Author: admin

(upbeat music)

• So, Adeela, talked about her last week,

she got sentenced to prison,
she’s gonna go to prison.

But of course, anywhere this girl goes,

there’s fallout, there’s
destruction and terror and mayhem.

In previous stories, we
actually mentioned the reason

she didn’t have all the
money she had stolen,

fraudulently from men, scammed
out of men, is because she

was going to host clubs and
giving the money to hosts.

But, there’s a secondary crime there.

I didn’t really think about it much
at the time, but it does make sense.

One of the hosts she gave money to,

pled guilty today, of the crime
of receiving 25 million yen.

Now, giving someone 25
million yen in itself is not a crime.

But if you know that that
money is ill gotten gained,

so if you know that
the money you’re getting

is a result of a crime,
receiving it is also a crime.

So he knew, and we actually have the text
messages from some of the earlier stories.

He knew that she was getting
the money from scamming men.

They even said, like, as
long as you make money,

I make money, ha ha ha, that’s a
terrible joke, don’t ever make that joke.

But because he knew that
the 25 million yen he’d gotten

was the result of fraud, that he is now
not implicated, words are gone already.

Just dead, my brain’s
dead, I’m already gone.

It’s not complicit.

So the punishment is yet to be determined.

So this host, basically sat
around, was given a bunch of money

from Lizzie-Cha and because
he took that money and kept it.

He’s now, I don’t know if you’ll get prison
time, he’ll probably just get big fine.

I’m sure he’ll have to give the money back
or return it to the court or something.

I’m interested again
what the punishments are.

So Lizzie-Cha got
eight years in prison and I

think it was $12 million,
12 million yen fine.

But this will be a lower level crime.

It’ll be interesting to see what
kind of punishment he gets for it.

So again, last week,
we’re just having stories,

they kind of repeat
over and over again.

We get these trends of stories.

I actually don’t do this on purpose,
but you would think that, oh, maybe I look

for this kind of story,
this kind of story happens

and then I see it more
often and I pay attention to it.

That’s not the case.

But it seems like there are certain stories

that just happen in
trends or seasons almost.

Like the underwear
stealing ones always happen

in the summertime, but that’s
because that’s when people have,

you know, they can climb
on balconies and stuff.

We actually haven’t done one
of those stories in a long time.

There was one this
week, but it wasn’t very

interesting, just old guy
stole some underwear.

Who cares?

But we have the mayor who committed
99 acts of sexual harassment had to quit.

That is set off like a flurry of
other people who’ve had to resign.

So we have two mayors
in Iichi, Iichi’s a prefecture

in Japan, who had to resign on the same
day over sexual harassment accusations.

So we have the mayor
of IKEADA, he had to

quit because of sexual
harassment allegations.

But he didn’t say anything
particularly interesting.

He just kind of quit.

The mayor of Togo City,
man, I love when they talk

’cause it’s always like it
gives you a little bit of insight,

a little bit of insight into
what’s going on in their head.

So he said an independent study is found
that he was guilty of power harassment

and sexual harassment since
2018 against multiple employees.

He said things like, you should die.

And to a female employee, he
said, when will you get big boobs?

So then he, they say
like all your guilty of

this, this is a crime,
okay, you got to quit.

So he quits, he resigns.

He says, I want to apologize.

I’m ashamed that I was ignorant.

Now the dude is 57 years old.

He should have known better by
now, like if I had committed that crime,

I don’t think I would be
like ashamed I was ignorant

because it’s like, dude, I knew
I was doing something wrong.

I just thought I would get away with it.

And that’s kind of my thing.

Do these guys really think
they’re gonna get away with it?

Like what is going on in their heads where
it’s like I’m gonna keep abusing people

to the point where it
actually becomes an issue.

He’s not sorry, let’s just be honest.

He’s not sorry, he’s not ashamed.

He wants to apologize
’cause he lost his job.

That’s actually the only
thing that’s happening.

Because later on he said, in the same
apology, this is his apology speech he says,

strong guidance is
different from harassment.

So he’s not actually so
sorry as he claims to be.

He’s not actually taking responsibility
for the fact that he was ignorant.

He’s basically saying like, look,
maybe I said some strong stuff.

But what I was really doing
was guiding my employees.

So let’s take a look.

We have a couple of examples
of the statements he made.

You should die.

That would be very strong guidance
on how to deal with yourself, I guess.

I’m just trying to decide what other
information could I extract from that?

That would actually make it seem like
he didn’t actually mean you should die.

When will you get big boobs?

Now, if you were going to
claim that was strong guidance

and not some form of sexual harassment,
you would have to explain to me

how that statement translates
into a better work performance.

Now, the thing is, again, this old dude,

you know what he’s actually
thinking is like, yeah, if you

have bigger boobs, you know,
people around you perform better.

It’s like, he’s thinking something grows.

I don’t know.

I think if you are making the apologists,

you’ve had to quit your
job, you make the apology.

I think this is not the time to go and try

to defend your actions or give an explanation
as to why it’s not really what it was.

So the dude who committed
99 cases of sexual harassment,

he tried to say like, man, I
don’t know what you guys

are also upset about,
which I think is true.

I think if you’re actually
taking like what he’s saying

at face value, I think
that is actually true.

He didn’t know what the problem was.

That’s why he thought it was okay
to sexually harass people all the time.

This guy’s in the same thing.

He thinks that you should die
and when will you get big boobs?

He doesn’t actually see that as
sexual harassment or power harassment.

He sees that as strong guidance
and how to make your life better

by appeasing him and doesn’t
understand how the world works

and really doesn’t understand why he’s
being fired in this case, yes, to resign.

He doesn’t understand
how this like third party

organization looked into
this and found him guilty.

And in his apology,
he’s standing there going

like, yeah, but you guys,
you don’t understand.

And I’m just like, I’m a direct speaker.

I tell people to truth.

Something I’ve actually always enjoyed is
when people claim they don’t filter things.

You know, like I’m a straight shooter and
I just, I call it like I see it, you know.

You, whenever those people are
talking and whenever they make that,

that’s their excuse, basically they’re
saying I say shitty things to people.

It’s always very interesting technique
is once they do that a couple of times

and you go like that was
a really awful thing to say,

well, you know, I just, I tell people
to direct truth and unfiltered truth.

I tell people what I think and what I
see, and I’m honest and you go, okay.

So let’s have some hard truths about
yourself and then see what they say.

Because people are very easy,
like that kind of personality type

always gives hard
truths about other people.

They’re never willing to give
hard truths about themselves,

which actually shows that
they’re incredibly hypocritical

because, you know, if
they call it like they see it,

they could see themselves being
jerks and then call themselves out on it.

They’re like, yeah, I was a jerk

and I apologize and I should
take responsibility for that.

Just like this guy didn’t.

Japan is having an issue.

We have the yen has
dropped significantly in value

and that is actually really good for
tourists ’cause tourists come over here,

they can spend lots more money and get
more value for the money when they convert.

This has a letter problem of over tourism.

And so that’s something
Japan is a country’s dealing with.

Tourist numbers are now back
to what they were pre-pandemic.

And in some cases,
they’re actually exceeding

what they were pre-pandemic
because the yen is so cheap.

People are like, oh, it was
a great time to go to Japan.

I can spend a lot of money
and get my money’s worth.

It’ll be really great.

This has caused problems because tourists
are not behaving like Japanese people,

which makes sense,
they’re not Japanese people.

So they don’t abide by the same rules
or they don’t see things the same way.

So one of the first things is garbage.

Now there are no garbage
cans in Japan readily available

in most places because they expect
you to take your garbage with you.

Mount Fuji, people are taking stuff.

They buy drinks and snacks and
stuff and they just throw it on the trail.

Well, Mount Fuji’s
been like, that’s terrible.

You’re gonna make Mount
Fuji all covered in garbage.

Someone has to clean it up.

So instead of just like ignoring
it or putting garbage cans,

which would overflow, what
they’ve decided to do is like,

well, we’re gonna have to
employ people to pick up garbage,

which means we will now charge 2,000
yen for you to walk up the mountain.

We did a story a month, maybe two months
ago, in Guillaume where the geisha are.

And they have these like
alleys that lead to their homes

and the places where
they train and stuff like that.

Those are private and
people were going in

there and being rude and
one of the worst things

was so they would like
grab geisha and yank

them over and like
take selfies with them.

The problem being that
these are not there for,

these are people, they’re
not there for your amusement.

So just grabbing an individual,
actually a crime in Japan.

But these alleyways and
stuff that lead to these private

residences, they’re
actually private property.

People are going down,
they’re being disrespectful.

So they block them off.

They’re basically saying like, if you
come down here, now they’re fine.

The latest one, there is this,
what is considered to be iconic

picture of Mount Fuji and
there’s a Lawson in front of it.

Lawson is a convenience store in Japan.

And you can take this picture.

This has become a very popular spot.

Tons of people are coming
here to take this picture

and people, local people are like, it’s
too much because they’re blocking traffic

because they’re not paying
attention to traffic rules

so they’re walking out to the road ’cause
they want to get them at the best picture.

There, there have been a
couple of stories of people

like across the road
climbing up onto the

adjacent building so
they can get a picture.

And they want to get pictures
without crowds in it and stuff like that.

So this city has decided
what we’re going to do

to solve this problem is
put up a giant black curtain

and block out the Lawson so you
can’t take a picture of it anymore.

So they’re like, you’ve
gone so far as to bother

the locals and cause
problems for the police

and whatnot, what we’re
going to do is you can block out

the whole thing so you can’t
take your stupid picture anymore.

How do you like that?

And I actually, I’m a little like torn
’cause it’s a very reasonable response.

I’m like, how harsh do you go on tourism?

So these people come here and
they want to have a good time.

They are going to push the
boundaries of what’s acceptable.

Is it acceptable to arrest
them when they break the rules

because they are breaking laws
and stuff again, traffic laws are laws.

But also it seems like a bit harsh but is
it also the right answer to just take away

the thing everyone wants this
picture to take away this picture.

It’s kind of the
Instagramification of tourism

where you’re not actually
going to have an experience

you’re going to get these pictures
so you can take the picture.

Maybe have a picture of you
standing in front of the community

in the store in front of
Mount Fuji, that kind of thing.

