Category: Podcast

Bottom Buttcheek Podcast

(upbeat music)

I have a bit of a rough throat today.

So this may be shorter.

I may not be getting
too into it, or I may just

start coughing, so it might
be some very weird edits.

I’m just giving you a
warning ahead of time.

Some people have actually found
that when I have a rougher voice,

when I’m in a tough spotter,
I’m sick and I do the podcast.

They actually like my voice better, which
makes me sad and happy at the same time,

’cause I’m happy you like my voice
when it’s rough and I guess more manly

and like I’ve been chewing glass
and smoking cigarettes my whole life.

But also, I’d rather be healthy.

I think that’s a pretty normal
state of affairs for most people.

I should have started
smoking earlier and then quit,

and then I would have that
great raspy voice that people like.

I’ve had a couple of people know,
tell me that they listen to this

before they go to sleep and
they fall asleep to my voice.

And that’s also a mixed
blessing because it’s like,

A, you find the voice you’re
hearing right now relaxing.

It’s gentle enough that it eases
you into a place of slumber,

which I actually was thinking that’s a
really nice thing to do for other people,

but also it means you’re not
listening to have the episode.

So all the effort I put into the latter
half, honestly, the problem I have though,

is if you listen to this
when you’re going to sleep

and you fall asleep,
let’s say at the midpoint,

I usually put the dirtier and more
violent stories at the end of the episode.

So if you’re doing that, it means
your subconscious mind is now getting

all that dirty, awful information put into
your brain while you’re sleeping directly.

I’m just hoping that doesn’t
make you a worse person.

Usually I’m hopefully balancing it out
with my very sensible opinion, who knows?

That’s it.

All we have to do is this is an experiment.

If you wake up one day and
you just feel more violent urges

or you feel like a worse person, listen to
the whole podcast before you go to sleep.

So you can get the logic
part of your brain kicked in,

so you know you’re not just sending
yourself some blemole messages.

I did actually discuss
with a friend the other day.

I should just do a podcast
where I talk about nothing,

which is pretty much all the podcasts
I do anyways, but like literally nothing.

Like nothing you would need
to actually bother to take in

or listen to a process because then you
could listen to that while you go to sleep.

And I know there are like sleep podcasts
out there that people like you turn it on

and you listen to this sort of
gentle voices that talks to you.

The story I had in mind
from my first episode

of my sleeping podcast, we’re
gonna get to the news soon.

Was the story of how I
bought three of the same jacket.

So you see I had this
jacket that I really liked.

It was an under armor jacket.

It’s actually hanging on the
back of my chair right now.

And it was very comfortable.

It’s sort of that light jacket level.

It’s two, you wanna have something
with you when it gets nippy in the evening.

So this would be like sweater
weather, but I gotta go to work and stuff.

I don’t want something
that I can put in my bag.

There’s this sports jacket,
it’s not heavy in warm,

but it will cut the wind and it’ll
keep you just just warm enough.

But it’s light enough and small enough that
you can fool it up and put it in your bag

and carry it with you during
the day when it is warm.

So yeah, I thought this is one of
the most perfect jackets I’ve ever had.

Men love a good jacket.

I don’t wanna speak for anyone else.

So I was really in love with this jacket

and especially because it was just
fulfilling so many needs I didn’t know I had.

And then I thought, oh, I couldn’t
find it one day and I thought I lost it.

So I gave it a couple of weeks.

I looked around the house.

I did some cleaning and stuff
and I was like, I’ve lost that jacket.

Very unusual for me to lose things.

So, but you know, it was worth it.

I’ll go online and I’ll buy another
one of the exact same jacket.

Almost, it just, it’s the
same jacket without a hood.

So I bought this other jacket
and I got it very happy with that.

I’m wearing it for a couple of weeks.

And then my son goes, oh yeah, I moved
this into my room or somewhere by accident.

Here’s your jacket pack.

Now I have two of the same jacket.

Then, have you fallen asleep yet?

This would be around the time when I expect
you to fall asleep in my sleep podcast.

I haven’t come up with a name yet.

It’s gonna be like Peter
murmurs or something.

They’re chunk with beef chest murmurs.

Seamick bee murmurs.

I’m hitting the titles now.

So then I’m online and I’m
looking at jackets because

men, as we’ve established,
they love their jackets.

I can’t stop looking
at jackets and watches.

I have, I think, got a final
cap on the watch problem.

I’m not really looking at
watches like I was before.

I think I found the one for me.

The last watch purchase I made.

But we’re not talking about that right now.

We’re talking about the jackets.

So I was online.

I saw this jacket.

I’m like, ooh, ever last.

That’s a brand I’ve always enjoyed.

It’s fun.

I actually rare to find a
good labeled ever last product

because most of them
that ever last is too big.

I don’t like the gigantic logos.

I wear that ironically.

I won’t wear a t-shirt
with a giant logo on it.

But I like my branding to be a little
more subtle if there’s branding at all.

Ever last is one of those
sort of classic brands

that I enjoy, but most
of them are too loud.

And so when I find a subtle one, I got it.

I have a hat that has an ever last on it.

And this is a jacket with an ever last.

I bought that jacket and I
was very happy with that jacket.

It was on sale.

That jacket arrived.

I realized it was literally the exact
same jacket as the previous two jackets.

Only I had ever last instead of
under armor on the chest piece.

That’s it.

So that is the story of how I ended
up with three of the same jacket.

And I hope you are
sleeping peacefully right now.

Let’s get back to the news.

Should I do the intro again?

I feel like I’ve just
done a sample podcast.

The irony is Ninja News Japan came out
as a segment from the old Velasa podcast.

So I did it as a segment
every couple of weeks.

And then it just got
grew and grew and grew.

And I’m like, it should be its own podcast.

That’s where Ninja News Japan came from.

This new sleep podcast may
start as a joke or just a segment.

But then it could grow
into its own podcast.

If that’s what people
want, I mean, I’m a whore.

I’ll just do whatever people want.

Or’s do it for money.

So in a way, I’m worse, because I
do it and I don’t make any money.

Anyways, let’s get to our first story.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It’s kind of an update.

It’s not.

So Rititia, sugar baby Rititia.

I have been kind of
obsessed with her story.

Because it’s the pinnacle of scam stories
and then this great fall from Grace,

where she had millions
of dollars available to her

was spending it recklessly
and then got arrested.

So her story is just
this like rise and fall.

She has a scheme in its
working and then she goes too far.

She flies too close
to the sun as she falls.

She’s been arrested.

She’s gotten nine years in prison.

So why am I talking about her?

Again, there’s really
not going to be anything

to say about her until
she gets out of prison.

If Ninja News Japan is
still going in nine years, I

absolutely will cover her release
in what she does after that.

But there’s been an interesting development

in that they have decided to take the
DDchan story and make a movie out of it.

Now, I only saw the article in Japanese
and I read it very shallow read of it.

So I don’t actually know the details yet.

There was a slight implication
that there was a slight implication

that they’re going to make her a more
sympathetic character than I would make her.

So I think what they’re
going to do is say like,

here’s this person and
she’s in this situation

and the only thing she could
do to get out of this situation

was to scam men, whereas I
would make her the evil genius.

She came up with this plan.

She capitalized on it.

She thought, I’m going to
capitalize this even further

by writing a book and
posting that book on

the internet so that
other women can scam men

and they can make millions
of dollars the same way I have.

And so I would present her in a more evil
light because she knew what she was doing.

Her scheme was solid and she
was going forward and then she was

trying to expand it to hurt
more people almost in a network.

So I’m wondering, I don’t think
this is going to be a good movie

but I’m really interested
in how they’re going to be

presenting the main
character Sugar Baby DDchan

because are they going
to make her sympathetic

or are they going to
say like she’s a scammer

and she used her youth and attractiveness
to scam these older lonely men.

I’m really torn because
if they do try to paint her

as a sympathetic light
and she ends up in prison

and that’s a sad thing, I think maybe
they’ve missed the problem or the point.

I think maybe they’ve missed
the point of the problem

that she presents as
an actor with in society.

You can tell that was not scripted.

I do want to look into it more though.

J.R.
West has created a knife proof umbrella.

Now they say umbrella,
it’s not actually an umbrella.

It’s not like I would be walking
around with this umbrella

outside and protecting myself
from the rain and/or knives.

It’s a defensive shield that
they want to keep on trains

because last summer
there was a knife attack

on board of train and
three people were injured.

One staff member and
two passengers were

injured by a knife
attack and so they’re like,

we have to do something
to try to give the train staff

something to defend themselves
with when it comes to someone

gets on the train with a knife because
it’s a very difficult thing to stop.

This shows actually
the level of care they’re

putting in in Japan that
would not be elsewhere.

Three people were injured and then J.R.
West decided

we’re going to take some
action to make sure that

we can’t stop this from happening
but maybe we can give people

a position where they can defend
themselves and not get hurt in the future.

They developed an umbrella
shaped defensive shield.

It’s basically this big open thing.

It becomes this, well it’s an umbrella.

And it’s knife proof material.

So I don’t know, knife
proof doesn’t mean it’s

going to, I guess it’s
nothing’s impervious.

If you keep hitting it, I
assume it’s going to break

the shield sooner or later,
but it’s going to give the ideas

to give people behind
you a chance to escape.

The shaft that would normally be the umbrella
shaft is longer than a normal umbrella.

So again, this is not an umbrella.

It’s just when I say umbrella
you immediately know what shape

it takes and therefore
because it can be collapsed

like an umbrella, it’s
much easier to store.

Protective shields used up to
now were close range and heavy.

We’ve devised a shield
that’s easy for female

employees to use
because the problem is, yes.

Let’s say you do have a
large ballistic shield available,

but it’s this big heavy thing
and it’s only right in front of you

that maybe isn’t the best use
for all people who work for you.

I don’t think it’s
necessarily just females.

Weaker males might have the same problem.

I’ve never used a shield
before so even though I’m

let’s say a big healthy male,
I might not use it correctly.

The umbrella, the idea is to make it safe

and keep some distance
between you and the assailant.

I think that’s actually a pretty good idea.

They are going to put
1,200 umbrellas on 600 trains.

That’s going to be two on every train.

I assume it wanted to either
end where the staff tend to spend

most of their time, so it’s
easily accessible to them.

So they could get to the car and
try to defend against a knife attack.

A 22 year old unemployed man
met a woman via social media.

I don’t engage in social media.

So I actually find it always when they
say like met someone over social media.

Like how do you form a relationship
over Instagram or Twitter or something?

I have not ever been able to do that.

I’ve had short conversations,
but they always die out.

And again, it’s because of
me, I’m bad at social media.

So this is where I feel like my
I have fallen behind the times

of how sort of
relationships are formed now.

But anyways, this couple, they
start dating and then he moves in

to the house or the
apartment where this

woman he’s met is
staying with another woman.

So there’s now two women
and one man in the house.

He then made up a character and sent the
two women 2,000 emails threatening them.

He made them believe that they
were being targeted by hostile forces.

So there’s a lot of questions I have there.

Like why would I as just a regular
person be targeted by hostile forces?

Where do these hostile forces come from?

Why would they be targeting me?

If I’m just a normal
person because they don’t

say anything about this
sort of pair of women

that would make them honestly
particularly unique, that’s not an insult.

They’re just normal people, but normal
people don’t get targeted by hostile forces.

So that would be if I was in the same
situation, so I’m one of these ladies.

And then some guy moves into
my house and they start saying like,

I start getting all these
emails and he goes,

you’re being targeted
by hostile forces.

I’d be like, that doesn’t make sense.

What do I have that hostile forces
who even want in the first place?

He made demands as the hostile forces
and then he said he would protect them.

And then they bought him a car.

I read two versions
of this story, one where

they bought him a sports car and then
another one where they bought him two cars.

So these two women being
targeted by hostile forces

to protect themselves,
bought this guy, two cars.

They also started transferring
money to his account.

So he got them to a
point where he’d convince

them that they could
not leave the apartment.

That would be too dangerous for
them to leave where they were living.

They had to give him all the money.

He would take care of everything.

He needed the two cars
to be able to travel around.

I don’t know why he needed
two if it’s only one guy.

But he convinced them
to stay in the apartment

because it was
dangerous to go outside.

One woman, a gamer,
was playing games, talking

to one of her friends
online said like,

you know, I’m being held
here, essentially against my will.

I’m not able to call the police.

I don’t know why she
wasn’t able to call the police.

I’m not able to call the police.

