NinjaNewsJapan

It seems like, again,
I think nerdy people

stream and nerdy people
love Japan, so nerdy

streamers come to Japan,
and they seem to think

the way to get attention
is to do dumbshitting.

Now these are two very
big streamers, so that

already is like why
do you need to behave

this way, you can just do normal
shit and your fans would eat it up.

This isn’t like a Johnny
Somali level stuff

where they’re trying
to get in trouble, I think

these guys were just
basically ignorant and

then behaving, so
mitzkiff, I don’t actually

know if I’m saying
that right, I’ve seen it,

he’s big enough, I’ve
seen him, so that’s

actually it, like if you are a streamer and
I kind of know your name, you must be huge,

and Tokyo Simms who I’ve seen on TikTok
and stuff, they have come under fire.

How bad is it?

Yeah, I don’t know, I’m a little torn, and
I think I’m torn because I think what they

did was bad, but then the response was bad,
and so if they had done something bad and

the response was good, I
think they just forget about it.

Because of the way
they handled it, it became

news, so it was
primarily mitzkiff because

he’s the bigger streamer, they were out in
Tokyo, and they’re like ah, what we’ll do

is have a good time,
and I’m going to go ahead

and guess there were
some alcohol involved,

and they’re out with
the cherry trees, this is

cherry blossom season,
it’s a very important

time people sit out
under the cherry blossoms

and they drink, and they
have a good time, and

it’s a very important
part of Japanese culture.

They have predictions as to when the cherry
blossoms will come out, they have guides on

the best places to
go, like this is a big

deal in Japan, they’re
out, again, I’m going

to go ahead and give them the benefit of
the doubt and say that alcohol, they were

inebriated and that
impacted the logic circuits

in their brain, and
they thought ah, let’s

show off how strong we are, I’m going to
jump up and grab some branches and do some

chin-ups, and then
it’s like, well, if you’ve

done that, I have to
take a step further,

I’m going to jump up,
grab some branches, and

then swing my legs up
so that I do sort of a flip.

So, the immediate title
of one of the articles

I read was Miskiff
and Tokyo Sims doing

flips on Japanese cherry trees,
draws fire, whatever the title was.

It seemed weird because I
was like, doing flips on it, but

they’re hanging off it and then
trying to flip their way off it.

The conversation is did they intend to be
disrespectful, and I think they did not, if

I’m going to be given
the benefit of the doubt

because they were just
like doing stuff to have fun.

I don’t think they really realized what
they were doing, but then, of course, people

were like, that’s disrespectful, you
shouldn’t do that, and how do they handle it?

Well, the way they tried to handle this
was they just tried to delete the video.

So they were trying to pretend
that this never happened.

And then, of course,
people saved those clips.

They were on vods or what.

I assume there’s a
group of people out there

who just like download
everything someone

who’s vaguely popular does
so they can get them in trouble

later if they try to delete to
hide something, didn’t work out.

So people started
immediately re uploading

the videos that they were trying to
hide, try to suppress, try to delete.

Shibuya Kahu came on
and she gave her opinion.

She is also a big
streamer being based in

Tokyo, being Japanese
who speaks English and

having a background that has
made her popular in certain circles.

She garners a lot of attention immediately
and she has said, this was disrespectful.

You should not have done this.

Now, she’s saying, if you want
to flex your muscles to show

how much testosterone you
have, go touch your own wood.

Now that’s perfect.

I mean, I don’t think you
could phrase it better.

It’s like if you want to behave this
way, just go take care of yourself.

Mitzkiv took personal offense at this.

Now this was a bad move.

He sent some angry
messages to her on Discord,

which he then
immediately tried to delete.

Of course, she
screenshotted them because

she’s a very smart
woman and then she used

that to show like this
is how they’re behaving.

He’s I think what’s actually happened
here is he didn’t intend to be disrespect

But they tried to be edgy and then everyone
came back and said, like, don’t be edgy.

That’s not cool.

And then he’s like, okay, I’ll
just pretend this didn’t happen.

But then it comes out.

And then someone who
else is famous comes

out and says, the way
you behave was poorly.

And he’s like, why are you
calling more attention to this?

Why are you giving me a hard time?

This isn’t fair.

But he hasn’t owned up to it.

Now.

Are you shooting on him?

Because he sent me a personal message.

Yeah.

Shooting on me.

Yes.

That’s fine.

And it’s over me.

Me.

Me.

You’re like three.

Yeah.

So I’m like, OK.

So you can meet the actual effects you bow.

I was like, I was shocked.

I was shocked.

And he actually deleted that
comment later on from like a discord.

Now, but of course I screenshot it.

That’s evidence.

Yeah.

You shouldn’t be calm.

I hope to meet you.

It’s the best.

Oh, thank you.

Well, you were one of the best.

Yeah.

It’s like so disappointing.

I got super disappointed.

I saw like, you know, he didn’t
know what they didn’t know.

I mean, I was just not about
this one guy, they didn’t know.

You know, of course,
they can always excuse it.

I was going to, you know, help them have
the opportunity to explain themselves, even

to the Japanese community
and English community.

And they were like, oh,
yeah, reverb response, reverb.

And there were three me in three sentences.

And there was no
period in sentence that

really, you know, my OCD
is just like freaked out.

Now I have the Johnny Somali counts on me.

You don’t realize what you’ve done to me.

Please leave me alone.