But the towns had enough and they
are doing, they’re gonna block it off.

I was actually my first
thought was like a man.

What if they did like a giant green screen?

And then you got a Mount Fuji and this
big green screen you put other stuff there.

Which would again
attract more people to do

more nonsense but maybe
you do it once a year.

Have like a little
celebration, a little festival

and come see the giant green
screen in front of Mount Fuji.

But yeah, because people
were just going buck wild,

they’re not going to be able
to take their picture anymore.

Japan still has a royal family and I
do not have a great deal of regard

for royalty, I think that’s
a pretty fair thing to say.

I don’t have a great
deal of regard for

royalty ’cause I don’t
think they do anything.

Like I actually am not
against having royalty.

I think again for tourism
and things like that

it actually could be
beneficial for relations

between countries,
it could be beneficial.

But overall what I see is a bunch of people

living off taxpayer money
contributing very little to nothing.

So I’m not a big royalist in any way.

So the empire, the royal family in Japan,

the emperor and stuff, I
don’t actually care about them.

90% of people, oh, one of
the problems before you

get into the actual story,
there’s not enough boys.

Population decline, issues like that.

But in this family, there just aren’t
enough direct descendants who are male

and the emperor has to
come from the paternal

side, not the maternal
side of the family.

So because they don’t have
a male heir, the end of the

empire, the emperor’s
family could be on the horizon.

And so they did a survey and they found that
90% of people support having an empress,

which I’m 100% on board with
because I don’t care about the empress.

So why would I care if it was an empress?

I actually think an empress
might be pretty cool for a while.

You know, again, try to change
some of the traditional views of Japan.

But of course, there’s a 10%
that are very, very against it.

72% of the people surveyed
said they have a sense of crisis

regarding the issue, which I
actually find hard to believe.

Because again, I don’t think
the royal family does anything.

So if the royal family doesn’t do anything,
how can you have a sense of crisis?

Like if the royal family
in Japan went away today,

I don’t think there would be any significant
change to Japanese culture or society.

Like there would be another
person you don’t talk about

who isn’t doing that much ’cause
again, they do charity working stuff.

I do, again, this is where the
benefit of royalty would come in.

If they do charity work
to help other people,

if they do work to support
the country or something.

I don’t know.

I don’t actually know ’cause I don’t
know what they do ’cause I don’t care.

So I found that number interesting.

But then I realized if
they’re doing a survey

and people are answering a
survey about the royal family,

they’re probably people who
care about the royal family.

If you gave me a survey
about the royal family,

it would be 50/50 if I
even bothered to fill it out.

I care that little.

So I bet a lot of people just didn’t
fill it out or didn’t care about it.

For the few people who
disagreed that we should only have

male heirs, what they’re
actually saying inadvertently,

they don’t realize this, is that we will
actually kill off the royal family in Japan.

‘Cause if you have no heir at all,

then the family line ends,
from the family line ends.

There’s no one to take over.

But they say that this goes
against Japanese culture.

‘Cause Japanese culture traditionally,
the heir is male, the male takes over.

That is Japanese culture.

And I agree, that is technically true.

The issue for me is, again,
they serve no purpose.

Going beyond, they serve no purpose.

We’re talking about a thing
that needs to evolve with time.

Now, if we’re talking about
traditional Japanese culture,

well, traditionally the emperor did a
bunch of stuff and was a ruler and things.

They’re not that anymore.

They need to change with the times.

And so changing with
the times, in this case,

could include, like, let’s
open it up to, essentially,

whoever’s available, they could be
the next emperor, slash emperors.

You want to talk about evolution?

The royal family recently
started an Instagram account.

I did not bother to check it out, because,
again, I do not care what they do at all.

Japan rail east.

So there’s Japan rail
east, Japan rail west,

in Meitetsu and there’s a
couple other railroad companies.

But Japan rail east, I
found it’s very interesting.

They’re like, they have the problem of
Karens and Kevin’s people who overreact.

That’s not like an American thing.

It’s universal.

There are people who
overreact wherever they go.

I’m not talking about tourists.

I’m talking about just like,
there’s Japanese people.

They behave this way to get what they want.

They freak out.

They think if they put enough
pressure on people, if they harass people,

they’re just going to give
in and get what they want.

And they’ve been doing
this their entire lives.

That’s how this sort of
Karen mentality became to the

forefront of culture, was more
and more people were doing this.

This is how they were sort
of getting what they want.

This is how they’re surviving.

Now that we recognize it, people
are starting to actually deal with it.

Well, JREs has had people,
they make unreasonable demands.

They get physical.

They demand that the staff get
down on their hands and knees

and bow apologized to them
and all this other garbage.

Stuff that reasonable people
would never ask you to do.

They did quite nicely
rephrase it as unruly customers.

They’ve come up with an official policy,

and the official policy is, if you get out
of hand, they’re just going to ignore you.

Which I love as an official policy.

So they’ll talk to you, they’ll try to
help you, they’ll try to do their best.

I’ve actually 99% of my
experiences on Japanese railways

have been positive where I’m
like, dude, I don’t know where I’m

going, I need help, and they
will do their best to help you.

I’ve only had one guy in 20
years put me on the wrong train.

I don’t necessarily think
he did it on purpose.

Either my Japanese wasn’t good enough
or he just wasn’t really paying attention.

I asked him a question and
he just pointed to the train

and I jumped on the train
and it was the wrong train.

So that I’m not chalking that
up to him, not doing a good job.

Maybe he was busy, maybe he was distracted,
maybe my Japanese was really poor.

So I’m not even saying like the one
percent that I am saying did not go well,

I’m not putting that on
the railway employee yet.

I would have to go back
and do research and stuff.

He seemed very dismissive, which is
why I put that margin of error in there.

The my experience overall
has been very positive

where I ask for help and
people do their best to help me.

So it seems like if you’re a reasonable
person, you’re gonna get the help you need.

So now, if I get out of hands,
I get on the train station,

I just start shouting at people, and I
maybe like shove people around a little bit,

start throwing my
weight, come to a big boy.

They’re just going to be like, “We’re
going to ignore you until you go away.

” And if you don’t go away,
they’re just going to call the cops.

And that’s it.

That’s their official policy.

And somehow I really enjoy
that as an official policy.

The official policy is like, if
they go too far, ignore them,

if they keep going, ’cause
that is going to set them off.

This type of person, the thing that
steps them off the most, is being ignored.

So it’s going to set them off.

They’re going to go,
“Ah, I can’t handle.

You’re not, you know,
bowing to my every whim.

Ignore them.

They’ll get out of hand, call
the cops, and get them arrested.

” So I expect an influx
of people getting arrested,

because it’s train station at JRE, is ignoring
those stories over the next few weeks.

And then it’ll start to sink in.

You’re not going to be able
to do this and get away with it.

And then they’ll kind of stop.

At JRE, they’re going to try JRE West.

They’re going to try, it may
test you the other train lines.

And then it’s going to
just filter out over there.

This is how we handle this problem.

And a lot of people are going to
get like, taken away by the police.

I don’t think you’re going to get jail time
or anything, but they’re going to like,

if you have a train to catch,
you are not catching that train.

If you have something you’ve got
to do, you’re not doing it that day.

And I think more companies adopting this

as an official policy would
not be the worst thing ever.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

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(upbeat music)

• What was a one week break
  ended up being a two week break.

The first week was just work.

And then I had no days off,
but then I actually got sick.

So I took a day off.

Then, second week I
come back, I got my day

off, but then we’re
having hosting issues.

I’ve dealt with hosting issues before.

So if you’re listening to this on
the podcast, capture of your choice,

well then my preparations
have all been successful.

If not, then you’re not hearing
what I’m saying right now.

It’s just a void that I exist in, and
the noise I make signifies nothing.

But the noise I make signifies
nothing on a normal day.

So I guess everything
just worked out anyways.

But we’re back now.

A forewarning, my
mother is coming to Japan.

So I don’t know how much free time I’m
gonna have ’cause I might be doing that.

So I might actually, like this month,
looks like it might just be a bust.

I’m gonna try my best.

I’ve actually had these breaks and stuff.

The problem with taking a break

is actually very hard to
come back and get back into it.

And that’s what I’m trying to do.

So I wanna make sure I don’t
lose the momentum that I have

created by starting this and
we’re at 300 episodes and whatnot.

And it would be a shame to
lose momentum at that point.

So let’s get into the Japanese
news about two weeks.

I’ve chosen just a crème de la crème,
the Japanese news for you to deliver today.

Yugiko, it’s a card game.

I’ve never been into it.

I’ve never been into the card games.

There’s a lot of things I don’t, yeah.

I’m even, like I play video games.

I’m even actually quite picky about them
as a whole bunch of games I will not play.

I essentially don’t play side-scrollers.

I don’t know why.

I think I’m just missed too many
generations of consoles and stuff.

This is about stuff I’m like,
well, that’s not what I want.

So I only wanna, ooh.

Yugiko is not my thing.

I’m not saying I’m against it.

You like Yugiko?

You go, gi.

The Yugiko Championships in Japan,
though, doesn’t allow foreign residents,

which is a very interesting little note
because the championships for their country,

you’re trying to find the
best player in the country.

And of course, you do kind of
want them to be from that country.

You have to have a Japanese address.

Why?

I have a Japanese address.

But entry is restricted
to Japanese nationality.

Now I have permanent residents
in Japan, which means I can

live in Japan from now until
I unfortunately pass away.

Any day now.

I shouldn’t bring up my own mortality.

Not at the start.

I should bring up my own mortality.

More towards the end of the episode.

But by this rule, I could not enter.

So despite the fact I’ve lived
in Japan for 20 years now,

and I may live in Japan for 20, 30
years more before my untimely death.

Untimely, I guess if I get
20, 30 more years, I’m flying.

70s, 80s, that’s about right.

I couldn’t enter this.

I’ve lived more of my life in Japan
than I have in any other country,

which is an interesting
thing to think about.

‘Cause I’m still not considered Japanese.

I’m never going to be considered Japanese.

I didn’t want to give up my passport
because I didn’t want to lose the value

of the Canadian passport
and the same for my children.

I didn’t want my children
to not have access

to Canada as a country where they could
maybe work or move to her in the future.