So could you call the police for me?

Her friend calls the
police and the police come

and they’re like, hey,
none of this is true.

You’re under arrest.

He’s arrested.

And he says that he had
brainwashed them so that

he could live his life
as freely as possible.

So he was unemployed,
met a girl, brainwashed

her, and sort of her
friend into giving up

their lives so that he
could live his life freely.

There is the question that went around
as soon as I saw this comment and stuff.

And I have the admit question
immediately, right, why?

How are these two girls
making money from home?

I assume they work from home.

I assume their programmers are
something and they’re working from home.

But for them to not be
able to leave the apartment

and still make money is actually
still a very unusual thing in Japan.

Work from home jobs are rare in Japan.

They would have had
work from home all the time

to be able to make money to
continually give this guy money.

Just thank God that one of them was
a gamer and had internet gaming friends.

It’s almost like to
me, I was like, the

gaming mentality may
be primed them to believe

that the hostile forces
weren’t real thing.

But the fact that she
had friends online meant

she had someone she
could speak to and those

friends online put her
in a position where she

could ask for help, which that
is why video games are good.

A 27 year old woman called an ambulance.

The thing is, she called the ambulance
more than 200 times over the last year.

Last week, she called the
ambulance, but the police showed up.

So what has happened
is she would say I’m sick

and call the ambulance from April
2023 to now, she’s called 251 times.

When the police showed
up and said like, you’re

calling the ambulance too
much, she said, I don’t remember.

I just called because
I wasn’t feeling well,

which is perfectly
reasonable thing to do.

When you don’t feel well,
you call an ambulance, right?

There’s some other details that came out.

Sometimes she would
collapse in the street so

that other people would
call the ambulance on her

behalf, but then when
the ambulance showed up,

she would refuse to be taken to the hospital
because, hey, I’m just taking a break.

I read a third version
of this story where she

took up to three hours
of the paramedics time,

so that she was, I don’t know, talking
to them, say, having them check her out.

She was wasting massive
amounts of paramedics

time when she wasn’t actually
sick or actually feeling ill.

There is one story.

So I read three or four of the same story.

One version says she tried to
pressure the paramedic into dating her.

So I don’t know if that’s
true or if that was interpreted

some way because it didn’t
show up in all the other stories.

So I don’t like to claim
something’s true unless

I have like two or three
sources saying the same

thing, but this does
seem like if you’re willing

to collapse in the
street to get ambulances

to come to you, if you
call the ambulance 200

times, just because you’re not feeling
good, it seems like you’re starved for the

attention that the
paramedics will give you,

pressuring one of the
paramedics to date,

you doesn’t seem like
out of hand compared to

everything else that’s
going on in this story.

She’s been arrested on
obstruction of business for

taking up too much of
the ambulance cruise time.

This is a classic.

This is a Japanese movie.

I forget what it’s called now.

It’s really famous like a Kurosawa film.

And they show, they do
the same story like three

times from the different
perspectives of the

different people, like the
person who is accused

of the murder and then
the person who is judging

the murder and stuff, it’s a very
interesting way to tell a story.

This is sort of a similar
thing, only it went to court.

An Australian man says he
smells gas as walking past a building.

So he climbs up onto the balcony to the
window in an attempt to alert the resident.

He shouts, “Go to the
door and can you walk?”

An older man comes to the balcony window,
opens the door, and then a struggle ensues.

The man, the Australian man, picks up
a shovel like a basically a little spade.

That was on the balcony
and hits the old man

with it, jumps off the
balcony and runs away.

So in that version of the story, he’s a
hero trying to hero and being thwarted by

the communication issue or misunderstanding
because he’s speaking English.

The other version is a
guy climbed onto a balcony

and then tried to rob an
older man by saying, “Go to da.

” So here’s your
Japanese lesson for today.

“Go to da,” translated into
English means, “This is a robbery.

” And then his second
phrase was, “Kinwadoko da.

” So “Kinwadoko da”
is, “Where’s the money?

” So he’s saying, the
Australian man’s defense is

saying that, “Go to da” is
actually him saying, “Go to the door.

” “Kinwadoko da is can you walk?

” So, I have a
co-workers Australian.

I didn’t get a chance to
do it, I actually should do it.

I wanted him to record those two phrases
in the strongest Australian accent possible

and then get a Japanese
friend to record the

Japanese version and
see how similar they sound.

Because “Go to da,” and “Go to
the door” is actually not too bad.

“Kinwadoko da,” and
“Kinwadoko da,” and “Kin you walk.

” I know that the Australian can and
“Kin” actually would be pretty close,

but the rest of the phrase
doesn’t quite work out.

So that’s where it got
a little thinner for me.

Your first choice was good, your
second choice, I wasn’t a big fan of.

The judge sort of fell into my view of
thinking that this might not be the truth.

It was incredible, but it was unclear
as to what was actually happening.

So he said, “I can’t prosecute you.

I can’t punish you based on
the crime of attempted robbery.

” But I can punish you
for trespassing and assault.

So he’s saying, “Look,
maybe you were speaking

English, maybe you
were speaking Japanese,

so maybe you were trying to
rob the man, maybe you weren’t.

I can’t take a
definitive line from that.

” But definitively, I can say you
did climb onto the man’s balcony.

That’s trespassing.

I can definitively say that you picked up
a spade and you hit the old man with it.

That is assault.

So you are getting punished for both those
two crimes and not the crime of robbery,

or attempted robbery, and you
are getting two years in prison.

A lot of people said
this was way too lenient,

but there are lots and
lots of crimes in Japan,

and we’ve done an indigenous
Japan a dozen times.

Lots and lots of crimes in Japan, where you
get punished, but it’s a deferred sentence,

so if you don’t actually
commit another crime within the

two-three-year period, you
actually get off scot-free.

So him not getting a
deferred sentence is already,

especially as like a first-time criminal
in Japan, is already harsher than usual.

Him getting straight prison time.

Yeah, he’s being punished for it.

Female campaign staff
supporting lower house candidates.

This election just happened.

There’s other elections for lower
and upper houses going all the time.

You see a lot of campaigning in Japan.

How is this newsworthy?

This guy has women campaigning for him.

Because there are women
campaigning for politicians all the time.

There’s female politicians.

I mean, that’s not even
an unusual thing anymore.

Well, in this case, one wore a mini skirt.

No.

I can say one wore a mini skirt and
you’d be like, “Well, that’s not anything.

” I mean, women are allowed
to wear what they want.

I agree.

This was butt cheeks hanging
out flapping in the wind mini skirt.

Like, she could not lean forward without
her entire buttock area of being exposed.

So I saw a put picture of
her just standing up normally,

and you could see the
bottom of her butt cheeks.

So this was demonstrative.

I think is what they’re talking about.

In another set of pictures, the
female, the female campaigner is

wearing short shorts
with fishnet stockings.

And I think maybe the
complaints were coming

across as this is sending
a very distinct message

or this is trying to appeal to a
certain segment of the population,

especially in Japan
where this stuff is almost

honestly still perfectly
acceptable to a lot

of the older males, which would be
the people you’re trying to appeal to.

Some people complained online that the
candidate may have encouraged this attire.

So saying like, you’re
not campaigning on policy,

you’re campaigning on the fact that I get
the chance to see a girl in a mini skirt

and actually check out
like half her butt all the time.

The candidate said it was not my directive.

We agreed on lime green jackets.

They did wear like sort of
neon bright lime green jackets,

a very attention catching
that was the whole point.

Without regulations below the waist.

So he’s saying like, I didn’t tell them
what to or not to wear below the waist.

We only talked about jackets because
that was going to make sure that you

are connected to me, which actually ends
up being the problem because this woman who

now he’s saying has
made her own very

provocative choices is
directly connected to him.

He says, I regret my lack of oversight.

So I should have told them
to put on pants or shorts

or underwear or something
that was more covering.

The staff said when
spoken to, she said, it’s hot.

This is how I dress and
the candidate said it’s fine.

So what’s the problem?

And I was like, there is
clearly a salacious element here

that is being exploited that I
personally would never exploit.

I’m not going to put a picture up in
the corner of a girl with her butt hanging

out of her mini skirt
so that hopefully that

will be the thumbnail
of the YouTube channel.

So the guys come by
and see the YouTube

thumbnail with a girl’s
butt on it thinking, hey,

if I watch this one
episode of this podcast,

maybe I’ll get to see
a girl’s butt hanging

out of her mini skirt, that would
be dishonest and disingenuous.

And of course, I would never do it.

Expulsion Room

(upbeat music)

We have an update to a
previous story and it was

about the two friends
and one showed up dead.

So we had the two guys and they had
bonded 30 some years ago over baseball.

They both love baseball.

And all signs pointed to murder.

You had one guy was basically in
control of the other guy’s income.

He had access to his bank account.

The police made him a person of
interest when he after the death

of the first person that he went
to the bank and started taking

trying to take money
out of the bank account.

He was also the primary receiver of
life insurance should the person die.

So all signs pointed to murder.

I mean, this is it.

They’ve been friends for
a long time but here’s the

guy who had some money
and there’s an opportunity.

They’re down by the water.

And it seems like he pushed him in.

Now, one thing that was in the news reports

that I read that I didn’t say
because it wasn’t clarified.

They talked about him having weights
with him, the guy who was in the water,

but they didn’t actually say the weights
were in a backpack weighing him down.

So because they didn’t say it,

I didn’t feel actually
comfortable putting that out there

as a fact, but it turns
out in a follow-up story,

the reason for his drowning,
he had a backpack full of weights

on and that’s what weighed
him down so that he drowned.

Now, it turns out there’s a
very interesting change in this.

So the friend was arrested
for suspected murder.

The update has been that the murder
has been downgraded to assisted suicide.

This is suicide is still illegal in Japan,

but it’s not exactly the
same caliber as murder.

So that gives us a big hint into
what was actually probably happening.

So the prosecution has looked at all
the facts, talked to the suspect and gone,

we think this is a case of
assisted suicide, not murder.

Suicide is still illegal in Japan.

You’re not allowed to
help people commit suicide.

And it was the life insurance
claim that brought it all

because the guy requested
like how do I find out,

how do I get the money from this
life insurance claim after my friend dies.

So while no further
information has been given out,

the fact that it has been changed from a
murder case to an assisted suicide case

actually gives us a
whole lot of information

that we can kind of see what
probably was actually going on

in the time, if again, the
facts turn out to be accurate.

A clothing store, Shinamura has
released a curvy branded hoodie.

So it’s got sort of, it’s a pink hoodie
with Kirby’s eyes and mouth on the front.

He’s not a very complex character like,

you know, Kirby was
actually a placeholder for

a character that was
never actually developed.

So they’re like, we’ve
been working with this blob

for so long, we kind of have
fallen in love with this blob.

They put the blob game out and everyone
falls in love with the blob as well.

Everybody loves Kirby.

So of course, a branded
shirt makes a lot of sense.

You have a hoodie and
it’s got Kirby’s face in

the front and it says
Kirby across the top except.

The Japanese pronunciation
of Kirby is a lot more like copy

and copy if you were
going to spell it in English,

you would put K-A-R-B-Y, or maybe
a double-eye or something like that.

And so if you were a
Japanese person working

in a Japanese company and you
made the very Japanese mistake,

a whole bunch of other
Japanese people might

not notice the mistake
and release the hoodie.

So the release of this hoodie
actually said, K-A-R-B-Y

across the top, which is
technically a misspelling

because all the games
have been released in English,

all the games have K-A-R-B-Y written
on it so it should match those games.

The company will offer
refunds, but now the way I’m

looking at it, this is a
limited edition misprint.

So if you get one of
these, I would hold onto it.

I would keep it for a while
and then sell it a couple of years

down the line when it’s
impossible to get this kind

of thing, maybe make a
couple extra dollars off it.

It’s been on sale since September 25th.

So it hasn’t been that long
before someone actually noticed

a mistake or someone actually brought the
mistake up to the attention of the company.

The company was like,
we’re going to recall those,

we’re going to refund
anyone who wants to refund.

They didn’t just replace it.

They offered a refund not a replacement.

I guess you just go buy the correct
spelling of the hoodie if you still want it.

I would still keep the one that says copy.

I like these kind of things with
little mistakes and weird stuff in it.

It makes it more
unique and I think that

uniqueness is something
that I like in the world.

So if you have one of
those copy hoodies, I would

recommend not returning
it, not getting a refund.