And then she said, what
the fuck, what did I say?

It’s not about you.

Because this is not about him.

It’s about behavior.

It’s about people coming to Japan.

It’s about being respectful.

Of course, after that,
he realized he’s caught.

So once you’re
caught, then you have to

issue the apology to
show how mature you are.

And if you had just
done this initially,

instead of all this
other bullshit, like trying

to delete the videos, just to own up to
it and not trying to call people out, like,

why are you calling
attention to this on me?

I think this actually would
have gone away really quickly.

Mitzkiff issued a response
saying the moment

I was informed by a
friend on the severity

of the situation, I immediately deleted
the post and regretted my decision.

I think the reality is he was told,
this is going to get you in trouble.

This makes you look bad.

So he deleted it
and it’s not, I think he

regretted his decision
to do it because it got

him in trouble because
it wasn’t going to get

him the kind of attention that he’s
trying to garner as a popular streamer.

I’ve grown a lot here as a person.

I bet that’s debatable.

I mean, for being really honest,
I bet that in itself is debatable.

People like this don’t grow.

I think you’re living
in a bubble and in

that bubble, it is very difficult
to actually grow as a person.

You need people telling
you you’re a piece of shit.

You need people guiding
you to be a better person.

You need to have be
in a situation where you

can be taught and be open to being
taught to actually grow as a person.

I think that’s something that
people and bubbles don’t do.

It’s like the Hitler argument, everything
always goes to Elon Musk right now, but my

feeling is like Elon Musk is
not going to learn anything.

He’s just going to get worse because
he’s being a richest man in the world.

He lives in a situation
where everyone around

him will tell him what he’s
doing is good and great.

Whenever he hits any
sort of adversity, he

really struggles because he doesn’t
know what that’s like anymore.

This is the same thing on a smaller scale.

He’s a popular streamer.

He’s surrounded himself
with people who are

going to encourage him to
do the stuff to get the views.

I’m not going to realize
it’s bad because if anyone

telling him, dude, you’re
fucking idiot, don’t do that.

He’s not going to have someone who slapped
him in the back of the head and say, don’t

climb the fucking tree
because that’s going

to disrespect the culture that
you’re residing in at the moment.

Anyways, back to his apology.

I’ve grown a lot here as a person.

I’ve made so many
friends that I truly value

and have experienced
so much of the Japanese

culture that has changed
my life for the better.

Maybe I do not want to
promote my actions as proper.

They were wrong and should
have been seen as such.

So you should have
said that immediately, like

right away, not sent
other people like messages

like, hey, why are you giving
me a hard time over this thing?

Why are you drawing attention to me?

He advised his viewers
who may be considering

a trip to Japan not
to repeat his mistakes.

Cherry blossoms are sacred to the Japanese
culture and are extremely delicate.

I’m okay with the criticism
and understand it was Rome.

So that’s all debatable.

If you’ve listened and
introduced Japan for

any length of time, you
have heard a thousand

apologies and you’ve
heard me analyze a

thousand apologies as what
is sincere about them are not.

I think this is exactly the same.

I think the only thing he’s
unhappy about is that he got caught.

The only thing he’s unhappy
about is that he’s in trouble

and that’s the only reason
he would change his behavior.

But there is always
the opportunity that this

actually does have an impact
and they always do something.

What you’ve seen is a multitude of
streamers come to Asia, come to Japan.

There was that dude
in the Philippines who

just got arrested,
Johnny Somalis in court in

South Korea and they come here and behave
badly because they think they can get away

with it and now that
they’re not getting away

with it and now that
people are now getting

a little stricter saying like, look,
this behavior is unacceptable.

We’re going to call you out on it.

They get upset and
then they apologize

because they realize they’re
not going to get away with it.

Yeah, kuzah numbers in Japan have dropped
below 20,000 people for the first time.

So this year at the end of 2024, there
were 18,800 Yakuza members arrests.

There were 8,249 arrests last year.

That’s down 1300 because
there’s less people to arrest.

The numbers are interesting.

So the Yamaguchi Gumi, which is the
biggest Yakuza organization in Japan.

They are down 500 to 6,900 members.

The Sumiyoshi Kai is
down 300 members to 3,200.

The Inagawa Kai is down 100
members to 2,800 members.

This has been a constant decline from 1963
and the reason this is happening is because

the organized nature
of the Yakuza, any

organized crime really, is
such that they’re easy to track.

I think that is going to be the biggest
problem because the police know who you are.

They know who your associates are.

They know what kind of stuff you do.

They followed your whole
life as you’ve become a Yakuza.

Of course, it’s not going to last forever.

So they lost their power.

My complaint over the
last couple of years of

covering any Yakuza
related story is the absolute

loss of glamour that the Yakuza lifestyle
seems to have because I remember the 80s.

In the 80s, every bad
guy organization was

the Yakuza and they
were like international.

They were gun smuggling, human trafficking.

They were doing drugs.

They were just
everything was on the table

and these were like
super rich dudes and they

had like hundreds of men
who would gun fight for them.

Now all the stories were
like, they stole 10 cell phones.

The last one I did was
they blocked off a street

and tried to charge the
local 10,000 yen to use it.

Like these are not the
glamorous Yakuza of yesterday.

The ones that sort of would
have captured my imagination.

They seem like sadder,
older organizations just

clamoring for anything
they have left over.

What’s actually
sprouted up in their place

though from organized
crimes disorganized crime.

