(upbeat music)
Okay, just a bit of a
pre-warning for this week.
Is normally, I have trouble reading
my notes because I write really messy.
This week, I’m gonna have
trouble reading my notes
’cause I write really messy
and my eyes all messed up.
So that’s a bad combination.
Writing messy and bad head.
(sighs)
I shouldn’t say bad head.
All right.
Couple weeks ago, we
had a kid who was licking
the lid of a shared water
pitcher in a restaurant
and posted online, just like all these
other, like again, the sushi terrace.
We’re now calling food terrists in Japan.
Couple details have come out
because he and the person
who filmed it have been arrested.
This is an interesting thing for
me, is the second part we’ll get into.
The boy is 16 years old.
So he’s not, I mean, he wasn’t
gonna do jail time anyways.
It becomes, once you get
arrested for it, it becomes sort of a
civil suit between you and the
company that owns the restaurant.
So I think it was sushi dough,
was the sushi terrace and thing.
And then that company was
suing them for a stock price drop
when that kid did some
gross stuff in the restaurant.
So that’s something to be aware of.
Like it’s not like he’s going to prison.
He could be opening
his family to a lawsuit.
I found out that this incident
happened at five, 10 in the morning.
So first of all, they’re
at a ramen restaurant.
And who’s eating ramen
at five, 10 in the morning?
Like even if you’re a night worker,
five, 10 in the morning
isn’t, it’s not ramen time.
I mean, I guess it different,
different people, different moods.
I have become a very serious, serious.
That makes it sound like I got a problem.
I’ve become a very adamant lunch drinker.
If I’m going to drink, I
want to drink at lunch time.
And then over the course of the day,
I can sober up and I’m asked
to feel a little hangover come
and I can start drinking
water and then I go to bed
and then I wake up next
morning and I feel great.
I’ve realized that night
drinking is actually the mistake.
We should all be drinking at lunch
time, day drinking, almost exclusively.
So the boy, the 16 year
old boy and his 20 year
old friend who was
videoing it, so already again,
I can see there’s a bad influence,
the older boy, videoing the younger boy,
probably encouraging
him to do the bad thing.
That’s going to be the first sort of issue
is the young guy’s going
to take the lead from
the, what I’m going to
go ahead and just assume
is a negative influence because
he ended up getting arrested.
So you’re not going to call that
a positive influence on his life.
The 16 year old is underage.
So again, probably very
little is going to happen to him
again, open to a civil lawsuit that
could affect his family or his parents.
The 20 year old though, he’s in a different
set of trouble because he’s an adult.
So he’s responsible for himself.
When arrested, the 20 year old said,
I posted the video on social media,
but I don’t remember why I
filmed it or why I uploaded it.
And let me, let me fill you in.
Not even being there, not
even knowing who you are.
You filmed it because
other people had done this
kind of stupid stuff and
gotten attention for it.
You uploaded it because
you wanted the attention.
And that’s it.
That’s the whole, it sounded
like I had a third point.
I didn’t.
Those are the only two.
You saw other people
were getting attention.
You thought, hey, maybe I can
get the same amount of attention.
So you did.
Both were arrested for our
favorite abstraction of business.
Dave’s, Dave’s gently resting his paws.
He’s been doing this lead lately.
Let’s see if I can get the video down.
He rests his paws on my arm.
And it makes me not want to move my arm,
but it means I can’t control the mouse,
which means it’s very hard
to hit the transition button.
And then, so usually, right
now, he’s only got one paw.
He’ll put on two paws, right?
And then it’s quite heavy.
He took the one paw off when I was moving.
You know, it was very nice of him.
I talked about last week
about the guy from the ’70s
who had planted a balm,
he was part of a group.
He blew up some stuff.
And he went into hiding, went
into hiding until he was 70 years old.
He stayed off the grid for the entire time,
which is really impressive,
if I’m being honest.
He didn’t use his national health insurance
until the point where
he actually got cancer
and the cancer got so far
he had to go into hospital.
And then he had to use
his national health insurance.
