Mood Harassment

(upbeat music)

Whoa, black barrier, bam,
blam, and I can’t do that.

All right, anyways, the
big black barrier that we

talked about last week and
maybe even the week before.

It was found, like literally the next
day or two days later with holes in it.

The holes, suspiciously, are at eye level.

A spokesman for the town said, we
thought this might happen someday.

Just not this soon.

So they underestimated the sheer resilience

of tourists coming
to ruin their little plan.

A barrier, I didn’t actually think

of like a curtain barrier,
fabric thing was gonna work out.

My assumption actually
was people were gonna hold

their hands above the
barrier to take the picture.

Poking holes in it, I
wouldn’t have done that,

but I actually would have
assumed it was gonna happen.

So what do they need to do?

They need to make a Kevlar barrier
that they can’t easily cut through.

Now there’s a plan to repair the barrier

and then put a sign up
asking people not to touch it.

I think they might be, again,
underestimating people’s

respect for other things,
because if these are the kind

of people who are
willing to poke holes in a

barrier to take the
picture that they want,

they’re also the kind
of people who would be

willing to ignore a sign
to not touch the barrier.

‘Cause anyone who’s gonna
do basically vandalize something,

they’re not gonna care about a sign
that says, “Please do not vandalize this.

” They are talking about
putting up a new screen.

So that screen costs 1.3 million yet.

And they’re saying like, maybe
we should put up a new one.

I assume they’re talking about
a different material or something.

They didn’t get too much into the details.

They are talking about a different color.

They are thinking about
changing the color from black

’cause maybe the black
is a bit too intimidating.

It’s a bit not very aesthetic.

To a blue or, what did
ninjas use to pen say

when they talked about putting
out the barrier in the first place?

A green.

So they’re going to put up possibly
a green screen in front of Mount Fuji.

So my first thought was for the animators.

So you take a picture of
Mount Fuji with the green screen.

And then you can
superimpose an anime version

of the same Lawson and
then put yourself in front of it.

And now you’re in the dream anime.

You’ve imagined all your whole life.

And that’s pretty awesome.

I mean, let’s be straight up.

That’s pretty cool.

Then, of course, people
are going to get more

creative than that and
do weird and gross stuff.

I assume because let’s
face it, that’s what people do.

Man was arrested for stealing
cyanide from a university laboratory.

Now at first I was like, do
they keep a lot of cyanide?

But this is like a lab.

They do lots of stuff.

So they’re going to have lots of chemicals.

So cyanide does make sense for
it to be in a university laboratory.

Universities, not a big
surprise, they keep track

of how much lethal chemicals
they have very closely.

He took 25 grams.

So they noticed 25 grams
of cyanide was missing

and then started tracing
it back to him right away.

He took the cyanide
because he wanted to kill

his father who was
nagging him to get a job.

So this was a 30 year
old man still in university.

His father’s like, dude, I
can’t support you anymore.

You’ve got to get a job.

And he got really annoyed by that.

He’s like, you know what I’m going to do.

The most sensible course of action is
steel cyanide from the university I go to.

Take that home and kill my father.

No one will know.

No one will ever figure it out.

It’s the perfect plan.

The scary part, though, is that the
cyanide itself has not been recovered.

So there are still 25 grams of cyanide
out there in the world roaming free.

So be careful.

So you go to a famous Japanese restaurant.

Japan is famous for its food.

So the good restaurants
are really good in the food.

The food’s famous.

So it’s the good foods, even
more famous, even more better.

And Japan does have good food.

I’m not going to– I’m not
going to rip on it for that.

You want to go to a ramen restaurant.

Ramen’s very famous in Japan as well.

So you know the most famous ramen restaurants
are going to be really, really good.

Imagine you’re sitting
eating this delicious ramen

that you’ve probably waited
hours for outside the restaurant.

You’ve gone in.

And you’ve maybe even
made a trip here to get to it.

Wow.

You start eating it.

And then smoke starts to fill the room.

What do you do?

Do you abandon the ramen that
you’ve put so much work into obtaining?

Do you just give up on
this dream that you’ve

had of eating this very
specific kind of ramen?

No.

You keep eating.

There were no instructions
from the staff to actually leave.

There were about 15
customers in the ramen

restaurant when smoke
started filling the room.

No one said any.

Only when the flames got higher– this

was what the article
said– only when the

flames got higher where
people told to leave.

Apparently, staff started to panic.

So I’m betting what
happened was there was a fire.

And then the staff were like, well,
we should get everyone out of here.

And then a manager is something’s like, no,

we don’t want to ruin
their dining experience.

And then the staff
were like, dude, I am not

dying for what I assume
is a minimum wage drop.

Maybe it’s a high-end restaurant.

So you’re going to
get paid a little better.

But still, you’re a waitress
or waiter or something.

You’re not getting paid that much.

Certainly not enough to risk your life.

So what happens?

You’re like, I’m getting out of here.

And when you get these people
out of here, no one was hurt.

The flames did get high
enough to touch the ceiling.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So the situation– yeah,
this is quiz number two.

So this is all clearly very successful,
because we’re doing it again.

During a student council speech, a student
did an imitation of the vice principal,

including how they talked
and sort of their gestures.

So it would be like doing a Trump
imitation, not flattering, I assume.

So how do you think
the principal dealt with it?

And you have three options.

So this is a very uptight, I
assume, older Japanese man,

who’s used to being a position
of authority with children.

These are middle school kids.

Middle is our elementary school.

Yeah, they’re not old.

They’re not– he maybe
is at the upper end of 13,

because it’s a mixed elementary
junior high school of situations.

He might be.

I told you how one of the teachers dealt

with my daughter, a challenging
and better school council thing, right?

If you’re willing to put that on
the air, I’d love to hear it again.

Yeah, I’d love to.

I’m going to go ahead.

They had a school council
meeting, and all the kids

wanted to know why the
girls were only allowed to have

a hair above their shoulder
or hair below their shoulder.

They weren’t allowed to grow it,
if to make it below their shoulder.

So if they went to the school, and the
hair was short, had to stay short forever.

And the girls are like,
that’s a really stupid rule.

And they brought it up
at the council meeting.

And my daughter was the representative,
so she had to present it to the teachers.

And they said it, and then the teacher
in charge, who was like a veteran, veteran.

Yeah, I’m assuming, yeah.

He was like, it is 60s.

Awesome.

You know, he loves having rules challenged.

He teaches.

It’s best one.

Because almost all the
engineers Japan stories

about teachers, like
90% of them are P.E.

teachers who are hitting kids,
because they’re not Olympic athletes yet.

And then though you
know, those teachers are

just fat all of the
crap of pieces of shit.

My biggest complaint in judo
is you get this group of older

black belt dudes who just stand
around and shout out to people,

and they can’t physically
do anything anymore.

And I’m like, I understand you still
have the knowledge, but you could try.

You could try and spread
your knowledge without shouting.

I participate even though
I’m like one of the older guys.

To me, it’s like just
to maintain my ability.

So if I can show people things physically,
here’s how you do it, to done done.

But yeah, they bugged me.

I just stand on the side.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, so after
she presented this question

and wanted like from a human,
why instead of just a rule book.

Yeah.

He just turned to the whole school.

The whole school, yeah?

The whole school.

It’s like, can you believe
the stupid question

that the stupid little
girl just asked me?

Can you believe what a stupid question?

And then my daughter
just stood there like, what?

This just happened.

Yeah, that’s someone who
doesn’t have an answer who’s

trying to make the question
stupid and not the answer stupid.

Because the answer is, there is no reason.

It’s an arbitrary rule.

Yeah, I don’t know.

It’s the way it’s been.

It’s like the challenge it.

Yeah, it’s like all the other
rules that have been like getting

basically overturned over
the last couple of years.

Like, for this like, sock business
underwear, but it’s just everything, yeah.

Like, they’re not allowed
to wear like long socks

that my daughter was
school either, but they have to.

So they have to have
bad legs through winter.

Yeah.

Which I think is really old.

There’s a lot of schools
now that the cool thing

is they’re doing unisex
uniforms so they get pants.

They all just get pants.

It’s like so bad for so many
girls and the schools there.

Yeah, absolutely ridiculous.

They did do a survey as good as if they
could wear like, like, tights or something.

Well, there’s a lot of girls
you see when they go to school

or wearing track pants under
their skirt, which I think is smart.

But the shortest skirts, they
did a survey and it’s Hokkaido.

The coldest place in Japan.

Jesus, what?

Those are hardy women who are beefing
themselves up for the upcoming Ice Age.

Yeah, right.

I don’t know what’s going on there.

Because yeah, I do remember coming to Japan

and seeing the school
skirts and just nothing.

Like just bare legs
and I’m just like, that is.

I’m wearing like an overcoat and, you know,

I’m like considering long
johns later on, you know.

Yeah, you’re Canadian.

Yeah, no, it’s, it’s not even cold.

It’s wind and the wind cutting
straight on your skin is really bad.

Okay, so you have firsthand
experience almost of authoritative

teachers, just not except,
yeah, teachers being thickheads.

That might be the title of the episode.

Okay, so how did this man deal with it?

Three choices.

A, okay.

He hit the student.

B, he made a speech
and copied the students.

So he made a speech
and imitated the student.

So he basically did it back.

Imitating himself.

Yeah.

No, no, no, he imitated the student

and like started doing
the students gestures

and stuff, basically
making fun of the student.

Oh, go down, okay.

Or C, he demanded an apology.

Now you know demand an apology
actually has like extra steps to it,

but yeah, and why don’t I just
want to say all of the above?

Oh, no, this is, I am
willing, I, the student copied

them and then tonight
I’m doing a lot of money.

Oh, what order would you do it in?

I would, I would make fun of the student
then hit them and then demand an apology.

If I was going to do all three of those,

I think it would be because
you get the joke out

first and then whack them
when they’re not ready.

And then be like, now you.

I’m the G and then hit them.

(laughing)

Oh, you actually though it
makes a demand an apology

when you don’t get it
right away, smack them.

That would actually make sense to me.

All right, I’m going to go with B.

B made this speech and
copied the student is incorrect.

He demanded an apology, but his
apology consisted of, I couldn’t sleep.

If I have to take leave of
absence because of this,

you’ll have to pay the
damages for my absence.

And you may be sent to a
juvenile delinquent detention center.

You may not be able to finish high school.

The boy during this time was
apologizing profusely and crying.

Yeah.

He then, the mother came to the school,
I think the same day of the next day

for an unrelated issue and
then the teacher talked to her.

Then he found out the mother
helped the student with the speech.

He then said to the mom, I may sue you.

We may end up having
to settle out of court.

So in some weird way, he’s already
decided he’s one and they’re settling.

Like, not we’re going to actually
go through a whole court case

where this could get
thrown out because they’re

just like, dude, you’re
being unreasonable.

No, I’ve already won and
you’re going to have to settle out

of court and give me whatever
amount of money I demand.

So he, he did some cool shit afterwards.

So the kid won the election.

So he removed, he took
down the election results,

remade them and took
that kid’s name out.

So he just like messed up the election.

And then he was ordered
to stay home by the

school board because
he’s going a bit too far.

He’s like, because he’s a psycho
because he’s going way too far.

I don’t know.

Like, I guess you just live this life.

It’s a weird kind of like,
you just are the authority

and these kids can’t
push back and they can’t

argue with and you get
into this mind from move.

Anything I do is okay.

I think this is the thing
I hit most regularly now

is these guys have
lived this life and got

to a point where
anything I do is reasonable

and it’s weird that people
would react negatively to it.

I had a conversation
with the Japanese women

about what she thinks of
the worst neighbors to have.

She said, retired police
officers and retired teachers.

Yeah, retired police officers are bored

and looking for infractions that
they can then cause you trouble with.

Yeah, they want to create drama.

Yeah, just do it around their neighborhood.

Yeah.

And then I retired teachers
make sense because again,

they’ve lived this
life where they’re the

authority and everyone
should listen to them.

Yeah.

And they can’t accept
you like, no, get off my lawn.

Yeah, someone pushes back,
because you have no authority over me.

It is funny when, like,
as an adult, you go into,

there’s a point where
you may be going into

a school and you see
the principal and stuff.

And for a moment,
you do feel the principal.

It goes away when you realize,
no, that’s just like a dude.

And then it goes away even faster
when you’re like, he’s younger than me.

But there is a moment.

I remember the first time
as an adult going to a school

and then like seeing the principal
and being like, ooh, the principal.

And I was like, ooh, I make
more money than that guy.

So I read a lot of Japanese news.

That’s how this podcast came to be.

And one of the things you find
out in Japan is that everything,

literally everything is some kind of
harassment at the end of the day.

And there was a new
one that I hadn’t heard of.

And it’s called mood harassment.

And I was like, this is
getting a bit ridiculous.

Maybe I’m just one of
those people who’s just like,

at a point in their life
where everything, because it’s

becoming so extreme to my
view is seeming sort of ridiculous.

They are saying that
if you create a negative

mood in the office, that
is a form of harassment.

So if I’m in a bad mood
and that mood affects

your mood, that is a
form of mood harassment.

And the example they were using was siding
is a form of psychological harassment.

So you’re talking to me
and I go, that’s harassing you.

If I have a grumpy looking face,

which I think I naturally have a
grumpy looking face, that puts you off.

And that is a form of mood harassment.

Unintentional siding is a
form of power harassment.

So let’s say I’m a supervisor
and someone’s talking to me

and I go, geez, I don’t
want to deal with you.

That is a form of power harassment.

They also pointed out lip
smacking and face making.

So the lip smacking like something like
that, I guess you’m just like smacking.

That sort of disc sound.

Face making, again, I run into a problem
with that because I have a grumpy face.

I think if I’m not smiling,
I look really unhappy.

I’ve gotten to an age where
I started to get wrinkles

and face lines and stuff and
they all draw everything down.

So I look more unhappy as I get
older, which I guess is also true.

People tend to be
unhappy or as they get older.

I don’t know.

The problem with this,
so like sexual harassment,

you know you’re
doing something sexual.

Maybe you even know you’re crossing a line.

Power harassment, you
know you’re being aggressive

towards like an underling as a
supervisor, something like that.

Sighing lip smacking and face making,
the perpetrators are often unaware.

And it’s very hard to
get some sort of legal

thing on this, like
how do you define it?

And I think one of these things, they’re
casting the net so broad that literally,

if I come into the office
and I breathe too much,

I’m now harassing my
coworkers and they consume me

or they consume the
company or something like that,

that seems problematic
and I think personally,

maybe this one is
going a little too far.

A YouTuber was arrested.

So we did a couple of stories.

It was Johnny Smolley doing stuff in Japan.

He ended up getting arrested.

And I don’t know if he
was actually deported

but he left and he’s probably not
coming back to Japan anytime soon.

There was these people who tried to
like cheat the train system and you know,

steal food from hotels,
breakfast and stuff like that.

So there was a lot of bad behavior
from live streaming YouTubers.

And that seems to have moved
on to either other countries

or it’s just not happening
here as much as it was

and probably because these things
are punishable in Japan for sure.

It was interesting a lot of the
streamers I read about before

went to countries where
they are essentially more strict

and more harsh in their
punishments than Japan.

I think Japan was attractive because
it was sort of a first world nation.

It’s relatively safe and you assume
not much is going to happen to you.

Realistically though, you
can only go so far in any

country before something’s
going to happen to you.

This YouTuber was Japanese.

So it’s maybe shifted from foreign YouTubers
coming and behaving badly in Japan.

That’s actually sort of
relates to the first one.

So this is maybe a shift from foreign
people doing bad things to Japanese people.

Now emulating those foreign
people who did get famous

and get a certain amount
of money for doing the stuff

and copying them or it’s probably
been happening all the time

but the foreign YouTubers
are a better story.

This is a forcible obstruction of business.

I’m going to ding that one.

Car alarm, sorry going off.

Doesn’t look like the mic’s picking
up so I’m going to keep going.

He was drunk.

He’s decided to get up
and stand on the tables

and while drinking he would spit it
out and spit alcohol onto the table.

So this was of course ruining his
night disturbing other customers.

That’s forcible obstruction of business.

When he was arrested he said I got
carried away because I drank too much.

A man had a restraining
order placed upon him

by a woman who had rejected his
advances and he had continued to it.

(laughs)

What, he shot, he took a shot.

He just didn’t know when to give up.

She’d rejected his
attempts at communication.

He had been hanging around outside her
office, trying to talk to her again and again.

She said too much, got
a restraining order on him.

He showed up at her work.

When he was arrested, which
thing did he say to the police?

So A, I didn’t know she worked there.

B, I went to her work place, but
I didn’t go there to see her or C.

I thought if she saw me,
she’d changed her mind.

So he’s clearly been on her
case if there’s a restraining order.

It was seen primarily he was texting her

but then he was hanging around
and that made her nervous so she

contacted the police and had
a restraining order put on him.

Then he went to the workplace
after the restraining order.

He shows up at her workplace.

So did he say, I didn’t
know she worked there.

Did he say, I went to her workplace,
but I didn’t go there to see her.

Or I thought if she saw
me, she might change

her mind ’cause you
don’t look at this package.

Yeah, they look like I’m in check
this check on what I’m offering then.

She’s not gonna refuse this.

Ah, I think we come on.

Like anybody that is that
exists has to be that blind.

The excuses are always really.

This is basically where
the quizzes are coming are.

How do these people talk to the police?

Because there’s almost
like a set of answers

that you get regularly,
which is the bit I enjoy.

So, oh, man, I think it’s C.

C, I thought if she saw me, she
changed her mind is incorrect.

Yeah, he’s really.

Yes, he said.

So persistent.

Yeah, he was doing that.

He must have been like, she just doesn’t
realize how much he loves me, yeah.

