became sort of a topic
of conversation on the discord.

It became sort of a
topic of conversation

amongst my friends because
there’s a lot going on here.

Kita Ogawa is the mayor of my bashi and
she is a single woman, she’s 41 years old.

And she met a married
male subordinate at a

love hotel while on official
business multiple times.

So she says that nothing happened.

She says that I wanted
to consult with my

subordinate, with this
man who worked for me.

I wanted to have these
conversations, but if we

went to a restaurant,
it would be too public.

If we went to a karaoke
box, it would be too public.

The eyes of the public would be on me.

So those were inappropriate
places for us to meet.

If we met in the office,
part of her concern

was I’m getting upset,
I’m consulting about

stuff that I’m emotional about and I cry,
I don’t want people in city hall to see

me emotional, I don’t
want them to see me cry.

So where can we go
where we could be private

and have a conversation and I could bear
my soul and have a real conversation with a

co-worker who would
understand what I’m talking about.

Well, there’s only one place
left and it’s a love hotel.

He and I went to this love hotel
multiple times and nothing happened.

He didn’t rail me from behind.

He didn’t bend me
over the television while

there was, no, I just got that,
he didn’t rail me as enough.

I’m just going to have maybe that’s enough.

During the day I
had official duties and

little time to talk, I
would consult with him

in restaurants and karaoke
boots, but the eyes of

the public were on me, a
hotel was more comfortable.

Why not the office?

I didn’t want to show my crying
or emotional state in city hall.

So she’s apologized.

She said she understands
it’s inappropriate.

A lot of people are like,
well, why is this a problem?

Well, she was on official business.

She was actually,
that means she was like

doing work and going to a
love hotel while she was working.

So she’s taken time out
of her workday when she’s

getting paid and she’s going
to this recreational place.

Now she’s saying she’s
having official meetings.

We don’t know if that’s true.

But I think if you go to a love
hotel, there’s a certain expectation.

She is also using taxpayer
money for the car to get there.

So it’s like a ride share
service and stuff like that.

So she was using that to get there.

She was using that to get him there.

So that was actually
taxpayers paying for some

of that money that was
spent on them traveling

around because that is
often paid for by the taxpayer.

Now she’s claiming she used her own car.

She didn’t use any taxpayer money.

I’m going to give her
the benefit of the doubt.

I still don’t believe nothing
happened in a love hotel.

I think the only thing that happens
in a love hotel is love hotel stuff.

And I think that’s a pretty
reasonable thing for me to think.

There was an interesting
question like why is this problem?

Like why is it a
problem with two adults

consenting adults doing
and consenting things?

Because it was during work
hours is the main problem.

But the secondary
problem is he was married

and a lot of people, what
can happen in Japan?

It’s a very different
system from other countries.

The offended party can sue the
person who’s come into their relationship.

So you have the mayor and
then the subordinate and his wife.

The wife, if she can
prove that something has

happened that has
been detrimental to their

marriage, she can
actually sue the mayor for

damages, which
actually puts the mayor in

an interesting situation because it’s now
a legal issue that she would have to pay.

And she should at that
point lose her job because

her conduct has caused
problems for city hall.

She has stated that
she doesn’t want to quit.

So she’s actually saying everyone please
forgive me, please understand that I didn’t

do anything in the love
hotel that you would

normally do in a love hotel
that everyone doesn’t love hotel.

That’s not me.

I would like to stay on his mayor.

So I’m actually interested to
see if she does stay on as mayor.

But I don’t have a lot of faith
that is actually going to work out.

[MUSIC]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Human Intimate Relations

The Mayor of NNJ

Clip Clop into 2026

Year End Tie Breaker

NNJ Sports Drink

No Pandas For You

HMPA Loompa

Golden Crotch

Assurances

Confession Heavy Episode