And then they found out who he was.
He then died like a week later.
So that was national news.
It was all over in the news.
And the picture they put
up was of his mug shot.
Now in Japan, they have
these sort of yellow posters.
And they put on like the
nine most wanted people
in Japan at the time,
or they’ll put on like,
here’s the nine most biggest
scammers or whatever.
So this guy, because
they let talk about this
guy from the ’70s, now
he’s been from the ’70s,
but they put his poster up
again and again and again,
and every time they talk about it and post
them, and there’s a picture next to it.
And it’s another guy, not another guy.
He’s also a criminal.
He’s also another guy
who’s been a criminal in hiding
the entire time, wanted for an
attempted murder back in 2020.
Turns out having his
picture on the news every day
for a couple of weeks was
enough for someone to go,
“Oh, come on, come on, I
think I know who that guy is.
“I think I’ve seen
that guy around before.
” He hangs out in that
building that’s full of yakuza.
In Japan, they actually, the yakuza
will buy a building to house the yakuza.
And the whole point is, if
you are a yakuza in hiding,
you go into one of these
apartment buildings where it’s
all other yakuza, and
they’re not gonna turn you in.
The problem with having your
face on the news every day
means if you go outside
and which you probably do,
you go outside and go for groceries and
do some other stuff, it means other people
will see your face, and
someone put it together,
put an anonymous tip
in, hey, that guy lives in
Sendai, the police arrested
him on February 1st.
So it’s an interesting thing,
just throwing the pictures
up on the news again and again and
again, was enough for people to go like,
“I actually think I
recognize that guy.
” So you think about
wanted posters not working,
but they kind of work if
you get it on national news
so that a whole bunch of people can
see it, and then, you know, nosy neighbors,
that’s not just a Japanese thing,
but it is a very big Japanese thing.
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow.
I was of recording, this is February 13th.
This is tomorrow is February 14th
with his traditionally Valentine’s Day.
Japan, if you are a fan of Japan, it’s
pretty fairly common knowledge now
that it’s not done in
the Western tradition.
They made their own
tradition where a woman
will give a man chocolate
on Valentine’s Day.
And then a month later, on White Day,
man are supposed to
reciprocate by giving cookies.
There is a tradition in Japan that the women
in an office give really shit chocolates
to everyone in their office,
all the guys in their office.
They don’t like them, they don’t find them
attractive, it’s just something you do.
That’s called giddy choco.
Now, giddy, giddy, giddy
is like almost, but it’s in
English, they translate
it to obligation chocolate.
And I never thought about the word,
but giddy, it kind of means like barely.
So it’s like barely
chocolate or maybe barely
affectionate chocolate
or something like that.
I actually need to go
get the etymology of that
’cause I was thinking about
it as I was writing this down
that the direct translation
while it makes perfect sense
doesn’t actually translate the words,
it translates the spirit of the phrase,
which is an interesting
aspect of translation.
When you have something
called super dragon punch
in Japanese and you’re
gonna translate to the
English, do you call it
super dragon puncher?
Do you change it to something else that
would be more sort of in the right atmosphere
or feeling of the words,
which would be interesting?
Totally relevant.
I just, I realized that giddy choco
or giddy giddy choco doesn’t
translate into obligation chocolate
would actually translate into
on essentially shit chocolate.
The practice has reached its
lowest point since this survey began.
I didn’t write down when the survey began,
which is a big failure on
my part as a journalist,
but luckily I’m not being held to journalistic
standards because I don’t get paid.
The benefit of being
an independent anything
is that you can kind of just
make up the rules as you go.
If someone accuses me of not being a
good journalist, I’ll be like, wow, pay me.
Then I might become a good journalist.
There was a 19,000 person
survey, 37.6% plan to give gifts.
That’s up 3.2%.
Usually gifts are given
to spouses or partners.
Worst reporter ever.
The cost.
Look, I mean, again,
how much have you paid?
Like, when you start throwing money my
way, then maybe you can start holding me
to some sort of standard
you imagine in your head.