Well, what’s the correct answer?

I went to her workplace, but
I didn’t go there to see her.

But it’s such a lame
excuse because like you have

a restraining order so
you know she works there.

You know you’re not supposed to go in.

He’s like, but I had other business.

They didn’t say where the workplace
was, ’cause I would have liked to know

if it’s like a place where
individuals actually go in.

Yeah, like if people could be there,

or if it was just like we sell
industrial drills to countries.

And like individuals don’t
walk in off the street for that.

So that would be like,
yeah, it does not make sense.

But if it was like we sell products,
then you could almost make an excuse.

Like I buy stuff here, yeah.

This is just the closest one in my area.

I’m kind of just playing
it by that answer though.

Yeah, I most vanilla answer of those ones.

I did like that he’s like, I just
happened to know where she were.

I’m trying to develop the game as it goes.

I was trying to think like, should I
stick to just three or should I just,

the other way we could play
this game is I give you the

scenario and you just try
to say what the answer is.

And then we see how close you can get.

Maybe a hint system almost.

A hint system.

I don’t know, let’s, there involves
a jacket, sorry, and a boot, yeah.

Yeah, that’s, I’m working on evolving
the game now from just multiple choice.

A Chinese YouTuber came to Japan.

Since we have two stories about
YouTubers, I thought it was nice again.

The local born native live
streamer getting in trouble

and now the international
live streamer getting in trouble.

He went to Yasakuni Shrine,
which is a memorial for World War II,

which means it is also a war
memorial for war criminals.

That is problematic for Chinese people.

Every year, members of the government will
go and pay their respects at the shrine.

And what they’re doing is in a way saying,

“Thank you war criminals for doing
all the work “you did in the past.

” The Chinese government,
the Chinese people,

one of the places that
was invaded by Japan,

things like this is something
maybe you should not do.

It’s very difficult water to
tread, but the Chinese have

got a firm stance and I
don’t actually think it’s wrong.

I don’t have an answer
to this one for sure.

I think if I was a politician,

I probably wouldn’t go there
just to not upset other countries

’cause it’s not just
China, it’s any country

that Japan’s invaded probably gets
annoyed by the South Korean stuff.

And they’re trying to build relations.

This YouTuber goes by the name
Ironhead, which I have a pretty cool name.

I can’t make fun of him since my
name’s he chunked my beef chest.

He decided the best thing to do
would be to make a little speech about,

and he said this
was in protest of the

Fukushima water treatment
of the water release.

So the Fukushima power
plant had a meltdown.

They have all this irradiated
water and they have a plan.

They’re releasing it
bit by bit into the ocean.

And it will dissipate enough, hopefully,

that it doesn’t actually
negatively impact anything,

but they still can get
rid of the irradiated water.

China has been against this.

They’ve clearly reported to their people,
this is a bad idea, we shouldn’t do this.

Their alternative was to
shoot it into the atmosphere,

which maybe works the exact
same way, but in my head I was like,

that seems just as bad
if not somehow worse.

I mean, I don’t know enough
about the science behind it.

The scientist said the amounts they’re
doing and the way they’re doing it is safe.

I don’t know.

I know bananas are radioactive, so that’s
another whole other thing going on there.

So he wants to protest the
release of the Fukushima water.

He’s come to Yessakuni Shrine,
which is essentially a warm memorial

enshrined for World War II soldiers,
and therefore includes war criminals.

He filmed himself doing this.

This is the issue, so he’s getting caught,

because there is actually
footage of security footage

of him doing this, but
the way he got caught

is he posted it on the
Chinese version of Instagram,

so China has their own version of all
the apps that we know and love so much.

Instagram, and then he took it down
when it started getting some heat.

That video was taken
down and shared outside of

China, so actually it
got captured elsewhere.

So he gives a little speech
and he says that this

place, he wants to treat
the world like a toilet,

he’s going to treat
this place like a toilet.

So he climbs onto a
pillar and begins to urinate,

and then spray paints
the word toilet on the pillar.

If he gets caught, so it seems like
he’s escaped and gotten back to China,

so he’s probably not
on the country anymore.

But if he comes back, he could be caught.

You could get three years in
prison, and a 300,000 yen fine.

His protest, again, I think this is
an ineffective way of protesting.

That’s something that maybe
people need to think about.

Like if you want to protest stuff,

it needs to have some sort of impact
beyond 10 seconds and getting you arrested.

You need to have some
sort of something in place.

Like I don’t think most
protests are particularly valuable.

I don’t think they’re
particularly effective.

But this one, peeing on something, I
mean, I think he chose yes, Kuni Shrine,

because it was going to
get a lot of traction in China.

But at the same time,
since it started getting

traction in China, it
means it got really popular,

and once it got really
popular, everyone was seeing it,

he had to take it down because
he was going to get in trouble.

There is no extradition treaty, but I’m
betting the Chinese government’s like,

you made us look bad, and in
China, you can actually get in trouble

from making the country
or the government look bad.

Like you can lose your
social status and stuff.

So I think maybe he thought
this was going to work out.

This was going to make it more popular,
and then it did, and then he realized,

oh, it’s maybe popular
with this base group,

but also the people who would
feel obligated to punish me for it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Things Getting Sadder

(upbeat music)

So, is your population getting too old?

I mean, that’s happening
in a bunch of countries.

So, it is actually very possible.

You’re living in a country that is graying.

Population is skewing
to the older generation.

So, there’s a very simple solution to that.

And Japan has come
up with it, which is great.

You just redefine what old is.

So currently, elderly is defined
as someone to 65 and over.

So, the retirement age.

And they’re saying, hey, what we can
do is just redefine that as 70 an older.

And then, we got less old people.

And those people can keep working.

Doesn’t matter how they feel or if
they want to retire or anything like that.

They can keep working ’cause
you know, they’re not old anymore.

The government’s actually
promoting re-skilling for all generations.

And of course, this
is specifically designed

as this new generation of people
who were old who are not old anymore.

Now, they’re not saying specifically
what they’re gonna reskill them too.

So, right now, you’re 65
years old, you’ve worked your

whole life in one industry
or two industries, let’s say.

You’ve probably worked in one
industry, maybe multiple companies.

How are they gonna reskill you as
actually very interesting question?

I’m wondering, yeah, ’cause
what that mean to me,

reskilling is taking
someone who doesn’t know

how to computers and teaching
them how to use computers.

If you’ve ever tried to get older
people to use new technology, it’s tough.

Like, I tried to stay up on technology.

I can see there are elements
and parts that fall away,

certainly like there are
apps where, you know, people

who do use them regularly,
show me how to use stuff.

I was like, wow, I didn’t
know that was in there.

I am approaching the first
old, and then as soon as

I get there, they’re gonna
move it to the second old.

I can tell you, I don’t wanna work now.

Well, I don’t wanna work five more
years after working my whole life.

And I don’t wanna be reskilled.

I’m already, this is very
bleak looking for me.

The government is predicting
a 1% economic growth

as a result of this
scheme, if it is successful.

I’m wondering how much
push back they’re gonna get.

They do talk about
Social Security and stuff,

which, you know, the
only way to keep Social

Security robust is to
have people pay into it.

So if you have too many people
retired and not enough young people,

they’re not paying enough
money into it to support the

old people, and then they
get nothing when they retire.

So I do see that the
Social Security is a big issue,

but I don’t think redefining
old, but making a bunch of

people who’ve retired start
working again is the way to do it.

‘Cause what they’re
actually talking about is,

if you’re 65 and you start
getting Social Security

and they redefine old,
then you might lose it for

five years and have to go
back to some sort of job.

And as a prospect, that makes me very sad,

which makes perfect
sense for our next story.

Global Happiness Report 2024.

The fact that you have to
make a global happiness report,

like you just can’t assume
everyone’s happy has already a bit.

Man, Japan is on a downward trend.

A lot of countries are.

So this isn’t just picking on Japan.

Japan’s a group, a country
of depressed people.

This is a lot of countries
are on a downward

trend, but it has dropped
13 points from 2011.

So the worldwide survey,
this was interesting.

This survey only surveyed
2000 respondents in Japan.

So the entirety of the
Japanese collective happiness

index is based on the
feelings of 2000 people.

There are millions of people in Japan.

If you’d only surveyed last week,
they surveyed like 1,800 foreign people

and used that to represent
all foreigners in Japan.

And I was already like, that
seems like a poor sample size.

Sampling 2,000 people from the country

seems like not enough to
actually call it a fair answer.

So I’m very, I’m gonna put a
big asterisks on the end of this.

I don’t think this is a good survey.

It may not be representative.

Unless, of course, the
other millions and millions

of people in Japan are just
too depressed to answer.

In which case, this is
really, really accurate.

57% said they were very
happy or rather happy.

There were four categories.

There was very happy, rather happy,
somewhat unhappy, and then just miserable.

The happiest country in the world.

Oh, I should have done a quiz.

I gotta work my quizzes in advance.

Bit busy this week.

But what do you think the
happiest country in the world is?

This would be the quiz question.

So I’m gonna pause.

Please lock in your answer now.

Oh, Ignat’s is in the chats.

Let’s do it.

Ignat’s.

What country do you believe is
the happiest country in the world?

They have an 85% of the people who responded
said they were very or rather happy.

It’s one of those scannability places.

It’s one of those scannability places.

I don’t know what scannability means.

Scandinavian, it makes way more sense.

You are on the right track.

Please name a Scandinavian country.

There is a second place
that is very not Scandinavian,

but also, well, I was
gonna make a joke about

that, but please name
a Scandinavian country.

And if you can name, I mean, you’re
gonna get partial points for Scandinavian.

You are correct.

Norway or Sweden?

Norway or Sweden is not
correct, but again, you’re very close.

It’s a good guess.

I didn’t get the whole list.

I only got like the top two in
the bottom few and stuff like that.

So I don’t actually know where
Norway or Sweden rests within this.

The Netherlands, 85% said they
were very happy or rather happy.

83% in Mexico.

Now, my stories, my news
media input from Mexico is all

cartel stuff and murders
and people dying and stuff.

But people in Mexico, 83% said
they are very happy or rather happy.

And I guess if, like, I eat
burritos almost every day,

if you’re eating Mexican food every
day, you’re gonna be pretty happy anyways.

So that’s pretty good.

Japan was 28th on the list.

The lowest two were South
Korean hungry and hungry.

They tied for 48%.

So if you wanna go to, see, I
don’t think this is representative.

If they’re getting these low numbers, 2,000
people don’t represent a whole country.

But I do know that South Korea has
the worst work-life balance in the world.

And that’s gotta say something.

Again, my thing about Japan as a
country has been work-life balance.

I’ve been saying it for years and years and
years and years doing these, news Japan.

The thing to fix the country
is to fix the work-life balance

and then all the other stuff would
start to fall into place afterwards.

But who’s gonna listen to the
number two news Japanese news

entertainment podcast
in the world other than

not politicians ’cause they’re
not smart enough to listen.

Although I do rip on politicians a lot.

I bet no politician would
actually wanna listen to this

’cause if their name came
up, they’d be like, “Ah, he’s

gonna make fun of my apology
“and retracting my statements.

” There is a global trend right now
towards the happiness index going down.

So I would be interested in
checking out the happiness index.

What kind of questions
they actually ask you.

But looking at the
results, not enough people,

but weirdly accurate
for what I would assume

are the countries with
the worst work-life balance.

February 2005, we’re gonna
get all the surveys up from.

I do enjoy my surveys
and my numbers and stuff.

February 2005, survey was done.

Should we have a female emperor?

87% people said yes.

We should have a female emperor

because as I’ve stated
in other emperor-related

stories in the past,
they don’t do anything.

So the fact that it’s a man or
woman does not matter anymore.

That went down to 72% in
2006 when a prince was born.

So they’re like, “Hey, we have a male heir.

“Maybe we don’t need
these ladies anymore.

” I went down to 68% in 2017.

30% of the people back
in that survey in 2017 said,

“We should take someone
from the former imperial lineage

“that left sort of the royal
family line after World War II.

“There is a relationship there though.

“There’s a reason those
people left the royal family

“after World War II, and it might be one of
the reasons “why we don’t want them back.

” Because right now, what
does the emperor’s family do?

They work with the Red Cross.

They do make countries
nice with each other.

They do charity work.

I think that’s great.

I actually think that’s good
work and it’s good to be done.

I just think these people should
have to have jobs and stuff as well.

This year, a different
survey was done last month.

And so it’s related because
the topic is the same,

but it was done, again, I
didn’t want to get too much

into the weeds, but it’s done like different
numbers, different amounts of people.

A different survey was done last week.

81% of those people
said bring on the ladies,

we want a female emperor, or we’re
comfortable with a female emperor.

And I think, yes, either
take whoever is next in line.

I don’t care about
their gender, male, or

female, or any other
aspect of their personality.

They are just part of the royal family.

If you’re gonna have a royal
family, just deal with them.

Do not overcomplicate this.

Or, do maybe the more sensible
thing and just get rid of them?

Like, how are tax payer
dollars being spent on this?

Well, we’re talking
about in our first story,

raising the age of
retirement from 65 to 70?

Like, why are we paying for a royal family
when you have 70 year olds having to work?

Because I’m already done.

I was done probably a few years ago, but I
gotta keep working until I get my pension.

This is like one of those cult movies

where it’s like the day before
my pension kicks in and I die.

It’s the day before my pension kicks in,

they change the rule and I have to
keep working for another five years.

It’s a nightmare.

Those should be horror
movies at this point.

If your country is considering

moving the definition
of elderly from 65 to 70

to keep those people working
and re-skilling those people, which

would mean training, which
mean you have to pay for training.

Maybe the money we spend
as a country on the royal family.

Is it really worthwhile?

It’s like the whisper.

I do like whispering every now and then.

It really brings the tension
in but down in a soft way.

There was that town,
talked about last week.

They installed a big black barrier to
cover a loss in that was undermount Fuji

because visitors, tourists were coming
and they were flocking to this place

and taking this iconic picture
and they were standing in the road

and they were causing problems
and they were being dirty and stuff.

All the stuff they’re complaining
about over tourism right now in Japan.

What has happened as a result?

Well, a lot of people are like, “This
isn’t great because it’s kind of an ice or,

“but, taxi drivers said
the traffic is better.

“It’s a lot safer.

” And what has actually happened is
people have, as I would have guessed,

moved to another loss in location that
is similar in taking a similar picture.

So now you’re gonna
get everyone in this area.

Every loss in this area is
gonna have to put a black barrier.

They are talking about solutions ’cause
this odd view is an imperfect solution.

It has worked for this one location ’cause
people end up moving to other locations

but you’re just taking
the problem in moving

it to some other town
or place that is similar.

They’re saying what
they’re gonna do is put up

the big, a QR code on
the big, big black barrier.

Let’s see if I can say
that five times fast.

Big black barrier, big black barrier,
put a QR code on the big black barrier.

If I practice, it’s not bad.

They wanna put a QR code on the big black
barrier and that will guide you to places

where it’s appropriate to take good pictures
of Mount Fuji, like tourist locations

and stop bothering
locals who are actually

trying to get to loss
and to get their one cup.

It’s interesting, so the complaint now
that this thing has actually been erected

is that the locals are
saying we have a problem

and it’s that we don’t
like the big black barrier.

So they’re talking about replacing
the barrier with a different color.

I did originally say a green
screen, which would be super

problematic because all the
influencers would go there.

Take a video and then put something else
like their anime loss in the foreground

and then take a picture
of them in front of

their anime loss and
in front of Mount Fuji.

Charge ’em for it and
then we have a solution

to the thing that I don’t have
to now retire at 70 instead of 65.

Now all that money
should go into a fund for

me so that I can go
into early retirement.

So they are talking about a different
color to make it more appealing.

But putting this thing
up costs 1.3 million yen,

which came out of the town’s coffers,
which came out of the town’s money.

So they’re like, is this really the solution
to spend more money to get a new barrier

that’s a different color after spending
all this money put up in the first place?

There is no simple solution to any problem.

This is something I’ve found, I
become hyper fixated on solutions.

So the best example from me, is I needed
a bag, a backpack for my judo clothes.

So I wrap up my judo suit and
I measured it and I found the

perfect measurements and I
was like, okay, this would be great.

So I went online and I found a
backpack, I actually have it here.

Right, it’s a sling
black, it’s a sling back,

it’s rated hazard
four, which is the super

durable, it says it
could inhibit a bullet.

It’s not, it can’t say it’s bullet proof
because a bullet would go through it,

but maybe it would slow it down
and it would do less damage to me.

I’m certain there’s a
lot of factors in there.

So I bought this bag, it’s very expensive,
gonna last me for years, I’ve done it,

I’ve got the perfect bag and I put
the judo suit in and it fits perfectly.

I’m hyper focused on the
solution that I immediately

go, I need a water
bottle and that doesn’t fit

because the measurements
are exactly to the judo suit,

not the judo suit plus water bottle and
there’s stuff on top of that, water bottle

and change of underwear
and change of pants,

t-shirt, whatever, like I
go in one set of clothes,

let’s say my work clothes,
I want to come home

and maybe more casual
and more comfortable clothes.

I’m still probably sweating,
so I want to put on a t-shirt

or something, so I
got to bring the t-shirt,

I got to bring a towel ’cause
I want to take a shower, I got

to bring a water bottle, I got
to bring underwear and stuff.

And then if there’s anything
else I need to bring that day,

a notebook, something else like
that, it has to go in there as well.

So I was hyper fixated on a single solution

and I didn’t take into account
the bigger picture around it,

that is a very common
chunk of beef chest way

of having a mistake is I’ve
actually solved a problem

so perfectly, I failed to take into account
other things surrounding that problem.