So I wanted them to
have Canadian citizenship.

Just trying to keep the options open.

So this rule seems particularly strict.

So someone who’s lived in
Japan for a very, very long time,

so decades, they cannot enter
the Hugo Championships in Japan.

There’s a lot of
speculation as to the reason,

but like I can
understand you don’t want

someone who comes here
short term on a holiday,

wins the Japanese championship
and then just moves on.

‘Cause they’re not really
at the Japanese champion,

they’re not representing
Japan as a country.

But taking it to a point
where you are restricting it

to like again, someone like myself,
who is in the Hugo has lived in Japan,

is dedicated to living
Japan for X money years.

It would make sense if
they were allowed to enter.

I think the reason this became an issue

is just clearly someone had to
think about it to make the rule.

So if you haven’t thought about it,

you just be like, oh, you
know, you have to live in Japan.

You have to have a Japanese address.

And that would just be it.

So they actually want no, but you
actually have to be a Japanese citizen.

You have to have like residency
beyond just permanent residence.

You have to be a Japanese citizen to enter.

So someone actually had that thought.

And that’s right.

It kind of became like,
is this racist or not?

I don’t think it’s racist.

I don’t like to jump to racism right away,

even though it’s just a lot
of racist stuff in the world.

I’m not just talking about Japan.

It’s just like everywhere in
the world has its own issue.

So I’m a little torn as
to how I feel about this.

Because it’s something
you don’t care about.

That doesn’t mean other
people don’t care about it.

So it’s still just a viable
thing to care about.

I wish you care about others.

There you go.

That’s my message for
the you, you go community.

I don’t care about you,
you go, but I care about you.

Aha.

It’s nice.

This is a new, a new chunkly beef chest.

The new, more positive, loving, kind.

I’m running out of words because
I’ve never used them before.

Anyways, you go players.

I’m sorry if you are
not a Japanese citizen.

You want to enter the championship.

You can’t, I’m sure there’s
other things you can do.

I think just enjoy you, you go for what it
is, which is a game I do not understand.

A man, so since we’re on like, so
that’s actually like super nerd news.

Okay, since we’re on super nerd news.

A man was caught modifying
switch cartridges memory.

He was basically hacking
the switch to create

custom Pokemon characters
that he then sold online.

So I’m assuming he put in like
the cartridge, hacked the system.

He was creating rare characters
and then selling them online.

Between 2022 and 2023, he was
selling them for up to 13,000 yen each.

But the police believe that he probably
made millions and millions of yen off this.

So this is one of those things
where it’s a rare character.

You’re playing your Pokemon,
you want the rare character.

You can’t find it, it’s rare.

So suddenly you feel like, oh, you know,

maybe I just pay for it, get it
into my game and off we go.

This breaks the unfair
competition prevention act

in Japan, which is related
to corporate espionage.

So basically because this
guy’s hacking a system,

he’s creating, he is
conducting a form of corporate

espionage where he’s
going into the system,

learning about the system,
creating things based off an IT,

IP, based off a series of, I lost
that sentence at the end there.

Based off an IP, learning the
inner workings of the system,

and then manipulating them
to create his own product,

which he’s then selling
illegally without licensing.

That’s probably better.

So he was arrested.

I do want the final tally, the
number of how much this guy made.

I’m always shocked at how
much money these guys make,

because it is always
way more than I expect.

But these communities are
strong and they have money.

The you could go community,
the Pokemon community.

These are communities that spend an
inordinate amount of cash on their hobbies.

I spend a lot of money in my hobbies.

But once I’ve bought everything,
so let’s say Judo’s my hobby.

I buy the Judo soon.

I bought a super expensive one.

I don’t buy them again and again and again.

And I certainly I can buy
modified ones and stuff.

Podcasting, is it this
point in my life a hobby?

I paid way too much money for a microphone,
but it is a really good microphone.

I mean, the voice you’re hearing
right now isn’t my real voice.

My voice is incredibly high pitched.

Dogs just react negatively
to move everywhere I go.

My laugh is atrocious.

That’s actually true.

I don’t like my laugh.

It’s, I kind of get this like high pitched
sonic boom of a laugh sometimes.

It’s almost like a hiccup.

Luckily, very few people make me laugh.

That’s so sad.

Ah, I’ve gone from positive chunk of
beef test to sad chunk of beef test.

This was, I don’t know how I am.

Brain power, people got it and then
sometimes they seem to abuse it.

So, by 2531, so this is now the year 2024.

So, in basically 500 years, if the Japanese
marriage surname convention isn’t changed.

Everyone in Japan will
have the last name Sato.

So, Sato, it would be like
the Japanese version of Smith.

Sato is the most common last name in Japan.

In 2023, Sato was 1.5%
of all the people in Japan.

So it is a name you’re
going to run up against.

And then books and stuff when they use
one to use like a, like a Smith character.

They’ll call them Mr. Sato.

So it’s just like, let’s just
call them Sato and then

everyone will be like, it’s
an every man kind of name.

Between 2022 and 2023, there
was a 1.0083% increase in Sato’s.

So the number of Sato’s
in Japan is increasing.

That’s incrementally,
but over the course

of time, that of course,
it’s extrapolation.

I’m using the wrong word.

See, this is the problem
we’re taking to work two

week break is like some
of my big words are gone.

My $5 words are all gone now.

It’s not extrapolation.

It’s an X. God damn it.

Cumulative, it’s cumulative.

Oh, this is going to bug me.

I’m not going to be able
to move on from the story.

Goddammit.

Anyways, we’re just going to move on.

I know I’m going to, this
word’s going to pop into my

head during the last story,
the dirty story of the day.

It’s a rough episode already.

And I apologize, but it’s because
again, two weeks off, very busy weeks.

Life gets in the way.

I’m dealing with back end issues.

I’m trying to deal with work.

I got stress.

If you listen to see me be the last one,
you get to hear the horror story of my eye.

That’s not getting better.

So there’s a lot going on.

I’m trying to just get
my life back in order.

And you know what?

I got some messages.

I got some messages from people and
they were asking where the podcasts went.

And I was really happy
to get the message

because they’re just
like, hey, what’s going on?

Appreciate the podcast.

Appreciate you.

And I appreciate those messages.

Let’s be clear about that right now.

I fucking tangents.

Okay, no, we’re going.

We’re going with the
tangent famous people die.

I’m not a famous person.

We’re not talking about me,
but the famous people die.

And then when they die,
there’s this outpouring of like

thoughts and art and other
things to commemorate their life.

And that’s a wonderful thing.

I’m not saying that shouldn’t happen.

But often my first thought is, I bet
that person would have appreciated

that while they were alive, that
outpouring of love and support.

So if you have a favorite artist
right now, this is, I’m serious.

If you have a favorite artist, someone
who’s made a song that you really love,

someone who’s created something that you
really like, an author has written a book,

you got some artwork
about it, put it out there

and dedicated to them,
send them a message.

Just do all the things you would do after
they died and it had an impact on you.

So let’s just sit down
and go, like, who’s

someone who died that
would have an impact on me?

I’d like that.

I’d want to show the world
that they meant a lot to me.

Do it right now.

Don’t wait until they die.

That’s all I’m saying because
I like realized I should do that.

And it was too late.

So like my favorite author was already
dead by the time I had this realization.

I was like, man, I really
wish I could have just like,

even if it doesn’t see it,
put it out there on the world.

And I don’t think I have
a favorite artist as such.

Man, yeah.

Because even the little messages I get,
like, hey, hope the podcast comes back soon.

Hope you’re okay, that kind of stuff.

I meant a lot.

Like that is incredibly motivating.

It makes you feel like people
appreciate what you do.

Anyways, satos, too many satos by 2446,
half the population will be named sato.

No, this whole, this stats
thing, I enjoyed the stats.

I was just like, this seems to
be like a massive waste of time.

If the population decline
in Japan continues.

So the last 13 years has been
a population decline in Japan.

If it continues at the same rate by 3,310,
there will only be 22 people left in Japan.

Ignax has put in the chat
that the beard is gorgeous.

The oil that I have got
right now is very good.

It’s the most cliche manly,
it’s, I think it’s actually

called mountaineer and it
has like a lumberjack on it.

I’ve started sculpting.

So I got the sideburns
are down and I’m trying to

keep this even because
this is where it goes out.

And then it’s a little
thicker here and a little

thicker here and I got
the stuff down to the bone.

I’m trying to decide.

So I’ve realized my mustache naturally
does that old British racist curly thing.

So let me close to the camera.

So if I do this, my
beard does that, like my

mustache literally goes
down and then we’ll go up.

So I could either sculpt
that or I’ve been pushing it

down because I actually
think that looks pretentious.

There’s like hipsters and stuff.

They do that on purpose.

I always thought that was like something.

Yes, like Captain Hook, I
always thought that was

something that people
did, like a style thing.

I didn’t realize that it happened
naturally to some people.

So I have, I think the hairs under here are
thick enough that they push these ones up.

So they start to go like that.

And I realized if I just twirled
it, it would stay that way.

So I’m trying to decide if I want to just
gently shave this down to keep it down.

But I don’t want to have
like thin thick, thin thick.

It has to be sort of even. So
like the sides there, the short

side burn and then get down
under there was pretty good.

I’ve been sculpted.

I put more work into
my beard than any other

aspect of my appearance
because it’s easy and fun.

And then I realized that’s the bit.

Like I can, I can comb it and
stuff for that what I was saying now.

All right.

I don’t know how far
I’m going to go this time.

I usually go pretty
far and then just shave

the whole thing because
people like freak out.

I do find beards, there’s a whole community that
considers beards important and they consider beards to be

like essentially the primary aspect of their personality
and like your man, not a man if you have a beard.

I don’t get that because it’s hair.

It’s just hair on your face, man.

You’re not doing anything.

Some people are genetically
blessed with lots of hair.

Some people are not.

What the fuck?

Like what the fuck is going
on there where you think

like a beard is an
important aspect of a person.

When my plan, we recently at work had an all staff meeting and
my plan, I wasn’t able to execute it was to start the meeting

with a beard and then while the other manager’s speeches
was happening, go to the bathroom and just shave completely.