So it’s these groups
that are loosely affiliated.

They meet online.

They try to recruit members online.

They’ll organize for
one job and then rob

someone and then
disappear, spreading out,

going finding another
job, that kind of thing.

So it seems like disorganized crime is
actually replacing organized crime in Japan.

From September, 2028, gas
pedals in Japan, I used to just

for a moment, we got to
stop calling them gas pedals.

If all cars go electric, which is one of
the predictions is that eventually all cars

will go electric, they’re
not going to be gas,

but you’ll have to use
the term accelerator

because it’s not going
to be a gas pedal anymore.

But anyways, gas pedals in Japan will have
mandatory safety devices attached to them.

This is because of the
elderly drivers accidents,

which have been increasing,
where they accidentally

push the accelerator
and drive into a building

or a group of people,
this actually happened

last week, elderly drivers
outnumber gun deaths.

Of course, elderly driver
accidents outnumber

gun deaths because there
are so few guns in Japan.

So if you want to know if gun control is
a good thing, that’s a great stat to have

that your old drivers are
killing more people than guns.

Now they’re looking
at accidents with old

people and like, “Well, how
can we reduce these numbers?

“

So they’re going to put
a safety device on the

gas pedal that means
if there is an obstacle

that is one meter to
1.5 meter ahead, the

speed will be kept to
below eight kilometers.

So it means if you jam the accelerator and
there’s someone standing one meter in front

of your car, it will not increase
to over eight kilometers an hour.

This will lead to some very
amusing slow motion accidents.

Because if you don’t
run out of the way in the

car in time, let’s say
it’s an electric car.

It’s dead silent.

It’s creeping towards it.

It’s going to nudge
you sort of gently and I

actually still, if it was another
old person, they might fall under it.

There might still be accidents
with this, but at least this will

reduce the amount of actual
injuries that occur because of this.

There was a fan of an AVEX idol and
he said, “I’m going to come to your event.

” He sent an email saying, “Go
die,” and then, “This isn’t just a threat.

I’m going to come kill you.

” So basically he was saying, “I’m
going to kill you if you have these events.

I’m going to show up these events.

This is not a threat.

I’m really going to do it.

” He was very easily
caught and arrested.

She had to cancel three events.

So because she was
worried that this guy was

actually going to show
up and do something,

she actually canceled two events
in Osaka and won somewhere else.

This then becomes obstruction of business,
which is something that I had a counter for

and then won away
because we weren’t getting

any obstruction of
business ones anymore,

but thankfully they’re
back because that is

an engineer’s depend
mainstay, the obstruction

of business as an excuse to arrest
anybody for anything and threats.

The threats is a separate charge.

He gets two charges this
way because he caused

her to lose money to
interrupt her business

of putting on concerts
because of the threats.

That’s one charge.

The second charge is actually
threatening her with death.

When he was arrested, he
said, “I thought she was cute.

” And it’s just one
of those things where

he’s like, “Well, you’re
clearly not very…

You don’t got a lot of rizzes, I
think what the kids say nowadays.

If you think that the
way to get someone’s

attention when you think
they’re acute is to say, “Go die.

“

He did say further, “I wanted
her to know how hurt I was.

” Now they don’t explain
how or why he was hurt.

He may have gotten to this
point where he was deluded.

He had followed her so long, he’d
sent her messages or something.

She probably ignored them because
she doesn’t manage her own social media.

He got angry because he wasn’t getting
the attention he thought he deserved.

This is all speculation,
but it also fits

into a very natural pattern of behavior
that happens with these kind of people.

They create the parasocial relationship
in their head with this person.

They’ve never actually met her talk to.

They think they’re now owed something.

They start to get hurt because they’re not
getting the attention back because of what

their beliefs which are
very one sided because

the other person
doesn’t know they exist.

Then they lose the
plot and they go threaten

people with death and
then they get arrested.

Cocaine use has
significantly increased in

Japan which is a big
surprise to me because we

only ever hear about
marijuana really because

marijuana is still considered
one of the worst drugs ever.

All the drugs in Japan
are considered the same.

In North America, like
marijuana is not that bad.

Cocaine and heroin are much worse.

They have different classifications
for the different drugs.

This in Japan is not the case.

All drugs are bad.

All drugs are exactly the same.

Any drug you have that
is not legal is terrible.

The increase of cocaine
in Japan is a surprise

to me only because
it’s got to be super

expensive, but what the
police said was very interesting.

There were 231.8 kilograms seized last year
that’s five times more than previous years.

586 arrests for cocaine related crimes.

So this could be like
selling cocaine, getting

cocaine, possession
of cocaine, trafficking

cocaine, anything that
have like connected

to it, 586 arrests for cocaine
related crimes last year.

That’s up from 214 so
it’s more than doubled.

Seven times more arrests
over the last 10 years.

The National Police Association said
many people use it as a fashion statement.

So they’re not saying people
are using cocaine to get

high so much as they’re
using cocaine to look cool.

73 year old American
man came to Japan and

accidentally his statement was, “I
accidentally put a gun in my luggage.

” Now, I cannot think of a more American
statement than I accidentally packed a gun.

How many guns do you have around you where
you are, you know, packing your t-shirts

and you’re under wearing your bag and a gun
just drops in off the shelf because let’s

face it, there’s guns
everywhere around your house.

It seems to me, okay, so you want to
talk about responsible gun ownership.