This is kind of what
they’re doing, we’ve put up

a barrier, we’ve solved
this individual problem,

but we’ve actually just
made different problems.

Now locals are saying that
this thing, this barrier is ugly.

Now locals are saying like, a local’s
in a similar location, maybe close by,

are going, all you’ve
done is move those

people to where we
are, that’s not a solution.

Do I have a solution for it?

No, tear down melt Fuji.

This is very interesting, now we’re gonna
get into news, there’s no more surveys.

So if your survey porn has not been
satisfied, you gotta go somewhere else.

A teacher was being brought to
trial for sexual crimes in real Oklahoma,

we’ve actually done this
kind of story dirty teachers,

I actually have kind of shied
away from dirty teachers

because there’s not much to
make fun of, it’s just gross and awful.

And I do want to be relatively
flippin’ about the stories I talk about.

So I’ve actually not touched these as
much because there’s no joke factor.

The Yokohama school board brought staff in
to the courthouse to occupy all the seats

so they would keep
the public out of the trial.

Now why do you think they did that?

You want, you have a teacher who’s on trial

for doing something dirty,
dirty, dirty, bad and gross.

So you bring in all your staff, and
they’re going to fill up all the seats

so the public can’t take
part or can’t watch this trial.

They have done this
eight times for eight trials.

Well, I guess it’ll be multi
trials in just a single event.

So eight trials, which would be multiple
days, they had 371 staff members.

They used up to 50 at a time to
make sure that all the seats were taken

and they did this for, this
could be 50 people per trial.

The school board even paid travel expenses

for the staff to get
to the trial to take the

seats so the public
couldn’t see the court case,

which means the tax money in
Yokohama that goes to education

is going to pay to keep
the public from seeing

the trial of the teacher
who abused a student.

That’s a lot going on
in one single sentence.

The board of education,
when this was brought

to their attention,
said that this was done

at the request of the victims
to protect their reputation.

Now I think there’s a word
you should swap out there.

If you said the board of
education said this was to,

was done at the request of the board
of education to protect their reputation.

I think that might be more accurate.

They then vehemently
denied, they admitted it

was excessive and they
apologized for doing it.

They did not say they’re going to stop.

So that is an interesting thing.

The school board has
decided to make sure the

public does not have
access to public trials

and they’re claiming it’s for the
victims benefit not to protect themselves.

59 year old man got arrested,
oh, love my 59 year old man.

As soon as I say that phrase, now
we’ve said a tradition in Indonesia, Pat.

If I say 50 something year old man got
arrested, you know it’s gross and dirty.

This isn’t as bad.

It’s interesting though,
he’d been drinking.

So there’s the combination
of 50 year old man,

plus alcohol and you know he’s not
elderly, he’s still defined as a young man.

He wanted to confront his neighbor
about parking in their property.

So his neighbor’s parking
maybe in their parking lot

or going over the middle
line or something like that.

It’s a very get off my lawn scenario.

And I’ve gotten to that age where I’m
like waiting for someone to come out.

So I can charge out and be like,
yeah, my drive, I don’t have a lawn.

I got to drive way.

Get out my drive way.

You can’t park over a rubber.

I don’t know why my accent
changes when I do that.

That’s a certain, I guess that’s the change

from old to elderly is a
significant accent change.

His wife stopped him.

He said, look, honey, your drunk,

you’re being unreasonable, don’t
go confront the neighbor about this.

Let’s maintain some neighborly relations.

We’ll have a conversation with him
when you’re in a better state of mind.

He’s like, no.

And he, he hit her with a banana peel.

Now here’s the problem.

The only bit of information that’s
lacking in the article that I want.

Did he throw the banana peel and
the banana peel hit her in the face?

Or did he actually slap
her with a banana peel?

They’re both funny, but
they’re funny in different ways

because you could throw a banana
peel and it could just sail over them.

But if he threw a banana peel and he sniped
her, that’s actually kind of awesome.

If he slapped her with a
banana peel, it’s like you

want to slap someone but
you don’t want to hurt them.

Did he do it for a hand or backhand?

Did he bit slap her with a banana peel?

Because now what I want
to do more than anything else

is getting to a gentle
argument with someone,

a confrontation, and
then backhand them with a

banana peel, which I
think would be really funny.

The wife on the other hand
didn’t think it was funny.

She calls the police.

The police show up and like, your
wife says you hit her with a banana peel

and he’s like, yeah, I hit
her with a banana peel.

Is that a big deal?

And then he gets arrested for it.

While he’s being arrested, he
said, is this considered violence?

Couples experience this level of violence.

No, actually they don’t.

I’ve never hit any partner
I’ve had with anything.

I’ve never hit any of my
partners in the entirety of my life.

So that is not true.

But at the same time, I’m
kind of, I’m not on his side,

but it seems unreasonable
for her to have called

the police over him hitting
her with a banana peel.

Because the banana peel didn’t hurt.

Because whenever they
have any sort of these assault

or violent statements,
they talk about how long

it takes the victim to
heal from their injuries.

And there’s no mention
of that because getting hit

in the face with a banana
peel doesn’t actually hurt.

So there’s nothing to recover from.

But there is also the
question of escalation.

So once you hit someone with a banana peel,

the next step is obviously
hitting them with a watermelon.

50, 50, 50, 55-year-old man arrested.

Yep.

Two in a row, he was
coming back from Thailand.

I watched a video just
the other day of two British

tourists in Thailand just
getting the crap beat out of them

by some security guards because apparently
they had hit one of the service workers.

I actually don’t know what kind.

I don’t know if it was legit or a
red light district or that kind of thing.

But there was enough
of an area where they

have security workers
and there’s the ladies.

The bar ladies are trying
to stop the security workers

from beating the crap out
of these two British dudes.

But there’s something very satisfying
of watching British men get beat up.

If they had done it with banana
peels, now this is my new high standard.

If you’re going to beat
someone up, you beat them up.

You know, fizzly bump, bump, bump,
bump, bump, and knock them down.

And at the end, you backhand
them with a banana peel.

You can oil you want.

You would get the same
satisfaction of watching two

British tourists get their shit kicked
out of them by Thai security guards.

I guarantee.

I did.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, there you go.

I do it.

Everyone, British people
have the same feelings

everyone else about watching
British tourists get beat up.

If you said they were Canadian, I’d be
like, oh, but Canadians are nice people.

I hold this stereotype where my
default stance is Canadians are nice.

And then you would prove
to me that they were bad

people, and they’d be
like, oh, they deserve it.

There is the default is that
British tourists deserve it.

And in Thailand, again, you kind of know.

You kind of know.

I know nothing about
them, but you kind of know.

They deserve it backhand
with a banana peel.

All right, so this guy,
Japanese dude, 55 years old,

he gets on an airplane, he’s
coming back from Thailand.

He’s drunk.

Allegedly.

I can literally guarantee
you this man was drunk.

I don’t need to do any detective work.

While he was on the airplane, he was
yelling and trying to hit other passengers.

I mean, I’ve never been on a
flight where that’s happened.

Everyone’s actually been very–

I guess that’s why those
end up videos on the internet.

I wonder if I would hit him back.

If someone tried to hit
me, would I hit them back?

I probably wouldn’t.

Like, I have a great deal
of violence within me,

but at the end of the day, I’m
like, I don’t want to get in trouble.

I don’t want to go to prison.

I don’t want all these problems.

But I guarantee if one
of those dudes hit one

of my kids, I would
just go ape shit on him.

I’d be like a Thai security guard on
a British tourist with a banana peel.

So he was moved from wherever
he was sitting to a different set place.

Now, I’m wondering
if he was in first class

and was moved back to
economy or vice versa.

I don’t know, because how many places can
you actually move someone on an airplane?

But he was moved.

He was then, he then tried to do
lewd acts towards the flight attendants.

And it says several.

He was hugging and trying to kiss
one flight attendant for up to 10 minutes.

And that is a long time.

And they couldn’t do
anything about it, it seems.

So he was taken off the airplane
when they landed, and he was arrested.

His statement was, I don’t
remember because I was drunk,

which is one of the most classic
Japanese defenses of bad behavior ever.

I do have a counter for
obstruction of business.

I was thinking some of these other
ones I should start a counter as well.

I don’t remember because I was
drunk should be one of them, for sure.

If you have listened to
any of the back catalog

of Ninja News Japan, and you have any
recommendations for a counter we should keep.

Because I’m happy with keeping
counters is actually quite fun.

I think I don’t remember because
I was drunk should be up there.

That is absolutely one that should go in.

We haven’t had a lot of
obstruction of businesses lately.

So I’m waiting for a
tsunami, a wave of obstruction

of business crimes to
come up in the future.

But also, if we could start the trend
if hitting people with banana peels,

I think that’s something
we should actually start.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(gentle music)

We Retract This Podcast

(upbeat music)

  • Man stole a forklift and he
    decided the best use of this

would be to crash it
into a convenience store

that was closed and
steal 100,000 yen in cash.

Now 100,000 yen, it’s
about a thousand dollars.

I mean, we’re just gonna go
with the simplest math on this.

It’s about a thousand dollars.

My dealings with criminality in doing an
international panther as long as I have,

so let me to understand
the things have value.

Forklift in itself has value.

I’m pretty sure a forklift, even a
used one, it’s worth a lot of money.

So I went to decide to look it up online.

What I found was that a used 3,000 pound
electric forklift at the low end is $9,900.

At the high end is $28,000 with
an average selling price of $17,200.

We don’t know what kind
of forklift this guy stole.

We do know he stole a forklift.

And we know that an
expensive forklift, let’s say a

15,000 pound pneumatic, the
low price for that is $43,000.

The high price is $91,000.

And the average price is $62,800.

So that tells me that after he had gone
through the effort of stealing the forklift,

it would have been more
financially viable for him

to resell the forklift as
opposed to smashed into

a convenience store and
get only $1,000 in cash.

And that $1,000 in cash
is what led to the arrest.

So I bet he could have
stolen, sold that forklift

and then skipped
town, that pin’s got free.

Keep in mind though, some of the listings

we took above number to
not include paint in the price.

So if you need to paint your
forklift, that’s gonna cost more.

So maybe he’s gonna steal the forklift,

give it a fresh coat of
paint so it looks different.

Sell that forklift.

You can charge extra for that.

I mean, that’s the benefit of
having a paint job on your forklift.

You can actually up that price a little
bit and maybe get more of the high end

and less than the low end,
you know what I’m saying?

All I’m saying is, as
soon as I read the story

about a man crashing a forklift
into a store to steal $1,000, I was like,

I bet the forklift he was sitting
on was worth more than $1,000.

Oh my God, put some thought into it.

That’s all I’m saying.

The Tokyo Metro Police have
filed charges against a student

who took an engineering
exam for a university.

Now what did he do?

That’s a very good question you ask.

That’s probably why you’re here.

He was wearing smart glasses and
sending pictures of the exam to X.com.

And here’s the thing, okay.

It turns out he had his
smartphone in his pocket.

So he was sending pictures to the internet,

trying to get people to
answer those questions for him.

And then when they sent
the answers to the responses,

he would check the
smartphone in his pocket.

That is partially how he got caught.

There’s actually an interesting thing here.

So I read multiple stories again,
trying to get my sources straight.

There are actually two
versions of how he got caught.

But I want to actually
get to the main point.

This was an engineering exam.

He had smart glasses on.

He was using the smart glasses to take
pictures of the exam to send to the internet.

My theory is, if he had built
the smart glasses himself,

so they had a camera
in it where fully functional

took pictures and sent the
pictures to the internet successfully,

that should be enough to
pass the engineering exam.

I actually think that would
be enough engineering,

a practical exam, let’s
say, and he should pass.

And then my second thought was, why
don’t they make that the engineering exam?

Like you have to take the exam,
so you can take the exam as it is

and do it the way the
traditional way in filling the exam

answer the questions, you
know all that boring stuff.

Or if you can engineer a way to cheat

and that engineering
is well constructed

enough, then you pass
the exam automatically.

I think the failure point
here is that he got caught.

And it seems like he got
caught using a smartphone,

not actually the sunglasses he was
wearing that had the camera in them.

But my feeling is if he’s a good enough
engineer to make glasses that take pictures

of some of the internet, that he’s already
passed the exam, he doesn’t need the exam.

And so we need to look at
different ways to do exams.

Now, different people
have different skills.

There’s different kinds of intelligence.

This is something I’ve
always proposed and believed.

Ever since I first learned about it, I said
there are different kinds of intelligence

and different people are
smart in different ways.

And maybe he isn’t a paper smart
guy, but he is a mechanically smart guy.

Maybe he’s not.

Maybe he’s just bought smart glasses
and used them to try to cheat in that,

in which case he’s getting
exactly what he deserved.

So the way he got caught
is that someone responded

to his questions online and
then notified the university.

He was well, say to university one of
the most famous universities in Japan.

The school called the police when officials
noticed the camera in his glasses.

So there are two, not
contradictory stories,

but I think it might be two people
claiming that they caught the guy cheating.

I think the person who
found the questions online,

and that was answering
the questions and then

realized, this is from
an exam and an exam

that might be happening right
now and contacted the university.

That seems more reasonable.

They probably contacted the
university, told one of the officials,

the officials went and found the guy
with the glasses, and then he’s like,

but here’s a chance for
me to take credit and he did.

In which case, that guy’s cheating,
and that guy should get in trouble too.

And so I was actually thinking
of it as which is more likely.

It’s actually, if he was got into the exam

with the glasses on, started
taking the exam with the glasses on,

I actually think the camera must have been
subtle enough that he wouldn’t notice it.

You’d be more likely to notice the
smartphone in his pocket him pulling out,

’cause he has to check it for the answers,
in which case that’s when you would notice.

So someone noticing
the camera in his glasses,

it would have made more sense if they found
that early exam, not later in the exam.

So to me, story wise, it makes
more sense if it was the person online,

realized this person
was using the internet

to cheat, and then
contacted the university.

The Foreign Minister of Japan is a
woman, and we have a little quiz today.

So last week, I sort of
felt out the theory of maybe

we could do some quizzes,
maybe some fun stuff.

This week, I decided to try to employ that.

So I got a good friend
of mine, Mr. Warm Hands.

He’s going to join us in the podcast

and take the Foreign
Minister’s quiz with us today.

I have to make some kind
of like fireworks or something.

Phew, phew, phew, phew,
phew, phew, phew, phew, phew,

the Ninja New Japan, Ninja
New Japan, Ninja New Japan.

Quiz, something like that.

I’m not gonna make
any of that ’cause I don’t

have time ’cause I have
to do all this in one day.

Should I introduce you, does anyone care?

You’re just another voice in the world.

  • Yeah, I mean, you can
    do it on the actual podcast.
  • Okay, yes.
  • Right now.
  • So the female Foreign
    Minister of Japan said,

this is three options,
so it’s multiple choice.

  • Okay.
  • The female Foreign
    Minister of Japan said,

A, foreigners are diluting
the purity of Japan.

B, women are only women if they give birth,

or C, equal pay for women
will damage the equality.

  • Ah, sure.
  • Equal pay for women
    will damage the economy.
  • Oh.
  • So we can have a little
    chatter if you want clues.

I’ll try to–

  • All three of them are pretty viable.
  • That’s the problem.

I think I’ve actually done enough news

that I now my quiz questions are gonna
be super hard ’cause they’re all possible.

  • Equal pay for women
    will damage the economy.

Women are not women unless they give birth.

  • And foreigners are
    diluting the purity of Japan.
  • Ah, and this is the minister for–
  • The Foreign Minister.
  • The Foreign Minister for Japan.
  • The female Foreign
    Minister, she is a woman.
  • It is a woman.
  • It’s a, oh god, that
    doesn’t really help much.
  • It actually doesn’t.

She is old.

That actually I think is why
these statements came out.

It’s always the same thing.

It’s this old form thinking
that I’m always going on about.

  • If it was a man, everyone in
    statement might be more likely.
  • I think B would be
    more likely if it was a man.
  • Women are only women
    if they give birth, okay?
  • Yeah, but I’m not ruling it out.

‘Cause I know a lot of old women
who are like very gender roles.

  • It’s not, it’s not even a Japanese thing.

It’s just like you have to give birth.

You have to give birth and
you have to maintain a house

and you have to manage the boss
and it’s so much of that and it’s crazy.

  • That tread wife.
  • I actually was watching a video.

It was one of these
trad wives who’s like

head quit and she’s
like, I regret it so much.

It’s so horrible.

  • Well, but even my wife’s mother
    gives her shit because I do stuff.

They say, well, this so ass backwards.

  • Yeah.
  • She’s like, your husband’s doing stuff.

I can’t believe you’d let that happen.

(laughing)

  • ‘Cause my father-in-law, he’s old.

He saw me just get up
and wash some dishes once.

He was like, whoa, you can do that.

And I was like, I didn’t say anything,
but I think his attitude changed.

She’s like, oh, actually,
maybe I could do stuff.

‘Cause I made dinner
and I cook and I cleaned.

So on the days I cook, I actually
like, my wife won’t wash that.

I don’t want, she doesn’t wash the dishes.

I do everything.

So it’s like, she has at
least one day with nothing.

But okay, you have to make your choice.

A, foreigners are
diluting the purity of

Japan or unless you
wanna ask some questions.

B, women are only
gonna take a birth or a C,

equal pay for women
will damage the economy.

  • So B seems the most
    misogynistic view about his coming

from a woman, which
is, I feel like it’s that one.

  • All right, it is correct.
  • Oh, that’s what I think,
    ding, ding, ding, ding, ding sound.
  • She said, women are
    only women if they give birth.
  • Jesus Christ.
  • Her actual statement was, how can we
    call ourselves women without giving birth?
  • So the next day, you know she
    got in trouble for this, the next day.
  • Oh, of course she did.
  • Again, three choices, A,
    she gave us sincere apology.