So get a razor and then just
like a quick shave with a razor

blade and then come back and
pretend nothing had happened.

I just timing wise it didn’t work out but
I think I might do that maybe next year.

If I have to do that,
if I have to do that like

presentation again, I
think that would be funny.

If we do it on zoom, it’s possible
because I can disappear and come back.

If we just had a big
electric just, I could get

all the big stuff off and
shave in five minutes.

No, I could do that.

Anyways, that’s all going
to get cut so there’s the

cut point and we’re going
to go back to the Sato story.

It’s a population declined to continue
as it is right now at the same rate.

In 3,310, the year, 3,310, there
will be only 22 people left in Japan.

These stats are
interesting because they’re

extrapolations of numbers
that are currently happening.

They don’t take into
account any other options.

So Japan is a closed system
and if that closed system

remains the same, it
basically succumbs to entropy.

So everyone will be named
Sato and everyone dies off.

Applying this much effort to
these statistics seemed kind of

pointless to me because if everyone’s
named Sato in 500 years, do we care?

The population of the decline
in Japan, yes, it’s significant.

It could be fixed by a multitude of things.

Now, Ninja Ninja Japan
has prophesies, proselytized

many times that the
problem is the work-life

balance in Japan, Japan
companies and people aren’t.

They spend too much time at work.

Work has become too important and
family has lost sort of the primary place.

I don’t think that’s just Japan.

That’s lots of countries.

Population decline in a lot
of countries is going down.

Population decline in
many countries is happening.

I have the simplest
solution to both problems.

Everyone being named Sato
and the population decline.

That is introduced
more foreigners to Japan.

More foreigners to Japan would
mean more variations in names.

Introducing more foreigners to Japan would
be more relationships and more babies.

And that’s it.

That actually solves the problem.

I can tell you the person
conducting this set

of statistical analyses
did not even come close

to considering the
idea that we would dilute

the population of
Japan with foreign blood.

But that actually, at this moment, if this
is your real concern, like you’re not going

to fix the culture, you’re not going to fix
the work-life balance that I would complain

about, the introduction of more foreigners
to Japan would solve this problem.

And they would not accept it.

There is the governor of Shizuoka.

And he’s out.

He’s giving a speech.

He got some new incumbents and some new
people who are joining the civil service.

And he decided to make
a speech to welcome

them, which is a very
nice thing for him to do.

He said, “Civil servants,
being an inducted

into their pre-factual government are
smart, unlike those who sell vegetables.

” Now, the speech
actually had more.

He’s like, unlike people
who do like manual

labor, take care of
animals or sell vegetables.

But the vegetable ones was the first one
he said, and I think that’s why it stopped.

My first thought was, I bet this guy could
not grow a vegetable to save his life.

I bet if you gave him
all the equipment and all

the stuff to do, he could
not grow a vegetable.

I don’t like the insulting of other
jobs because they seem beneath you.

I do, of course, do it.

I have my biases, but I
look at mechanics and

I think there is someone
with a set of skills

that I have never and
probably will never have.

I have my set of skills.

They have their set of skills.

I think there is a
certain amount of respect

I have for people having skills,
even if it is like a manual labor job.

I couldn’t build a house.

I couldn’t wire a building for electricity
and not set the whole thing on fire.

So I personally appreciate they
have a set of abilities that I don’t have.

I think tradesmen generally
actually are very smart.

I do subscribe to the idea that
there are different kinds of intelligence.

There’s like the book smart.

There’s sort of social intelligence.

There’s a natural intelligence.

There’s like the con man intelligence,
the ability to like to lie and manipulate.

So there is going to be
like essentially a labor

intelligence, like working
with your hands, making things.

You’re just naturally good at that.

There’s athletic intelligence.

People are just naturally understand
athletics, be it physical or mental game.

And there are people who are not book smart,
who are way smarter than other things.

There’s people who
are just naturally logical

and they should not
be disrespected because

they have a different education
from other people and stuff.

But that’s what this guy’s doing.

So yeah, when I read
that sentence, my first

thought was this guy
couldn’t grow vegetables

or raise a cow or do
manual labor to save his life.

So when the zombie
apocalypse comes, the

governor of Shizwoka
is useless and would die.

The interesting thing to me
was later on, in the same speech,

he said, you know, it’s
important to watch your language.

So this is more of a
do as I say, not as I do.

I’m going to make statements,
just whatever I think in the moment.

This is again my problem
with like the old man, Japanese.

I can say whatever I want and it should
be fine, but you have to be careful idea.

So he’s telling these
people who are joining

the civil service, you have
to be careful what you say.

You have to be honest.

You have to be truthful.

You have to be careful
and care about other people,

except for, you know, those fucking vegetable
sellers who are just dumb as bricks.

This is not his first time
letting the bad thoughts out or

the, the immediate thoughts
without censorship or anything.

He made a couple of gaps in the past.

And so because of this, he’s now had
to step down his governor of Shizwoka.

And again, as a politician, the vegetable
grower vote, I bet that’s actually a pretty

big vote because farmers in
Japan are a pretty, pretty big thing.

The cow vote, I know cows don’t vote, but
the cow grower vote, the ranchers vote, the

laborers vote, those
are all valuable votes.

So as a politician, you might
actually want to pander a little bit.

I don’t know.

This is it.

These guys get to this
level of disassociation

where they think
people are going to vote

for me, even if I don’t or even if I make
it very clear, I disdain their existence.

I know he didn’t go
that far, but he was like

one step away from you guys are
smart because you’re doing the thing I did.

People who didn’t
do what I did, they’re

idiots, but then you don’t want
everyone working the civil service.

That’s nothing gets done then.

Third thought I had.

So you can see this is great.

This is how my sort of intelligence level,
imagine if an American politician was held

to this standard in
this day and age, like if

Trump, because he
insulted a person, had to

end up stepping down, how
different American politics would be.

And I don’t think Japanese
politics are particularly good.

They got to has its
own issues, but it is

way better than what’s
happening in America.

I haven’t been involved in Canadian politics
in a long time, but it’s similar stuff.

They’re going for
more grandiose, more

bombastic, more
in-your-face stuff, Japan’s still

holding on to like if
you don’t show the

fundamental level of
respect, you don’t deserve

to be in your position and they
will kick you out, which I quite like.

Since we’re talking
about politicians, we

had from a couple
episodes ago, our man, the

mayor of Guinan, who had 99 sexual
assault cases brought up against him.

All in one go, that’s
got to be a tough day.

He had to resign.

And he actually, at
first, was like, I don’t

resign, then he kind of started saying
like, I resign and then he apologized.

But in his apology set, I don’t
really get what I’m apologizing for.

He actually said, like, you know, it
was a different time when I grew up.

It’s like, yeah, but
now it’s not that time.

So maybe you have
to adjust, which again,

this older man mentality, this
dude was 74, is not going to change.

And that’s why these guys
should not be in politics anymore.

The karma, the irony,
I don’t know what

would you want to use, the
beauty, the shadon Freud.

He’s been replaced by a woman.

I’m so happy about that.

The new mayor of
Guinan is a woman and she

is the first female mayor
of that city in all of history.

I think this might be the bit that
would really like stick it in this crawl.

More people came out for this election
than in a couple of decades at least.

I didn’t get, it didn’t
get too far back into,

but clearly over the last few years, this
was more people came out to vote and they

basically came out to
vote to say, fuck that

guy, specifically, and we’re going to vote
for a woman because this guy’s so gross.

And I’m actually really
proud of the people

of Guinan holding
people to standards again.

I’m actually finding,
again, there’s aspects

of Japan that deserve
criticism, their aspects

of every country
that deserve criticism.

This is holding people to account, seems to
be something that still happens in Japan to

a degree more so than
in a lot of other countries.

So I’m very interested
in this because Nissan,

the car company, massive company, they
had signed contracts with subcontractors.

And then after the
contract went through

and they’d like done all the work
and stuff, they reduced the payments.

Now this is actually
illegal, what the

government, there was a watchdog
organization that warned them.

And then there’s like
the Japanese equivalent

of the FTC, they decided since
you committed essentially a crime.

Now there’s no single
person can get arrested

for a crime by a company that’s actually
one of the big problems with companies.

Companies commit crimes
and then no individual

gets punished, which
means no one gets punished.

So the government in Japan is decided
we’re going to punish the company.

They took away the
tax breaks they had in

place because they’d given
them tax breaks to raise salaries.

They’re like, you have to maintain those
salaries, but you’re losing the tax breaks.

So they actually have to pay the same
salaries, but they’re losing that extra money.

They were getting from the
government to boost those.

And once you’ve been taken off this list,
you can’t be relisted for at least a year.

So for at least a year, they’re going to be
paying employees and subsidiary companies

and all these things
more money out of their

own pockets and not getting
nothing from the government.

So they’re not getting
like bailout or help

anymore because they decided
to try to cheat the system.

And I think that is
awesome and more company

should be held
accountable the same way.

All right, it’s our last story, which means
it’s creepy, creepy 50 year old man time.

It’s my people.

And I know that’s what a
lot of people come here for.

It’s the very last story with
the creepy, creepy old man.

Sometimes something doesn’t happen.

Well, let’s just say it’s
three o’clock in the morning.

You’re a police officer
and you’re driving around

a little patrol car, you
know, it’s quite a night.

That’s what’s going on.

You see a man ride by in a bicycle.

This man has decided to
emulate Winnie the Pooh.

So he’s got a shirt and no
pants on when I mean no pants.

I mean, nothing’s covering the down bottom.

So this guy’s Winnie, Winnie
the Poohing, his bicycle.

So you’re like, well, that is in
Japan at least in decent exposure.

So we’re going to arrest him.

So you arrest him.

And we’re going to search a person now.

They don’t have to search his pockets.

I assume because he only has a
shirt on, but it does have a smartphone.

They did not say where the
smartphone was being kept.

I really was interested in that.

It might be one of those ones that hooks to
your bicycle because he wasn’t a bicycle.

On his smartphone, they found a picture
of his butt on a faucet from a park.

So it seems like he was
essentially bedying himself.

I didn’t see the picture.

They didn’t release it.

I wouldn’t have wanted to.

I do like to have the, I
would have looked at it.

I wouldn’t have looked
at it because I wanted to.