Or when the advertisers
roll in, maybe whatever.
It is true, though.
Well, actually, no, it’s not.
I’m going to now suddenly
after having agreed.
What’s your Venmo?
You send me money
on paper and link in the
description of the YouTube
channel’s has my PayPal.
I actually had my first donation.
The month ago, two months
ago, it was very exciting for me.
Some guy just like dropped me 20 bucks.
I was, that’s the most money I’ve made
off any of endeavors I’ve ever had so far.
Anyways, no, I’m not the worst reporter.
See, the thing is, I actually
double check everything I say.
So if I get a story, I don’t accept it.
If it’s only one story, I
have to have two sources,
which a lot of journalists in online
sources, they don’t do that anymore.
They’ll just take it and repeat it.
And maybe even make changes to it.
There was the story of the guy who
hit the taxi driver who hit the pigeon.
And I found two sources.
And then the third source actually said,
they changed it from pigeon
to dove to try to create
that sort of more
sympathetic sound to the story,
which was an embellishment,
which made it inaccurate,
which made me realize like, okay, this
person, this writer cannot be trusted.
So as far as a trusted news source,
while I am not the investigative reporter,
when it comes to the things
I say, they are verifiable.
Better than Fox News,
which legally is entertainment.
This is not entertainment.
This is fucking news.
All right. Anyways, the average this,
this was a story about Valentine’s Day,
which is, you know, sort of one of those
light stories that has no actual meaning.
The average intended
cost of the gift is 3,238 yen,
which is down from 3,329
yen in previous years.
66.2% of people are planning to
give it to their partners or spouses.
Co-workers are down to 14.
1%, where 72% of the people surveyed
said, it is either somewhat unnecessary
or completely unnecessary to give
chocolate to your shitty stinky co-worker
who laughs too loud and
eats with his mouth open.
I’m not thinking of anyone, and specifically
who works in the office where I work,
who eats crackers every
morning that smell like shrimp,
and I’m across the fucking office, and I
can smell it and eats with his mouth open,
and he’s eating sembe,
which is like a hard cracker.
So it’s also, it’s not
only like a really noisy
food to eat, the fucking
wrapper is weirdly noisy.
It’s like the noisiest food ever invented,
and he’s the only
one in the office who’s
making any sound, and
I don’t want to kill him.
I don’t want to pick up a
chair and throw it at him.
I don’t want to push him out the window.
No one in particular.
I mean, that was just a
hypothetical that came
to mind, has no bearing
on any person in reality.
This was the interesting
part of this article, though,
was they were blaming the
reduction in wanting to give
a giddy, giddy choco to an increase
in teleworking and not inflation.
Because to me, it would
make way more sense,
like if chocolate as its
baseline gets more expensive,
it would make way more sense
that people don’t want to pay
for something that they
already see as unnecessary.
But they’re saying,
like, “Oh, people are not
as in the office, they’re
not as connected.
” It almost felt conspiratorial,
like this was one of those
weird return to office pushes,
like, “Oh, you’re losing the
connection that the office creates,”
which is, as we all know,
complete and utter bullshit.
Speaking of inflation, oh my God, I put my
stories together in the right order today.
That’s a piece of magic right there.
People are buying less
because of inflation.
I actually noticed that I buy
less overall because of inflation.
Previously, I would go
out for lunch regularly.
Now I have basically stopped.
I don’t go out for lunch.
I meal prep.
So I make burritos.
I make like 20, 30 burritos and I freeze
them and I bring them into the office.
That’s it’s cheaper and I’m not
spending money to go to restaurants.
So, and that’s inflation.
Like, I could see the price go out, go up.
I can see that going out is too expensive.
I’m not going to do it anymore.
Convenient stores in supermarkets
are also, they’re like feeling it.
They’re getting feeling hit.
So what they’re doing is creating
larger products to lure people in.
And the owner of, I think it
was, you know, incorporation,
said, because of the appearance, larger
food can provide excitement and fun.
The price cuts can’t.
And here’s, here’s the thing
from a consumer perspective.