If you accidentally pack a gun,
you’re not a responsible gun owner.

That’s actually to me
one of the number one,

like you can’t say
you’re responsible gun

over and accidentally do
anything with a gun, like

an accidental discharge, you’re
not a responsible gun owner.

I’m accidentally putting
one in your bag and

taking it with you to another
country, not a responsible gun owner.

I accidentally put the gun in my luggage
when traveling to Japan and three bullets.

It’s a very small gun.

It’s a little revolver.

Maybe it only can hold three bullets.

It seemed like one of those ones you would
put in your sock if in a police movie.

He decided the best course of action
would be to throw away the bullets.

The bullets were
found at a port terminal

and the police, because
one of the problems,

okay, so this is the actual problem is
a lot of garbage is burnable in Japan.

So if you put bullets
in burnable garbage and

that goes into the
facility, it might actually

go off when it’s heated because it’s being
burned and shoot someone, it could be weeks

later, but this is
actually a real possibility

of like a CSI style
murder where they try

to figure out how this guy in this facility
got killed and it turns out it’s from

a bullet that was in
the incinerator and

then they have to find out
where that garbage came from.

That’s actually a pretty good
episode that I just wrote there.

So he realized while he was
already in Japan, which actually

means he managed to get into
Japan with a bag with a gun in it.

Now he was on
cruises and stuff, so I’m

actually thinking maybe
because they spend time

on the boat and
they’ve kind of checked

everything before the
boat or maybe they check

when they get on the boat, they don’t check
so closely when they get off the boat.

So that’s my suspicion.

I don’t know if that’s
true, that cannot be

confirmed, but it seems
like the most logical

thing because it seems
like if they x-rated

the bag and there’s a
gun-shaped thing in it,

the Japanese police would absolutely check
that bag, he kind of does the right thing.

He says I was thinking
where to declare it

and then because he
wanted to make sure that

he didn’t get
misinterpreted, he wanted to

make sure they had
sort of the English skills.

He didn’t want to like come in and say I
have a gun and then get arrested himself.

So he went from Kobe
to Osaka, this is again,

he’s spending days
in Japan with this gun

in his bag and he goes
and declares it to the police.

Now unlike Mitzkif
from our first story, this

is the right thing, so
he’s made a mistake.

He’s brought a gun in
Japan, he knows guns

are illegal in Japan, so he’s
like I need to tell someone.

Now he took a couple
of days and that could

be a little like is this
okay, have you done

the right thing, but he’s like I
just don’t want to make it worse.

So I’m thinking he
has the right intention,

he goes to the police,
he says I have a gun,

I’d like to turn the
gun in, he turns the

gun in, he sells them,
I had bullets, I threw

the bullets away here,
the police go to that

place, luckily the
bullets are still in that

garbage can and they
recover the bullets.

Then everyone’s like this
is going to be a terrible thing.

I actually was like
okay, he went to the

police, he told him he
made a mistake, he made

it very clear, he did
everything in a relatively

safe, throwing the bullets
away was a bad idea.

But he brought the gun to them and he made
sure that he like they understood, he had

no negative intentions,
he didn’t plan to shoot

anybody, he just
accidentally packed a gun,

which again, the most
American thing you could

do in the world is
accidentally pack a gun.

He plays later, charges are dropped.

And I think this is
because the police, the

prosecutors are like
look, he made a mistake,

he did a bad thing, but
he immediately owned

up to it, he brought
us the gun, he’s not

trying to make any trouble, I think this
is fair, we’re just going to let him go.

He probably just left
the country the next

day, which again is
almost the exact opposite

of how Mitzkiff handled his issue where he
did a bad thing, tried to scrub it, tried

to make sure no one
knew about it, called

people out for calling
him out on it and then

apologized afterwards,
if he had just immediately

owned up to it like
this American who had

made a mistake, charges
dropped and you’re on your way.

27 year old assembly
member called for menstrual

products to be made
available in public restrooms.

And I as a non menstruating
person, think this is fine.

If you need that, I
think she made available

to you, I think she was
calling for them to be free.

I could understand if
you wanted to charge

like 100 yen, you have to put
it in the machine to pop one out.

But I actually think my taxes
are going to this, if women

need it in the bathrooms
to make it free, I’m on board.

So there you go, that’s how that’s
that’s an engineer’s Japan stance on that.

Someone else on the
other hand took issue

with this, with women
having things they need

being made available to
them and they sent 8,000

threatening emails,
including death threats.

Now the very weird thing was, they sent one
every minute between 8 p.m. Friday to 350

p.m. Monday, which
would imply that these

death threats were
automated because no one, no

individual is going to
stay up for three days

straight and sending
an email every minute.

So some sort of AI
had to write the program.

He had some kind of
script to send out the

email and he just set
it to go every minute.

I won because if you
look at the statements

that I read, it was, it
was 8,000 threatening

emails, including death
threats, which meant

not all the emails
were exactly the same.

So yeah, I’m thinking
AI wrote a bunch of

emails and then he had a script to just
send the emails every minute on the minute.

So this assembly member
actually posted this

on X and the statement was, I was caught
off guard by my period and was in trouble.

There were no sanitary napkins
in the rest room of City Hall.

I hope pads can be
provided like toilet paper.

That is the thing that set off someone
to declare that this person should die.

And I can’t fathom why
this was so offensive.