I would have looked
at it for the story so

that I could have given you
an account of what happened.

So you don’t have to look at it.

It sounds like he was bedying
himself with a public faucet.

Now, public faucets in
Japan have drinkable water.

So people stick, like
kids mostly stick their

face under it and turn it on and
they’ll drink it in the summertime.

So sticking your butt
on that is rude, at least.

I mean, it’s a health hazard.

There’s a whole bunch of other things.

When he was arrested, he said, I
did it because I was sexually aroused.

I used binoculars to make sure
no one was around beforehand.

Again, I’m seeing a certain amount of irony
in that statement because he’s like, I went

to the faucet and I wanted to stick
my butt on it because that turned me on.

So I got binoculars out
and I checked that no one

was around me in the park
because he’s very careful.

And then when no one’s
around, he did it and

they took a picture of it,
and he introduced a pen.

Again, we give tons of
free advice to criminals.

And one of the first ones
is it don’t take pictures of it.

Don’t take pictures of
you committing a crime.

Do not.

I mean, don’t commit the crimes.

That’s step one, but if
you’re going to commit

a crime, don’t
photograph it as evidence

for the police to use later because the
police only had them on a decent exposure.

They didn’t have
them on like butt crack

faucet time, which I don’t
know what crime that is yet.

I would actually go
with public health hazard.

That’s where I would start looking.

I’m sure there’s
indecency in all these other

things, but now he’s just getting
like a double indecency charge.

I would want to have
like multiple charges and

multiple venues so
that to ensure that this

is taken more seriously,
unless butt crack

faucet time is a crime
in Japan, which I don’t

know if that’s on the books, but I
mean, at this point, let’s put it on there.

Just to be safe, like add that
law to the books, I support this.

I’m on board.

So the guys demonstrating
when he butt crack faucet

time, he was really careful
that no one would see him.

And then he decided to win.

He is poo the way home.

Winnie his poo.

He decided to win.

Winnie his poo sounds like
the butt crack faucet time.

And he thought poo
is when you go with a

shirt and no pants on
when you try to go home.

So after he we need his poo,
he decided to win the poo home.

If he was that careful
with the binoculars and

stuff, he think he
would have been sensible

enough to put his
pants back on because if

he’d put his pants back on, he wouldn’t
have been caught by the police for indecent

exposure, which would
have led to them finding

the picture of him
committing the initial crime.

I think some people have
said that king shaming

is bad and I think in
many cases that might

be true, but sometimes it
might actually be necessary.

[MUSIC]

(upbeat music)

Last week we talked about a scam.

It was elementary school
students and they scam their

classmate who had access
to his New Year’s money.

He had collected New
Year’s money over, I

assume years, had access
to about a million yen.

And that million yen,
he then bought trinkets.

His friends brought to school and said
they would increase in value and stuff.

He bought a token from a tour at
Nugoya Port or something like that.

And these are 500 yen just stamped things.

He bought a Canadian $10 bill,
which they said would go up in value,

which is just absolutely
not truly Canadian a comedy.

The Canadian economy doesn’t work that way.

A kind of understand a kid getting taken.

His classmates would
be able to convince him

and he’s trying to
impress them and stuff.

But then there is a secondary question,

why did this kid have
access to a million yen?

So my children’s New Year’s
money goes into a bank account.

They could get it, but
it would be a process.

They wouldn’t just be taking it all out and
giving it away willy-nilly for trinkets.

Then you become an adult and
you have access to your own money.

And that’s where people
really can get scammed.

And so this week a woman in her 50s,
she was on Instagram, great place to be.

Now he’s looking at the beautiful
pictures that people put there.

So on Instagram, directly
she receives a message.

Someone slid into her
DMs, which is quite nice.

And the message said hello from
the International Space Station.

Now scams can be very convincing.

One that comes from an
astronaut is more problematic for me.

So if I was on Instagram and
someone sent me a message

that said hello from
the International Space

Station, my first
question would actually be,

why are you sending
messages from the International

Space Station via Instagram
to someone you don’t know?

Like I would actually ask that question.

Not because I think he’s trying to scam me.

It’d just be like, why are you doing this?

Clearly you have other
avenues of communication.

You have work to do.

You have other things that need to be done.

I mean, you should not
be wasting your time.

Especially with a random person.

Like if we knew each other, if I knew an
astronaut and someone pretended to be

that astronaut who sent
me a message, I might

be convinced, but I
don’t know any astronauts.

So if an astronaut sends me a message,
I would be immediately suspicious.

This poor woman was not.

They got more messages.

They started, they were
in contact for a while.

And then the astronaut
said, the contract

for the internet I use
on earth has expired.

So I want your assistance.

I need money to pay this bill.

You can see again, this
is where I’m always like,

“Wait a minute, why would you
need a stranger to take care of that?”

If you can send a message to someone,
you can send a message to a family member.

Let’s say that would be appropriate.

You can send a message to the space agency.

You are on the International Space Station.

I’m sure has access to the internet.

That’s how your community game with me now.

So why don’t you use that internet?

There’s a lot of things you could,

that would already, again,
a lot of red flags right there.

And it’s not even that I have
let my earthly internet expire

as the problem is, why are you
asking a stranger to take care of it?

You have co-workers.

You have a space agency behind you.

You have family.

And this is known because this is
someone impersonating an actual astronaut.

What was his name?

His name was Satoshi Furukawa.

So he’s just like a Japanese astronaut.

So it’s not like we don’t
know about this person.

If you want to look them up on the internet,
you could go to his Wikipedia page.

You could go look about them on
like JAXA, the Japanese space agency.

You can actually figure out
you could call JAXA on his behalf

and say, hey, I got an Instagram
DM from one of your astronauts

who’s saying he wants
his internet hooked up.

OK, then we get into these sort
of science fiction element of this.

And he says, I have
discovered an asteroid containing

important elements, and I
need your help in transporting it.

So now you’re vital to his space mission.

And so I have sympathy.

I have a lot of sympathy.

But this is one of those scams where it’s

like the ridiculousness of the nature
of the situation makes itself apparent.

But then I’m like, oh, I
guess if you’re caught up

in the moment and this is
a chance to feel important.

This is a chance to feel like you’re
part of an international space mission.

This is like every movie you’ve ever seen
where like then nobody becomes special.

Like maybe that’s what
they’re actually praying upon.

And that actually weirdly in
a moment gave me a lot more

sympathy for the person who
had sent over 900,000 yen in total.

When the supposed astronaut
asked for planetary shipping

fees, if this had just been
reversed, I would be OK with it.

She sent the money and then got suspicious.

If she got suspicious and
then went to the police,

and the police said send the money
and we’ll track it down or something, sure.

But she sent the money
and she’s like, wait a minute.

What’s planetary shipping?

And because he’s on the
international space station,

couldn’t they just put it
on one of the shuttles that’s

bringing food up or bringing
food down or bringing

astronauts up or
bringing astronauts down?

Because they’re going anyway.

So just put the incredibly
important and special

element he’s discovered
in space on one of those.

Now there may be a lot more story here

that he convinced her that it had to
be kept secret or something like that.

But when you have to
pay planetary shipping,

which obviously is
going to be expensive,

then you realize maybe
the scam has gone too far.

So she went to the
police, calls the police,

and she says Satoshi Fukawa
has been communicating with me.

I’m a little suspicious because he’s
asking me for planetary shipping fees.

How much are they usually?

And then the police are
like, unfortunately, Satoshi

Fukawa has already returned to
Earth, whoever you’re speaking to

is not on the international space
station and has been scamming you.

And I don’t want to make fun of her too
much, but I kind of want to make fun of her.

Because it just involves
astronauts in space.

And it is such a– this is such
a perfect fiction, I think is what.

Why, again, I oscillate between, oh
my god, this is the funniest thing, too.

I feel so much sympathy for
this poor lady who got scammed.

We have to have something in place.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now, police are actually
trying to do a good

thing with AI in Japan,
which is pretty cool.

They want to have AI
recognize fishing websites.

So these are sites that try to
look like financial institutions,

and they try to get your passwords
and login information for your bank.

And then from there, they
might be able to log into

your bank and get access
to your accounts and stuff.

Currently, the system
is based off reporting.

So I get a suspicious
email, and I click a link that I

shouldn’t click, and
the website looks off, or

something feels off, or I
think I’ve been scammed.

I have to go to the police and report it.

One of the issues with being scammed

is that people are
embarrassed, that they got

scammed, and they’re
less likely to report.

So the number of reports of getting scammed

is actually way less
than the actual scam rate.

This is why people who get scammed,
we really shouldn’t shame them.

That’s actually the exact opposite of
what I kind of just did in the first story.

So this is– I’m part of the problem.

Because if they feel embarrassed,
they might not report it.

But they just got tricked.

I now feel that I did the thing.

I just– if it wasn’t
an astronaut, maybe I

wouldn’t have even
done the story, though.

It’s because it was space
and astronauts and stuff.

Interplanetary shipping
fees was a great phrase.

I just– maybe I just wanted
to say that on the podcast.

So they need ways to gather the information
without relying on people reporting it.

So there’s organizations,
like financial

institutions, they’ll
report websites they find.

And they will find– last
year, they found 490,000 cases.

And this was reported by antivirus software

and this sort of group
of financial institutions.

Now, last year, in total, it was
1.2 million reports of fishing.

So you can assume that
numbers got to be plus 2 million,

like attempts, not even success or
anything, but just attempts at fishing.

So this is a 21 times increase from 2019.

Weird choice.

I don’t know.

I guess they’re trying to
go for dramatic numbers.

But what they want to
do is find it is get an AI.

And the AI is just going
to troll the internet,

troll these emails,
troll this other stuff,

recognize the fishing
websites, and then automatically

report that to the police
so they can shut it down.

And that is maybe one
of the best use cases of AI

I have heard so far because it’s
actually helping people not get ripped off.

Oh, no, see, as soon as I talk
about this stuff, then I have thoughts.

And my thought is they’re
going to have AI create the AI,

create the fishing websites
to be more efficient.

And when an AI shuts one down, another AI
automatically just rebuilds a new website.

So it becomes like a
cycle that just never stops.

There were the World Cup Qualifiers.

And in the Asian area, in Asia,
Japan has to play North Korea.