So keep that, ’cause that’s
unique and individual and cool.

(upbeat music)

Overtureism is a story we’ve talked about
multiple times on the ancient New Japan

because it’s become a
major news story in Japan.

People are kind of upset
that foreigners come over

and they don’t sort of abide by
Japanese rules and sort of social norms.

I think this is understandable because
when you come to another culture,

you’re sort of expected to
fall in line with that culture

to a degree, but also you’re
here to have a good time.

You’re having fun, maybe you get excited.

Maybe this is the kind of place.

You know, you just wanna live that life.

Usually it’s drinking or just
behaving badly or being really rude.

It’s really clear.

This one, the behavior itself
doesn’t bother you as much.

It’s where the lady did it.

So this is now a national
news, a former gymnast.

I decided to show off
some skills for Instagram.

This is apparently something she does.

She travels around and she does athletic
feats for her followers on Instagram.

She has 140,000 followers, making sure
that everything she does gets out there.

So people are gonna see what she does.

This may be fall into
the like, maybe video it,

and then check with some
people before you post it.

That actually might be a good idea.

She was visiting a shrine, and then leading
up to shrines, there are tortoise gates.

These are the very classic
Japanese painted red gates.

Often they get smaller, so it
looks like it sort of zooms into this,

like middle distance kind
of thing, which I really like.

I really like the tortoise
gates, to be honest.

It’s one of those things.

It’s very Japanese, it’s very iconic.

They’re cool.

I like them.

She’s decided to show off some of her
skills, some of her calisthenics, I guess.

So she jumps up and starts doing,

what I would call controlled
chin-ups on the tortoise gate.

She, there’s a song going.

She pulls herself up about halfway.

She moved to the left,
she moved to the right.

She moves her legs around, and
then she comes down very slowly.

Clearly a very physically capable woman
with abilities, but doing it at a shrine,

which is a religious site,
could be seen as disrespectful.

I knew that.

I would consider myself
fairly ignorant of most things.

If I’m being really honest, like
when it comes to religion and stuff,

I don’t know that much,
but I know don’t pee on stuff,

don’t go to religious
sites and start working out.

It’s just one of those things.

It’s just seen as disrespectful
by the people who do take it.

Like maybe I don’t take religion seriously.

Other people do.

Therefore, I’m not gonna do
anything in a religious setting,

just so I don’t piss off the
people who do take it seriously,

’cause they are taking it seriously,
’cause they’re there at that time.

She says she did not realize she was at
a sacred place and acted without thinking.

Now, I can promise you
half of that statement is true.

She did, she did act without thinking.

She acted without
thinking because this is

something she has done,
this has become her schtick.

She goes to places
and does physical things.

So for her going to any place is a platform

for her to do a physical thing
and show off a bit for her followers.

She knew this was a sacred place.

She knew this was a shrine.

She knew these gates
were part of the shrine.

I mean, that’s why you go there.

I’m not getting particularly angry about
it, but this part of the apology is a lie.

You went, I mean, you looked up on
the internet or you looked up some maps

or you tried to find
some stuff in the area.

You were looking at for tourist locations
and it said something’s something shrine

and the tortoise gates
lead up to the shrine.

So she knew where she was
going that day and what it was.

I just, I cannot believe she did not
know she was going to a shrine that day.

I can’t believe that she didn’t
know that a shrine is sacred ground.

So I don’t mind the apology.

I think that’s fine.

She did something, she said, you know what?

I was disrespectful, I was
caught up in the moment.

I was excited about what I was doing.

This is kind of my thing.

I didn’t really connect the two things in
the moment and I did it without thinking.

100% kind of believe that.

I apologize for it.

I take responsibility for it.

I would be okay with that.

The I didn’t know smacks
of a little bullshit to me.

Because she has a fairly
large following 140,000 followers

on Instagram, I mean, she
might have other platforms

where she does the same
thing, like TikTok and stuff.

There was, of course,
a lot of Japanese people

found out about it,
probably got spread out.

It was in Japan, so it’s gonna get
spread to a bunch of Japanese users.

There was immediate backlash with people
telling her not to come back to Japan again.

So she has done this thing, gone back home,

probably posted it from
home or at the end of her trip.

Oh, gone back home and
now people are like sending

her messages, like, please
never come back to Japan.

That’s, I mean, from a Japanese person,

that’s like one step
down from a death threat.

They don’t do a lot of
death threats in Japan.

When they do, it’s actually illegal.

That’s something else we should talk about.

I mean, we’ve talked about in the past,

but be very careful
about giving death threats.

But just saying, like, hey, we
don’t appreciate what you did.

Don’t come back to Japan.

It still hurts.

Having a whole country turn around
and go like, we don’t want you here.

Please don’t visit us again.

That’s gotta be a lot.

So she posted her apology.

I think her apology again.

I, when you throw some
bullshit into your apology, it’s hard

to take your whole, it sort
of ruins your whole apology.

You gotta just own up to what you did.

Be honest about it and then take
responsibility for it and apologize.

And then we could
maybe accept your apology.

Maybe I still don’t want you
to come back and visit Japan.

Going to a shrine and saying, you
didn’t know this was a favorite place.

I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it.

Bendy namco.

It’s a big Japanese video
game coming to do other stuff.

Video games is kind of what they’re
famous for in the world at large.

They have been accused of using.

Oidashi Bea.

And these are called any
English would be expulsion rooms.

And this is a very Japanese
way to handle a problem.

So they want to reduce their staff numbers.

And maybe they don’t want to pay severance

to those staff members
that they want to get rid of.

So they do this Japanese thing.

And I’ve heard about this,
but I’ve never seen it done.

My company apparently doesn’t
do it, which is a good thing.

But I’d heard about it from other
people that it happens in other companies.

So I was wondering if it’s real.

And so this is an accusation
of sorts because this

is sort of an underhanded
way to handle the problem.

What they do is put you in a room
and they don’t give you any work.

And now at first, that
sounds like a dream job.

You’re getting paid to do nothing.

But the idea is to give
you nothing to the point

where you get so frustrated with
doing nothing, you actually quit.

And if you quit, you don’t
get your severance package.

That kind of thing.

So it’s not them letting you go.

It’s them frustrating you
to the point where you quit.

Bandai Namco is being accused
of wanting to cut its workforce.

So it’s sending workers to these floors.

These floors, these rooms have just a
room, maybe a desk and nothing to do.

They might have a computer
on it because something

that says later, so it
means it has a computer.

It has a computer.

See, this is it, you could mess around.

But if you’re messing around,
you’re messing around on work time.

So if you’re not doing
what you’re supposed to do,

if you’re messing around on work
time, maybe then they could fire you.

So if I start just like reading Reddit all
day, every day, and they go, well, now,

we can accuse you of just messing
around all day and not doing the task.

But you say, but you haven’t given me
a task, but your task was to do nothing.

Yeah, they see, it’s stuck in a loop.

They’re trying to create a situation

where they can get rid
of you, and it’s your fault.

200 people so far have
been sent to these rooms.

100 have quit.

So it’s been relatively successful.

If they want to get rid of all
200 of these people, they’re

had a 50% success rate,
and they’ve really just started.

I mean, they don’t actually say in the story
when they started because this is like,

the people of quit are now making
the accusation of the company.

So how long do they
actually stay in those

rooms before they
actually ended up quitting?

The idea is to pressure
them to leave voluntarily,

and this is used as ammunition
to cut severance when you leave.

Some people use the
time to look for another job.

So guess, they don’t have to necessarily
give you a computer to look for another job.

I guess you could do that on your phone.

Phones are pretty powerful nowadays.

So yeah, I can see them
putting you at a room

with a desk and you
start using your phone.

But then again, using your
personal device on company time,

that could be a fireable offense if
they set it up that way in the beginning.

So it leads to a whole bunch of questions.

Bandai Namco did release a statement.

Our decisions to discontinue games

are based on comprehensive
assessments of the situation.

Some employees may need
to wait a certain amount of time

before they are assigned
their next project.

So this is what they’re saying.

Like these people, they’re
not being put in these rooms

so they don’t do anything
so they get so bored they quit.

They’re just being put in a holding pattern

until we give them the next exciting
project, the next big step in their career.

We’re not doing anything wrong.

We are setting these people up for success

because we want to put the
right person in the right place.

But we do move forward with
assignments as new projects emerge.

There is no organization like
Odashibaya at Bandai Namco Studios

designed to pressure
people to leave voluntarily.

And it’s almost like, if
you say it that blatantly,

you’re more likely doing
the thing you’re not doing.

That’s actually the thing
for me for the statement.

The statement is so
clearly like, no, no, no.

We’re not doing the very specific thing.

It makes me think you are absolutely doing

the very specific thing
you’re being accused of.

(upbeat music) Train nerds.

Train nerds are a big thing.

I said a conversation was gray last week.

We didn’t actually put it into the podcast,
talking about some of the bad behavior

of these incredibly enthusiastic
train fans that live in Japan.

So I’ve always found like, Otaku,
there’s kind of like two versions of it.

There’s Otaku, I’m a big fan of something.

I love it, you know, that’s it.

Then there is Otaku, the
person who is obsessive,

who the person who,
this is their entire life.

They don’t care about anything else.

A lot of these train
fans fall into that second

category where they’re
obsessive over it.

And this is a subset
of that called todi tetsu.

And these are the guys who love
to take pictures of train specifically.

So their hobby is
taking pictures of trains.

They’re gonna go to special
locations to try to get a

picture of, let’s say, a
train coming out of a tunnel.

There have set up spots
where you can get a picture

of the entire shinkansen in
one shot, that kind of stuff.

They pay thousands of dollars for cameras.

They’re learning techniques.

I mean, these are people
who, their whole life,

outside of work, maybe,
maybe not even work because

they’re so obsessed over
it, is taking pictures of trains.

On October 15th, 100 people
crowded around a single train crossing.

So you gotta imagine there’s
the road, there’s the train crossing.

Those little sort of single
barrier arm things come down.

These people were all
over the train tracks.

And when the arms came down, which
you’re supposed to be standing behind those

for your own safety, a whole bunch
of people still were on the inside of it.

And they had train staff like pushing
them out and getting really angry at them

and shouting at them because again,
we don’t want you to get hit by the train.

The, we’re crowding to
see a very specific train.

Now, this is a black train.

So all the trains in
Japan, basically they’re

all kind of white or red
or something like that.

This is a entirely painted black train.

And the reason is a special
train is because when a

train derails, this is the
rescue train that goes out

to get it to pull it either
back on or push it on.

I don’t know what it actually does,

but it is the train that
goes out to deal with derails.

Now this has a very rare thing in Japan.

We have train accidents.

We have earthquakes and stuff, but 99% of
the time that just means the train stops.

So let’s say a car gets stuck on the road.

The train will hit the car ’cause
the trains don’t stop very fast.

It won’t derail.

You get accidents of other sorts.

The trains stop, they
don’t necessarily derail.

You have an earthquake.

The train will stop.

It won’t derail.

There’s a lot of safety measures in place
to make sure that trains don’t derail.

So a train derailing and therefore the need

and the use of the black train, the
rescue train, is an incredibly rare thing.

So for these guys who the whole
lives are taking pictures of trains,

the opportunity to take this
single picture is like a lifetime event.

The reason this train
was traveling this route

on that night wasn’t because
there was an accident of any sort.

It was because they
were changing train yards.

So it was sitting in one train yard.

They were moving it to another train yard

just for, I guess, to
make it more accessible.

Should there be an accident in the future?

There is a similar train.

The shinkansen, the
bullet train, they’re all white.

I mean, they have blue accents and stuff.

But basically, all the
bullet trains are white.

And then there’s one yellow one.

And this is called Dr. Yellow.

And this is the shinkansen, the bullet
train, that sort of checks the track.

So it goes down, it goes at those speeds.

It has no passengers.

It just got, it has computers
in it, measuring like

how much the vibrations
are, how fast are we going?

Are there any things we should check?

Are there any tracks that need to be fixed?

It basically is checking
the health of the tracks

at the shinkansen runs on, which is why
the shinkansen itself is so safe to run.

Again, very similarly, they don’t
publish the schedule of this train.

They don’t make it clear
when this thing is going out.

So seeing Dr. Yellow is a very special
event for these massive tote tetsu.

But they also are breaking
the rules of the sort of train

etiquette by standing on the
tracks, going inside the barrier

when it comes down and getting
shouted out by stations staff.

The stations staff knew
this was going to happen.