B, she said her statement
didn’t convey the

correct meaning or C,
I retract my statement.

You know that’s my favorite one.

When they retract statements, I’m
like, it doesn’t really retract any, right?

It’s still there.

The statement you made still exists.

  • So the first one was apologize.
  • A sincere apology.
  • sincere, okay, oh, well,
    that’s definitely not happening.
  • Mm-hmm.
  • Okay, B, her statement didn’t
    convey the correct meaning.
  • You guys are too dumb
    to know what I meant.
  • Mm-hmm.
  • Or C, I retract my statement.
  • Oh, come on, right,
    so, then if it was a man,

I want 100% to go with
retract because I feel

like they just like, this
might get outbound.

I can say what I want.

  • I can say whatever I
    want in the next day, I’ll

be like, well, you know,
you guys interpret it.

  • I apologize for you
    misinterpreting my words.

(laughs)

  • Yeah, I feel like like female politicians
    are a special breed of like evil.
  • In Japan, yes.
  • No, not just in Japan.
  • I was thinking about like a
    UK even, like Thatcher, like in–
  • Thatcher has ruined it for
    every other female politician.
  • Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s
    some good ones out there.

But at the chance of Germany
was, she seems all right.

  • Yeah, she seems like reasonably
    down to a– – I kind of like her.
  • And then the prime minister
    of New Zealand, she was cool.
  • Yeah.
  • Yeah, people tried to dunk on her
    for like having a party, I remember that.

Like just talking about a party.

  • Yeah, it’s like, and had a full month.
  • Shut fun.
  • Like AOC, I really like AOC.

In America, there’s a Katie
something and she’s awesome.

All she does is take
like business men to task.

She had the president of Pierce Moore,

like JP Morgan, some giant
investment hedge fund bank thing.

And then she was like, I found out
how much like your tellers get paid.

They don’t make enough to survive.

Can you reconcile that with me?

And he’s like, basically like, how can
you justify not paying a living wage?

And he’s like, he started
to try to talk his way out.

And he’s like, no, no, no,
this is how much she makes.

Like I talked to this woman.

How do you think that’s fair
that you get what you pay?

Yeah, you get your pay.

  • Yeah.
  • I see your pace out of hand.
  • Yeah.
  • Oh, come on.

I think I’ve found my niche now though,

is coming up with quiz
questions based on the news.

  • Okay, this is here apology.

You guys are idiots.

Oh, attraction.

  • Retraction.

I’m just gonna take it
back and think it privately.

  • Oh, come on.
  • Oh, I’m gonna see.

She retracted it.

  • She retracted her statement.

Both B and C.

She actually, she did all three,
but it was not a sincere apology.

She A, apologized.

B, said that her
statement didn’t convey the

correct meaning and C,
retracted her statement.

  • So she went, I’m really sorry.

You guys too stupid to
understand my reaction.

  • Well, I do say so, I take it back.
  • So maybe if I say I didn’t say it, you
    guys will believe it ’cause you’re so dumb.

(laughing)

She said her comment was meant to emphasize

the power of women and
she meant that she was born

into the house of
representatives in a year

2000 by the power of
women voting for her.

And I was like, that is not
how that phrase has ever,

  • No, it would never convey
    that meaning, bit ridiculous.

They think they come up with some
profound saying, some profound soundbite.

And then everyone’s like, what?

  • I think they take 10 seconds and
    think about her trying to backtrack this.

It’s like that doesn’t even make sense.

That makes less sense
than your original statement.

  • That’s what you’ve said.
  • Oh dear, good.
  • And that’s the first
    news news panic was, yeah.
  • Yeah, I think it’s so
    trackers all the way away.
  • Quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz, quiz.
  • I need, I need.
  • Ninja, Ninja, Ninja, Ninja, Japan, the quiz.

(laughing) – So as you heard in the
quiz, she did not necessarily apologize.

Her statement was how can we call
ourselves women without giving birth?

She then said on the next day,
when she was doing her apology,

I accept the possibility
that my words could be

misunderstood and have
decided to retract the statement.

That is one of the most
annoying political statements.

‘Cause again, my problem with retracting
statements is they don’t make them go away.

It actually just means
I said a shitty thing

and now I want you to
forget, I said a shitty thing.

I’m not actually going to
change my behavior or anything.

I’m not gonna try to improve myself.

I’m not gonna think about what I did.

I’m just gonna say,
sorry you were offended.

Please forget the thing I said.

She then went on to say her comment
was meant to emphasize the power of women.

So how can we call
ourselves women without giving

birth was meant to
emphasize the power of women?

Now I studied English literature, I
have an English literature degree.

Now I don’t consider
myself particularly adept

at interpreting the
language, I can do it.

I don’t think of the statement she made,

how can we call ourselves
women without giving birth?

I don’t see how that relates to
emphasizing the power of women.

And I think that might be
where the words she used

could be misunderstood
’cause I think the words

she used don’t mean the
things she says they mean.

She said, she went on to say,

she meant that she was born
into the house of representatives

in the year 2000 by the
power of women voting for her.

Which is not anywhere
implied in the statement,

how can we call ourselves
women without giving birth?

This is a classic example of a
politician saying something dumb

and then trying to recreate
a narrative around it,

trying to remold that sentence
that everyone understood

into some other meaning so that
they hopefully can get away with it.

A bill has been introduced to Parliament.

And the roughest way of
saying it is that it’s designed

to take away permanent residents
from people who live in Japan

if they have intentionally failed to
pay taxes or social insurance premiums.

This has been a problem in the past

where people who live in Japan
don’t pay their taxes and stuff.

I think it’s a problem in every country.

They’re claiming it’s
only for malicious cases.

Now this is one of the problems.

This was the TikTok ban.

My problem with the TikTok
ban wasn’t banning TikTok.

It was how could that
legislation be interpreted later

to ban other companies that
are essentially not American.

This goes way back to
my experience as a young

man when they
introduced the Patriot Act.

And it was supposed
to be just for terrorists.

And it’s just gonna be
for catching terrorists.

And then they expanded
the definition of terrorists

they could redefine a
criminal as a terrorist

and then use the Patriot Act to
do whatever they want to them.

And this is one of the problems
with legislation that’s vague.

And they are saying that the
problem with this legislation

in Japan about permanent
residency is very vague.

Kishida said the plan
would not affect the

vast majority of former
permanent residents.

But it was based on inconclusive data

that shows 10% of permanent
residents don’t pay taxes.

Now this survey was done of 1,825 people

where there are 890,000
permanent residents in Japan.

So they’ve taken a small sample size,

taken that sample size
and extracted a piece of

information then
extrapolated that information

to the totality of the population
that they’re talking about.

And that’s what a lot of
people are saying is problematic.

So then they didn’t actually explain
how much of that 10% of the 1,825 people,

how much of them would be this
sort of like, let’s kick them out group.

How many people would
fail the stringent requirements

of malicious refusal to pay
their taxes or social insurance?

And then another politician piped up with,

and this is a statement
I really enjoyed was,

there are more unpaid taxes by Japanese
people than there are by foreigners,

which is a very interesting
way of looking at it.

He’s like, why are we going after
these foreign permanent residents

when we have so many Japanese
people that we could be going after?

These bridge people who are hiding money.

‘Cause that is actually a story we’ve
done and introduced Japan in the past.

We have rich people who
are refusing to pay their tax,

who hide their money, who put their
money in other countries, things like that.

And they don’t pay their taxes fairly,
whereas a majority of the permanent residents

pay their taxes, just because they’re not
here, because they’re super rich people,

they’re here ’cause they have
normal jobs and a lot of normal jobs.

Your company actually
pays taxes through your

company for you, so it’s
actually very hard to cheat.

All right, so last story of the day.

It’s usually a dirty, dirty man, but I have
a dirty, dirty couple, which is exciting.

An engaged couple, and this
is actually just kind of show

that they’ve been together
for a while, I think that’s

why they specifically put
an engaged couple in there.

An engaged couple have
been arrested for posting

unedited as in, I believe, uncensored,
explicit videos on social media.

So basically you have a
couple, and they’re doing it,

and they’re videoing it, and
they’re putting it on social media.

It’s paid, it’s like behind a pay while.

I’m thinking they’re talking
about Patreon or one of

these other, like, fansly or
some of these other sites.

The bid I was most interested
in is how much money

can you make, boinking
your partner, filming it,

and putting it on the
internet, because… (mumbling)

They earned 100 million yen through
subscriptions based on social media sites.

So again, they’re keeping it vague.

I want to know which social media sites,

and I want to know what
this couple looked like.

The first thing I did
was go look for a picture

of the couple to see if
they were attractive or not,

which is kind of gross on my part, but it
was, I think, a very natural kind of thing.

They’ve been doing this for two and a half
years, and they have made 95 million yen.

And that makes me think
that maybe I’ve made some

bad choices in my career
options, ’cause here I am.

I work a 40 hour work week.

I make podcasts for fun, and
I do not have anywhere near

95 million yen for just filming
myself and putting it on the internet.

And I realized, you know,
I got some gnarly feet.

I could maybe put something on
Wikipedia, maybe get some money that way.

I don’t think people
would actually want to pay

very much for this,
but that’s one of the

secondary reasons I
wanted to see this couple.

I was like, if I could
measure their attractiveness,

if I matched that
attractiveness level,

maybe I could make 95 million
yen over two and a half years.

The problem is they were
making unedited videos,

so in Japan, you do have
to censor the private parts.

They have mosaics is the most common way.

So they weren’t doing that, and that’s
probably how they were making their money.

So either I would have to put the mosaic
on, and I’d probably put it on my face,

’cause I think you would actually
rather see not my face than anything else,

or I’d have to change
countries before making this new

endeavor, which is going to be NJ,
which is new to Ninja News, Japan,

where I sit here and
do the news in the nude.

So I guess we could just
get a flesh colored t-shirt,

and that would actually be giving you
pretty much the whole effect right there.

Sprinkle some hairs on it randomly.

That’s pretty much the
aesthetic I’d be going for.

So if you, the viewer or
listener, would be interested,

and again, this is an
audio format primarily.

It seems like it would
make no difference to

you, but maybe if you
paid that extra money

and you get the nude version of Ninja
News, Japan, nude Ninja News, Japan, and J.

Maybe just the knowledge
that I’m reading the news

to you naked would
enhance the experience for

you, and there’s only
one way to find out.

That would be to go to our new Patreon, the
new Ninja News, Japan dot slash Patreon,

I don’t know, I don’t actually have
a Patreon, don’t actually go there.

You can go there,
you’re just not gonna find

a new Ninja News, Japan
site, which is too bad.

But if you wanna send me some money,
I will do a private recording, naked,

and I will send it to you,
and it’ll be audio only,

but I promise you, I’ll be
naked, how about that?

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Ninja News Japan Quiz

He touched you Wagyu beef has a problem.

You’ve probably heard of Wagyu
beef, it’s very expensive beef.

I actually had an
experience over the golden

week vacation of eating very, very expensive
food and it does not agree with me.

I am just too low class for that.

So the thing is about Japanese
expensive food always has a lot of fat.

And that was problematic because I
don’t eat a lot of food with a lot of fat.

So the fat kind of did a number on me.

So I actually realized I don’t
enjoy a lot of expensive food.

He touched you Wagyu beef has a problem.

It’s not the problem that I
don’t like fatty, fatty food.

But Wagyu beef does tend to have a lot
of like marbled, has a lot of fat in it.

Not my thing.

But that’s not the problem.

The problem isn’t my
preference, the problem isn’t

my preference, the problem isn’t my
preference, the problem is a different problem.

The problem with touchy
Wagyu beef and the

kanji, the Chinese characters they
use for that, young people can’t read it.

It’s an expensive item.

It’s based on its brand.

It’s based on its name.

But if young people can’t read
the name, what happens then?

So kanji, the Chinese characters,
people in their 20s, 57% cannot read.

He touchy Wagyu, 43% of
people in their 30s could not read.

He touchy Wagyu.

And he got older, he got better.

So 33% in their 40s couldn’t read it,
35% in their 50s, and 22% in their 60s.

So the kanji maybe
was more common in the

past, or maybe people
were better at reading kanji.

A lot of people are saying just like smart
phones are making it harder for people to

write like, I was of
the age where I learned

cursive in school, I don’t
think kids learn that anymore.

And in fact, I think
typing might be a more

valuable skill, but you still should
learn how to write with a pen and stuff.

But kids just can’t do stuff.

And it’s not, I don’t
think this is, again, this

is not a judgment, this
is not a negative thing.

This is like the world changes.

But people typing
everything out on their phone

means they’re never
actually writing the kanji.

They just pick the appropriate
kanji for the word the writing.

So they don’t learn how to write it.

And then in some cases,
they don’t learn how

to read it properly,
because they just assume

that the computer or the phone
or whatever is telling them right.

I actually had a student
who couldn’t type,

because they only used their phone,
they typed everything out on their phone.

So when they had to type something out
on a keyboard, it was really hard for them.

So they gave me the keyboard
and I typed down what they said.

And they were shocked at how fast I
could type it was like an amazing thing.

Just like I was shocked at how fast they
could type with two thumbs on their phone.

But again, it’s just what you grow up with.

You grow up with touch pads.

You learn to use touch
pads really effectively.

The Hitachi kanji is used different ways.

Iberaki Iberaki is a prefecture
within it used to be called Hitachi.

It’s very confusing.

So as I was reading this, I
got more and more confused

and I realized why I
gave up on studying kanji.

So I speak Japanese at
a, I would say intermediate

level would be generous, but an intermediate
level I can do conversations and stuff.

But I am essentially illiterate.

And I’m illiterate because
when I started studying

kanji, I was like, I’m
too old to be studying.

I don’t want to study anymore.

And I give up.

And I kind of just gave up on
it, which is not the right attitude.

But you do get tired of studying
when you’re old and I am old.

So Iberaki is the prefecture.

It used to be called Hitachi.

The kanji has been used different ways.

It is therefore very confusing for people.

And that’s why the
younger people now, they

haven’t grown up with
history or the understanding.

So they understand it less than
those people in their 60s, 22%.

It was actually to be 88%
could read it 22% still couldn’t.

So it’s still confusing
to that group that we

would assume actually grew
up with this more logically.

It’s used different
ways, which means some

places like Hitachi
Nakasidi, they’ve decided

to just do away with
the kanji altogether.

And when they write the name of
their city, they just use Hitagana.

Hitagana is the base
phonetic version of Japanese.

And it shows that the
use of kanji, even in

modern Japan, is a
confusing and difficult thing.

Again, sort of just justifying
the fact that I quit studying.

It’ll be interesting to
see how language now

evolves in Japan, like where this
is going to take us in the future.

Are they going to use less kanji or are
they going to adopt other things or they can

do start using English alphabet, even
for Japanese words, that kind of stuff.

It’ll be interesting to
see where this goes

because as young people
grow up finding it harder

and harder to read
kanji, is kanji the way

you want to go forward
or do they want to sort

of double down and force
more people to learn kanji?

I actually think doubling
down is very much a

Japanese way of dealing
with this sort of issue.

Sister cities are great.

I mean, it’s a cultural
exchange between

your places and you do class trips,
your high school is going to go somewhere.

They’re going to go to this place
and then you can go back down.

It’s wonderful class.

I think sister cities are great.

Cultural exchange is great.

It also will involve politicians
and older politicians.

And if you’ve ventured
to an engineer’s

Japan before, you kind of
know where this is going.

When I say the words
old politician, there

was a government meeting
and it was the mayor

and the government people
from Dubo City in Australia.

Dubo?

I’m not sure how to say D-U-B-B-O-Dubo.

I’m going to say double.

It’s so Australian to
make it a word like double.

There’s a city called double.

It’s the sister city.

They’re over the visiting.

They’re like, let’s have an after party.

There’s a 71 year old deputy
speaker and he’s doing some karaoke.

Now, I’m trying to work on a
new segment, a new thing to do.

I’m not just going to
just tell you the story.

I was like, ah, you know what we should do?

Just make a quiz.

You’ve listened to an
engineer’s Japan in the past.

You know the kind of
things that we end up

coming up, the kind
of things we talk about.

Three options before I give you the answer.

I haven’t figured out a way to do this.

I would like to get maybe
a listener or someone

to talk while we do this at the same time,
but we’ll work that out in the future.

This is still the sort of testing phase.

Three options.

What did the deputy speaker do to the mayor
of Dubo’s daughter while singing karaoke?

Option number one, he
did a lap dance while singing.

Option number two, he
started to strip off his clothes.

Number three, he held the
mic up to her private parts.

So now I would need
like some thinking music.

Please have submitted your answers by now.

So again, this is where I don’t, I
kind of maybe need a little interaction.

I need someone have
someone on like the line

and do the quiz with
them so they can guess.

But if you guessed number three,
ding, ding, ding, ding, you are correct.

Now they didn’t explain it very
carefully, like very thoroughly.

So I don’t know if he was serenading her
vagina, or if he was holding the microphone

up in the hopes that
he would start singing.

All we know is that he
while singing got very

close to her private
parts, which is gross.

I mean, that’s I think that’s a
fair statement we can make.

That is gross.

He therefore, again, apologized.

He said, I’m ashamed
that I could not respond

appropriately on the spot
or apologize the same day.

He like, I think they were partying.

He didn’t figure out what
he did, I guess, because

they were drinking and
stuff until the next day.

And he’s like, Oh, I’m sorry.

I waited so long.

I was trying my best
to make it into a party.

It’s an interesting
statement because when I

want to make something into a party, I
want to get, you know, everyone involved.