So they decided to do the game.

I don’t know how these decisions are made.

This is FIFA or something.

The game is going to
be done in North Korea.

Now North Korea and Japan
have very hostile political relations.

So the Japanese government
says, hey, Japanese

citizens, who are really
excited about soccer.

Soccer is a very popular sport in Japan.

Don’t go to North Korea.

Don’t go to North Korea to watch this game.

Don’t try to get– I mean,
they have to get a visa.

I’m pretty sure North
Korea wouldn’t be

giving Japanese people
visas to go in anyways.

That’s a totally separate issue.

But the government just came out
and said, don’t try to go to North Korea.

I think that’s a fair statement to make.

The relationship between
Japan and North Korea

is so contentious that
it would be dangerous

for a Japanese citizen
to enter the country.

So they have the soccer game.

So the soccer players go, and they

have some people with them,
sort of handlers and stuff.

They play their game.

And Japan scores a goal
in the first 90 seconds.

Yeah, Japan.

Then nothing happens
for the rest of the game.

So two hours are assumed.

I don’t know how long a
soccer game is like 90 minutes.

No scores are done for the rest
of the game, because it’s soccer.

So of course, there are no more goals.

I understand the
reality in that the tension

would build as they get closer
and closer to the end of the game

and have to score one goal to just
become even and extend the game.

But I don’t really enjoy soccer.

So for me, that just sounds
mindnumbingly painful.

It’s just low scoring, zero scoring games,

essentially what I’m
saying is fuck you, soccer.

North Korea, in North Korea, loses a soccer
game in front of a stadium of people.

Now North Korea has, in the past,

reported that they have won
all the Olympic gold medals.

If you actually watch
North Korean state media,

they have just straight
out and said, North Korea

has won every game in the
Olympics and stuff like that.

China’s number two, and
America hasn’t won nothing.

So they just like, it’s just a blatant lie.

But when you have a stadium
of people, watch your team lose.

You can’t really lie to the same degree.

It’s much harder.

So they need a solution,
’cause they can’t lose again.

They’re actually supposed to play two games

and they can’t lose again,
so they need to end this game.

So they do what North Korea does best.

They say, we are concerned
about a second game.

Oh, we are canceling the second game

because we are worried about a
malignant infectious disease in Japan.

I think that malignant infectious
disease might be winning.

Again, I’m not a big fan of soccer,

so I’m not wicked supportive of
Japanese soccer or anything like that.

I don’t actually care about sports or who
wins and stuff, but I do think it’s funny.

I think it’s funny that we
didn’t win the first game,

so we’re gonna cancel the
second game and we’re gonna say

that it’s because you foreigners
are diseased, which is a lot.

Since we’re talking about soccer, there was
a student and he has Peruvian background.

He’s got a mixed heritage, yes.

And so that in Japan makes you stand out.

He was late for a club activity
and the coaches made him apologize

and when he apologized, they
started making derogatory statements.

They said, “Peruvians can apologize, huh?”

Which doesn’t sound
bad translated into English,

but the reality is how you say it in
Japanese is more insulting than what you say.

Or it’s not what you say in Japanese,
it’s how you say it, it becomes the insult.

So when we translate
a lot of Japanese insults

in English, it sounds
just like a statement,

but it’s the
statement of like, “I’m

talking down to you,”
is the important part.

Another coach giving
guidance on his attitude,

so sort of giving him guidance about
life says, “You’ll end being a murderer,”

and then makes a stabbing
gesture to one of his

teammates, like you’re
gonna kill your teammate.

I guess, maybe the kid got frustrated,

like I’m just guessing
’cause they only fill in

all the details, but the
kid’s frustrated or angry

or having difficulties like
hormonal ’cause he’s a teenager.

I mean, who knows?

Because if you are who you
are, you’re going to end up

being a murderer, which
is pretty awful thing to say.

The interesting thing is the guy
who made the murder statement

had been disciplined in 2019
for threats and slapping a student,

but then was removed from
soccer coaching and then returned.

So the question to me is
why are these guys returning?

This is not the first time we’ve done
a coach, abuses kids, gets taken out,

and then put back in and
starts abusing kids again.

Story.

Once you have smacked a kid,
I think you shouldn’t be allowed

around kids anymore so you
can continue to smack them.

Japan, I don’t know,
maybe they keep track of it.

They don’t keep track of it.

It’s a bit insane.

They did 100 member surveys.

All these kids who’ve been in the soccer
clubs over the last couple of years in 2023,

and all the coaches receive voluntary
suspensions, which is pretty ridiculous.

I don’t know why do these
people go into kids’ stuff

if they clearly are easily
frustrated with kids?

We’ve had the teachers
who are smacking kids

because the kids are
talking back to them.

I understand that frustration.

I’ve never had a kid.

We got these guys who become coaches.

Coaching is primarily working with kids
and they seem to have a problem with kids.

These may be more lean
towards the just word,

just racist dudes because
you’re not Japanese kid.

I’m going to judge you differently kind of
thing, but even then, why are you there?

Don’t, like, go find your Puritan group.

I don’t know.

I’m a little lost on that one because it’s
like, how do these stories keep happening

when it’s so obvious that
there’s a problem there?

When the problem could be solved by, just
don’t get into that job in the first place.

So these coaches cause
people a lot of stress.

They feel a lot of stress.

Now, all right, we’ve
got a 24-year-old guy.

Takes a can of kerosene
into the mountain forest,

and he dows several trees in
kerosene and then lights them on fire.

He gets arrested and he
does the most classic excuse

for a Japanese person who’s done something
wrong, and he says, I was stressed out.

And lighting fires relieves
tension, which I struggle with.

I mean, has he tried stretching?

Maybe there’s this,
has he tried stretching?

There are degrees of stress
and ways to deal with it.

So I’m not going to say drink alcohol,
but I would say comparatively speaking,

if you had to drink alcohol to relieve
your stress or light a forest on fire,

I might actually say
drinking is your better option.

I would say before that,
maybe go get a massage,

maybe start stretching to a
little yoga, something like that.

I think there are stages you should go
through before you jump to burn down a forest.

Now, I found it interesting
that his statement wasn’t lighting

this fire or, you know, I lit
a fire and it relieved tension.

He said that lighting fires relieves
tension, as in he’s done this in the past.

So the police are now
investigating several

suspicious fires in forests
in the surrounding area.

So I’m guessing this is lucky.

This happened in February,
which is a very wet season in Japan.

So if it’s not snowing, it’s
probably raining, that kind of stuff.

So that probably kept the forest fire
from getting out of control, but oh my God.

I’ve done this story before.

The classic Japanese
excuse, I’ve committed a crime.

Why did you commit the crime?

Stress from work or just stress?

But now you’re getting arrested.

That is created more stress in your life.

So there is a maybe a
moment where you’ve

committed the crime
and it feels slightly better.

But then there’s the stress
of am I gonna get caught?

Are the police gonna catch on?

Am I gonna get reported?

Like I actually think that
would be more stressful.

I think committing a crime
and getting away from it

might be just as much stress
as getting stress from work.

And then if you’re
already working and you

commit a crime, now you
have to think about both.

I have stress from work
where I go to my job every day

and I have the stress of
worrying about whether or not

I’m gonna get caught for
the crime I’ve committed.

That’s a lot of stress.

And then how do you relieve that stress?

You go like more forest fires.

The more forest fires you light,
the more like you are to get caught.

This is the criminal paradox.

If you are successful in a
crime and you commit the

crime again, multiple times
each time you commit it,

you’re more likely to make
mistakes or get caught

or have something go
wrong and then you go to jail.

So your stress should
actually go up the more

successful you are in
crime, which is interesting.

But it doesn’t seem to work that way.

And so now the guy is going
to get stressed out in prison.

Alright, so last week we
did the LDP, how to party,

and in that party they’re
like, some go-go girls came out

and the politicians put
money in their mouth

and then the girls took the
money out of their mouth.

And there were some other
pictures that showed up

and it was them sticking it in
their bikini bottoms and stuff.

Pretty gross stuff for a group
that is supposed to be like

moving towards more
egalitarian and wants

to be more open and
inviting and that stuff.

This was to me very 80s
bubble era Japanese behavior,

but the guys who
organized the parties were

full on in their prime
in the 70s and 80s.

So they mentally had not moved on to like,

hey, maybe women who
come to this party will like it.

I almost guarantee no women
showed up to that party.

Maybe some of the young men
don’t have the same sensibilities

we do, that’s actually showed up many
times when we’ve talked about stories.

These really gross old men don’t understand

that other men maybe don’t
think the same way as them.

Which is interesting issue,
because we had that mayor

who committed like a
hundred sexual assaults at work.

Like he was patent
bottoms and touching boobs

and sexually harassing
everybody around him.

His cohort, the deputy mayor
was like, dude, you gotta stop.

And he was like, yeah, if
you’ve listened to that episode,

you’ll just go back and
listen to that whole like

two minutes of me doing
like gross creepy laughing.

He didn’t think the other guy was serious.

And like, this is literally
your peer telling you,

you gotta stop or you’re getting in trouble
and then he got in trouble and he’s like,

well, I still don’t
understand what I did wrong.

So there’s been another
scandalous come out with the L.D.B.

party because these
people are these people.

They can’t help but do what they do.

I found it funny that it
was the L.D.P. Federation

youth bureau and four of
these guys organized a party

and they go to the party and
there are people taking pictures.

And that to me was one of the issues.

Like I talk about a lot of crimes and
stuff and I’m like don’t film your crimes,

but you can’t commit crimes where
other people are taking pictures either.

So a magazine came out
with pictures of this party.

Great.

So what is the picture of?

It’s a man in a mask, rope
tied, wearing underwear

and the bureau chief wearing an
AKB idol costume with a microphone.

So clearly on stage, doing
some sort of announcement

in, sort of, I’m going
to go ahead and assume

a school girl uniform
of some sort in front of,

I don’t know if it’s an L.D.P.
guy or a model or someone else

but someone tied up
behind them basically naked.

And this is cool.

This is like high level
politicians who are aware

of implications and
optics and how things go.

When questioned, he said it’s just a bar.

It’s not an SNM club and then he resigned.