And there have been like scuffles.

So like they push each other,
they try to get the best picture

when someone gets in the way
they get really angry at them.

They actually had a guy
right in front of a fairly rare

train that comes around
this one very specific curve.

And he was in the shot and
they all started shouting at him

that he should pay them
money for ruining the photograph.

That, I mean, he didn’t know.

He was just riding his bicycle
home from work that day.

And he was basically one
guy versus like 100 nerds.

I mean, still quite scary for being honest.

It’s an issue because sooner or later

someone’s going to hurt, but I
actually had a second thought

because they want to
see this train so badly.

What if a nerd took it so far?

They actually tried to
create a train decoupling.

So they would know where
the decoupling happened

so they could actually wait for
the train, the rescue train to come.

If that is not actually happened,

I was like, that would be an awesome
police manga episode in the future.

A 35-year-old man was arrested
for stealing 150 kilograms of onions.

I don’t know why that caught my attention.

There’s actually been a spake recently.

I guess this is a harvest
season of people stealing

like peaches and fruit and
vegetables from farmers.

Last week, I didn’t actually do the story.

Was like 150 kilograms or 200 kilograms
of rice was stolen from like a warehouse?

Like, this is worth a lot of money.

So 150 kilograms of onions
was worth 100,000 yen.

Now, not a massive,
massive amount of money,

but I guess if you were going to just go
resell it, I mean, it’s pure profit for you.

So that’s just 100,000 yen in the bank.

The man who’s been
accused claims his innocence

and that he has no
recollection of the crime.

So I guess if you didn’t commit the crime,

you would have no
recollection of the crime.

So that’s actually pretty
good stance to take.

He became a suspect after the police
looked at security footage near the field.

So we’ve now hit a point in modern society

where stealing stuff from
what would look like an

empty field means you’re
still caught on camera.

So that to me is one of
the biggest inhibitors to crime

is there is so much, so many
cameras in the world now.

So many crimes are
solved by police just going,

well, here’s this guy
that’s following him home

and then they go to his house and
pick him up and go, did you do this?

Nine times out of 10, they
actually confessed in Japan.

But this guy, at least
he’s holding his ground,

he’s saying, no, I
didn’t steal any onions.

I don’t know why I found it funny,
but he’s also an onion farmer.

So this is an onion
farmer who went to another

onion farmer’s fields and stole
his onions and gets brought it back.

It would be much easier
to hide the evidence though.

So like, if I just really turn going to
like, if I wanted to hide dead bodies,

it’d be good if I worked in like a mortuary
’cause it’d be dead bodies everywhere.

It makes way more sense with onions.

Onions are much easier
to hide and much harder

to identify, I guess,
than a human body.

My brain should not have gone
there is what I’m feeling right now.

Several onion thefts have
happened over the last couple weeks.

A man in his 20s was arrested last month.

So this is not like an isolated incident.

There are a lot of people
out there stealing the onions,

which led me to the second
part where if he actually gets

convicted and arrested of the
theft of 150 kilograms of onions

and he’s in jail and he’s in
with like a hearted Yakuza killer.

Although, although Yakuza stories recently,

it’s all like 50 year old men stealing
Rolex watches and getting caught right away.

My image of the Yakuza having now covered
a bunch of Yakuza news is gone way down.

Like, they’re just not as
scary as they used to be.

Especially ’cause they all
seem to be really old now.

Like, I’m 50 something.

There are all 50 somethings.

I’m like, it’s not as impressive.

You need that like, vigor of youth to really
create your site, your crime syndicate.

Why no idea what I’m talking about now?

Yakuza are getting old.

I think that’s what I’m saying.

They need some new blood to make them
scary again because it just gets to a point

where it’s now just a bunch of old
men sitting around trying to steal cars.

And it’s just not the
same as the organized

crime of our image from
the movies and stuff.

But you’re in prison
and you’re in with your

cellmates and it’s
like, what did you do?

I killed a guy with my bare hands
’cause he talked to me the wrong way.

What would you do?

I stole a laundry, kilograms of onions.

I don’t know, I immediately went into like,

almost like a Midwestern
accent there for a bit.

I just, I don’t think
you’re gonna be getting

a lot of clout in prison if
onion theft is your crime.

A man is using a toilet and train station.

Perfect start to any story.

You hear someone outside sort of
like tapping and he gets pissed off.

It’s like, I was trying to rush me, man.

I need to relax to have my functions at
their best, I need, you know, personal time.

Why are you rushing me?

So pisses them off.

So he finishes up, he
goes outside, he sees the

guy who’s in the bathroom,
he’s, you know what?

This is a train station.

I’m gonna kick that guy in the waist.

I guess he’s just not very good kicking.

Like, ’cause if you’re gonna kick someone,

the waist is maybe
the least effective place.

Probably kicked him just
in the side and he is waist.

If I’m thinking about
it more logically now.

In a train station though, that’s a problem

because if you hit someone and they fall
into the tracks, that is attempted murder.

So that’s actually a whole different issue.

It didn’t go that far.

The guy who got kicked
wasn’t actually injured.

Then, after the guy
kicked him in the waist,

he ran away and he hit
in the bathroom again.

So we’re not dealing with
the like bravest criminal

or his passion and fury overtook him for a
moment and he kicked the guy in the waist.

And then reality setting is
like a whole bunch of people

just saw me kick a
random person in the waist.

I’m gonna go run away and hide now.

So this guy’s not, his
thought processes aren’t great.

Turns out the reason the man was
clicking was because he was blind.

This was the multi-use toilet.

He was blind.

He was using his cane to
find his way into the bathroom.

So he wasn’t actually
trying to rush that guy.

He was just trying to find the bathroom.

Maybe perfectly fine with waiting.

Maybe he didn’t even
need to use that toilet stall.

We don’t know what was happening there.

We do know that a blind man was in
using the like more accessible toilet.

This guy misinterpreted.

It got pissed off.

Went and kicked a blind guy on
the platform and was arrested for it.

When he was arrested, he said, I heard the
clicking and thought he was pressuring me.

Oh, no, no.

I heard the clicking and I
thought he was rushing me.

I got angry and kicked him.

I didn’t know he was blind.

Now I’m gonna go ahead and put it out there

that him being blind is not the
important part of that statement.

You shouldn’t be kicking anybody.

Like blind or not blind.

Him being blind makes it slightly worse
because he can’t really protect himself.

And he was completely innocent
in the first part of the accusation.

So he’s saying like, if I
had known he was blind,

I wouldn’t have gotten so
pissed off, which I don’t believe.

I think he would have just maybe not kicked
him, but he still would have been angry.

So there’s certainly some
emotional issues going on there.

How did they find him in
the bathroom so quickly?

Well, it turns out security footage.

So related to my previous story, you’re
not going anywhere we’re not being videoed.

So this guy, the police were
like, let’s look at this video footage.

They see the guy, kick the blind guy.

They see him run away.

They follow the cameras
back to where he went.

Well, he’s gone into the bathroom.

They go into the bathroom.

He’s arrested immediately.

So again, an engineer’s
Japan is all about

the crimes and I don’t
know what are we about.

We’re not about the crimes.

We’re about not committing crimes.

I just want people to think,
no, I got no conclusion.

Don’t kick blind people, I mean, given.

Don’t commit crimes.

I’ve done that one a million times.

You’re being watched.

That’s it.

We have our lady who decided to do
chin-ups on a 20-gate and gotten trouble.

She’s being watched.

She posted on the internet.

We got a guy stealing onions.

He was in an empty field,
still was on security cameras.

We have a guy kicking
people in the train station.

You’re on camera.

You’re on camera all the time.

You’re gonna get caught.

You gotta realize you have to, I
don’t care about morals anymore.

You’re gonna get caught
’cause you’re being filmed.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Sudden Serial Killer Story

(upbeat music)

Halloween is soon upon us.

And the party, well, it’s mostly people
getting drunk and slutty costumes.

But the party does happen,
and it usually happens

in Shinjuku and Shibuya, and then they’re
like, last year going, hey, two years ago,

you guys like flipped over
a car and set shit on fire.

So, mmm, the mayor said, Shibuya
will be closed on Halloween this year.

And so, they’ve imposed a ban on drinking.

So, on around Shibuya Station,

you’re not allowed to drink
in public on Halloween night.

And in Shinjuku, you’re not allowed
to drink on Halloween night anymore.

And this is a big shift,
’cause this was a big party.

Obviously, a lot of people come
here a lot of money is made.

So, what is the big problem?

The big problem is
they just trash the place.

The mayor of Shinjuku
said, leaving trash behind is

not the behavior of an
educated, rational person.

Educated, rational people
drink and do dumb things.

And that’s just true across the board.

I don’t know if there’s any sort
of real argument to be made there.

Rational, educated
people make bad decisions.

That’s just the fact.

He is basically calling
anyone who came to Shinjuku

or Shibuya to party on
Halloween night degenerate,

which I don’t think
that’s really cool.

Like, it gets out of hand.

You want to stop it?

You could address that as the issue, but
then calling people names, come on, man.

But then there’s the
other side of it as well.

And it’s something that I as a
foreign person living in Japan.

I think about other foreign people
living in Japan and how they represent me.

And the drinking in public
has always been of an issue.

‘Cause I come from a country
where drinking in public is not allowed.

You’re not allowed
just to walk around

downtown and get on
the train and drink a beer.

Foreign people come to Japan.

They find out you are
allowed to drink in public.

You’re allowed to walk around downtown.

You’re allowed to get on
a train and drink a beer.

So they do it.

They do it constantly.

They’re not taking into account.

Is it socially acceptable?

Are they making themselves look bad?

Are they behaving well?

So drinking in public isn’t the issue.

It’s abusing the
ability to drink in public.

That is the issue for me.

So I do, like I have friends
and they finish work Friday night.

They grab a beer from a convenience store.

They get on the train on the
way home and they drink their beer.

No one else is doing that on the train.

People drink beer on the shinkansen.

That’s almost like a
tradition at this point.

People don’t get on a local train

and start drinking unless
you’re like a 70-year-old

man who’s got a bit of
another issue going on.

So I look at that and I
go, OK, what is socially

acceptable is also
still sort of a rule.

And then if you push the
boundaries and you go too far,

then you get actual rules put into
place like in Shibuya in Shinjuku.

And that’s where I’m like,
I’m kind of on both sides.

I think if the rules and the
laws say you should be allowed

to drink in public, you should
be allowed to drink in public.

But if you’re going to trash a place,
they’re going to make a rule and stop you.

But also don’t shit on mostly
20-year-olds who are drinking

for the first time and
just having a good time on

Halloween because that’s
what people do on Halloween.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Dove, the beauty company.

I actually only know them from soap.

I’m sure they do much, much more than soap.

My beauty routine essentially includes
washing my face and moisturizing.

And now, because I have a
beer at the moment, beer to oil.

I’ve done several advertisements
for the beer to oil I bought recently.

And I’m not getting anything for it.

I just keep picking it up
because the box is not my desk.

And then doing an impromptu
ad, which I’m going to stop.

If you want to pay me
to do beer toil ads, I will.

But I think I’ve got to get it a bit too.

So Dove, they want to
promote beauty standards.

But then they’re also trying to break
down the walls of beauty standards.

This is a hard thing for a company to do.

There’s a fine line.

And then the reason I’m talking
about them is because they

kind of missed the line
altogether on this one.

They put out an ad to say that
there’s no standard to what is attractive.

And they’re trying to
say, like, beauty standards.

They’re a false narrative.

It’s something society
makes and imposes on you.

You’re beautiful the way you are.

That’s a pretty good message.

And then they went and listed a
whole bunch of beauty standards.

Now, I didn’t know most of
these beauty standards existed.

So now that I do know,
I’m more aware of them.

If I was, let’s say, a
self-conscious teenager

and saw a whole bunch of beauty
standards I didn’t know about.

And then I could start measuring myself

in new and more difficult and more difficult
to attain ways, well, that would suck.

And that’s why people got upset.

But let’s just go into the beauty standards
I learned because that’s the fun part.

In Japanese, it’s called SPAY 110.

So it’s the height minus weight
ratio is the standard for being thin.

So I am 183, maybe 184 centimeters.

I am 90 kilos.

So if I take my height and minus my weight,
that is what I should be weight wise.

I actually don’t really
understand that one.

There’s a formula there
somewhere that I’m not quite getting.

I bet there’s a remainder.

And that’s how either how many kilos I
need to lose or how many I need to be.