I want to get people doing stuff.

I don’t immediately
gravitate to someone’s

groin and start singing to it
or trying to get it to sing to me.

That’s not my first instinct.

I have not thrown any
blockbusters of parties,

though, if we’re being honest, like my
parties are very sedate and maybe that’s it.

Maybe I don’t do enough crotch
singing to really get the party started.

So I’m waiting for some rapper to come out
with a song about getting the party started

by crotch singing either from the crotch
or to the crotch either way works for me.

He’s sorry for the discomfort he caused.

Nobody from the, nobody
from double has responded.

So this guy is apologized, he’s put that
statement out there and no one apologized.

Apparently there is a
picture of the mayor’s

daughter looking
incredibly uncomfortable,

which is very appropriate when a 71
year old man starts singing at your crotch.

There’s a restaurant
called Tamate Baco and

this is not the only
one, an open last month

in Shibuya and it’s an all-you-can-eat
seafood buffet kind of thing.

So it’s a tabihodai.

So basically tabihodai,
hodai is all-you-can

and then tabay is eat and then there’s
no mihodai, which is all-you-can-drink.

And you go, you pay
a set amount of money,

you can eat for an hour and you
just order as much as you want.

You have to eat it all within the hour.

That kind of thing.

It’s pretty normal.

The way the article
presented it is that they

have decided that foreign tourists should
be charged more than Japanese people.

So if you want to go for lunch just on a
regular day, if you’re Japanese, it’s 5,478

yen and if you are a
foreigner, it is 6,578 yen.

So basically 1,100 yen more.

Friday being a more
popular day, so like Friday

dinner, that’s going to be
the most expensive time.

If you are a Japanese
person, it’s 7,678 yen.

If you’re a foreigner, it’s 8,778 yen.

So again, 1,100 yen more
for not being Japanese.

The interesting way
they worked around this

was they said the
higher price is the actual

official price and then if you’re
Japanese, you get a discount of 1,100 yen.

So it’s not that they’re
charging foreigners

more, it’s that they’re
actually charging

Japanese people less,
which was an interesting

way to try to get
around the racism or

the discrimination that they’re
actually putting out there.

The discount counts for
Japanese people and residents.

So very technically,
if I went into this

restaurant and I ordered
this meal and I could

show them my residence card,
I should get the lower price.

So is it biased then?

That’s the interesting thing.

The justification for
this is the yen is very

weak, so Japanese
people, their money isn’t

going as far, where
foreigners are coming

in, they’re getting more yen for their
money, so they should be charged more because

they’re not paying
taxes and things like that.

It’s a very thin argument.

The governor said
foreign travelers are

Japan’s guests, which
I think is a pretty fair

statement to make and therefore they shouldn’t
be taken advantage of, they shouldn’t

be charged more, they
shouldn’t be treated in this way.

I was interested though, because if I went,
would I get asked if I was a resident or

not where they just
assumed that I’m a foreigner

because, you know,
very foreign looking

in Japan and would they just
then charge me the higher price?

I don’t know.

It’s an interesting question.

I don’t tend to find out because I actually
don’t think this is a nice practice.

I think you just choose
a price and you make

that the price and
you charge the price.

So there’s a guy who dresses up in a black
suit and he puts on sunglasses and he goes

out into the street,
so again, this could be

another opportunity for our
quiz, so let’s try out our quiz again.

There are three options.

What do you think he does?

He dresses up in a
black suit and sunglasses,

so he’s trying to look
pretty cool while he does it.

So number one, option number
one, is he a Batman-like vigilante.

He goes out and delivers vigilante justice.

Number two, he’s going out and obstructing
traffic on his bicycle or number three, he

rides his bicycle and he grabs
women as he rolls down the street.

So we need again a clip,
some music, some thinking time.

If you guessed number
two, which I would be

surprised if you did,
because I think if you’ve,

again, you’re watching
the engineer’s Japan,

you’re listening to
the engineer’s Japan,

you’re thinking, is it going to be
the butt grabbing on the bicycle?

No, he rides out and
what he does is he rides

in the middle of traffic and he
swerves into oncoming traffic.

Now, this is to freak out the drivers,
to play a little chicken, to risk it.

No one really knows why.

He swerves into oncoming traffic
and they’re saying to annoy drivers.

He was arrested and they
suspect he is responsible

for 42 similar incidences
they’re investigating now.

He has claimed that he is not this
person, he denies all the accusations.

There is film of him doing this weaving in
an out of traffic, which I will put up in

the corner if you watch the YouTube video.

The police have given
a nickname, and I think

criminals with nicknames is
always a very interesting thing.

Police have named him
the pop-up cyclist because

he comes out into
traffic and then weaves

into traffic, popping
in and out of traffic,

popping up out of nowhere, I
guess they didn’t call him disc-spring.

Very bad man ask.

That’s where I got the first
sort of option from the back men

vigilante because he just sort
of disappears into the night.

They searched his
apartment and that’s where

they found the same black suit
and sunglasses he wears in the video.

Which I think makes him a pretty
much guilty, it’s a really chan reversal.

So the last like three weeks I’ve talked
about in any chan and I’ve actually thought

like I think we’ve done enough
until she goes to or gets out of prison.

There’s not really much
more to say about any chan.

I just again I find her fascinating
because she has a work ethic.

She just applied it to
crime whereas if she’d

applying the same
work ethic to something

else I think she would
have been really successful.

She clearly was able to do stuff.

This is a guy who she was taking,
she was a sugar baby at TV chan.

So she was doing sort of compensated
dating and then frauding men of money.

This is a guy who is
defrauding sugar babies.

So I’m calling it the atiti chan reversal.

This guy swindles women who
are looking to become sugar baby.

So he meets people
online and he says hey, if

you meet me I’ll give you
200,000 yen for a date.

That’s actually pretty good.

Like that’s half a month to a
month salary for some people.

So he connects with them on a
matching app and then he says I’m a vet.

And it was an
interesting choice because

apparently being a vet is
very successful because

you work with animals and
no he works with animals

but also you’re a doctor
so it’s very appealing.

So you have the appeal
of being a doctor but also

someone who works with
animals all at the same time.

That seems to be a very attractive profession
and so he shows that very carefully.

He says let’s meet at the
zoo, the zoo where I work.

So they meet at the zoo and then he
walks around he says you know what?

He seems very proud
of the zoo while they’re

talking you know
what but a lot of people

know me around you so let’s just
get out of here and they go to a hotel.

After talking for
about two hours, I don’t

know if that’s at the hotel or
later because again the story jumps.

The story actually
said go to a hotel which

would imply they go and
have intimate relations

but then they immediately jumps
to after talking for two hours.

So I don’t know I would not go
to a hotel to talk for two hours.

I would go somewhere else if we were just
going to talk but he talks about his family

and his love of boxing
and then he looks

very serious and he says
I’ve left my wallet at home.

Could you give me 20,000 yen for tickets
so that I can buy tickets for boxing?

And the woman has been promised 200,000 yen
so 20,000 yen on top of that to get paid

back is not very much
so they go to the ATM

they get 20,000 yen
they give to the guy and

then he says like
great I’m going to go buy

tickets I’ll see you
again for a second date.

I’ll you know the Japanese version of Venmo
you the money so it’ll probably be like

a line or pay pay or
something like that and I’ll pay

you back and then they
never hear from them again.

So he’s not doing the
scale of Viti Chiang

but he’s working on low
numbers of money but

large numbers of
women so trying to get a

little bit of money out
of everybody as opposed

to just getting two or three whales
and getting money out of them.

The woman never heard
from them again and

then she tried to contact
the zoo and the zoo

says there is no such person here but we’ve
had similar calls which made the woman very

suspicious so she called up the police
and said I believe I’ve been defrauded.

Now if 20,000 yen he
was banking on 20,000 yen

not being very much money
and the embarrassment

of them saying I want
to be a sugar baby to

be enough to get them to
stop from contacting the police.

So this lady was like no I’m contacting the
zoo and the zoo I maybe she actually liked

them because she
actually came out in her

part of the interview she was actually
saying she was quite embarrassed about being

defrauded this way but
it’s just like those men

I have sympathy for who were
defrauded millions of yen by Viti Chiang.

So I feel kind of bad for her.

He says he’s met about 50
women this way so again if you got

20,000 yen from each of them
that’s pretty fair some of the money.

After the rest he said
sorry you know I feel

bad for taking advantage
of these women.

He’s actually not a vet.

He’s actually a day
laborer and then he said

this was a bit that actually
kind of really struck me.

I have always disliked
animals so the construction

of him being a vet was
a very conscious choice.

I don’t like actually
like animals but women

will like a man who
likes animals so I’m

going to pretend to be
a man who likes animals

so much so that it’s
become my profession

and that will appeal to women
and apparently it was successful.

He was given two years,
six months in prison

but it’s been suspended
for four years so

if he doesn’t commit any more
crimes he will be Scott free.

There again did not mention
giving back any of the money.

I actually am now very interested in how
much and how do they give back to the money

of these women do they give back the money
of these women because this is one of those

weird things where
the fraud it’s done

voluntarily and again this
case it’s a very small sum.

So is it worth suing over like if you sue
the guy for 20,000 yen you’re going to pay

probably a lawyer more than
20,000 yen just to follow that suit.

Leena Chaunay on
the other hand she took

millions so getting a
lawyer and suing her would

make perfect sense because you want to get
all your money back but I actually bet it’s

all gone because she
gave it all to host and

she doesn’t have any
money so they’ll just

be like if she ever
works they’ll be docking

her pay for years or something I
have no idea what’s going to happen.

Again her situation the consequences of
what she’s done are the interesting thing is

it’s just going to take a decade
to find out what actually happens.

So maybe Ninja News
Japan ends at some point

because I just you
know run out of content

or run out of time or
whatever but I promise

you in nine to ten
years I’m going to come

back if we leave these chaun pops up again
if I’m still alive and give you the ending

of that story like what has she done what’s
happened since then because I’m interested

in it and I don’t think I’m
ever going to let this go

but it seems like being a
sugar baby or sugar daddy.

There’s a lot of
fraud involved so it’s

probably not going to
work out the way you want

it to so I would say
take all that initiative

take all that effort and put
it towards something else.

I’m thinking of a
suggestion to make right

now that would be
really positive and helpful

for the world and I
can’t think of any I

really can’t I don’t
do what I’m doing right

now this is previous no
money whatsoever but

I haven’t committed
fraud at least I’m not

making money honestly and that
is the Ninja News Japan mission.

[Music]

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Not Worth Fighting Over

(upbeat music)

All right, so golden week is over, but,

that means now I have
to reorganize my schedule

and just gonna get
everything back on track.

So we had a really busy time at work
and then family came over golden week

and now things maybe have finally settled
down to the way they’re supposed to be.

But here we are, in Japan,
with the news, for you.

Excellent, really chance.

She just does not go away.

She is in the news
constantly because she

thought, oh, she’d been
sentenced to prison.

She’s gonna go to prison.

Of course, she did the
smartest thing she could do.

She appealed.

She’s like, I don’t wanna go to prison.

Let’s appeal the sends.

I didn’t like the way they
talked about the fraud.

So the way the fraud
was mentioned in the

article was she induced
affection from three men.

So she committed fraud by
getting three men to fall in love

or I actually had a conversation
with this about my student.

I had a conversation
about this with my students.

And I found it very interesting that
they were all very dismissive of the men.

They were all like, all these guys,
they should have known better.

They should not have
fallen in love with her.

They should have known
what they were getting into.

And I was like, I know you
understand, like she’s picking.

She probably did mass
messages to hook the lonely men.

And those lonely men are suddenly convinced
that this is their dream girl in that.

They’re in love with her and she’s in
love with them and it’s all gonna work out.

And I have a lot of sympathy for the
men because she was choosing older men

who basically now probably have less
opportunities for relationships than this.

This really young, fairly
attractive girl comes in.

She falls in love with them.

She’s saying all the
things they wanna hear.

I mean, this was her guide.

Her guide was on the things you need to
say to keep them hooked, to give you money.

I read some excerpts
from it in an old episode.

It was very interesting
because she was right.

She was like, you don’t just
immediately ask for money.

That’s suspicious.

You have to like defer and
say like, “Oh, I got big problems.

” And then they go,
“Oh, what’s the problem?

” You go, “Oh, no, I don’t
wanna burden you with it.

” And then you try to defer and defer and
defer until they force you to tell them.

And then you go, “I owe
money or my friend owes money

“or money needs to be
owed and I need money.

” And then they
go, “I’ll offer to you.

” You go, “No, no, no, I
don’t wanna take it from.

” But then they’re more generous because
they’re like, “Here’s my opportunity

“to show this person how much I love
them “and support them and help them.

” And the thing is,
she’s playing on that idea

of if she refuses again
and again and again.

It doesn’t feel like a scam anymore

because they’re trying to
force her to take the money.

Anyways, that was in her
book that she sold online,

which is actually what got
her in trouble in the end.

I didn’t know this part.

She was also as part of her case.

She had failed to declare
40 million yen in income.

And again, the average salary in
Japan is four to five million yen.

So she’s talking like 10
years of an average salary.

She had not declared an income.

I assume that was in one year.

God, man, see, and this is it.

It’s the fiscal, I get
on this bit every time

because I’m like, she had so
much money available to her.

They’re not actually going
to make her give it back.

Or are they, I’m not
sure, that’s the thing.

She could have hidden a lot of that money

and once she got out of
prison actually been okay

or set up a new life or
something, she didn’t do it.

She filed her appeal on May 1st.

Today is May 7th.

This is when the story came out.

She’s finding ways to keep
herself in the news, which at

least is interesting because
I don’t know why it eats on.

I think the level of her scam, her ability,

and in the fact that
she worked really hard.

And then came to this
point where she got caught

and the whole collapse,
like that rise and

fall is the bit I’m
finding most interesting.

So I really want to see
where does she end up?

Does she end up going to prison?

How much time does she do?

What’s the punishment?

How far does it go?

And then I actually want to know
what happens when she gets out.

Like, does she rebuild her life or does
prison make her like more of a scammer?

Because, you know, there is the idea that
prison is supposed to rehabilitate people,

but I think we all know the reality that
it doesn’t really do that in most cases.

So where is she going
to end up after this case?

That is the bit I’m most interested in.

I’m unfortunately going to
have to wait a decade to find out.

Biden gave a speech.

And in that speech,
she said Japan, China,

Russia, and India are
xenophobic countries.

And Japan was like, what?

Well, why are you picking on me?

Why are you putting, you’re lumping me in
with these other guys, China and Russia?

There’s bad guys.

India, it’s been neutral.

It could flip the floor
back and forth on India.

Like, we work with them,
we sometimes we don’t.

But China and Russia,
you know, don’t do that.

And so they were very upset.

And his reasoning was Biden’s
reasoning was, Japan, China,

Russia, and India don’t want
immigrants, which is true.

Like I actually don’t know as much
about China and Russia and India.

India, I don’t think wants immigrants
because they’ve got a billion people already.

Maybe that’s enough people.

China, similar situation.

Also, I would say xenophobic
for political reasons.

Russia has its own issues.

I don’t claim to know anything
about those countries in any real way.

But Japan, I have lived
here for a long time.

I claim to know something
about the country.

And I would say xenophobia
is still a fairly accurate thing.

They don’t want a lot of foreigners
coming in and changing Japan as a country.

The Japanese embassy protested,
but also they didn’t change their policy.

They still don’t want immigrants.

So this is maybe the bit
that I find most interesting is,

is Biden has essentially
said something that’s true.

And then Japan’s been like, well,
that doesn’t make us look good.

You shouldn’t say that.

And then you should
apologize, but then it’s still true.

What Biden was actually
talking about was how immigrants

to America actually helped fuel
the economic growth of the country.

And immigration is a good thing.

And we should promote immigration.

And people should immigrate to countries.

And build those countries up Japan.

Billion times now, we’ve said
suffering and population decline.

I think some immigration actually
do the country a bit of good.

They are still resistant.

And apparently that’s not xenophobia.

That’s something else completely, which

has maybe a completely
different name that I don’t know.

I don’t know what else you would call it.

24-year-old attacked his
57-year-old father with a wooden sword.

And this is– we go through these trends.

I said in the last episode, we
do go through trends in news.

And so we had a trend of crossbows.

And then those crossbows
were actually made illegal in Japan.

Weirdly, near my train
station, I actually found a poster

that looked quite old, giving
information about crossbows.

I guess how you’re not
supposed to have them.

That’s interesting.

I’ll throw that up on the
Instagram after this episode.

If this happens a few more times,

they’re actually going to be like,
have wooden sword rules going to place.

They’re going to have wooden
sword ownership laws put in.

Because that’s what Japan does.

Like guns are illegal.

And then they’re like
bows and arrows are illegal.

Swords are illegal.

Crossbows, people started using those.

Crossbows are now illegal.

So wooden swords, man, if you go ape on
those, I bet they make wooden swords illegal.

It’s not legal to carry a knife
with you unless you have–

can explain why you’re carrying
that knife from 0.8 to 0.B.

So this is a classic.

I’ve actually talked about
this a bunch of times.

But it’s something people know.

You wouldn’t actually be allowed
to carry a Swiss army knife.

When I was back in Canada, I
used to carry a Swiss army knife

with me all the time, just
to my bag or something,

has a screwdriver, other stuff fairly
useful, randomly throughout the day.

If I could not– if I
would stop by the police

and they said, why do you
have the Swiss army knife?

And I couldn’t give
them a reason, a specific

reason, then that is
illegal for me to carry.

So if I was carrying a fish-gutting knife

and I was going fishing,
that would be illegal.

If I had a fish-gutting knife and I
was going to work, that would be illegal.