I would rather have normal food at a
discounted price or let’s just put it this way.
One inflation is no longer an issue.
Like, inflation is capped out and you’re
like, we’re not selling enough of this.
Capitalism actually dictates
that’s when you lower the price.
I don’t want an extra large, only giddy.
I don’t want a cake
with more frosting on it.
I would just like the regular
version at a lower price.
And then you’re more likely to
get my patronage on a regular basis.
It is interesting that
these, it’s convenience
stores and supermarkets
are like, instead
of lowering the price
of our regular products,
we’re going to take some products and
make them extra big for the same price.
And I, they’re only
choosing select products.
So it’s not really like the
necessities of the things you need.
They would make a lot more money if
you just said, let’s make a regular price.
And let’s actually drop the price on regular
items and then people would keep coming
back because, hey, it’s slightly
cheaper here than somewhere else.
That is exactly what I would
think and that’s where I would go.
They’re increasing the size
of only giddy, bento boxes,
so the pre prepared lunchboxes
and a bunch of sweets.
Obviously, it’s one
of those things that
sounds like a good plan
to executives, but then
doesn’t translate into the real world
where people actually live and work.
The Japan Education Minister.
This was actually something
I learned, so that’s nice.
He said, I never received
support from the unification church.
And then next week
he’s like, okay, I kind of
received support from
the unification church.
Unification church is a big issue in Japan.
Way back.
Now, a year ago, the former
Prime Minister Abe was shot.
He was shot by a guy
who was angry at the
unification church because
the unification church
had ruined his family
because his mom had
joined and given all the
family money to the church.
And he said he wanted
to exact revenge.
Abe’s father was the
one that brought the
unification church into
Japan as an organization.
He was a politician.
He let them into the country.
He let them become an organized religion.
So it wasn’t a direct
link, but there was
supposed to be unification
church leader at this
thing where the guy showed
up and Abe was there.
The guy didn’t show up.
So he shot Abe instead.
It was like actually a
target of opportunity.
This set off a whole
thing where people are
like, well, is the unification
church taking money from people?
And then it turns out they’re
doing a lot of really weird stuff.
We’ve actually covered
that in a previous
episode, so I’m not
going to go over it again.
But what they did find
out is the unification
church does a lot of pandering
to politicians, not a big surprise.
You want to enact political power.
You got to get politicians so they
give a lot of money to politicians.
Politicians are all now scared
because now if you’ve received
money or anything from the
unification church, it looks bad.
It looks like you’ve been bought
and paid for, which you probably have.
You fucking education minister.
Turns out the thing I
didn’t know, the education
minister is also in
charge for religious
issues, which if you
are in charge of religious
issues and you’ve
taken money from the
unification church, there’s a
bit of a conflict of interest there.
That’s kind of the issue
that maybe has come up.
So he said, no, I’ve never
dealt with the unification church.
Turns out he participated
in an event hosted
by the unification church and accepted
a letter of recommendation from them.
But he says, and this
is on record, if there
happened to be photos, I think I must
have received a recommendation letter.
So I do like the initial part of that
sentence more than anything else.
If there happened to
be photos, he’s like,
basically, if you have
evidence, then it must be true.
If you don’t have evidence, then I’m going
to deny it because you don’t have evidence.
So if you have evidence, bring it
forward and then I’ll admit that I did it.
It’s a very interesting piece of logic he’s
working on because he’s basically saying,
if you can prove it,
I’ll admit it, but if you
can’t, I’m not gonna
ask a he shimblin, publish
these photos and
it’s him at the event
receiving the letter of
recommendation and being
very chummy, tell me
with the unification church.
This is coming after a
scandal in the government
where a whole bunch of
people were taking money.
I mean, again, not
particularly the surprising
scandal, but it’s actually meant because
she to the current prime minister, like his
whole cabinet is now
being called into question
and it is going to be a big problem
for him in the upcoming elections.
Crimes in Japan rose
for a second straight year
in 2023 went up 17% to
703,351 crimes recorded.