I’m not sure.

I would need someone to come
in and explain the formula to me.

But it’s height minus weight equals thin.

Gen 2, Mijigai.

This is the groove
between the nose and the

upper lip determines
how cute something is.

So it’s basically how
the space on your face,

like if it’s too
squished, it’s not cute.

If it’s too far away, it’s not cute.

So this is like the perfect
amount between your nose

and your lip to make sure
that you are attractive.

This is sort of the symmetrical face idea.

Like there’s going to
be certain measurements.

If I was a modeling
agency place, I’m sure I

would actually know
all this and think all this.

And then there would be times I’d be like,

well, that person’s a
beautiful and unique way

and I would have higher
that model, that kind of thing.

But I can understand these are actual
things that some people take very seriously.

There’s the line connecting
the nose in your chin in profile.

So my chin should not jut out too far.

And my chin should not be too far in.

Or my nose should not be too far out.

My nose should not be too flat
for me to have an attractive profile.

Therefore that’s going to
make me more attractive.

So now I can go in the
mirror and sort of look to

the side and try to
decide, is my nose too big?

Is my chin too big or something like that?

The interesting thing
now that we’re actually

talking about this,
these beauty standards.

And this is Dove, the beauty company.

They sell soap and makeup and stuff.

None of their products would
actually help with any of these.

So they could say
like, oh, is your skin dry?

Use our soap.

It’ll make it more beautiful and moist.

We don’t care about the shape of the skin.

It’s on the shape of the face.

We don’t care about the shape of the face

that your skin is on because you’re
beautiful, but you want to have healthy skin.

They could do that.

We have makeup.

It will take care of blemishes or
hide blemishes or things like that.

Once they get into all the
symmetry of the human face,

you’re now talking about plastic
surgery, if you want to fix it.

And now that you’ve put it in people’s
heads, they might actually want to fix it.

So this is again where they’ve gone wrong.

The thigh gap, adi, so thigh gap is
actually just English and adi means have.

So do you have a thigh gap?

If you don’t have a thigh gap, you’re fat.

I mean, that’s kind of
what they’re trying to say.

Even though I think for a lot of people,
it’s just not natural to have a thigh gap.

The two gun men, six centimeter.

So this is under your eyes to your lips.

It measures should be six centimeters.

This is again, it’s an idea
of how big your face is.

And so in Asia, Japan particularly, a
small face is considered more attractive.

So I have big features or a big face.

That’s not attractive in Asia.

Now, there’s beauty standards
that are different all around the world.

So that’s something to take into account.

The beauty standards
they’re talking about

in this ad are the
Japanese beauty standards.

Japan beauty standards very much geared
towards youth, geared towards cuteness,

and that’s not going to be
the same in other countries.

But again, now that I’ve actually
started reading this out loud,

I didn’t think about this
when I was running it down.

None of the beauty standards they’re talking
about could be taking care of product.

These are only things you could
take care of with plastic surgery.

If you were self conscious
about it, which now they’ve

put it in your head, maybe
they’re more self conscious.

There was a massive
backlash online, of course.

For highlighting beauty
standards while claiming not to,

which made me feel bad for the
girl in the ad, because she’s up there.

They stuck her face on it.

They’re looking at her face and going,
this doesn’t match the beauty standard.

This doesn’t match the beauty standard.

This doesn’t match.

They’re basically, in a backhanded
way, calling the girl really unattractive.

  • I’m a sweet and sweet and die.
  • I’m sweet and that’s awesome.
  • Like the beauty party, I don’t know.
  • It would not compare myself to him.
  • I would not be my first choice.
  • See, I wouldn’t either, but I’ve spent
    many, many years here on the internet,

and every time I say I’m Swedish,
that’s the one thing that they do.

  • I mean, you might have gotten credit.

He’s successful.

I mean, as much as I mean,
I might not like his content,

I might not like what he
does, but he is successful.

So it’s really hard to argue with that.

  • Yeah, and I get that, I get that.
  • I just got a bit miffed
    that he got to Japan

before me, and now it’s
mainstream to like Japan.

I’m sad about that.

  • In America and Canada, I’m from Canada.

In American Canada, it’s
like I wanna be weaboos

and guys who think that getting chicks
in Asia is gonna be easier and stuff.

It’s almost a cliche is the problem.

  • Dude, it’s gone so full circle here

that guys that used to
beat me up for liking anime

are now asking me for
anime recommendations.

  • Yeah, no, I totally believe that.

I hope I’m just going to believe that.

  • That’s what I’m saying.
  • What is your favorite anime?

‘Cause we have to judge
how much of a nerd you are.

  • What a shitty way
    to start a conversation.
  • Well, it may be like Code
    Geas or like guilty crumb.
  • Okay, I’ve heard of those.

So I think I’ve watched guilty.

I don’t think I’ve seen a Code Geas, like
I’ve heard of them, I haven’t watched them.

I’ve watched classic.

I’ve watched really, really old stuff

and then every now and
then someone will recommend

something and I’ll dip
in and dip out again.

‘Cause Ghost in the
Shell was probably the

one that got me hooked
on anime as a concept.

‘Cause it wasn’t dumb kid formulaic stuff.

‘Cause all this stuff I’ve seen before,

that was really just formulaic,
same 20 minutes over and over again.

So I was like, oh, this is a quick age.

  • What age were you?
  • Oh, yeah, see, this
    is it, I’m really old.

So this was like in the 80s
and you’d go into rental shops,

like the Asian ones and they
would have VHS cassettes

and some of them were dubbed
and some of them were subbed

and you didn’t know and they were clearly
like stolen or copied off something else.

Like I, that for me was a super exciting
time because when I moved to Vancouver,

I lived in Vancouver has a
really big Asian population.

They had these like
Chinese video rental places

and that’s where I started
watching Kung Fu movies regularly

and then they had the Asian
section with anime and stuff.

So that, for me, that was
a really, it was pre-internet.

So it was really exploratory and like, oh
man, like I never seen anything like this

and there was no one,
you didn’t talk to anyone

about it ’cause no one
else had heard of it either.

So yeah, I remember the first couple of
anime and I was like, oh, this is just weird.

I didn’t get it.

And then I saw a bunch that were like,
oh, this is just a, it’s like Sailor Moon,

it’s just a formula, just like
every other kid’s cartoon.

And then we got to, ghost
in the show, I was like,

oh my god, this is like an
adult, full-on, complicated

story with like depth
and morals and stuff.

So I was really excited at that
point and that’s what got me into it.

  • Okay, I guess yeah, you like an OG
    boomer seen the stuff back in the day.
  • Yeah, yeah.
  • And for sure, I
    think like a ghost in the

show is like a true
classic, the somewhat,

or I think every boomer anime guy I talk
to there, they’re really into that one.

  • I don’t know, we’ll have to be a boomer.
  • Okay, no, I guess
    we’re not a boomer, right?
  • I don’t know, because
    I would be Gen X

technically, but because
I’m Gen X, I was care.

So if you want to call
me a boomer, that’s fine,

you want to call me
something else, it’s fine.

  • No, no, no, I just viewed you as like a,

the cool old guy doing
a, doing a cool podcast.

  • Cool stuff, very cool, I like this.
  • I actually find it really funny ’cause I
    did read a thing about the generations

and their attitudes and I was really
annoyed how accurate Gen X was for me.

  • Really?
  • Oh God, ’cause you think I’m an individual,
    I’m not influenced by my surroundings

or my generation and
stuff, because I’m unique.

And then it’s like my attitude
towards work, 100% accurate,

my attitude towards like
time off and family and stuff,

100% accurate, my
attitude towards discipline.

I was like, God, Dan, they got
me nailed down on that one.

It was a bit sad, ’cause I
am just a product of my time,

which, I mean, you can’t
get away from it, everyone is.

  • That is very fair.
  • I think my first
    interaction with like anime

was just like my brother,
like a pirating stuff

on the internet and
so I think I got into it

like maybe around, I was like six
years old, around like 2004 or five-ish.

  • What were you watching at six years old?
  • That’s really interesting.

I was watching Shaman King, like subbed.

  • Yeah, yeah.
  • I was like my first
    anime that I got into.

And it’s also like, ’cause I think they,
this is really odd, but for some reason,

they started selling like
Shonen Jump here in Sweden.

And they didn’t like, that
was like, I don’t know, maybe

for a couple of months and
then they just discontinued it.

But like I found that and I was
like, wow, this is pretty cool, man.

And then, you know, I got into
my brother, got into the Shaman

King and I was like, I read
that manga, that’s pretty cool.

And then I just kept rewatching that.

I could barely read English at the time,
but I would keep rewatching that stuff.

  • So I think it was in Finland, they
    put Dragon Ball on TV like a kid’s time.

And it was just
subtitled, it wasn’t dubbed.

So they said the literacy of
kids went way up because all

the kids wanted to know what
was happening in Dragon Ball.

  • Yeah, ’cause you have to learn to read

at the speed of the
TV, like you can’t flip

back and check stuff
again, you gotta keep up.

So you gotta learn to read fast.

I thought that was a
really cool way of doing it,

like getting a literacy up by
showing kids stuff that’s fun.

  • I just remember, that’s
    like one note I wrote down,

’cause I’m like, I’ve
seen that so many times

they keep saying this, or like,
sort of sort of, and stuff like that.

  • You do learn a lot
    of like, really standard

Japanese phrases, which
is actually really good.

You just gotta be really careful
because the way they talk comes, like,

I didn’t learn about rudeness
and the little different levels

of politeness in Japan
until honestly too late.

I learned, I came to
Japan, and I started living

here in 2001, and I
went to two judo clubs.

That’s why I came to
Japan was to practice judo.

And the guys I was hanging out
with, they were all really rough dudes,

and they talked like
gangsters, and I didn’t know that.

So I’m copying them, ’cause
I’m learning all my phrases

from them, and then I would
go into my Japanese class,

and I would just start
talking about the new phrases

and they’d be like, “Oh, dude,
no, no, no, no, no, stop that.

” And I was like, “Oh, okay,
okay, I gotta learn to differentiate.

” But I am afraid to talk to people on the
phone in case I slip into my yakuza talk.

  • Oh, wow, you just like,
    “You learned yakuza go first.

” – Basically, I learned
the tough guy talk, yes.

I wouldn’t go as far as yakuza,
but it’s clearly like these dudes.

They are tough dudes, and
they’re trying to emulate that.

So they talk like those guys, yeah,

and they talk like a tough
guy, and it fit what I was doing,

so it made sense, but then I’m in
an office, and it’s not right anymore.

You can’t answer the phone
and be like, “Oh, no, he’s in a door.

” And then they’re like,
“Oh, fuck, who’s this guy?

” – What do you call her?

Oh, my, oh, my.

  • When actually, I don’t know, she knows.
  • Yes, my Japanese friend,
    he speaks Swedish and

stuff, but he roasted the
shit out of my Japanese.

He was like, “This is
trash, we of anime Japanese,

that can’t be why you’re
pronouncing it like that.

  • It is good to learn
    in that early, though.

You don’t want to learn
that after it’s been embedded,

and you can’t change it anymore,
’cause it’s the only way you know.

” ‘Cause I had a friend
who came here, and he was

very popular with girls,
but not like in a sexy way.

He was just very comfortable around women,
and so a lot of girls became his friends,

and so he had lots of friends,
and he started talking like them,

and so he would talk to other guys, and
they’re like, “Why do you talk like a woman?

” And it’s less now
than it used to be,

but it used to be really
clear differentiation

in the word choices,
how you said stuff,

and he always chose the
female way of speaking.

And it was like, “Dude,
you can’t stop that.

” You know, he
sounded like a girl.

  • I tried to shadow my
    friend who speaks Korean

with her Korean friend, and then
she was like, “You can’t do that.

“You’re trying to sound
like a cute girl in Korean.

” I’m like, “Okay, but… “

  • Maybe I am a cute girl.
  • Maybe that’s what I identify as.

Why are you limiting me?

  • Yeah, why can’t I have
    that more next question?
  • Maybe I want to be a cute girl, see?
  • I don’t know them otherwise.
  • All right, we’re gonna start a quiz.
  • Yeah.
  • So, I give you just
    an intro to the story,

and then I’m gonna
give you four choices,

and then you can ask me
questions about the choices,

so I’m gonna try to lie my way through so
that I can try to make all the four choices

sound convincing, then you have
to just guess which one is correct.