I actually believe
it’s just the fact that

someone mentioned menstruation publicly
and wasn’t like deeply a grossed out by it.

I don’t know.

I actually don’t know what was
so deeply offensive this person.

So this, there’s not been
any talk of an arrest yet.

So I am very interested
in the arrest and the

statement of the person
as to why this statement

was so offensive to them in the first place
because honestly, that statement itself was

I had a problem, went to the toilet,
the things I needed weren’t available.

I think they should maybe
be available in the future.

Certainly in City Hall,
if you have employees,

so like assembly
members who are both male

and female, they
should have all the things

they need to take care of themselves
at their place of work at City Hall.

It’s a public building, so it
should be provided for the public.

That makes a lot of sense.

I really, really am interested to see what
this person’s justification was for sending

8,000 threatening
emails because someone

thought they should have someone
should have the stuff they needed.

My sentence just fell
apart at the end because

someone said they would like
the city to provide for them?

I don’t know.

I just have to finish one
more sentence than I’m done.

And then I’m going to, I’m
going to play Rob Wilkoff.

Dave heard his leg this morning and
it has meant I am kind of distracted.

So he’s able to, he
was, he fell over, he

wasn’t able to use his
back leg, freaks me out.

It was like easily the per thing person
I spend the most time with in my life.

So they really had a
surprisingly large impact on me.

And it’s, it’s just
resting in the back of my

head and made it really hard for me
to formulate a sentence, apparently.

Women should have sanitary
pads in the bathrooms.

I think that is just a pretty
fair and easy statement to make.

It’s a, it’s a pretty fair stance to
take in more, the, see I can’t do it.

I’m not even trying to
say anything like offensive.

I’m saying like, chicks
should have what they need.

What’s the most misogynistic
way I can say that,

you know, chicks should
have the shit they need.

It’s like the, the redneck who says
like liberal things, there’s a meme.

It’s not, they don’t do it anymore.

I actually really enjoyed that one.

It’s the redneck saying like really liberal
stuff in the most rednecky way possible.

He’s on the bed over there,
he’s been lying down all day.

I gave him like a one
hour massage on his leg.

So I think he’s fine.

He’s able to put his foot down again.

But I mean, okay, last
sentence, last sentence.

I would like to know what was so
deeply offensive about this statement.

Was it menstruation or was it the fact
that the city should provide sanitary pads?

Because then you could
complain about your tax

dollars, which I think you
could take a stance on,

it’d be pretty hard to justify.

But I think that would
be more justified than be

offended by the fact
that 50% of the population

actually has this thing they
have to deal with every month.

[MUSIC]

(upbeat music)

Survey was done about work.

A lot of surveys about
work, a lot of people work.

Pretty much everybody works, socks.

Only the most interesting part
of the current work situation

is the change in attitude,
specifically in Japan.

Japan is known as a very
hard working work culture.

They work the long hours.

You have to stay later than your boss.

There’s a lot of rules and stuff
that go with working in Japan.

This is changing.

And I’ve said that there’s
going to be really big

changes in Japan over
the next two generations.

Because the generation that’s coming up
now that’s going to be replacing the bosses

and replacing the politicians and stuff,
they have a wildly different attitude.

And the generation that
follows them that sees that there

can be change, I think is
going to make massive changes.

Currently, only 20% of workers
say they want to become managers.

So 20% of people in a company who just work
like office, staff, different positions,

most of them, 80% don’t
want to become managers.

They don’t want that responsibility.

They don’t want to move up in the company.

They want to do this because
they think it’s more important

to maintain a good home work life
balance as in prioritizing the home part.

The quality of their
personal life is now just

more important than
their actual work life.

They were working to
live and not living to work,

which is the exact opposite of the
post-war Japanese attitude towards work.

It was about work work work.

And this is we’re going to rebuild Japan.

They rebuilt Japan.

They had the bubble.

They had the 80s when Japan was super rich.

And everyone was throwing money around

and they thought, oh,
this is going to last forever.

It didn’t.

Then they went into a recession.

There were sessions
been like 30, 40 years now.

And they’re slowly clawing their way out,

but they’re also not because Japan’s not
state competitive, declining birth rate.

All these other issues
come into play later.

But right now, what younger
people and people who are not

in managerial positions
are prioritizing is

themselves, which is a very
interesting shift in Japan.

They did find that management
style drastically impacted

whether or not people
wanted to become managers.

So if, of course, everyone
prefers if your manager is

trying to create a positive
team working team building

atmosphere, they’re trying to
make it a good place to work.

They’re trying to make you happy.

They’re trying to make
work a good place to be,

which is exactly what
these people are saying.

Like I’m working.

It’s not the most important thing in
my life, but I’ll do it because I have to.

But if I can work in a place
that’s nice, I’ll be extra happy.

That’s even better.

We did the story it was
last week about the company

that let you take mornings off if you
were hung over and let you drink at work.

And like basically like we
pay minimum wage, we pay shit.

And we have almost zero turnover
because people love working here.

So money has become less the priority

and more I want to happy
life has become a much

bigger priority for the
average Japanese person.

That story from last week about the company

that pays really low
wages and lets you drink

at work is a unique
entity in the world.

But this, most people don’t
want to become managers.

They don’t have that
sort of ambition anymore.

That shows a whole mental shift of
most of the people who live in Japan.

If you have a good boss though, so the 20%
who did say they want to become managers,

a lot of them said the reason
they wanted to become a managers

because they had a good boss
and that boss treated them well

and they would like to
then move up into that

position and maybe do
that for someone else.