This is basically because coronavirus
restrictions have been reduced.
So all the criminals,
all the criminals were
in lockdown, which
meant it’s really hard
to commit crime if
you’re stuck in your house,
but also there’s been
a legislation change.
So the penal code has been
revised, the interpretation
of forcible intercourse has
been updated in the penal code.
And so those cases rose by 63.8%.
This sounds like there
are thousands of forcible
intercourse cases that
have suddenly happened.
What actually happened
was before they were
happening and not getting
prosecuted, now they
are being prosecuted,
so this incredible rise,
63% rise in forcible
intercourse crime means that
it’s actually being prosecuted
now where before it wasn’t.
It’s good that these are being prosecuted.
This huge rise in
numbers, though, has meant
the atmosphere, the
feeling of the average
citizen in Japan thinks that
Japan is a less safe country.
So a survey said 70% believe that Japan is
less safe than it was before, before being
a very vague term,
because yeah, during the
pandemic, when everything
was locked down, everything
was very safe because no one
was allowed to leave the house.
But getting to
actual statistics, a 4.
8% increase in fraud and
robbery, cyber scams are
up 8%, there were 19,033
cyber scams recorded last year.
It’s the most in 10
years, obviously the
internet is where these
scams are going to take
place from now on, 44.1 billion yen,
it’s up for the second year in a row.
The scams are not
just coming from within
Japan, the scams are actually
coming from all over Southeast Asia.
Gassy, we talked
about Gassy a lot, and I
talked about Gassy a lot because
he had a very interesting thing.
He was living in Dubai,
he was a YouTuber,
and what his YouTube
was like all scandals in
Japan, and then he said
he was living in Dubai
because if he came
back to Japan, they would
arrest him, and there
were people against
him, and it was like
all very conspiratorial.
And then he ran for
office, and he thought
like I can run for office
remotely, and he won,
he was running in the
government remotely,
and they’re like no, you
have to show up, he’s
like if I show up, you’re
going to arrest me,
and then they’re like
no, that’s not going
to happen, then he
showed up and got arrested,
and now the case
is actually coming to
sort of a conclusion,
essentially online intimidation.
So he was basically a cyber bully, he would
get scandals, he would get information,
and then he would like
blackmail people, or pick
people isn’t like, and he
would like harass them.
So he’s online
intimidation symbolizes the
problem of online
defamation and its extreme
maliciousness, whoo,
that’s what the judge
said, prosecutors are
looking for four years in prison.
So in a weird way,
though, this is actually
funny, because he was
talking all conspiracy,
and everyone’s like no, no, that’s not a
conspiracy, that’s not going to happen.
And then it was true, the whole time it was
true, they’re like as soon as you step foot
in this country,
you’re going to get
arrested, which is exactly
what he said would happen.
He’s being accused of
threats against actors.
I know go seems to be the main
one, who said I have been slandered.
I’ve lost contracts, and I
demand a strict punishment.
So this is actually a big thing.
Like when your name
gets dragged through the
mud in Japan, companies
will not work with you.
So he lost advertising
contracts and probably
millions and millions of yen
because of the things that Gassy said.
So Gassy having to pay
the price for that is good.
Again, I think this opens
him up once he’s found guilty.
There’s also a civil suit that I and I will
go could levy towards him and probably try
to recoup some of
those funds, although I
bet Gassy’s not going to have that
much money left over after all this.
So there was a man
and he’s a fan of this ex
porn star, and she
goes live on TikTok now.
And he sends her 80,000 yen
and he says, let’s meet for tea.
Now, if you’re a cool person in Japan,
young person, this actually a pickup line.
So it sounds, let’s meet
for T sounds very innocent.
Most Japanese pickup lines and stuff do.
In Korea, what does it like,
let’s go to my house and I’ll make
you ramen is like come over and
sleep with me at my apartment.
In Japan, let’s go for tea
means like let’s go on a date.
So he sent her 80,000 yen
and like dropped a pickup line
and she’s like, well, I got a
simp on the hook, let’s go.