So we have a guy who’s 49 years old, and
he has been arrested for calling the police

over 1,000 times and
remaining completely silent.

So, why do you think he
remained completely silent?

So there are four choices.

A, I was waiting them to
ask me what my problem was.

B, making silent calls, comes the mind.

C, I had to pretend to work, or D,

I was testing if they could
track my phone like on TV.

So you can ask me some questions.

I’ll try to make the story sound good,
and then you have to guess which one.

I’m trying to think, I’m
waiting for them to ask

me a question, or the last
one, which one was that?

The last one was I was testing to see

if they could track my
phone like they do on TV.

‘Cause on TV, it’s always
like, keep them on the

phone for 30 seconds,
and we’ll track where he is.

I found out in reality,
like even modern times,

if they’re technically
tracking the phone,

it has to take like five, 10 minutes minimum,
like it’s probably like half an hour,

right, I mean cell phones,
they use just triangulation.

It’s a whole different thing.

But, you know, if you’re
using a phone phone,

actually it’s very difficult
to put a phone line.

Yeah, I guess.

I just read this thing, it’s
like apparently really hard

to track a phone if you’re
just trying to track a phone.

It’s not like the movies.

So he did it from August
30th to September 17th.

He made 1,301 calls that they’ve recorded,
and he did sometimes up to 183 calls a day.

So he was doing not a lot else.

Day, wow, this guy did not have a life.

He woke up, he started calling the police,

they’d answer the phone,
he’d go silent, they’d hang up,

he’d call back, maybe take a
lunch break, but he’s working

like a full shift of just
calling the police all day.

It’s insane, I don’t, there’s
a whole mentality here

of what’s going on, but
that’s why, like for me,

the reasoning for most of these stories is
the most interesting part, like the crime,

whatever they commit,
sure, people commit crimes.

Why?

And then the weird ones like
this one, like why would you bother

to call the police, like get a, play
a video game, do something else.

That’s the bit I don’t understand.

You could find some really simple hobby

that would take the
place of calling the police

and remaining silent,
like it’s not even prank

calling or giving them
like false information.

If it’s that many a day, maybe
it’s not, it’s not the tracking thing.

Okay. I feel like he would have given
off earlier if it, that were the case.

That is some very good
reasoning on your part

because it is not D, it is not because
he was testing so he could track it.

Okay, that’s this one.

All right, so you’re down to three options,

waiting for them to ask
me, making silent calls

calms the mind and I
had to pretend to work.

Then I’m like, I’m thinking
it’s calms the mind.

Maybe it is calms the mind.

‘Cause like, if somebody
is to commit to doing

this stuff about like
a hundred times a day,

then I can only imagine that
in some really wicked version

of reality, that’s like, I don’t
know, I guess this guy is very

depressed and anxious or bad
times mental health situation.

It just brings you some sort of peace.

Yeah, yeah, this is like his
way of breaking the loop.

  • I mean, I find that that’s the most,

I had to be the most reasonable
explanation to doing this.

‘Cause like, otherwise
it’s just like this plane.

I mean, it is kind of insane, but I could
kind of see why someone would say that.

  • It’s the sheer volume is insane.

And then, like it’s almost
like I can understand

prank calling the
police more than silence

because prank calling is
a form of entertainment.

Even if it’s dumb, it’s like,
okay, some people enjoy that.

That’s how we get like
prank videos on the internet.

But yeah, I kind of agree with you.

The silence makes it so unique.

This is actually what drew me to the story.

I’m like, what are you getting out of it?

So you’re going with B.

  • Yeah, yeah.
  • Is correct.

That is 100% correct.

He says, when he was arrested, he said,

making calls to the police and
sitting in silence calms my mind.

They suspect he was arrested.

They did track his phone number
but basically the old fashioned way

they got his phone
number and went to his cell

phone carrier and said,
who owns this phone?

So he wasn’t covering his tracks very well.

And they suspect he is also
involved in 1,300 other calls

but they haven’t,
maybe with a different

phone so they can’t
really link it to him yet.

So this guy maybe has
done like 2,500 silent phone

calls to the police just
to keep his mind calm.

  • Couldn’t he pick like a customer
    service or something that’s not…
  • Yeah, that he wrote eight numbers.
  • Something like,
    to me, the calling the

police ’cause there’s
a bunch of stories like,

I did, yeah, no, I did this
thing to relieve stress.

A lot of the violent crimes in Japan
are because they’re basically saying

’cause I’m so stressed
out or the sexual

sense are like, because
I was so stressed out

and I did this thing
that’s heinous and wrong.

And then I’m like, but you do this
thing and now you’re getting arrested.

Like, that’s pretty stressful.

Like, you may have relieved stress

in the short term through
this violent act, let’s say.

But once you get arrested,
you now have the court case.

You probably lose your job.

You might go to jail, you might get a,

like there’s so many more levels of
stress coming because of the way you act.

I guess they’re not long-term thinking.

This is again, a very common theme
for criminals on an engineer’s Japan.

I don’t pick the ones you have
a long view of committing crimes.

  • Yeah, very technically the second part,

the 1,300 other calls was
to emergency services.

So he wasn’t calling, he was basically,

he was probably calling, you know,
ambulance and fire and not just the police.

So yeah, he’s got clearly some issues.

I, this is, I’m always touring
’cause I feel bad for the

guy, but it’s like, ugh, you
had to find another thing.

Play video games.

Dude, just play video games.

(upbeat music)

In Saitama Junior High Schools,
you can now drink water and not die.

Which is great.

Something people don’t know, Japan
has the image of being fairly modern.

We think about computers and
robots and things coming from Japan.

My biggest complaint, consistently,

is the heating and cooling of
Japan as a country, is horrendous.

And houses and buildings and stuff,
it’s often done by air conditioning.

So there’s like a thing that blows
hot air or cold air into the room.

I open my door, all the hot
and/or cold air rushes out

of the room, and now I have to
like, wait for it to get bounced again.

If I go out into the hallway, I have a
shot coming to me, that kind of stuff.

High schools, junior high schools,
often have no heating or cooling at all.

So in the summer, they open the window,

which in my opinion, actually
probably makes it worse.

In the winter, they just close the window

and then they’ll open it
every hour to change the air,

which is one of those phrases
that you learn to despise

if you live in Japan, because basically it’s
like, hey, the room’s nice and warm now.

Let’s open the air, circulate the air,

change the air with all
the cold air from outside.

It is often very difficult to be
comfortable, temperature wise in Japan.

So at first, the school’s made a rule.

And they said, it’s good
manners, not to drinking class.

Which is, you know, sounds very innocuous,
except it’s summertime, kids are hot,

they’re gonna die, they
need to drink water.

You can’t really stop them.

So parents, they start
for like, dude, my kid needs

to drink water, needs
to drink water regularly.

This is not cool, especially now that

summers in Japan are getting hotter
and more humid, you get dehydrated so fast.

Like, I was getting
massive headaches regularly

and I thought, oh,
you know, it’s because

it’s judo, I’ve been
hitting the head so much.

Probably not.

I started drinking a ton of water this
summer and a lot of my headaches went away.

I started doing yoga and stretching
things out and I got a lot of those pain.

I realized I just haven’t
been doing self care properly.

Drink water, stretch.

Even if you’re old and only
doing a little bit, it’s good for you.

If you’re young, not doing it, you should
start now so that it’s not hard later.

Like I had to, ’cause now
when I stretch it’s like,

oh, there are some weird sounds
that come out when I stretch.

So then the school board was like,
you know, we gotta modify this rule.

Parents aren’t happy, so we’ll change it.

So no drinking while the teacher is
talking or students are in discussion.

They’re like, dude, you’re
talking the whole time,

you’re in class and/or
the students are discussing.

So you basically change
the words of the rule,

so it sounds like
you’re allowed to drink,

but you’re still not
allowed to drink in class.

That’s not cool.

So then they changed out a third time.

They said students can
hydrate when they’re like.

There are no restrictions, which again,

we’re talking about almost fundamental
human rights, the ability to drink water.

Yeah, let the kids hydrate.

This goes back to other
stories about cops on duty

allowed being allowed to get
drinks and stuff in the summertime.

Yes, how are you supposed
to run down a criminal

serial killer if you haven’t
had water in five hours?

And that, the serial killer, I guarantee,
he’s been drinking human blood.

He’s well hydrated because
he’s got a water chaser

with that to make sure it all flushes down
and gets all the power of Satan in him.

That gives you running energy.

I don’t know where
that last part came from.

I did watch late night
with the devil, just a fairly

low budget film, but quite
interesting, quite well done.

I enjoyed it.

If you like scary movies, it is October.

Maybe we’re looking into
a police chief inspector.

No, no, a police inspector,
a police chief inspector.

That’s it.

I’m just getting the pause on that.

A police chief inspector
invited a subordinate.

They were working on
the same case to come to

the same hair salon
where he gets his haircut.

Seems very nice sort of
a nice team building thing.

I got a haircut.

You’ve maybe mentioned it.

Let’s go to the same place.

I’ll take you to it.

They’ll give you a sweet haircut.

We’re both gonna look fly as
we chase down serial killers.

Oh my God.

I linked these two stories unintentionally.

That’s amazing.

But the superior said, the chief
inspector said, hey, my buddy stylist,

I want you to kind of
circle in a line in the back

of this guy’s hair while
your cutting his hair.

‘Cause that’d be a funny prank.

And everyone’s gonna like that.

You know, I don’t have a
particularly strong feeling

about my hair, especially since
I’ve started losing most of it.

But if someone cut a circle
and a line into my head and I

hadn’t asked for that, I think
that might be a bit of an issue.

I could see someone getting very upset.

Let’s see where the story goes.

When the officer returned to
work, a co-worker pointed it out.

So he went at least a whole day.

So he got maybe cut.

Let’s say that night went home, maybe
lives by himself, no one knows it home.

He’s showering and stuff.

He doesn’t feel the circle in
line in the back of his head.

Then he goes out, so he’s on the trainee.

He goes to work.

And then one of his
co-workers like, dude, you got

a circle in line, cut in
the back of your head.

So of course he was angry.

The chief inspector
said I invited police

officer to the salon to
enliven the mood at work.

I thought we had a strong enough
relationship but the prank went too far.

The thing that bothers me
about that is not an apology.

He’s just saying like, oopsie,
kind of messed up that guy’s head

and it wasn’t as funny as
I thought it was gonna be,

which is not a very good
excuse, I actually think,

and here’s the thing,
you work with the guy.

At what point are you close
enough where I’m going to have

a circle in a line shaved
into the back of your head?

Is funny?

Like I’m gonna ruin your look for,

at least until that amount
of hair grows back is funny.

That’s not funny, that’s
like you gotta be, you gotta

really, really know someone
to know if that’s okay.

And my second thought is why
would the stylists go along with this?

Like if you are a professional hairstylist,

you, I assume, take a certain
amount of pride in your work

and then this guy comes and
said like, hey, that’s ruined this

other guy’s head, I’d be like,
ooh, that’s not a good idea.

I’m not comfortable with that, man.

He has a police chief inspector.

So maybe that gives him
some form of authority

over other people and people
that are more willing to listen to him.

But I’d be like, no, you
can prank him on your own.

I’m not gonna participate in this one.

So I think they should both get in trouble.

A principal was arrested, school principal.

As a principal was
arrested, he was running.

(gasps)

He’s our serial killer for this episode.

He was running.

The police started
getting calls on October 8th

and they said someone is
running with his lower half exposed.

Now lower half is his pee pee.

October 10th, the police
sort of up some patrols

in the area going, well, he’s
jogging with his pee pee out.

So let’s try to see if anyone just
sort of runs by is with their pee pee out.

Low and behold, they found a man running

with his shorts torn
and his lower half visible.

I do like to use lower half.

He was immediately
arrested for public indecency.

His defense was there was a
hole in my shorts a week ago.

My lower body was exposed,
but I wasn’t trying to show it.

So what he’s incidentally
doing is incriminating himself

by saying every day,
at least since last week,

if I have gone running,
I’ve gone running knowing

that my lower half, my pee pee, was out
flying in the wind as I was running around.

Side question.

Why not underwear?

Like, I know about runners, nipples, chafe,

if they wear a shirt
and they run a marathon.

But if you don’t wear underwear,
then the thing’s kind of bang around.

There are guys who do judo
with no underwear on them.

I’ve never been one of those guys.

I want to keep everything
locked up in secure.

And I don’t want any rubbing.