(upbeat music)

Man’s in a food court.

He’s having lunch of course with his lunch.

I’m gonna go ahead and assume
this is an old Japanese man.

Just from the next
sentence, he was smoking.

So Japan like most countries
are making most areas smoke-free.

If you’re in a big city, if
you’re in a company or

something, there’s basically
no smoking areas left.

When I came to Japan, smoking
was still pretty common on the streets.

It’s now a lot of streets
are actually making it.

Like you can be fine for
smoking on the streets.

A lot of buildings had a
smoking room or a smoking area

that was enclosed and
man, they were disgusting.

They’re getting used less and less.

So smoking is becoming less common,

which again, this is why I think
this might be an older dude.

Of course, because he’s
in a mall, public place,

no smoking, staff walk up to him
and say, “Hey, please, don’t smoke.

“Could you put
out your cigarette?

” That kind of thing.

He decides the most appropriate
response to that request.

Very reasonable request
is this is where I do a quiz.

If I had done any sort of
prep, which I have not done,

February’s been a shambles for me.

I was gonna be just put
that out there right now.

Maybe I should put a personal
report at the end of the episode.

So if you actually want
to know about my life

and complain to whatnot,
you could listen to after the

end song, but I’m trying
to keep it out of the show.

It’s just weird ’cause it rolls
around in my head as I’m talking.

It’s actually easier to get it out
than to just pretend it’s not there.

But you know, pretending it’s not
there is how men deal with problems.

So let’s just keep doing that.

Staff ask him to stop.

So he pulls out a gun
and points it to the staff.

Now, here’s a question.

Guns are pretty hard to come by in Japan.

That is true.

This gentleman had a gun-shaped lighter.

So he thought, ah, I have a thing
that looks like a gun on my pocket.

He pulls out a gun and points it to the
staff and tells them to leave him alone.

The staff then sort of
does leave him alone.

They certainly do leave.

They of course immediately
go and call the police.

Having a gun pointed at you in
Japan is gonna be particularly weird

because you’ve probably
never seen a gun before.

Like I’ve seen in Japan guns on the
holsters of police officers on occasion.

Like most cops don’t actually carry guns.

Some of them do.

So it’s an unusual thing to see.

This, of course, then led to the police
showing up and he was arrested immediately.

He did do the smart thing in remain silent.

So if we’re gonna give
our criminal advice section,

he followed the advice that had
been given in previous episodes.

He did not talk to the police.

He just stayed silent and
it turns out he was drunk.

There have been a spate of heists,

crimes involving food.

I know there was an egg heist in America.

I actually wanna look into that.

There was the really famous
maple syrup heist in Canada.

Like a tanker truck of
maple syrup was taken away

and disappeared, probably
just taken into Vermont

and then sold as Vermont
maple syrup, that kind of stuff.

There was a high egg
heist recently and I wanted

to look into that story
but have been very busy.

In Japan, this is not a heist per se
but it kind of fell into the same thing.

Like food now is becoming
a valuable commodity

and people are stealing or committing
crimes based around food more often.

Three people were arrested
because they had 240 million

yen’s worth of Wagyu beef bound for
Cambodia that they rerouted to Hong Kong.

So that is 30 tons of frozen
beef that was supposed

to go to Cambodia is what
they wrote on all the forms.

When it got out to see,
they took a left turn.

Let’s see if we put down my left turn.

Maybe I’ll do like a 380.

I immediately actually started
looking at a map of my brain

and to see which way you
would actually have to turn

if you were heading towards Cambodia
and then turned to go to Hong Kong.

30 tons of frozen beef sent
that they put on the forms

was gonna go to Cambodia,
they rerouted it to Hong Kong.

Why did they do this?

Because the inspections
for beef going to Cambodia

are lower and more lenient
than those going to Hong Kong.

So they could save money on inspections
and send them meat to Hong Kong.

So this was essentially
going to be not only

Wagyu beef, it was going
to be a legal Wagyu beef,

which I would actually
guess is particularly delicious.

And that got me into the
sort of the scam frame of mind.

So I really, I found this
one very interesting.

We’ve actually mentioned this before in a
previous episode, the arrest warrant scam.

There are a lot of scams
targeting older people in Japan

using technology and stuff that
they don’t understand they’re

not comfortable with and this
causes them a lot of trouble

because it’s harder to see a
scam if it comes from a source

and you don’t know it well
enough to know it’s a scam.

I mean, that’s how what they do.

They prey on people who don’t know stuff.

So this is one that has come to
the forefront in the last little while.

It used to be, they have
the Japanese famous

for it was Ore Sagi,
Sagi, Sagi, Ore Ore Sagi.

I forget what it is.

Ore is me and Sagi is like, I’m
in trouble, help me kind of thing.

But the ideas they would
call up and just call up random

numbers and go, oh my
God, I’m in trouble, I need help.

Can you help me?

And they might throw in a
grandma or a grandpa in there

if a man or woman
answers that kind of thing.

And then there’s older person thinks

that their grandchild is in
trouble and needs money.

They would go direct to the ATM
and transfer money, that kind of thing.

Hoping that they set them into such a panic

that they start behaving
and acting on defensive

their grandchildren without
actually thinking it through.

So that was a scam.

I heard about it, man.

It was going on for years.