That’s– there’s a certain
level of interpretation

that comes with the
rules in Japan, which is a

very interesting thing,
but also very important.

And no, who’s interpreting those rules,

the guy who might be very angry at
you at the moment, who is a police officer.

His father was sitting in a chair
and just started beating them.

He was arrested.

They are still looking into the reason why.

But the only reason this
story caught my attention

is when he was being arrested, he
said, perhaps, I went a little too far.

And I think, yeah, once
you pick up a wooden sword

and start hitting another
human being with it,

I think, maybe, yeah,
you went a little too far.

There was a guy who owns an izakaya.

And is a guy who owns– it’s a bar.

That’s food.

And often, they’re
very small and very local.

It’s a very authentic Japanese experience.

Foreigners really enjoy
enjoying the izakaya’s.

They, of course, do
have trouble with English,

because not every
Japanese person to be English.

The reason a lot of
people like me have jobs

is because we come to
Japan and teach English.

And the reason we teach
English is because the education

system in Japan is so
poor at teaching English.

So really, the whole reason
I am able to live in Japan

is because the Japanese education system
has failed so miserably at teaching English.

This bar owner went and had some trouble.

He had a white couple of what he said.

Come in and asked for an English menu.

And he said, no, we
don’t have one of those.

And then, basically,
he said it was really

troublesome to have this
foreign couple in his bar.

He went online.

He decided to complain online,
which is always the best idea.

I mean, if you’re going to complain,

you really want to go on
the internet and complain,

because that’s going to
make everything better.

He said, I’d learn
English if I came to an

English-speaking country,
which I bet is not true.

I bet if you went to either of that,

or he’s actually just
saying, I would not travel.

This is Japan.

If I went to an English-speaking
country, I’d speak

English, make the effort
to speak Japanese in Japan.

If that’s a hassle, bring an interpreter.

It’s one of those things
where he’s not wrong,

but he’s also not
right, because if you’re

running a bar, your bar
runs on customer service,

you should be trying to accommodate
as many customers as possible.

This is a case where if you had someone

with a fairly good smartphone
or a laptop or something,

you could actually just have them speak
into it, and it could do the auto-translate.

So I think we’ve now
hit a level of technology

where you’re not having deep
political conversations with customers.

It’s like, hey, what do you want to drink?

Hey, have you enjoyed your stay in Japan?

How is things?

How are things?

Do you want anything else?

Stuff like that.

These are not really hard
phrases for someone to learn.

So you went on, which of course, because he
goes on, you know, again, very good idea.

Indigenous Japanese might not know
this, but if you go to another country,

speaking that country’s
language is taken for granted.

Like back in the day in
Barcelona, you couldn’t not only

get away with English, you
couldn’t speak Spanish either.

Everyone’s both Catalan.

Can stupid Japanese
people finally stop with this?

We lost the war mentality?

Now, that is giving me a lot
of insight into this gentleman’s

politics when he uses the
we lost the war mentality?

Because it’s something
that right wingers say

that, you know, we
should stop sort of cow

towing to other countries
and bending our back.

Because yes, we lost the
war, but we lost the war

with so long ago, we could
still be proud of ourselves

and live up and, you know, be proud
of being Japanese, that kind of stuff.

This had some trouble.

He ended up closing his
restaurant for a short period of time.

The threads taught posts generated
over 65,000 likes and 10,000 retweets.

So that is showing you that
there is a large segment of Japan

that is on board with
this kind of attitude.

Or the retweets could just be sharing,

but the 65,000 likes, I
think it’s actually clear.

They’re saying they
actually like this as a concept.

This doesn’t seem like something
worth fighting over a question mark.

I’ve been rescued myself,
I’ve been rescued myself

going overseas and finding
an English menu available.

You don’t have to know English,
but currently it’s the spreading.

It’s spreading at the, let me start again.

This doesn’t seem like
something to worth fighting over.

This doesn’t seem like
something worth fighting over.

It’s a question mark is actually
putting it hard for me to say.

This doesn’t seem like
something worth fighting over.

That’s a statement, not a question.

I’ve been rescued myself going
overseas to find an English menu available.

You don’t have to know English,

but currently it’s spreading
as the words lingua franca.

And knowing it brings big benefits
for both companies and individuals.

So they’re saying that, yes, while
you don’t have to learn English,

it’s kind of like what
I’m saying, making small

accommodations in English
will actually help your business.

Another poster concurred
saying it’s been spirited

to reply the way the
shopkeeper did 10 years ago

when I asked foreigners what
they thought of Japanese people.

They uniformly say they’re pretty gentle.

I probably mean they kind.

But now I’m hearing
some say they’re so cold.

I guess the over capacity of tourists.

The over capacity of tourists is
a very recent phenomenon though.

So that’s really just a
post-COVID phenomenon.

So that is one why question
the veracity of that statement

only because this clearly
has to be a trend over time

for people to be changing their
opinions not just a very recent thing.

Although they could just be
talking to very recent tourists.

On the 21st, so the last month,
they were temporarily closing the store

due to mental and physical
stress from the controversy.

But of course, they did not
back down from their stance.

In their closure message
they said, I don’t know when

we’re opening again, but it’ll
be a bar that doesn’t depend

on the also precious white
personages who can’t read Japanese.

So this guy is decided to take a stand

and that stand is, I don’t
want foreigners in my bar.

They goes on, this is very good article.

This is from Unseen Japan,
which is a very good website.

So if you are interested in Japanese stuff,

Unseen Japan by J.
Allen, he actually goes on,

he does the article, which I
read most of it to you just now.

Then he goes on to go
further with our tourists

driving out the regulars, walk-ins or
challenge, strategies for handling the influx,

and then it gives you
some other stuff to read.

It’s a very good website.

I would highly recommend
it if you have the time

you could subscribe there
and enjoy some Unseen Japan

because they do have
very similar feeling

news to what we do
here at Ninja Ninja Japan.

Lawyers, everyone knows.

Lawyers is very lovable, fun-loving people.

But the bar association
thinks that you know what?

People don’t think people
love lawyers as much

as they could, so let’s
do something about that.

So they decided to make
some cute mascots and logos

to offset the image that lawyers
are strict and unapproachable.

I actually, if I wanted a lawyer, I
would want my lawyer to be fairly strict

and fairly unapproachable because I would
want him to be that way in the courtroom.

They’ve created a
character called Ben Tota.

Tora is tiger and Ben is the
kanji in Bengoshi, which is lawyer.

So on the top of his forehead is a
kanji, sort of built into the stripes.

It’s actually very subtle, it’s quite good.

So it’s a cute tiger character who is
supposed to soften the image of lawyers.

Tigers famously cute
and approachable animals

that everyone would think of as
first of you, say cute and approachable.

Everyone goes, oh yeah, you know, tigers.

It is a very cute-looking tiger.

500 designs were submitted from
the public and other organizations.

So basically, this is actually,
this kind of put me off the lawyer.

‘Cause companies
do this, they do like an

open call for designs,
but and they pick one.

But what they’re actually
getting is free samples and

they can pick the sample of
like best and reward that one.

But those other people
have still done the work.

And those other people don’t get paid.

There was another character in the article,

which is a big purple dog
with weird leaves on its head

and a symbol for lawyers on it,
which I did not understand at all.

So there were some pretty
like out there design choices.

I think the tiger was the
best one, probably of the

ones I saw, but I only saw
a few and of the ones I saw.

I don’t see how this is actually gonna,

like if you have a very
strict serious looking lawyer

having this mascot in
the same vicinity as him

is not going to make him
seem more cuddly and friendly.

I think, I don’t know.

Or maybe they’ll just make
it like we can talk to lawyers

and they can hold the
plushie of the tiger next

to them and be like, you
know, don’t talk to me.

Talk to, what was this name?

Ben Tota, talk to Ben
Tota and tell him your issues

and then I will go to court
and fight on your behalf.

Kyoto district legal affairs bureau staff,

another very strict
sounding group of people.

So we got a group of
lawyers and then these guys

who are the district legal affairs
bureau for the city of Kyoto.

So they’re gonna be pretty serious stuff.

There was a manager in his 50s

and he grabbed one of his
subordinates in his 20s by the chest.

I don’t know what that means.

By the chest, I would
assume the lapels of his jacket

if he was wearing a suit
jacket, but maybe he grabbed

his shirt, but grabbing by
the chest actually means,

like it sounds like he grabbed
two giant handfuls of peck.

I hope, I don’t know if that’s a sound
that peck’s make when you grab them.

So you grab those.

Actually, there’s no way it
would have been that powerful.

We knew, we know this
from the rest of the sentence

and then he started
kicking him around the

waist, which is a very
awkward way to do it.

It’s like, so tie boxing, they
grab the back your head

and they kind of like
knee you in the stomach.

This guy grabs your chest, your pecs.

Again, I think it must have
been the lapels of a jacket

and then he starts like
kicking you in the waist.

So he’s not getting a lot of leverage to
kick him very hard, which is a good thing

’cause I don’t actually
want people to get hurt,

but I’m also on the like, if you’re
gonna bother to hurt someone,

you might as well follow
through and do it right.

The reason he was grabbing this man
and doing very awkward kicks to his stomach

was that the man was discussing spoilers
from a recent manga called Oshino Ko.

I don’t read a lot of manga, so I
don’t actually know if this was good,

but apparently it’s a very plot-heavy story,
so the spoilers would be very important

to the kind of people who
actually read this comic.

The manager has been
transferred and the subordinate

reported no injuries, but
he did report it to the police.

There have been no charges yet.

When the supervisor was being
spoken to, he said, I don’t like spoilers.

Now, I personally don’t care about
spoilers, but I know other people do.

So I try not to give too many spoilers,
but the reason I don’t care about spoilers

is because I found out
there was a scientific study

that found that spoilers
don’t actually ruin

the value of entertainment of different
things, which is very interesting.

‘Cause they found what
happens when there is

information that you know,
your brain can then process

the information of the
story as it unfolds faster,

and you actually can at
times get more enjoyment

out of it, so let’s say a
very complicated story.

Having spoilers in the back of your
head actually simplifies the story,

and means you can follow
along more efficiently.

Now that isn’t a reason to
actually start spoiling things

for people, again, like I don’t
think spoilers are a big deal,

but other people do, and I
don’t wanna ruin their pleasure.

I think maybe the
internet has grown spoilers

into something that
it didn’t used to be.

So that is fair, don’t
spoil for things for people

who don’t want it spoiled for them,
but if you are the spoily in this case,

don’t grab people by the pecs
and start awkwardly needing

them in the stomach,
because that’s not any better.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Officially Ignore Them

(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)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Awwest Wawwent

(upbeat music)

  • So do you remember Sugar Baby, Lili Chan?

She was almost in obsession
with this podcast for quite a

while because she had one
of the more interesting stories.

Not only was she
scamming men out of tons of

money, she was also
actually proactive enough.

She wrote a book on how to scam
men and sold that on the internet.

That actually ended up being
her downfall because the people

she sold the book to didn’t
really follow the steps of the way

they were supposed to and
they ended up saying like,

“Oh, well, I shouldn’t take responsibility
for the fact that I scam this guy.

I got this book from this other chick.

You should blame her.

” And that was her downfall.

She made a million bucks
easy off these three guys

that she scammed,
the three sort of big fish

that she caught the whales as
the mobile industry would call them.

She had a million bucks
and she spent most of that

on hosts, so she would go to
host clubs and spend all her money.

She was arrested and
has just been prosecuted.

So her sentences come down.

Prosecutors wanted 13 years
in prison and a 12 million yen fine.

No, she had 155 million yen from her scam.

So I was actually thinking like proactively

if she had kept the money,
saved the money, put the

money away, hid the
money or something like that.

When she gets out of prison,
if she paid the 12 million

yen fine, she’d still
actually have 100 million yen,

pretty good nest egg
to set yourself up with.

I’m not saying again, crime pays,

but it certainly doesn’t pay if
you don’t save any of the money.

I guess I get a sort of
sensible fiscal responsibility

for criminals is not really
what I should be talking about.

The judge said this was
an especially heinous crime

because she encouraged other
people to commit the same crime.

So she’s like, I’m scamming people,

I’ll teach you how to scam people, we’ll
scam more people, everyone will get scammed.

It’s great.

And he’s like, well,
that’s actually pretty evil.

If you think about it,
what you’re doing is

trying to teach people
how to break the law.

The final sentence was
an eight million yen fine

and nine years in prison.

So she’s 25, she’s gonna get
out of prison when she’s 34.

I don’t know what kind of job
prospects she’ll have at that time

because she certainly won’t
have a hundred million yen

sitting waiting for her because
she spent it all on hosts.

And I’m sure those hosts in nine years

are not gonna put a
great deal of effort into

supporting her back the
way she supported them.

I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Dita,

but it is sort of an
interesting case of

watching someone really
reap what they’ve sewn.

Their own inability to think forward has
really come to roost for her in this case.

So I’ll set a calendar date and
see if I can follow up in nine years

when she gets out of prison, we can
see how sugar baby Dita is actually doing.

Today’s stories are all
about crimes and courts

and crimes and courts
and crimes and courts.

I’m trying to, if you listen to last week
episodes, you know I have family in town.

So I am carving out this time to make sure
that I don’t lose any sort of momentum.

I missed a couple of weeks.

I don’t wanna lose a month.

I’m just forcing myself to do it.

So I just want you to know that
I’m here dedicating myself to you.

I’m actually neglecting my
family that’s in town right now

just so I can record
this episode super quick.

So the courts are coming correct in Japan.

Nine years in prison for scamming dudes,

that’s pretty solid sentence
and the 12 million yen fine.

I mean, yeah, that’s a lot of money.

The operator of a pirate
mango website has been fined 1.

7 billion yen that he has to
pay to three separate publishers.

So he had this website, it was the biggest
manga pirating website in the world.

It was accessed 500 and some
million times or something like that.

And so they had calculated how much money

the publishers would
have lost by not selling

books to the people
who were on that website.

Now we know that’s
not actually how it works,

but I guess if you’re going to
create a punishment for pirating,

this is a fairly sensible,
logistic to base it on.

This is the largest fine of its kind.

So this is a first in history,
which is why it became interesting.

The actual story
itself, guy sets up pirate

website, guy gets arrested,
guy has to pay big fine.

That kind of writes itself.

You don’t really need to say much about it.

The morality of pirating,
it’s here or there.

It’s up to you.

I mean, I’m not going
to judge people for it.

I live in Japan, so I can’t
get a lot of the Western media.

I want streaming services
are super expensive.

I understand why people pirate.

I really do.

Also, I understand paying for stuff.

Because if I had the money, I
would pay for everything generously.

But that’s not always the case.

The defendant told reporters that
he was unconvinced to buy the ruling.

So the judge is like you owe 1.

7 billion yen to these three
publishers because of ABC.

And he’s like, no, I don’t
know if that’s correct.

I don’t think you get to be
unconvinced by the ruling.

This was a more interesting aspect of this.

We had the mayor of Guinan,
who got booted out and had to quit.

And his apology was like, I
don’t– I did sexually harass a

whole bunch of ladies, but I
don’t really know what I’m being.

What I’m in trouble for.

I don’t really know
what I’m apologizing for.

Like, did I do anything wrong?

And I was like, yes, you
sexually harassed people.

He’s like, yeah, but did I?

And they’re like, yes, you did.

This guy’s like, yeah,
pirate, it’s some mange.

Has that hurt anybody?

And they’re like, yes, the
companies that make the mange.

And he’s like, yeah,
but should I pay a fine?

They’re like, yes, 1.7 billion yen.

He’s like, really is that how much?

It’s an interesting set
of mental gymnastics.

Because at this point,
he’s still basically saying

he’s not responsible
for the actions he took.

But he also said he has no
regrets setting up the website.

But I think after you pay the 1.7 billion
yen, you might have a regret or two.

75-year-old man is taking a walk in a park.

Very nice thing for a
75-year-old man to do.

There’s some kids
playing soccer in the park.

Very nice thing for the kids to do.

Park is a shared space.

Everyone should have a good time there.

I think old people should enjoy the park.

I think young people should enjoy the park.

I walk Dave in the park.

I enjoy my park near my house.

So parks are a great place.

The old man, the 75-year-old man, walks up
to the kids, he goes, is this your trash?

See, see some trash on the ground.

Is this your trash?

Because it’s going to say no.

Now, you know this is not
the end of the conversation.

And it’s because you know
old people, you know kids.

And you know how this interaction goes.

But at the same time, it’s
a surprise how far it goes.

There’s the logic that kids employ, which
I enjoy very much in this conversation.

So is this your trash?

No.

And then the 75-year-old
man says, even if it isn’t,

if you see trash on the ground, you should
pick it up and then throw it in the bin.

Now, I knew, without
even reading the next part,

what the kid said in response,
I knew because I bet it

was the thing I would have
said as a child to an old person

giving me instructions who
has no real authority of over me.

This is one of the interesting
aspects of authority.

People’s authority over you,
often is perceived, not real.

And when you realize that, you can
decide if you give the authority or not.

So these kids are saying the
75-year-old man’s telling them what to do.

And they’re like, well, I
don’t know who you are.

I have no respect for you.

You have an earned my respect.

So I’m going to respond in the
most reasonable way possible.

He says, you see trash on the ground.

You should pick it up and throw it away.

And they say it to him, why don’t
you just pick it up and throw it away?

Now, the reason this story is maybe it’s

an industry panel is because of the
next set of actions that has occurred.

And the gentleman
who’s 75 years old thinks,

well, what’s the most
reasonable response?

They’ve actually presented
me with a logic problem.

I have said, if people,
in this case specifically,

you children, see trash
on the ground, your moral

responsibilities to pick it
up and throw it in the trash.