I don’t want to– the least amount
of jostling and movement possible.

This guy, apparently, on the other hand,
thought, free bird, let’s get it out there.

Let’s get the wind in his hair
and just make things happen.

And maybe the world
just improves a little bit.

And he was drinking
human blood that morning.

Maybe that had impacted
his capacity for thought.

A 20-year-old civic employee
was given the six-month

suspension for taking a
part-time job at a sopland.

If you are not in Japan, you
may not know what a sopland is.

Now, there are brothels
and things like that.

There are places where you can go and have
sex called love hotels paid by the hour.

Sopland is a little different.

They don’t promise you sexual intercourse.

What you do is I, as we’d get naked,

and I would lay down and then a lady would
oil me up and rub her body against me.

That’s supposed to be all that happens.

Maybe more does.

Maybe less.

I don’t know.

I’ve never gone to one.

The idea of laying down where multiple men
have laying down and being covered in oil

and then rubbed by someone I don’t
know is not appealing to me at all.

You would have to power
wash the entire place

with bleach before I would
even consider going in there.

So just to see where I’m coming from,

some people this appeals to
this does not appeal to me at all.

The woman was a civic employee.

Now, the government allows
you to take part-time jobs

with permission, but
they will not allow you

to do part-time jobs as
an adult entertainment

because they think that
makes the government look bad.

So she knew that.

So she didn’t ask, I mean, make sense.

What was happening,
there’s two possibilities here.

One, she was at work and
she was falling asleep at work.

She was tired because she
was working during the day

as a civic engineer, a
civic employee, sorry.

She was working during
the day as a civic employee.

And then at night, she
was doing the so-plant.

So maybe her performance at work
was waning and people got suspicious.

But they claim there was an anonymous tip.

So either someone at work
was like, sums up with this lady.

I’m going to follow her
and check what she’s doing.

They follow her home.

They follow her to the so-plant where she
works and they find out what she goes in.

She comes out hours later.

Maybe they go in for a
little session themselves.

Who knows?

Or a customer at the
so-plant somehow finds out

that during the day
this is a civic employee.

Maybe they were a citizen
of the area, had seen her as a

civic employee and then
went to the so-plant that night,

kind of ratting themselves
out if we’re being really honest.

To me, if I was the citizen
and I go to a so-plant

and then I see one of the people who
served me at City Hall, let’s say, there.

She does a good job.

No complaints.

I’m not going to turn you in.

I’m not going to go to that place.

Again, we can reestablish
that a million times over.

I’m not going to that place.

But if I did and I saw someone I recognized
and they still did a good job, we’re good.

I got nothing to say.

I’m just as guilty for being
here as you are for working here.

Let’s put it that way.

So to me, someone had
to be pissed off at her.

So I’m thinking actually because
she was struggling at work

because she was so tired,
that led to some other problems

and someone started looking
into what she was doing

outside of work to find
out why she was so tired.

She was given a six months of suspension.

She decided to resign.

She claimed the reason
she took the part-time

job was because she
has a million yen in debt.

Now I was like, oh, a million yen in debt.

Yeah, you got to work
two jobs, take care of that.

The so-plans obviously
going to pay very well.

She said she did the
so-plans 70 times and made 1.

4 million yen.

I was like, whoa, I might
be working at a so-plant.

70 times and I can make a million yen.

I don’t know what the hours
are like or how long they are.

Obviously, you’re working late at
night because she was tired all day.

So that was a whole
different set of problems.

But she accumulated the
debt from shopping for clothes.

So that’s actually where
my sympathy drops off

because you drove yourself
into debt through shopping.

Took a job, you knew you
weren’t supposed to take.

It paid very well.

You paid off your debt.

You kept doing it because she
had a million yen in debt and made 1.

4 million yen does seem like
she was going to keep going.

Probably so she could
make money to keep shopping.

Her initial job was suffering.

Yeah, I’m actually on board with
her getting a six-month suspension.

If not more, she decided to resign instead,

which I think everyone’s probably
satisfied with that as a result.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Numerous Defined

(upbeat music)

  • We have several updates to
    previous stories, and it’s good.

It’s good to check in on our old
friends and see how they’re doing.

And clearly one of my favorite
friends, is Sugar Baby Itchy.

Sugar Baby Itchy is one of
the most successful scammers

we’ve actually talked about,
and she just ran the scam of,

“Hey, I’m gonna text you,
make your fall in love with me,

“you send me money, and
then I’m just gonna disappear.

” Between 2021 to 2023, she got guys to
give her 1.55 billion yen that we know of.

‘Cause this is primarily
from three victims.

And she was saying, “Oh, I’m gonna
lose my business, I got family in trouble.

” And then they would say,
“Oh, you know, help pay for that.

” And she would say, “No, no,
no, no, I don’t want you to pay,

“but that again made
it seem more legitimate.

“She didn’t wanna take
money from these guys.

” They had to tease
everything out of her.

We know this because she wrote a
manual and posted that on the internet.

The manual was basically
how to scam men out

of money by making
them fall in love with you.

The sugar baby element of her
name is very, very appropriate.

She also got arrested, and I
think this might be the thing

that got her caught more than
anything else was evading income tax.

And you know, the government,
like you can scam people and

they’ll like, if it’s convenient,
we’ll come catch you.

You can write a manual
on how to scam people.

I don’t know if that’s
necessarily illegal per se.

I’m sure it’s not good.

It does point to you being more
suspicious in your criminal activity,

because that might be where
the actual issue comes from.

Maybe writing a manual
on how to commit crimes

is not illegal, but I’m sure if
you do something like that,

people are gonna come take
a look at you more closely.

But if you invade income tax, if the
government doesn’t get their taste,

the government doesn’t get
their cut, you’re going down.

So anyway, she was arrested.

She was sentenced to nine years in prison.

So she’s going to jail at 25.

She’s going to get out when she’s 34.

I was actually just
thinking like in 10 years,

well, it’s nine years, but I
think we’re just getting round off.

The world, how different
is the world going to be?

Like we just think about like the
changes over the last 10, 20 years.

Yeah, nine years in jail now, like you
come out to a completely different world.

We might have like things in our heads.

I might have new eyes.

Who knows?

Because everything changes so quickly now.

It’s interesting.

And it relevant to the story.

Just suddenly I was like,

oh, if you just disappeared and
came back nine, 10 years later.

But what actually the world looked like,
and I was trying to throw my mind back.

Nevertheless, my life’s exactly
the same because there’s

been no progress because
I have very depressing life.

She had her prison sentence
reduced by six months.

And this is interesting.

I would have just like charmed someone else

out of six months to get a
little six months off her time.

Well, in her court case, she stated
that, I feel sorry for taking the money

that the victims work so hard to
earn, which I do not believe at all.

Let me just be straight up really honest.

I don’t think after you stolen
1.55 billion yen from people,

you feel a lot of regrets
that you took that money.

I think you feel regret
that you got caught.

I think you probably regret
that you avoided income tax.

I think you probably regret
that you published a manual

so leading police directly back to you
to check to see if you scammed anybody.

I think that’s probably true.

I don’t think there’s a lot of regret.

I think scammers like things can happen.

You can feel sorry for
it, 100% that can happen.

You can commit a terrible act.

And then later be like, this was a mistake.

I shouldn’t have done this.

I believe that.

I have much harder time believing
scammers for some reason.

I don’t think someone who scams you
later actually feels bad for scamming you.

I think this might just
be part of the whole grift.

And that’s the problem with liars.

This is the little boy who cried wolf.

I never thought that story
would become relevant

to an engineer’s Japan
episode, but here we

are, because she’s lied
so much and so easily.

I don’t believe that she feels regret.

The judge said she has shown
willingness to apologize to the victims.

So he took six months off her sentence.

I don’t agree with the judge.

I don’t know enough about law.

So again, the statement is very clear.

So we got to take these
statements as statements

of facts and the fact
of what the content,

the content therein is what
we need to do to judge it on.

So he said, she has shown
willingness to apologize.

The fact that she means it
or not is technically irrelevant.

She is at least said she will apologize
so you get a reduced sentence.

I guess I have to accept that.

I mean, I’m not a judge.

They have no say.

They didn’t call me to check beforehand.

But I guess that gives some
closure to the victim to a degree.

So I guess there is, if you’re willing
to do, basically the judge is like,

if you’re willing to do this, we will
reduce your sentence by a little bit.

She’s willing to do it.

She did it.

Whether she means it or not, I
guess, technically he’s not relevant.

That sentiment will
continue on in our next story.

Ooh, I’m actually like
bumping to the next story.

This is like clay fibers.

Another wonderful human being was the lady

who’s throwing eggs
at her neighbor’s house.

So this went on for months and months and
months and months and months and months.

And if you go back to the episode
where I talked about this story,

you will find that I am
far, far more concerned

with how much money
she spent on eggs.

So she would basically open her window,
huck an egg out at her neighbor’s house.

It would hit her house, of course, break.

They showed pictures.

There were like hundreds
and hundreds of broken eggs.

And so there is the insanity of, I am
going to throw eggs at my neighbor’s house.

That’s already a lot.

There is, to me, the
insanity of spending money on

dozens of dozens of eggs,
’cause they were talking

like two, three cartons
a day sometimes of eggs.

She had to pay for those and
eggs are expensive in Japan.

They’re not, you know, the most
expensive food, but they’re not cheap.

They’re not free.

You’re spending a lot of
money on eggs to throw eggs

at someone’s house, which
is a huge waste of eggs.

So I mean, I want my criminals
to be more fiscally responsible.

So you gotta pay your
taxes as we learned in a

previous story and don’t
waste money on something.

‘Cause it’s not having an effect
on the neighbor exclusively.

You live next to that smell too.

So all those eggs are sort of
sitting around rotting outside.

When they did the report,
the reporter said like,

you can smell it as you
walk up to the house.

Like a block away, you can start
to smell the place we’re going to.

She lives next to that, because the
eggs are in between the two houses.

She’s getting just as much of
the bad effect as the neighbor.

The neighbor, the victim in this case,

when spoke to the police and
she was like, what the fuck?

I don’t know why this lady’s
throwing these fucking eggs at me.

She said, okay, she didn’t say that.

She said, I can’t think of
any particular reason for this.

So there was no significant
conflict between the pair

that would lead her to believe
that she deserved to have

dozens and dozens and dozens
of eggs thrown at her house.

The prosecutor said she is
a high risk of re-offending.

I agree with the prosecutor.

Someone who is willing
to buy a thousand eggs

and throw them at your house over a
couple of months is going to do it again.

They have this compulsion, this urge.

They don’t make good decisions.

They’re going to be like, well,
I got away with it last time.

I’m going to get away with it this time.

And they’re just going
to continue to do it.

So I actually think the prosecutor
might be very, very accurate in this one.

The woman said, the egg thrower, the
perpetrator said, I will never throw eggs again.

And this leads back to my previous
point at the end of the last story.

I will never throw eggs again.

That may mean that
she’s interpreting the

letter of the law, not
the spirit of the law.

So they’re like, don’t throw
eggs at your neighbor’s house.

She’s like, oh, I will never
throw eggs at her house.

And then turns to the camera and
goes, hey, I will throw something else.

So she’s going to throw
like a rotten eggplants.

She’s going to throw poop.

She’s going to get a
dog and then throw the

dog poop at the neighbor’s
house or something.

Like, this is not someone
who makes good decisions.

Again, the fiscal element is the bit

that actually rubs me the wrong
way more than anything else.

If I took Dave’s poop
and started throwing it at

my neighbor’s house, I
was feeding Dave anyways.

That poop is free.

That’s my product that I’ve
produced somehow through my money.

I’m going to look at my
money’s worth and use

the dog poop to throw
at my neighbor’s house.

That makes more sense to me.

And then I– but we run
into the same problem.

I have to live next to the
house that has a big pile

of dog poop next to it
because I threw it there.

So I’m punishing myself
as much of the neighbor.

That’s maybe the bit.

If I’m going to punish someone else,

I want to make sure
that I don’t get any sort of

blowback, which is 100%
what’s happening here.

During the prosecution, they also
said, like she did this numerous times.

Our perpetrator said, I don’t
know about the numerous part.

It happened months.

It happened multiple times every day.

She did it constantly.

She’s looking like semantics
is going to get her out of this.

Well, you know, I threw some eggs.

I mean, I guess numerous is up to you.

Like, it’s an interpretive word.

Like, don’t we just interpret all words?