This is a new version
of that where you’re in

trouble and you need to
pay money to get out of it.

So that’s already the first thing.

If you are being approached
by someone and they’re saying,

you have to pay money
to get out of trouble.

That’s actually never how you get out
of trouble when it comes to legal systems.

You never give someone
money and make it go away.

You always have to go through a
process and then like a finance issued

and then a ticket is
issued or that kind of thing.

If you have an arrest
warrant, which is what this is,

this is the arrest warrant scam, you don’t
just pay the money and make it go away.

You have to go to court.

You have to talk to the police.

You have to go to the police
station and that kind of thing.

So this guy gets a call.

He’s about 70 years old and on
the phone, he says, I’m a police officer

and your phone number
has been used in a crime.

We’re going to suspend
its use in two hours.

Now, actually the first step
would be to wait two hours

and see if they actually
suspend its service.

If they don’t, these people’s clearly
don’t have the power they say they are.

But they are trying to put you into
a position where you start to panic.

He thought, oh, maybe my phone
number was part of a data breach

or something like that
and online scam and they’ve

taken my phone number
and they’ve used it in a crime.

And so now he’s starting to
feel like, oh man, maybe I will be

implicated in this even though
I haven’t done anything wrong.

Then they tell him an account
was opened in your name

in the Bank of Columbia in
Canada, which is not a real bank.

And you have received
10% from money laundering,

which makes you an
accomplice in this crime.

Now, he doesn’t know if
he’s actually received 10%

and that 10% may not be going
into his personal bank account.

But he’s hearing this
story, his phone number,

he’s getting the 10% he’s now a part
implicit in part of a crime implicated.

He’s now implicated in a crime.

He’s starting to panic even more.

The arrest warrant has
been delivered to you already.

So he goes out to his mailbox
and there’s an envelope in there

and in it has a very official looking
document that is an arrest warrant.

Now, as you’ve watched on television,

arrest warrants don’t
tend to be delivered by mail.

They tend to be delivered
by police officers who show up.

And the reason is most
arrest warrants are for criminals.

And criminals don’t tend
to get pieces of paper

and go, ha, this says I
need to turn myself in.

I better go turn myself in.

They go, ha, the police are looking for me.

I better head to ground now and hide
out so they can’t actually catch me.

So arrest warrants are delivered in a very
specific way for a very specific reason.

Of course, this older
gentleman doesn’t know this.

For all, he knows this is
how arrest warrants are given.

Because for all, he knows this is
how arrest warrants are delivered

because he’s not a criminal and he
doesn’t know how criminal things work.

He doesn’t know how arrest warrants work.

It said it was from the
Tokyo District Court.

The numbers he was getting
the calls from all had a plus one.

So they are out international numbers.

So he asked, why are the police calling me?

The Japanese police calling
me from international numbers.

And the police officer,
the defect detective

on the other side said,
we don’t use regular

numbers because this is
a top secret investigation.

In fact, you shouldn’t tell any other
police officers or financial institutions

because there may be
people working with them

on the criminal side
in those institutions.

So if you tell anybody,
then you’re going to

be implicated and they
might come after you.

So now they’re trying to show,
we’re trying to help you out, buddy.

We’re trying to make sure that
you don’t actually get in trouble

for this implicated 10%
money laundering you just did.

So don’t tell anyone, we will save you.

Then they tell him to prove his innocence,

he can transfer money to
a financial services agency.

And they’ll use that to confirm
the bank accounts and stuff.

And in that way, he can prove
his innocence and not actually end

up going to jail, not have to
worry about the arrest warrant.

A woman took over the phone.

So this is like a team of people
who are working on this scam.

And she tells him to go to the ATM.

She stays on the phone with him

and she walks him through
the steps of transfer money.

There’s a limit to only sending
200,000 yen a day from ATM in Japan.

And this is for this reason.

So many scams try to get you to empty out
your bank account as quickly as possible.

They try to put a limit on it.

So you can only transfer
so much money every day for,

again, this is sort of a
defensive against scams.

They badgered him to
transfer every single day.

They tried to get him to take money out

and then go to the counter
and transfer it that way.

So trying to do it different ways.

He’s got to get more money out.

And again, he’s in a panic.

It took him a few days before he’s like,
is this how police are going to talk to me?

Is this how, because they
are now on the side of like,

oh, you need to prove your
innocence or prove your innocence,

they wouldn’t be treating
me like a criminal anymore.

And so it took about a
week and he started to

realize, I don’t think
these are police anymore.

By that time, they
had already taken 3.

7 million yen from the guy.

Now they didn’t interview
with him and he was, of course,

very defeated and very
embarrassed and it’s a terrible thing.

But he said, I want, like,
I don’t watch the news.

I don’t watch a lot of TV.

I just, I’m retired.

I read a lot of books.

I’m sort of disconnected
from society in this way.

I didn’t know what this was real.

And there are other
people in similar situations.

I want them to know so
that they don’t get scammed.

And I think this is shining
the light on the scam

is one of the best things you
can do because it hopefully

will save someone else
from suffering the same fate.

Dating apps.

I’m of the generation before dating apps.

So I never have really used one, certainly.

I’ve never used one successfully.

I don’t think I would
be good at dating apps.

I can honestly say that.

Like I, I’m pretty good at
talking to people in real life.

Once I get comfortable,
now that I’m certainly not

trying to impress anybody, it’s actually
very easy for me to talk to anyone anytime.