The thing is, the sign
above the bar was like, we

have, was it turtle binding,
which is a form of SNM.

So they clearly put on SNM shows
and he’s like, no, no, no, no, no.

That clearly branded
SNM bar isn’t an SNM bar.

It’s just a bar and even
if it wasn’t an SNM bar,

that doesn’t mean you
have to do the SNM stuff.

It doesn’t mean you have to
like dress up like a school girl

and get on stage with a
microphone is to hard of participating.

That’s just ridiculous, I quit.

So this actually led to a whole
bunch of serious questions.

The last party, the one with the
go-go dancers, was not publicly funded.

This was, everyone chipped
in, they paid for their own way.

So technically not as bad.

This one though, it’s supposed
to be 5,000 yen per person

for entry and this time they
charge 2,000 yen per person.

And the same day as the
party and assembly member

received 100,000 yen of
public funds from an activity

fund and the activity funds
are how they get around this.

The activity fund is money for events.

So that isn’t really
regulated the same way.

So they don’t necessarily
check out the event as far

as like, oh, we’re gonna
have dinner with the LDP guys.

Okay, here’s your 50,000 yen, whatever.

This is 100,000 yen to go to the SNM bar.

And so this has put another sort of strike,

the LDP rating, approval
rating is at an all-time low.

It’s like below 20%,
which is Japanese politics.

It’s never above 50, but if you’re
below 20, you’ve really, really kicked it.

And Qashita is just struggling,
’cause how is he supposed

to say like, we wanna do
good things, we’re good people,

and then these scandals
keep coming up again and again.

And now using public money.

The public money part
is going to be the part

that actually kills them because this
has happened before in different areas.

And Japan is like, you
do your dirty stuff, sure.

But don’t use my money
to do your dirty stuff.

When you take my money
to do your dirty stuff,

I don’t want you to
be a politician anymore.

(upbeat music)

• Sure, man, you could ask.

I’m finished that story, go
ahead and ask questions.

You’re more than welcome to ask questions.

I’m gonna wait for a second though, ’cause
I was just about to start a second story.

Unless you’re trying to sell me
something, then I’m gonna get furious.

What do I think if someone
join a secret society?

That question is unclear
because what is the secret society?

So like there’s several secret societies

that sort of conspiracy theories
go out about like the Freemasons.

But the Freemasons are
primarily a charitable organization

if you take what they say
is because they’re secretive

about what they do that leads to
conspiracy theories and suspicion.

There are religious groups,
there’s things like that.

So secret society is such
a broad term that doesn’t

actually give me any information
to answer your question.

So the nature of the secret
society is the important part.

If it’s a secret society that’s
supposed to be good, trying

to do good in the world, why
would I have a problem with that?

Because you wanna keep it secret is fine.

If it’s a secret society that
wants to harm people, then it’s bad.

It’s not a very interesting
answer, I’m sorry,

but the truth is realistically speaking,
whether it’s secret or not is irrelevant,

the important part is
the intent of the society

(upbeat music)

So this is not episode 300.

And it’s not episode 300 because I know at
some point I’ve either doubled up episodes

or I’ve missed a number I’ve made a
mistake because that’s just who I am.

I have most likely made a
mistake in my numbering system.

At some point I’ve changed
websites, I’ve moved hosts and stuff.

So there’s no way this is accurate.

But very technically, this is
going to be labeled as episode 300.

So whoo, whoo, whoo,
whoo, whoo, whoo.

Something like that
needs to happen right now.

That’s happened.

We can move on because
numbers are arbitrary.

I mean, they just happen
as long as I keep doing this.

The number will continue to go up.

But you are listening to Ninja News Japan.

The world’s number to Japanese
news podcast, which is still a weird thing.

Because again, the labeling
of that is very specific.

It’s like having to get
his book a world record

for something that no
one’s ever tried before.

If you get really specific,
you can be number one.

And that’s important to keep in
mind so that my head doesn’t get big.

We don’t have to worry
about that because I knock

myself down more than
probably anybody else ever will.

But let’s get to the
news in Japan like Ninja.

We seek out the news.

I’ve no 300 episodes and I’m just
trying to make the title make sense.

So news Japan, yes, Ninja News
Japan, we did it ’cause it sounded good.

That was really the only
reason I came to that decision.

Ninja News Japan has
news, has Japan in the title.

Off we go, everyone knows what it’s about.

The Ninja part, well, just
add another syllable basically.

That makes it sound better.

Dut, dut, dut, dut,
dut, dut, dut, dut, dut.

Ninja News Japan.

So Japan as a country is going to update

the English spelling of Japanese words.

So when they use Romangi,
Romangi is the English alphabet,

so ABCD, they have a
system for the spelling.

The problem is the system
they’ve been using up till now,

if you read it phonetically
as an English-speaking

person, you don’t
make the right sounds.

So that is called the Kunre Shiki rules,

and they’re going to be
changing to the Hepburn rules.

I didn’t have a chance to look
into what the Hepburn rules are,

but they are far, far more similar
to the way if I said a Japanese word,

the way you would just naturally
spell it out if you tried to spell it out.

So currently, the prefecture of Aichi.

If you spell it using
the Kunre Shiki rules,

the old rules, you
would spell it A-I-T-I.

Now, A is a native English
speaker would say A-T.

That’s what I would read
if I saw that on paper.

It is going to be shifted to the Hepburn
rules which would spell it as A-I-C-H-I-I-T,

which is more phonetically
similar to what the Japanese say,

and it means if I read it as an
English speaker, off a piece of paper,

I will be more likely
to say the right sounds.

The other one is Shibuya,
so very famous places.

I’ll just give you an example of what
the rule change would actually mean.

Currently, in official documents,
it spelled S-I-B-U-Y-A.

Sibuya, where it should be S-H-I-B-U-Y-A.

Official documents use this old system,
but basically everyone else in the country

uses the Hepburn rules, the
more modern version of the rules.

That sounds better.

It sounds more like what
Japanese people say.

It sounds more like
what foreigners would say.

It’s a very weird system.

It’s almost like one of those things
where someone decided on a set of rules.

This is very Japanese thing to me.

They decided on a set
of rules and because

they set the rules,
they just didn’t change it.

They just kept it going for years.

Even though it’s clearly wrong,
clearly doesn’t work very well.

We’re sticking to the rules ’cause we
made those rules and those are the rules.

And you have to follow
the rules, that’s the rules.

Signage will be updated.

Government documents are gonna be updated.

Everything’s gonna start
using these new rules.

Let’s say you’re an assembly member

and you have a political
party that comes to you

and they want to ban
sexy photo shoots at pools.

Now, these are basically public
pools so everyone gets to use them.

So you can understand
the sexy bathing suits,

which hardly cover anything at all.

The lavacious posing
might get some people up.

Like I didn’t mean it that way.

I meant get people like
get their backup like a cat,

like they’re angry, but
I want to get people up

as sort of a double on
tundra unintentional there.

Please enjoy the
unintended double on tundras,

which I apparently do
a lot more than I think.

I think the way I speak now is
just naturally Dubla on tundra.

So you do it.

I’m gonna ban sexy photo
shoots in public pools

and then from there,
it’s gonna be awesome.

We’re gonna have like a safe, healthy
environment for people to go swimming.

Now I’m gonna go home.

I’m gonna do what I like to do.

And what I like to do is go home

and take sexy pictures of
an acquaintance that I have

and post them to public
bulletin board on the internet.

Bullets and boards, internet bulletin
boards are already sort of an outdated thing

and to me are the remnant of the
creepiest aspects of the internet.

‘Cause when you talk about
bulletin boards, I only think of fortune.

I think of those kind of places.

And that’s where all the worst
bits of the internet sort of coagulate.

I don’t know if that’s the right
word, but you know what I mean?

Like they gather and they sort of simmer

and they kind of fester
together in these places.

bulletin boards, I don’t know
what these pictures look like.

They were sexual in nature.

They may have just been sexy poses,

but it wasn’t his place to
really put them on the internet.

So you’ve basically taken, but this is a
classic, is you’ve taken a moral stance

in your political
life and then in your

personal life, you go and
do the exact opposite.

So you’re like, I’m
against sexy photo shoots,

but I’m very pro sexy
photos going on the internet

so much so that I’m
going to do it myself.

The hypocrisy is
enough that there was an

independent investigation,
what are you gonna do?

You decide to quit.

So this assembly member just quit saying
they’ve lost the public trust 100% yes,

but also you’ve demonstrated
you don’t believe the

things you’re actually
putting for in politics.

And this is an interesting question.

I’m a politician.

I’m supposed to represent the people.

Now my beliefs are obviously why
those people put me into this position,

but also let’s say the majority of people
have an opinion I personally disagree with.

Should I do that thing?

So that’s always an interesting
question because a true

politicians’ opinions would
not be their own opinions.

It would be the opinions of
the people they represent.

So if the people they
represent want something,

you could do it, but
then maybe I am my

personal life, leave a
completely opposite life.

I don’t think that should be as big
a problem if you’re honest about it.

If you’re like, hey, I really
like sexy photos so much

so that I post sexy photos
on internet bulletin boards,

but the people have said they don’t
want sexy photo shoots at public pools.

I’m gonna shut that down.

If you were honest about it and direct,
I think there wouldn’t be a problem,

but the fact is you’re
trying to hide this shadow

life that you have and
pretend you disapprove

of sexy photo shoots when
you really are one step away

from participating in some factor, you’re
promoting at least sexy photo shoots.

Or the alternative, politicians
should just stay off the internet.

(electronic music)

Okay, remember last week
we talked about 99 Guinan.

So Guinan’s the city,
the mayor of the city.

He got in trouble for sexual harassment.

99 cases.

I focused on the fact that he had
physically touched women’s boobs and butts.

Boobs and butts was kind of like the
moving phrase throughout that story.

It actually sparked a
different conversation in Japan,

which is very interesting to me

because in Japan they started talking
about is head pads, sexual harassment.

So any touch that is
unwelcome, I think probably is a

form of sexual harassment
because the touch is unwelcome.

You shouldn’t be touching people.

Don’t touch people.

That’s actually pretty safe.

At work, do not touch people.

And if you do that, you’re
gonna be pretty safe.

So don’t touch anyone.