You should throw it away.

I’ve told them to do that.

And they’ve said, why
don’t you lead by example?

Why don’t you yourself,
instead of bothering us,

pick up the trash and
throw it in the garbage?

And he’s now got a moral conundrum.

Does he bend to the will of the children
and demonstrate that he’s telling the truth,

that pick up the trash and throwing
it in the garbage and showing them?

That is not what he chose to do.

Does he berate them?

He does he tell them
like, respect your elders

and this kind of stuff,
that is all, again, conceptual.

It’s not real.

Like, the respect your elders thing,
I don’t give a lot of credence to that,

because for all I know, my
elders are all like evil people.

So you don’t want to respect them.

You’ve got to know who
they are, but you’ve got to

know who someone is
before you show them respect.

I think that’s fair.

So he does the only final thing when he’s
been caught in a logic trap by a child.

He hauls off and punches an
elementary school girl in the face.

And I’m laughing
because the girl’s not hurt.

I mean, I’m sure it hurt, but 75 year
old dude, he’s not swinging hard anymore.

One of the girl’s friends has a smartphone
because these are modern children.

Calls the police and says, this is dude,
just like cranked my friend in the face.

Please come arrest him.

He gets arrested and he says, well,
I didn’t punch any one of the face.

I did warn them.

Did you warn them though?

Because the sort of transcript of this
conversation has no warning involved in it.

It’s just, here is a moral
quandary I present you with.

And the children were
like, well, the moral

quandary is just as
much yours as it is ours.

Why don’t you demonstrate
how to alleviate the

moral issue through an
example of your own behavior?

And then it’s when he decided to just
punch a girl on the face, a little girl.

I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that.

It actually reminds me
of a bunch of stories

when I was like a teenager and
adults were really rude to me.

And I kept thinking like, I
actually now feel like I shouldn’t

respect adults, which is an
interesting place to live in.

And it’s probably the
basis for my disregard

of any authority whatsoever
from now until I die.

OK, there was a new scam out in Japan.

So the metropolitan Tokyo police are–

that’s the metropolitan
police department anyways,

the MPD, the metropolitan
police department.

This is the cops in Tokyo.

They’re actually trying to
warn people of this new scam

that is emerged in itself,
again, quite interesting.

You get a phone call.

And the phone call is
like, hey, I’m a police man.

And I’m telling you that
there’s a warrant for your arrest.

And you go, oh no, there’s
a warrant for my arrest.

I don’t want to be arrested.

Certainly not.

I don’t think I’ve done anything that
would justify a warrant for my arrest.

And so what they do is say,
well, let’s confirm that this is you.

And there is a warrant for your arrest.

A West.

There is a warrant for your arrest.

Go to this website.

Now, here’s the trick.

It’s not a real website.

And the person you’re
noting to, the person

you’re talking to, not
a real police officer.

So they sent you to this fake website.

And you have to put in a certain amount
of information to get into the website.

Because it’s going to
search for your details.

You have to give a certain
amount of details so it can search.

From those details, it
builds a fake arrest warrant.

Just like it generates one on the fly.

And then presents it to
you as a real arrest warrant.

Now, you can get rid
of this arrest warrant.

You can pay just a fine.

So you can just pay the fine.

And then the arrest warrant will go away.

That seems like a
pretty good deal if you

don’t want to have an
arrest on your record.

Then you will get a second
phone call, a phone call,

from a four mentioned,
not real police officer.

And he’ll say like, do
you want to pay the fine?

Or do you want to come in and get arrested?

But they do tell you that you can pay
money and you can have the warrant removed.

The most suspicious part, this
actually kind of makes sense.

Our cop calls you and says
there’s a warrant for your arrest.

And then you go to a website.

And then you go to that website.

And then you see an arrest warrant.

It pretty much confirms
a lot of the suspicions

that you have that this might
be actual factual information.

The interesting part to me
and the most suspicious part,

the part where it would fall apart, is
they send you the website via social media.

They don’t send it to
your like an email account.

And I’m guessing because
maybe that could be backtraced.

So they’d be like on Twitter or
Instagram or some other social

media website, they
will send you the link on

that so that then you
can access the website.

So there’s something suspicious there.

The cops using social
media to contact you and talk

to you on official business
seem suspect in itself.

So that to me would be the big red flag.

But it’s actually pretty small, if you
think the overall of what’s happened.

You’ve gotten a phone call.

You’re being sent to a website.

You put in your information.

That information confirms that
what the phone call said is true.

It all looks very official.

And then you get a follow up phone call

just saying you can pay certain
amount of money and this will go away.

I think it’d be pretty
easy to fall for that scam.

So that’s actually pretty
well put together scam.

They’re trying to warn people
which I think is pretty good.

Sometimes they ask for your bank details.

So if they get your bank details,

they’re actually going to try to
drain your bank account as well.

So if you live in Japan,
you get a phone call.

The best part about
being a foreign Japan is I

think I’ve actually
received scam phone calls.

And they try to talk to you,
but then I just keep talking

to them in English because
usually they’re speaking in Japanese.

It’s honestly just too hard for me.

So I’m like, I’m sorry.

I don’t understand.

I don’t say that in Japanese anymore.

I only speak in English on the phone.

And that really puts them off
because it’s like they can’t scam me.

If I can’t understand what they’re saying,

they can’t scam me if they
can’t convince me of anything.

And they can’t convince me of
anything because they cannot talk to me.

So this actually is
really a big advertisement

for English education in Japan because
you really want to scam more people.

You’ve got to learn multiple languages.

27 year old man was arrested
on suspicion of assault.

Now I do love in every article.

They never say he was arrested for assault.

They always say suspicion
because he hasn’t been convicted yet.

So the details of this were what makes
the suspicion of assault quite funny.

So that’s 7 p.m. a delivery company guy.

He just goes into the police station.

He walks around for a bit and he walks
up to a sergeant and the guy’s 41 year old

sergeant and the sergeant
looks quite pleasantly.

I’m going to pretend to
assume I have no idea.

Maybe he was very brusque.

When I went to the DMV in Japan,
they were very rude to me at first.

And then I was not a
problem and they actually

turned around and
were very nice to me.

So they needed that
like initial, they had an

initial bruscaness that I
managed to wear down,

which was quite good.

He said, “What can I do for you?

” So I see that phrase and I’m like,
“Oh, you know, do you need help?

Can I help you?

” The man, the delivery driver, he comes
in and goes, “I don’t know, I don’t know.

” And then he punches
the policeman in the face.

He was arrested on the
spot and then questioned.

The interesting aspect
of this, as I said, is

he’s been arrested
for suspicion of assault.

Despite the fact
he assaulted a police

officer and a police station,
it’s going to be on video.

Like, I’m sure it’s on video.

There is no suspicion there.

Unless of course the
police officer is like,

“This is a misunderstanding
and then the

person decides not to
prosecute or let him go,”

because then he’s not
being arrested for assault.

So I guess suspicion does make sense.

I’m now going full circle
and convince myself

that we should say suspicion until it’s
concluded, which is actually the case.

That’s what they’re doing in Japan.

But the news article is
I would say, like, here’s

a mountain of evidence
we suspect he did the thing.

While being questioned, he
said, “I’m sorry for doing that.”

And that in itself is not a big surprise
because I bet he is sorry for punching the

policeman in the face and
getting arrested right away.

Next week is Golden Week.

It’s going to be like 50/50
getting episode out, but I’m again.

I’m going to make
notes and then if I can

sit down and just carve
out half an hour, I’m

going to record at least one
or two podcasts next week.

So I will be trying.

I just want you to know again that I’m,
I don’t know, I’m trying to not give up.

Is that it?

I know if I took a month off of
you really hard to get started again.

So even this short episode is worth doing.

I think all this is just going to
get cut and I’ll just do the ends all.

Yeah, I’m just trying to get
my fucking life back together.

I realized what I do
is I feel like I have, we

had this super busy time at work
and I couldn’t do the things I wanted.

And then as soon as
that ended, my family

came and that takes
up all your personal time.

And I realized what I’m feeling
is I’ve lost control of my life.

I don’t get to do the
things I want to do because

I have to sacrifice
that for other things.

And it leaves you
in this weird position

where it’s like, I just want to
have control over my own life.

And I think this is what,
you know, why people

want to be rich is because it’s not
because like they’re greedy or anything.

It’s just they want to have
control over their time and their life.

And that is certainly where I am right now.

We’re all Sato

(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]

Sore Losers

(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

Podcast Harassment

[music] Harassment.

The breadth and variety of
harassment I have discovered on

Engineers Japan doing all these
stories over the last few years,

has been impressive, and yet I keep finding
new ones, new ones that I didn’t think

about or didn’t know about, and as some
are justified, some are not. I mean, I’m

basically working on podcast harassment
right now, where it’s either would be a guy

who has a podcast, tells you about his
podcast all the time, or podcasts are just

annoying you. I think it would be the guy,
because it has to be a person that harasses you.

Harassment has to come from
someone and lead to something else, so it

would have to be, yeah, that guy who
has a podcast, who’s constantly telling

about his podcast, trying to take you to
check out my last podcast. I try not to be

that guy, but it happens, because sometimes
we’ll talk about something, let’s say, in

my office, and it’ll be something I did
talk about on the podcast, and I want to

either say the same thing, but I want to,
like, if you’ve already heard the podcast,

I don’t want to tell you it again,
because you know my thoughts and ideas.

But then I worry I bring it up too often,
but I think the fact that I worry that I

bring it too often, I think the fact that
I bring it up too often, which is a fact,

shows that I’m probably not bringing
it up too often. I hope that’s my goal.

My hope, my desire, is to not bring things
up too often when it comes to the process.

I don’t want to be one of
those podcast guys, when I am

absolutely definitely one
of those podcast guys.

Lots of stories this
week, thematically.

I was drawn after I did a couple
of harassment stories in my notes.

I was drawn towards
the harassment.

Pretty good. There’s
some other stories,

but harassment is our
main theme for today.

I normally, for people who
are viewing on the internet,

try to keep the notes
a bit farther away, so

it’s under the camera,
so I’m actually usually

holding it like right
here. I’m half blind now.

I don’t want to get
into my personal issues,

but if I hold my notes
too far away, not only is my

handwriting messy, I just
can’t see them anymore.

So you’re going to see
a lot of me reading the

notes whether relatively
up close to my face.

It is the sad development
of the constant degradation

of the human body, which I
am experiencing in real time.

I’m okay with it though. You know
what’s shitty though, the worst part.

So right now, my
right eye, it’s fuzzy.

And if you want the
story, I’m going to tell that

story in the Seeming
Bee, so if you want the

actual story, which has
some honestly traumatic

elements, you can listen to that episode
that’s going to come out after this one.

But I, it’s not, I’m blind.
I’m fuzzier than normal.

So my eyes are already
garbage. I’ve been wearing

glasses since I was 16,
but my left eye basically

can’t focus right now.
So what it’s doing is

my right eye can’t focus.
My left eye is now doing

all the heavy lifting.
I’m pretty sure that’s

what was happening before
anyways. But as a result,

everything’s a little
fuzzier and I actually

would be easier if I just
had a patch and couldn’t

see. Like that, I actually
would be better visually.

Like if I just had this eye closed and it
was just reading or doing normal stuff,

it’s actually clearer
than having this eye open.

But I’m pretty
sure that’s also bad.

There’s no good thing here.
There are no good things here.

Dave is here.
Dave’s a good thing.

Dave is sleeping my lap.
He’s been very annoying today.

I think I’ve started this
a half hour later than

I normally would have because Dave
would not leave me alone. Harassment.

It’s, it’s, pet harassment.
I’m going to be trying to

frame everything in
some kind of harassment.

Some of the harassment
I’ve learned about there

was a maternity harassment.
So you’re having a baby.

You want to go
on maternity leave.

So they harass you. You get
pregnant and they harass you to quit.

There’s men going
on paternity leave.

They harass you not to take the paternity
leave that you are legally obligated to.

But we’re going to get
some interesting ones today.

The first one and this
is again, this was new.

So I do enjoy new things
in direct power harassment.

And so this, what is
it? It’s actually the kind

of the first question.
What is indirect power

harassment? This is when
you’re forced to watch

verbally abusive behavior
towards a subordinate

which causes you
emotional distress.

So basically you’re in
an office. Most Japanese

offices are open concept. I
work in an open concept office.

I fucking hate it.

I understand the idea
of the concept office.

I don’t think the
reality matches the idea.

I think the idea is that we’re
supposed to be like collaborating

and working together.
But really what happens is

I’m trying to get some
work and the dude behind

me is having a conversation
on his phone and his

voice is way too loud
when he’s on the phone.

The people are in the table,
the desk across from me

are having a different
conversation and they’re

speaking in normal tones. But
that’s just now cross volume.

There’s a dude in the far corner and he’s
decided that this is the perfect time to

open an incredibly crunchy
plastic bag where he’s

going to pull out Sembe
and eat the Sembe as loud

as humanly possible,
eating with his mouth

open, filling the office
with a smell of shrimp,

this powdered shrimp, I
also hate, honestly makes

me feel sick, and then some
there’s some drama somewhere else.

That’s the reality of
the open concept office.

I think the second
part is the open

concept office means that your
boss can see everybody in one go.

So it’s not like a micro-managing thing,
but it’s kind of like if I can see you,

you can’t be fucking
around too much.

If I was going to fuck
around, I would just get up and

relieve the office and
look busy. The interesting

thing, if you’re working
on an open concept

office and you are constantly
in meeting rooms and

conference rooms and
stuff, they think you’re but

this is not advice. Although
you could take it as advice.

If you are constantly
in meeting rooms,

watching YouTube videos
or TikTok or working on your

novel, other people will
see you in that room at

a computer writing,
working. You’re a busy guy.

I’m not saying anyone
has ever done that, but

there’s if you walk around
with paper in your hand

or a notebook and you
walk with determination,

people think you’re busy.
People thinking you’re

busy is more important
than actually being busy.

As long as you get you
or all your work done,

all that extra time
that could be like filled

time, what the fuck
am I talking about?

This guy worked at a
company. It was a government

inspection agency and
he said it was painful

to feel complicit. So
he basically, he’s working

on an office, his boss is
standing behind him with

these bosses subordinate
and his boss is just reaming

this guy and he’s sitting
there in silence and he

says that complicity
caused him pain because he’s

like, I didn’t stand up
for him. I just sat there

and that caused me
emotional distress.

April 2021, he said he
witnessed daily abuse.

The boss was calling
this subordinate a rotten

human and he said he
should give his salary back

because he doesn’t
do any real work.

And then he said like you
should quit or it would be faster,

you should just go hug a
female passerby or expose

yourself below the belt
and get caught by the police.

There’s a couple
of interesting things.

These are very, these
are Japanese insults.

So Japanese insults,
they don’t tend to actually

say anything like that you
would consider directly offensive.

It’s how you talk to
people, not what you say.

So him saying
like you should give

your salary back. I mean,
that’s that’s a lot of pressure.

You’re a rotten human being.

That’s insulting, but not
terrible. But this last one is

like, let’s expedite, expedite
your removal from the company.

Just go commit sexual harassment

and then we’ll be done with
each other and get arrested.

It does lead you to his interesting point
is if you’re the guy sitting in the chair,

what do you do? Do you
stand up for the guy or

do you just like accept
it? So this guy basically

he’s saying, I just sat
there and that caused me

stress that indirect
harassment caused me enough

stress that I’m suing
this government agency.

He filled in a report in
December and by January,

the harassment stopped.
So actually, this guy

who’s making this claim,
he took action and he

didn’t like step in
because I think stepping in

just puts you in the
target. So that’s actually

probably not actually
the best way to house.

He sent in a report. There
was an investigation in

the harassment stopped.
So this boss got in trouble,

but what happens to you?
Well, his evaluation that

year, which was normally
an A, which I assume is

the best, went down to a
B and he says this was an

unfair evaluation and
it’s because he put in

this report to stop the
harassment and everyone’s

going, no, no, no,
no, that’s a fair, fair

evaluation of your work
and your efforts and stuff.

So he’s in a tough spot
and he says, look, he

was treating this indirect
harassment caused me stress.

I had to report it
and then because of

that report, I got a lower
evaluation, that lower

evaluation, of course means
less of a bonus or whatever.

I’m losing money.
So the government

court case isn’t finished
yet, but it is interesting

because I think there
are some valid points

here because it’s not
when you like scream at an

employee in an open office thing, it’s not
just the employee that has to take it on.

It’s the other people like
they get that stress, they get

that sort of reflected
stress. And what do I do

and how do I handle this?
That is all problematic.

So indirect stress, I actually
think there is a validity to it.

I don’t know, I think the problem is like
two people could have an argument, like a

legitimate argument, a
disagreement, whatever,

and then I’m in the
room, do I then claim that

that is indirect harassment because it
caused me stress because I heard them argue.

So then you could see where
it could be taken sort of out of

context, but I think this
case when you get down

to the details because
this guy filed a report

and then it came back on him
and directly everything was in direct.

That’s a very Japanese
way to handle stuff.

It was all indirect.
The boss couldn’t

harass him anymore, but he can
mark him down on his evaluation.

He says this is all unfair.

I think this might be a legitimate
case. I started, I read that title.

I was like, there’s no
way that’s a real thing.

You just got to like buck up and

stuff that happens to another people
you ought to ignore it. And I was like, no,

I work in an open concept
office. I want to murder

half the people in that
room half of the time.

It says 25% murder rate. I
guess if I was successful,

I don’t really want
to hurt anybody.

I just want silence working in the
same place for as long as I have.

I now notice the
quirks of other people

so much that the very
innocuous things set me

off. I’ve always hated
the open concept office.