She replied later with
if I’m driving, so like if I
have to come meet you,
that’ll be another 150,000 yen.
And so the dude paid it.
So the dude has paid out 80,000 yen for the
initial dropping line, 150,000 yen to get
her to drive to him or to
wherever they’re going to meet.
And then she said, not
having, not being satisfied.
She said, I haven’t been
able to pay my phone bill.
So give me another 40,000
yen, which he then paid.
But then she never actually met him.
So this is 270,000 yen total this man
has spent has given to this ex porn star.
And she actually still hasn’t met him.
Then during email
conversations or it’s like
online, line is like a chat
system they use in Japan.
It’s probably the
most popular one.
She said that he started
treating her cold, he’s probably
treating her coldly because
she’s taken 270,000 yen.
And average salary in Japan is
going to be 250 to 300,000 yen.
So he’s paid the average
monthly salary just
to have a meeting with
this woman who said
she will meet him and
then she’s not doing it.
She’s like, oh, I’m angry
that he’s now cold to me.
She said she would return all the money,
but he could never contact her again.
He said fine.
And then she hasn’t returned the money.
So I’m wondering, yeah,
like where’s the legality here?
Because the money was given under
a condition, but there was no contract.
Can he take this a step further?
And now let’s face facts, he
wanted to meet a porn star.
I think we all know
what he actually wanted
to have happen, but it
seems like a good story
to end on, but there’s no conclusion
because the story hasn’t ended yet.
The story hasn’t ended yet because we don’t
know if he’s going to get his money back or
if she’s actually going
to meet him, which
is not going to meet him because she
was just trying to like scammer for money.
Is there a scam here because
he gave the money willingly?
Like if you were going
to donate money to a
podcaster, and then make
demands of the podcaster,
and then they didn’t
meet those demands.
Would he then be obligated
to give that money back?
I don’t think so, but
the fact that there was a
disingenuous agreement
made is a kind of fraud.
So with my very
shallow understanding of
Japanese legal law, I
actually bet the fact that
she said, if you give me 150,000
yen, I will come and drive to meet you.
That is an oral
contract, that’s an oral
contract and therefore he
would have some kind of civil case.
It wouldn’t be punitive.
I bet he could get his money back.
I don’t think he could actually
like get extra money from her.
Just like if you gave a podcaster money, so
let’s say 80,000 yen, if you dropped 80,000
on your favorite podcast, I mean, what
kind of demand would you make of me anyway?
It’s like take off my shirt.
The problem is I would do it.
I would take off my
shirt and it would be
disgusting because it
would blow out the camera
and you wouldn’t be able
to see anything anymore.
Would it be 80,000 yen and only, all right,
so Ignat’s is just putting the chat sing,
but you please know the
Ignat’s is not dropped any money.
So when the money gets dropped, then we
will have an oral contract if I agree to it.
That’s the problem.
That’s the bit you’re missing.
So, yes, you can say,
I request that you sing
and then I can say,
well, I want 100,000 yen
and I will sing the song of
my choice and then I will sing
and then it would be like, I’m
not satisfied with that song.
Unfortunately, then
I would have actually
fulfilled my side of the
contract and you would
just lose, you would not be
able to accuse me of fraud.
Whereas if you gave
me 100,000 yen and I
said I would sing the
song of your choice and
then I sang a different song,
that could be problematic.
But if I just didn’t sing at all, well
then, absolutely, that would be fraud.
Oh, look at Dave, look at how cute Dave is.
He sat up just for the
end of the show, oh, my
little buddy, he’s still
got his eyes half close.
The dude is like barely asleep all the
time, okay, let’s just do the end song.
That was really messy today.
I do not know what happened.
I think I just kind of
mentally am not there.
Oh, he’s actually asleep.
He’s like doing the deep breathing,
sleeping as eyes are closed.
He’s sleeping while sitting up.
I bet if I just left this on Twitch, this
would be the most popular thing I’ve ever done.
Can I get the microphone
down to his nose?
Oh, no, he’s laying down again.
Ah, that’s too bad.