I’m probably way more
charming now that I’m not trying,

trying back within when I
was younger and actually trying

way too hard and probably
looking like a huge idiot about it.

Dating apps were not my thing.

I’m certain I would
have been really bad at it.

This guy was meeting girls on dating apps.

And his thing was like, hey, why
don’t we train at my private gym?

That sounds pretty cool.

Give a private gym.

It means you’re pretty well off.

That’s pretty attractive.

I don’t know what the pictures are like.

Let’s just assume he looked
pretty good in his pictures.

Girls were saying like, OK, yeah,
let’s go train at your private gym now.

I’m going to go into dad mode
for a minute and go first date.

The word private should
not be involved in there.

It should only be a very public thing.

And as soon as he says, let’s go to my
private gym, I was like that suspicious.

That’s already very, very suspicious to me.

I don’t– I’m not
happy about that.

I don’t want anyone
to go to a private place

on their first date because
you don’t know this guy.

And that’s all it really comes down to.

Do a couple public dates.

Go get some ice cream.

I know it’s the opposite of
training, but it is certainly fun.

Go to a public gym.

That’s fine.

Do not go to a man’s claimed private gym.

When they would meet, he
would actually take them to a hotel.

I assume they mean a love hotel.

Now, second point.

I do not want a victim blame.

But if you look at a love hotel,
you are going to immediately

recognize that this does
not contain a private gym.

Do not go into that
building with the man who’s

clearly now lying to
you about this situation.

Like, hey, let’s go into my private gym
that just happens to be in this love hotel.

I’ll get us a room.

Rooms are usually done relatively
randomly on a computer or something.

Not that I would know.

I don’t know anything about a love hotel.

But you now know something’s up.

You now know he’s not being forthright.

You now know he’s not being honest.

You should now bail as soon as you can.

Just run away.

Then he took him to the love hotel.

He would say you’re my type and basically
trying to force himself himself on them.

One woman escaped.

Sometimes victim blaming is OK.

No, no.

Because it’s only a
not OK in this situation.

There is– OK.

If I can deal with that
statement, because I’m taking

information from the news, I’m
not getting all the information.

So I don’t know how
charming, how impressive.

We don’t even really know.

It said hotel.

It might have been a proper hotel
and it looked better, something like that.

I don’t know anything about it.

So I don’t want a victim
blame because that

actually takes me to the
territory of assumption.

And once I start assuming, that’s when I’m
going to make some incorrect statements.

If I knew all the information,
sometimes it is OK to victim blame.

I think I could agree with that.

But you need to have
all the information first.

We do have a lot of
dumb people in the world,

and they deserve to be blamed for
the things that go wrong in their life.

But if your date says,
let’s go to a private

gym and then takes
you to a public love hotel.

That’s sevens of it.

It’s diplomatic answer.

I try to be very honest
and engineers Japan.

And I try to give factual
information more than anything else.

And when I make assumptions
and stuff, I do try to say.

But yeah, it is diplomatic.

Because again, I don’t know.

Maybe it was convincing is the problem.

Like whenever we talk about
scams, it’s the same thing.

We talk about scams.

And it’s always like,
how did you believe that?

But the previous story, the whole point

was to set that guy into a
panic so he wouldn’t be thinking.

Scams are designed by people to create a
situation where you’re not thinking clearly.

And then you don’t
realize afterwards and

afterwards, yeah, it
is terribly embarrassing

to realize you just got scammed
out of a whole bunch of money.

He would say you’re my type.

And then he threw them on the bed.

One girl struggled and got away.

She went down the emergency
exit and called the police.

And he got arrested.

Last story, creepy, creepy guy.

He goes into a cafe locker room.

And he gets one of the staff
members’ keys and he copies the key.

And then he breaks into the woman’s house
and he goes through her underwear drawer.

Now you would think this is just
a regular underwear theft story.

I actually don’t do those very often anymore
because we did so many at the beginning.

It’s now just become
a repetition of this guy

steals a lot of underwear, which has nothing
interesting, I can say about it anymore.

This guy gets arrested when he’s arrested.

He goes, I didn’t intend
to steal the underwear.

I just wanted to know
what kind of underwear

she was wearing as if
that was somehow less

creepy than the actual
stealing of the underwear.

I think at any point, once
you’ve gone into someone’s house,

the level of creepiness,
what your intent is,

suddenly does not assuage how
awful everything you’re actually doing is.

I didn’t intend to steal.

I just wanted to know what
kind of underwear she wore.

He’d enter her, entered her
house or apartment 10 times.

Now, was he going in and
stealing underwear every time?

No, what he said was the room was very
clean and sunny and it was very comfortable.

So he’s actually just like to sit there.

So he basically was breaking
into this woman’s house

and just sitting there having
like a peaceful afternoon

apparently it would stay for like two
hours and watch like music shows on TV.

I just relax in this woman’s
house, which I actually

find almost creepier than
stealing the underwear.

I don’t know why.

It’s like someone coming and
just making themself at home

is so violating to the
sanctity of your home, I guess.

When the police arrested him, they
found he had 10 copies of other keys.

So they’re actually wondering
if maybe he’s been just

like moving around from house to house.

Has he actually been
sleeping in these houses?

These different things.

But they do know he’s been
getting keys, copying the keys

and spending a lot of time
in other people’s houses.

Please be careful.

Get 20 locks and put
them on your doors, please.

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