I don’t think cubicles
are better because I

work with a team and I should
be able to work with my team.

I don’t necessarily think
we deserve an office.

So there is an interesting problem because
for me, the cross chatter, the noise and

stuff, I’m sensitive to it,
I guess. It really bugs me.

I find it very hard to
concentrate. And then we’re

also in a situation where
if I stick on headphones,

I’ll get in trouble. Like
if I stick on just my

noise counseling headphones,
not even listening to

music, they would probably
complain about that.

But in, I’m interested to
see where this case goes.

I’m pretty sure he’s
going to win something.

I don’t think he’s
going to get that much.

The problem is, does
he have to go back to his

office? He wasn’t his
50s. So he might be like

changing sections or retiring
soon or something like that.

I don’t know. But it’s a very tough
position to be in it. It gave me a lot to

think about because I
started out thinking like

indirect harassment. That
sounds like some just wuss stuff.

And then when I actually got the deals,
I’m like, no, because he actually felt he

had to take action and
write a report and then

was kind of punished for it. I do think
this might be legit. More harassment.

This, I think we all
know this. We’ve seen it.

It’s basically Karen’s. They’re
calling it customer harassment.

And I think we’ve
all experienced this

via the internet. So this
experience was not a surprise.

I don’t think this
is a new thing.

But this was about companies
being like, we have to

set up guidelines when
people come into our

stores as customers
and act as at like assholes.

How do we deal with
them? So a lot of them

are like, well, you get
the manager and stuff.

But these are, these are,
okay, we have to define

it. And that’s actually
was the bit to me that was

most interesting is how
do you actually go about

defining what constitutes
harassment? Because

also it’s all conceptual
and about feelings and stuff.

So that makes it a
little more difficult.

It’s essentially
customers losing their shit.

They did a survey in 2017
of 50,000 people. That’s

a pretty good sample size. These were
all people who worked in customer service.

70% said they had
experienced some form of the

following harassment,
most of it being verbal.

So it’s people just
talking, shouting, getting

super angry at some
customer service person.

And this is always bugged
me. I did customer service,

but I had a very positive
experience overall.

I’ve mentioned this before
when I was university.

I sold dog food in
a dog food store.

We didn’t keep dogs. We just sold food.
So dog food cat food, other kinds of food.

People would come in, people with pets,
people would bring in their dogs mostly,

and they were super
chill. You give their dog a

snack, a cookie, and the
owner was really happy.

Everyone who came in, 99% of the people
was super chill. I didn’t have any of these

care and experiences that
you see on the internet.

But I think the dog
food selling industry,

it’s a different customer
base. And as long as

you treat their animals well,
they’re super happy about it.

In Japan, it got to
like people throwing

money at the person and
them crying as they pick it up.

That was one of the
stories that was in there.

And there were several demands that people
get down on their knees to apologize.

Like the bowing sort of you’ve
seen in a movie, bowing to the

emperor, seza, kneeling
bow. I’m sorry, put

your head on the ground kind
of thing, which is demeaning.

It’s supposed to be
and not something

that a customer service
person should have to do.

Because as we all know
deep down in our hearts,

that minimum wage
employee has no power.

They’re doing as they
are told, they’ve been

told what they can and
cannot do and it’s mostly can’t.

And you’re angry at them and you’re
angry at them because you’re not getting

instantaneous
satisfaction for anything.

And you think, oh,
Japan’s very polite society,

Japan’s a very great
place. It’s got its fair

share of shitty people
and those shitty people,

it turns out are a specific demographic.
One that if you’ve watched an industry

in Japan before, you will know what
is coming next. There was a statement,

“Someone grabbed me by the
collar and threatened to kill me.

” So that’s problematic.
The 2020 survey

found that men are
75% of the offender.

So I think in the west,
because of the internet primarily,

we have an image of the
Karen. It’s an older female

who is trying to assert
her power in the world.

In Japan, I think it’s an older
Japanese man, 75% and over 40.

So it’s 40 plus where
most of the people

I think it’s different.
I think they’re trying

to hold on to the power
of they’ve gotten so

entitled because now
they are an older man and

the hierarchy of the
world has built around them

in such a way and
respect and whatnot.

So at any time, they can fly
off the handle and they think

they should just
be forgiven it for it.

They should they think they
should just be forgiven for it

because I’m an older
man and everyone should

respect me and do what I
want and make me happy.

That is the the
patriarchy in action.

90% of the people who do this
kind of behavior are over 40,

75% of total are men.
So not a surprise to me

that older Japanese men
are acting like shit when

they get pissed off.
Because yeah, they have

been raised in a society
where they get to this

point where they think
everyone should do what

they want if they
don’t do it instantly.

They think that’s a problem. I think
some people need some ass cakings.

It’s the final harassment
for today, which is very nice.

A GSDF member, so
a ground self-defense

force member, a member
of the Japanese military.

He was forced to write a 10,000 character
paper reflecting on his self as a penalty.

This was interesting. So he’s
in the military and they’re like

you’ve done something bad.
I kind of want to hold back

on what the bad bit is.
You’ve done something bad.

I want you to reflect on
that. So I’m going to make

you write an essay like
a child in high school.

That is your punishment.
He joined the military in 1986.

This incident happened in 2017.

So if he joined when
he was 20, this incident

actually happened.
He would have been 51

when the incident happened.
The commander was angry

that he had gained
weight. So this guy who was

51 years old in the
ground self-defense force.

His commander was angry at
him because he gained some weight.

I don’t know what
they didn’t say

how much weight. He might have
been a chubby guy, might not be.

This guy claims
they were trying to

get him to quit. He had a
bum leg probably because

he was in the military
and did activities and got

hurt and that hurt never
really healed properly.

I as someone who’s done
judo my whole life have

several injuries that
never really healed properly.

So he’s got a bum leg.
His room was on the

fifth floor with no
elevator. So he had to take

five flights of stairs
every single day up and

down to get to his room.
And they knew he had a

bum leg and they put
them there anyways.

And then they’re like, hey,
you got a bum leg, clearly,

you’re not going to
be able to exercise as

much as you used to
when you were 20, you 50,

one year old piece
of shit. You fat fuck.

So I’m going to make you
write an essay. They wouldn’t let

him leave until he’d
finished the essay.

So he had to work on
this for nine hours straight.

They wouldn’t let
him go to sleep.

And he’s saying like this
was all just different kinds of

harassment to try
to get him to quit.

The government argued
that this was a legitimate order

despite the fact that
like they’re just nigh him

sleeping stuff and they
know he’s got a bum leg

and they’re doing
all this other crap.

He’s suing them for 1.5 million
yen. The court has been like,

absolutely, this is
power harassment.

You know he’s got a
bum leg. He’s 51 years old.

He’s with a bum leg, which
means yes, he’s going to gain some

weight because he can’t
exercise like he used to.

He’s not a 20 year old recruit anymore.
You guys have put him on the fifth floor.

Fuck you guys.
1.5 million yen to him, please.

Shouldn’t you be able to leave the
JSTF after a set number of years?

I mean, you should be
able to leave, but I think

this guy was he probably
done X amount of years

and wanted to stay because
he wanted his pension.

I don’t know. I don’t
know this system because

it’s not the same as
the military in America or

other countries. So
he could have retired.

Yes, but I bet he was
wanted to stay and this has

been his whole life.
Like this was clearly

if he’d been there for 31
years, this was his first job.

I bet to a degree
for most of that,

he liked being in the
ground self defense force.

And he wanted to hit
where he was getting, he’s 51.

He’s like X 65 is
going to be retirement.

He’s going to hit
that retirement age.

And then he’s going
to get a bigger pension.

And then I bet these
commanders like you,

I don’t like you. You’re not like as active
as the other 20 year olds running around.

He probably hasn’t
gotten to this highest level.

Again, and my mind
keeps going back probably

because he was injured.
He couldn’t just do stuff.

So he got a desk job and
he worked as a desk job.

Maybe he was competent.
Maybe not. I don’t know.

They wanted him out.
The thing is weird to me is

the pension set by
the government it’s paid

for by taxpayer money. It doesn’t negatively
impact these the commander of the base.

It doesn’t make him look bad
if this guy hits retirement age.

That’s the weird part to
me. The only reason the

commander of the base
would have done this is

because he did not like this
guy. And that is power harassment.

That is it. Like I’m
in a position of power.

I don’t like you. So I’m going to make
your life worse. He could have quit. Yes.

At 51, though, in Japan,
you’re probably not

getting a different job.
So unless he’s ready and

financially capable
of retiring, because 1.

5 million yen, because we
use the M word, the million,

sounds like a lot. If you
put that into American

money, that’d be about
$10,000. That’s money,

but it’s not life
changing money.

It is pretty shit. I think the
more I read into it and the

more sympathetic I came
to be towards this guy.

Because I bet he was,
again, that fifth floor bit,

that’s one of those little
like just every single day.

He’s got a bad
knee list to run him

down, run him down, run
him down. And that’s years

and years and years.
He lives in that dormitory.

So I don’t know how
much money he has, but

$10,000 while it is a
significant sum of money,

it’s not going to be enough to retire for
the next, let’s say, 20 years of your life.

You’re not living
off that for 20 years.

Prime Minister Kishita, he is pissed.
So they wanted to have a party.

What is it? The LDP, the liberal democratic
party. They have all the junior members,

they’re like, “Hey guys,
welcome to the democratic party.

” You guys are
awesome. We’re all going to

get together, have a
little party. Some of those

are going to dip out,
but you have a good time.

Then, so all these
young junior members of

the LDP are having
drinks this, like I assume,

fancy hotel, curtain
goes up, what happens? A

bunch of go-go dancers
come out in their underwear,

and then the party gets started.

And they got these young
politicians putting thousand

yen notes in their
mouth and holding it out

to the dancers and the
dancers taking it from

their mouth with their
mouth. So you know what

kind of party it was. Now,
this doesn’t really have

the optics that the LDP
really wants to be putting

out in the world.
Japan is suffering from a

lot of like, “Hey, maybe
our patriarchy bullshit

isn’t cool anymore,
maybe we got to stop that,

maybe we got to be
inclusive, maybe we got to

good people, we got
to stop fucking around.

” Back to the old men
issue. We got these old men

who grew up in the
60s, 70s, and 80s who are

still running stuff and
they don’t understand

the world has changed.
And so they’re still doing

dumb shit, like, “Hey,
let’s have a party where

people can take pictures
and have go-go dancers come

out, have them party
with the junior members

where people can take
pictures.” And you know,

that’s not going to get
out and cause us any

problems because we’re
all men having a good time.

So Kishida, the prime minister, gets up and
is like, “Guys, what the fuck? Seriously?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”
So the two guys who organized the party,

they had to resign.
They were out already.

So two guys who already
lost their jobs over this,

he’s actual statement.
He didn’t stand up and say,

“What the fuck guys?” I
would be a great politician

in that I would literally
stand up and go like,

“Guys, what the fuck?
What are you doing?”

What he said in no way
is this consistent with

the diversity the cabinet
aims for. So he’s like,

we’re trying to be
inclusive. We’re trying to

show that we are
equitable, that we care about

all the people of society, that
we don’t treat people poorly.

So objectifying
women is really just

not on the docket here. You
guys got to chill this shit out.

And since these old
dudes with money,

they don’t think they’re going
to get in trouble for anything.

They don’t think they
do anything wrong.

Guys had to sit down.
They had to sit down and

have a meeting to
organize this party like,

“Hey, two, three, 70-year-old,
60-year-old Japanese

men sitting in a conference
room like we got these

young guys out here. We want to
have like a welcome party for them.

” And then these old dudes are like, “Hey,
you know be awesome for a welcome party?”

Because let’s not even
take into account that at

this time, female
politicians, junior members

might not just all be dudes.
Because back when they

started, it was only
dudes. So they’re like

not in their brain. They
can’t even comprehend

that there might be women included in this
and this might be off-putting for them.

You don’t be a great party.
Back in my day in the 80s.

We had these ladies come
out and they were wearing

like basically nothing.
It was awesome.

They did a little “no,
no, no, no, no, no” for you.

And then we put money in our mouth
and it’s good money over our mouth.

And I was incredibly sexually
frustrated for like days afterwards.

The image is bad. Again,
two guys lost their job.

I’m just to imagine that
meeting that at the end of the

meeting, they’re all like
high-fiving each other

with what this great
plan they came out with.

And then when that first
picture hit the internet,

my god, the surprise
that like, whoa, people

are unhappy about this?
This thing that we did,

the way our government
has run, the only saving

grace of this is they
didn’t use taxpayer money.

This was actually all privately funded. So
at least the taxpayers didn’t put the bill,

which has been a
problem in the past.

All right, since we’re just
sort of talking about sexy,

sexy stuff, there was a
couple of surveys done

about the sexless nature
of Japanese relationships

and so we’re talking
about the birth rate is

incredibly low in Japan.
The step before birth rate

is the sex rate and that’s
something people are

not generally comfortable
talking about, but it is known now.

A lot of young
people are just losing

interest in relationships. So a lot of
young men aren’t going after relationships.

A lot of young people are
not getting into relationships.

A lot of young people are
staying virgins later into life.

This is all problematic because it means
those relationships are not developing.

They don’t know what they’re
doing. They don’t form solid

relationships and that’s why
they don’t have marriages,

marriage rates, also dropping.
There were two surveys done.

So this is why the
numbers don’t match up.

It’s interesting. They did not give the
number of the sample size, which could skew

things very wildly one
way or the other, but 48.

3% of married couples
do it zero times a month.

That’s it. So you’re married
and you just do not have

sex. This is a 16.4%
increase in the last 20 years.

So there’s always
couples. Maybe they’re

not particularly passionate.
They don’t have sex often.

They get a little
older. They decide that

it’s not really worth it.
It’s too much mental stress,

something like that.
There is an understandable

amount of people who
just don’t have sexual

relationships with their partner.
But nearly half is an amazing.

Oh, Dave’s making very
cute sounds down on my lap.

Oh, Scruffy. Oh, USA.

Really? Sexless. Okay, whatever.
Dave, you, Scruffy is not mad, Dave.

This is Dave. He is on
my lap 90% of the time.

Oh, he’s just stretched
his sexy legs out.

Check this out. Oh, you
get a little leg action there.

Okay, young people
don’t get married, but they

have sex all the time.
Once they get married,

Yeah, that’s weird. Okay,
you ask. Because it means

when you’re young, you
are a sexually active person,

getting married
should not inhibit that.

I could understand it the
number going down, like go

ahead from every day to
once a week or something.

Sure, that’s a significant decline, but
still, you’re doing it. I find it weird.

If I’m attracted to someone
being physical with them,

increases that attraction to me.

But anyways, let’s get back
onto the surveys. This is a very

survey heavy podcast
in general. So if you like

your surveys, this is
the place to come 13.

9% do it once a month. So
you have 48.3% or never doing

it all stick on top of that 13.9%
or only doing it once a month.

So that is 50 60% of people are
doing it less than twice a month. 24.

3% of men say their partner
has no response to them.

So basically they try to
get romantic or maybe they

don’t even know how anymore
because it’s been so long.

And their partner does
not respond positively

to their advances. 12% of the
men say they lack motivation.

So they’re too tired from work.

They come home. They
see their wife and like, I don’t

even want to right now
whether she wants to or not.

It seems like in these
sexless marriages, both

parties are in the
same situation where the

the men’s like, I don’t
have the motivation.

The women’s like, well,
neither do I. So there we are.

22.6% of women say
that it is mendoxy.

So mendoxy is the japanese
for troublesome or a hassle.

It is annoying. There’s a
couple of ways you can

interpret mendoxy, but
mendoxy is always negative.

There’s no good mendoxy.
It’s troublesome, too

much work, a hassle. So
like homework is mendoxy.

I don’t want to do
it. It’s too much work.

Living your life for a company
is mendoxy. It’s troublesome.

I don’t want to do it.
So they’re saying having

sex with their partner,
22.6% of women are saying

that is mendoxy. It’s
too much of a hassle to

actually have sex with
them. 20.8% say they’re too

tired from work. So that
there is 40% of women,

20% are saying it’s just
I don’t like it anymore.

It’s just too much work
and the other 20% are

saying I’m too tired.
And my argument about

the birth rate in Japan, I many times on an
engineer’s pan have directly linked that to

the work-life balance
culture in Japan because

they don’t have energy to
do things other than work.

They put all their
energy to work.

It means you don’t have
these other relationships.

These other aspects of
your life. A different survey

was done in 2024
and found that 64.

2% of married couples were
sexless. So that’s one survey saying

48.3% about 50%. The
next one is saying 64.2%.

So that is shockingly different.
That is a shocking number

because now we’re getting
65% of people who are

married just don’t have
sex. And that is normally

considered an important
part of relationship.

But to me, there’s the
other side of it where the

cheating culture in
Japan is so almost blatant

because love hotels exist.
Love hotels they claim

are because we
live in family units.

You got young people
who live with their families.

They can’t just have
sex in their apartment.

So they go to a love
hotel with their partner.

But realistically, that would
not sustain an industry.

So it’s got to be
married people having sex

with other married
people for the most part.

It’s that’s a bit shocking.
12.9% of students

who went to universities
abroad are sexless.

Compared to 53.4% of graduates
from Japanese universities are sexless.

So there is an
exposure to foreign

cultures that actually
increases maybe your drive

or understanding or
desire to have sex.

So it seems like having
experiences outside of Japan

broadens your view, which
also includes your view

of sexuality, which is
a very interesting note

and another sort of
commentary on where Japan is

struggling because if
Japan wants to fix anything,

it’s going to have to
fix its birth rate because

otherwise Japan just
isn’t going to exist anymore.