So the head pad is supposed to be innocent,
but it is certainly demeaning in some way.

This came up the mayor of
Guinan said in our generation.

Now this is something he actually said in
his own defense last time, his generation.

So he’s basically trying
to say that in my time

it was acceptable, you could sexually harass
everybody and everyone was cool with it.

He was told by a person of a similar
age of his generation, not to do it.

And he laughed it off
and then he can go back

to last week’s episode and
catch some of the ASMR

of me going, ha ha ha, hey
buddy, that kind of stuff.

He said in our generation, it was common

to pat the head of children
who did well or works hard.

Now the operative word in that sense,

I believe is children because
this is from an adult to a child.

So if I am an adult patting
another adult’s head,

I am clearly demeaning
them even though I might

be trying to imply
they’ve done a good job.

But I think for him, because
he’s such a gross human being

and no mistake, he is a
very gross human being.

I think for him, the actual thing is
that he’s trying to push boundaries.

He’s trying to say like,
does she react negatively

to me touching her head if she doesn’t
then I’m going to go for something else.

He didn’t interpret the
signals correctly anyways

and always went ahead
and did whatever he wanted.

That’s why he has 99 sexual
harassment cases on him.

But it was interesting, the focus
of the Japanese internet was,

here’s a gray area and
most people were like,

no, basically you shouldn’t
be touching anybody

at work, which I
fundamentally agree with.

I don’t think you should
be touching people at work.

There’s a different mayor.

The mayor, so we went
through a massive trend

on the engineers’ pan
for like an entire year.

It was people, men, 50 years plus doing
just the most insane, gross, sexual things.

And that was their final story of the day.

Seems like the last little while,
the mayors have caught fire.

I’m assuming they’re all
over it, and they’re plus 50s.

But the fact that
they’re all, it’s a mayor

group makes it kind
of interesting in itself.

Different mayor was also
accused of sexual harassment.

He had department and division heads

walk out of the room
where he was about to speak.

So what they’re having,
they’re having like a meeting

of the mayor, staff,
initially three questions

were directed to the deputy mayor.

So everyone’s kind of ignoring him.

The fourth question asked
the mayor about a policy issue.

Seven people got up
and left because they’re

like, we don’t like
what this guy’s done.

He shouldn’t be mayor.

We’re not going to even listen to him.

We’re going to pretend he doesn’t exist.

So you got the cold shoulder from everyone.

The mayor, I like to enjoy this.

This is one of those like desperation moves

where in the moment you’re
like, this is going to work.

This is going to be the golden ticket and
it gets me out of this trouble that I’m in.

And I’m going to play the victim.

The mayor claims he is a
victim of harassment harassment,

which is a new one I
had never heard before.

So I love new phrases being coined.

Harassment harassment is brand new to me.

I don’t think it’s a thing.

So he’s basically saying
because I have been accused

of sexual harassment or
harassment or power harassment

or any kind of harassment
that now people seem

to think it’s acceptable to harass
me back and treat me poorly.

So the underlying message
he’s actually saying is like,

even if I have committed harassment,
you should still treat me nicely.

You should still be nice to me.

Because if you’re saying
it’s not nice to harass

people, then you should
not harass me back.

So he’s actually saying this is a
very much cake and eat it to situation.

I should be able to harass people
but people should still be nice to me.

And the fact that people
are not being nice to me

because I harass people is unacceptable,
which is not a load of bullshit.

It’s a very politics
oriented way of thinking,

but I’m betting he thought
in the moment he’s like,

ah, if I claim to be harassed by the people
who accused me of harassing, therefore,

those two things, they’re
negatives, they cancel each other out.

There is no more harassment.

He’s claiming that harassment harassment
is subordinates harassing their supervisors

because they now consider it acceptable,
which again, this is the load of bullshit

coming out of a politician’s
mouth, not a big surprise.

Student of an elementary school,
this is a massive story this week.

Because the numbers are so big,
one it actually gets to the end of this.

Student of an elementary
school, so we’re talking little kids.

He was scammed out of 930,000 yen,
so almost a million yen by a classmate

who sold him medals and bank notes, saying
they would increase in value over time.

So when you go to a lot of tourist places
in Japan, you can have a little medal made.

Usually 500 yen, it’ll
stamp it and spit it out,

and the kid had one of those.

He’s like, I’ll sell you this gold coin,
which will increase in value over time,

and the kid agreed to it.

He said I have a bank note made of plastic.

It also will increase in value over time.

It was a Canadian, I think, $10 note.

And he was selling this
to these kids the coin

he sold, which cost
500 yen for 360,000 yen.

And there were eight
transactions over time in the school

where the kid was buying
stuff from these classmates.

The classmates were essentially
bullying him at first for being poor.

And he said I have a million yen

from what he’s done has saved up his new
year’s money for years and years and years.

He accumulated a million yen.

The mistake there is he had
access to it so that he could do this.

He’d given 900,000 yen away.

He went to his dad, he said,
you know, it must have broken.

He went to his dad, and he
said, I’ve given all my classmates,

all this money, I think
they’re taking advantage of me,

I don’t think this stuff is worth anything.

The father calls to the police,
the police contact the parents.

He’s gotten apologies and 250,000 yen back,

but 250,000 yen is
essentially just a quarter of the

money he’s lost that
those other kids still have.

I, as a parent, have no idea
what I’ve done in this situation.

Like, I certainly would have
given all the kids money back.

No question.

It’s just how do you punish
your kids for scamming other kids?

Like, it’s one of those
things like bullying and stuff.

When it happens, it’s
almost like it’s inconceivable

that it happened.

That’s the weird part to me.

But yeah, you gotta be careful.

Because kids, I guess
if they learn to scam,

what happened to me, I
put myself in this situation.

I was in grade six or
seven in this other kid.

His name was Kirk.

He said to me that he
could sell me a butterfly knife.

Butterflies knives are illegal in Canada.

But he said he could get me one if
I gave him, I think it was five or $10.

So that was like a big chunk
of change for a kid in grade six.

But I really wanted a butterfly.

It’s so lucky I didn’t get this.

‘Cause there are only two results
of me having a butterfly knife.

It would have been me
practicing and cutting

off a finger or me
actually stabbing someone

because I lost my temper
because I was such a wild child.

So he took the $10 and he said,

I’ll give it to you next week
and then the next week went by

and then another week went
by and I went, hey Kirk, you

know, you took money from
me to give me a butterfly knife.

You better give me my money
back or the butterfly knife.

And he was just looking at
me like, what are you gonna do?

I can’t go to my parents or the teachers

and tell them that I attempted to buy
an illegal weapon and give them money.

So I had to just suck up that loss.

And I still to this day,
how many years later?

It looked like 40 years later,
still remember the frustration

and pain and the sense of
loss that I’d gotten myself into.

There’s nothing I could do about it.

So I mean, kudos to Kirk for getting me
in that situation and taking me for that.

But you know, also I didn’t
fall for that scam twice.

But yeah, man, I still
want that butterfly knife.

Guillain is an area of
what’s famous for geisha.

And people have like a image
of geisha from anime and movies

and stuff because in those
they make them very sexual.

Geisha traditionally are entertainers.

They’ll tell stories, they
will play musical instruments,

they’ll perform for you, they’ll do dances.

It’s kind of, it’s just entertainment.

These sex stuff came from
the guys wanting to have sex

with this person who was
a very engaging personality.

And they’re very charming,
it’s kind of their job.

So there’s, it’s sort
of like a dual play here

where they’re not prostitutes,
but if you can get into

a right situation, maybe
they’ll have sex with you

and then that involves you
spending a lot of time with them.

You spend a lot of time with them.

That’s going to cost a lot of money.

Is this prostitution, whatever.

You can go into that for a long time.

We’re not going to get
into that too deeply today.

But the average geisha walking
around Kyoto is not a prostitute.

Let’s just put that out there right now.

They are doing a job and
that job is to learn and study

different arts and then perform
those arts on behalf of customers.

Tourists seem to think
that they’re like paid

employees of the city
that can basically be abused.

So they have people will just grab
them and start taking pictures with them.

They don’t ask if it’s
okay to take pictures first.

I mean, these are private individuals.

You shouldn’t be just
taking pictures of them.

They don’t ask, they just run
up and take a picture together.

Sometimes they’ll grab them and pull them
into a position, which is assault in Japan.

So you can’t do that.

The geisha are complaining.

The city is like, we don’t know what to do.

There’s these small alleys.

And that’s where the geisha work in.

They come out of there
and people are going in there

and it puts them in this
very uncomfortable situation.

So they’re actually going to ban tourists

from being able to go
down into those little alleys

where the geisha study
and work and learn and stuff.

Is this going to happen from April?

And the city representative
said, we don’t want to do this,

but we are desperate.

So there’ve been some complaints.

One of the geisha said, like, she
was grabbed while walking down

the street and actually tore
her hormonal commandos.

Real ones are super expensive.

They’re like literally millions
of yen to buy a commando.

Lately, Japan’s been very
concerned about overtourism

and they’ve been putting
on sort of restrictions.

Since COVID restrictions were lifted,

Japan is now putting other
restrictions on tourism.

So now I think you have to pay 2,000 yen

if you want to climb up Mount
Fuji because too many people

were climbing up and they
weren’t taking care of their garbage.

So like, we have to pay people
to literally pick up garbage.

Well, we’re not going to absorb that cost.

The tourists can absorb that cost.

They can pay to go up the mountain.

These, again, private
individual citizens in

Japan walking around
the city don’t feel safe

because foreign people feel like perfectly
comfortable walking up and grabbing them.

That can’t happen anymore.

The city’s actually going to put,

they haven’t explained like what
the punishment is going to be.

They’re going to put up signs saying like,

this is tourists are not
allowed to walk down here,

but how do you enforce
that in a free society?

It’s actually the problem.

There might be fines, something like that.

But it will give at least
the gaitia some recourse

because they say, you’re
not supposed to be here.

I can now call the police
and have you removed.

Maybe that kind of thing.

But it’s a little sad because this is just

means like people are coming
to Japan and not behaving well.

We’ve done a lot of stories
on people not behaving well.

So they should do one where
they bend the mares of cities

because those guys apparently
are the grossest people in Japan.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)