Is that kind of bullshit?

If you throw– I’m going to
decide what numerous is right now.

We’re going to define numerous.

If you throw eggs at someone’s house– so
they’re not talking about volume of eggs.

They’re talking about instances.

So if you throw eggs at someone’s house
more than three times, that is numerous.

That is a number that
we have to start assigning

to it, that we can’t just
say like a couple a few.

It’s going to be numerous.

So I’m thinking five is the minimum.

Four is that borderline, but
five is absolutely numerous.

And then get six, seven, eight.

She was sometimes doing
it multiple times a day.

So in one day, she might
do it two, three times.

So over two days, then
she was hitting numerous.

And then she did it for months.

It would be– we need a more stronger word.

We need a more powerful word than numerous

for how often she was throwing
eggs at this person’s house.

The prosecution wants two
years and six months in prison.

Maybe if she’s willing to apologize,
she’ll get that six months taken off.

I bet this woman is not
capable of an apology.

There are a lot of people
in the world you meet.

And you’ll find that
they will become contrite,

but they will not apologize,
even when they’ve

had it proven to them
that they were wrong.

And it’s actually one of those things.

It’s hard to justify.

I throw a rock, I throw rocks.

I throw eggs at someone’s house.

I’m clearly in the wrong.

Like, even if I’ve been
offended by something,

I’m clearly in the wrong
for reacting that way.

And then not– but
I’d never apologize for it,

because I can’t see
myself as ever being wrong.

The woman said, I
regret what I did this time.

To avoid further troubling my
family, I will never throw eggs again.

So there’s a couple of elements in there.

I was like, mmm.

The way she talks makes
me realize like she’s not sorry.

So let’s break down her statement.

I regret what I did this time.

So if she’d done something
previous, she doesn’t regret that.

If she does something in the
future, she probably won’t regret that.

She’s saying very specifically.

And again, I don’t think
she regrets her actions.

I think she regrets the fact that she
got caught and she’s in trouble now.

She said to avoid
further troubling my family.

So not the trouble I’ve
caused to my neighbor,

not the problem I’ve
caused for other people.

I’m sorry about the
trouble this has caused for

my family, probably me
more than anyone else.

I will never throw eggs again
and she’s very specific about eggs.

Now, I know this whole
case is about the eggs.

But I think the fact that she’s specifically
saying, I won’t throw eggs again,

immediately because
of her personality type.

The kind of cycle person
that snipes eggs out a window

is the kind of person who would be like,
well, I said I would never throw eggs again.

I never said I wouldn’t go and get
Dave’s poop and throw that at your house,

which I did and I don’t
see why you’re so upset.

Her verdict will be
delivered on October 31st.

I am absolutely going
to try to look out for that.

I want to see if she gets her two years.

Prosecution always goes for high numbers.

So I bet she doesn’t
actually get the two years.

I bet she gets the two years
with a suspended sentence

for a period of time if
she doesn’t get in trouble.

That seems more realistic.

She might have to pay some
damages to fix up the house.

But again, they don’t do
punitive fiscal damages in Japan.

They don’t pay like a million
dollars for emotional trauma.

You would pay to repaint the house

and clean up the grounds
and that would be about it.

So we’ll see.

On October 31st, I will
hunt down the verdict

if I can find it and find
out what happens to

the clearly non regretful
egg throwing lady.

Our Chinese reporter
who got fired from the NHK.

It wasn’t working for the NHK.

It was a contract thing.

The outsourced to this other company.

And they said, like, we
want you to deliver the

Japanese news in Chinese
to Chinese listeners.

This guy, we got a little more
background because he went back to China.

He got in trouble.

He got fired because what he did was say,

he made some very
strong political statements.

He said, “The Senkaku
Islands belong to China.

” This is a set of
disputed islands.

That’s the main thing he said.

He said a couple other things.

But that was the main one.

He said, like, don’t forget
non-king, that kind of stuff.

So he’s making very strong,
essentially anti-Japanese

statements on a Japanese
broadcast in Chinese.

The bit I didn’t know
until the second article

that came out about this was
that he switched to English to do it.

So there’s a bit of
undermining there of like,

maybe the guy who sort of
edits or oversees your broadcast

actually speaks Chinese because he switched
to English, maybe the guy can’t keep up.

So this guy might
be like, dual, trilingual.

So it’s an interesting
set of skills he’s

got there and how he’s
decided to employ it.

He didn’t interview when he went
back to China with the Chinese medium.

So of course, they’re just
like, I don’t know if they’re

treating him as a hero, but they’re
certainly not like down on what he did.

I got a segment of this from the Mainichi.

And in the interview, so this is, quote,

I got to make sure that
you know what I’m saying

and what’s being said
from another source.

Quote, in the interview conducted
after the man returned to China,

he claimed the graffiti also
included the words death

to militarism in a more prominent
place, but not in the new script.

And NHK tried to cover it up.

So the story he was talking
about is a Chinese influencer.

And his name was like
Iron Dong or something.

Came to Yasakuni Shrine, which is a shrine
where a lot of war criminals are buried.

It’s very controversial because this is,

it’s a shrine to people
who were in the military.

But because of Japan’s militaristic
history, a lot of bad things have happened.

So if you go there and
pray, are you praying for

the people who gave
their lives for the country?

Or are you praying for these guys
who committed horrible war crimes?

It’s very difficult.

I mean, certainly the people in Korea
in China can interpret it the way they do.

I totally understand what’s happening.

This guy’s like, he’s going
to make a political statement.

He wrote death to militarism, which
was not reported on, poop and toilet.

And he said his reason
was because they were

releasing the Fukushima
wastewater into the ocean.

He said, well, because Japan
is treating the world like the

yo, like a toilet, I’m going
to treat Yasakuni Shrine,

like a toilet, and he
wrote toilet and poop on it.

Now, I saw pictures
and I didn’t see death to

militarism, but that
doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.

Because again, maybe they’re
taking pictures from a certain

angle, they’re cutting out a bit so I can’t
see the bit they don’t want us to see.

So the claim is death to
militarism in a more prominent place,

but not in the new script
and NHK tried to cover it up.

He reportedly brought this
to the broadcaster’s attention,

calling it a form of
deceiving the public and

violating the principles
of objective reporting.

So he’s saying, like, look,
we’re reporting the news.

This is what was written.

We should tell everybody what was written.

And NHK is like, no, don’t say
that part or it’s not in the script.

You just read the script.

We don’t need your interpretation of it.

He’s trying to hide an element
of the story from the public.

He sought to have the script changed.

He explained that he decided on his course
of action when those pleas reside lines.

So he said, look, let’s
just put all the information

in there and let people
decide for themselves.

NHK is like, no, he’s like,
OK, I’m going to take a stand.

I’m going to say some things that I think.

And I’m going to make sure
the world can hear my voice.

He further said, I always felt
opposed to NHK’s bullshit way

of ignoring the truth of
history, revealing that he had

been dissatisfied
with the organization’s

operations for many
years prior to the incident.

So he’s saying the way NHK
treats history the way it sort of–

again, cherry-picks details was–
he was against that principally.

And that’s why he
decided to take the stand.

I don’t know the guy.

I’m a little torn because I
agree with what he’s doing.

I actually think taking a stand is a
pretty brave and noble thing to do.

I don’t know of what he’s saying is true.

And I don’t know if he’s just
pro-Chinese and anti-Japanese.

It’s a very tough spot to be in.

So I don’t want to make judgments,

but I do believe in giving
all the facts of the story

as I see them, because
I want to make it very

clear when I interpret
stories on your behalf.

So when you’re hearing it,
you know what’s my opinion.

My opinion on this one, I bet I don’t know.

Because again, I saw pictures.

But even with pictures, I
don’t believe everything I see.

So it’s a very tough one that I absolutely

believe that NHK would
censor or hide or alter

information so that it
wasn’t completely accurate.

So I am more on this Chinese
guy’s sides of the truth than NHK’s.

So now we’re on to new news, not updates.

This, every now and then,
I want to throw in a story.

And it’s basically to show just
how peaceful plays Japan is to live in.

This was National News in Japan.

A neighbor’s dog escapes.

It was in a Kita.

It was a pretty big dog.

And it was running around.

And it was captured 40
minutes later without incident.

I want you to think about that.

Now there’s more to the story because
they interviewed some people and stuff.

And it’s kind of funny
because there’s a keystone

cops kind of thing where
the police are chasing around

this big dog and having a
lot of trouble catching it.

So it’s probably more
amusing than anything else.

The fact that dog got away from owner,
police had a little trouble catching it.

They caught it 40 minutes
later and everything was fine.

It’s National News.

Just shows how little news
there is actually in Japan.

One resident said, it’s scary, you know,
the dog ran from the south to the north.

I don’t know why that
statement got me going.

I’m like, so if it run from north
to south, it would have been OK.

I know that’s not the
interpretation of what it meant.

But it was just one of those things
I was like, get a hold of yourself.

The dog was scared of people.

It’s a big dog.

So that in itself could be
quite intimidating and scary.

But the dog was more afraid
of people than anything else.

It was kind of freaked out.

So it was just running away from everyone.

It was not being aggressive.

So these people acting
like the dog was scary.

I think is already overreacting.

40 minutes later, police got the dog.

That was on the National
News the other day.

And it just shows you
that, yeah, gun laws work.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

There was my political
statement out of nowhere.

I don’t know why.

I guess it’s because I’ve never
had to report on massive gun crimes.

We have talked about crossbow control
laws and stuff like that in the past.

Because anytime
there’s an incident with a

weapon, that weapon
suddenly gets regulated.

This was very interesting.

Because I don’t know how I’d
feel if I was the person in this–

Dave is going to start barking at me.

The asshole.

Get a part.

I’ll record it.

Look at this.

This dude right here causing me trouble.

What do you want?

Come here.

Let me hear that.

Come here, Dave.

This has been a new thing between
me and Dave, where I offered

to put him on my lap, and he
just lays down and ignores me.

But then after I start doing
this, again, he’ll start barking.

This is a very interesting story, because
they’re trying to do a very noble thing.

But they’re doing it in a very
modern way, which is good.

But then I, as maybe the person

the recipient of this attention
might actually freak out.

I don’t know if it would make it worse.

There is a forest in
Japan called a Okigahara.

And it is referred to
as the suicide forest.

So a few years ago, like five, six
years ago, Logan Paul came to Japan.

He went to this forest.

He found that body he filmed.

He put it on the internet.

It caused a lot trouble.

The forest is famous as the place
you go to commit– to commit suicide.

So that’s already a problem.

The people who live there are
like, we want to dispel this image.

We don’t want people to think of this
as the place you go to to commit suicide.

That’s a problem.

So they’re trying to figure out ways.

Can we find people?

Can we help people?

I mean, these are people in distress.

So we can find them and help them before
they actually do something like this.

Maybe we can make their
lives better, save some people,

and also kind of get rid of this image
of this is the place to go do this thing.

They are going to have drones with
thermal cameras patrolling over the forest.

So they can look for people
who are not on the trails.

And so those people who have gone off the
trails, they’re like, OK, we’re already.

That’s already suspicious
behavior in this forest.

So then we’re going to send out a little
drone that’s being controlled by a guy.

So they have this autonomous drone
flying around looking for heat signatures.

And then they find one,
and it’s not on the trail.

So they’re like, OK, that
person maybe isn’t trouble.

Maybe they’re feeling suicidal.

Maybe they have some mental
issues they’re dealing with.

We’re going to get a
guy with another drone.

Fly that little drone out.

It’s got a speaker on it.

And he’s going to try
to talk to the person.

The plan is not fully sussed
out in the actual article.

But it was a lot of interesting things

using technology to try to help
people in a very positive way.

Because right now they have volunteer
patrols who walk around the forest.

But once you go off
the trail into the forest,

those people aren’t going to
be able to see you anymore.

They’re not going to hear you.

They’re not going to be able to find you.

So that’s why they need the thermal
imaging of the autonomous drone in the sky.

They’re claiming that a big part of this

is helping people because
they’re going to find people who

have gone off the trails
and then lead them to safety.

Bring them back to
civilization so we can help them.

30% of the people who go to this forest
to commit suicide are not from the area.

So the numbers are pretty rough.

In 2019 and 2020, 182 people
committed suicide in this forest.

In 2021, it was 192.

So one up by 10 people.

In 2022, it was 199.

And in 2023, it was already 215.

So you can see that number
is going up every single year.

And again, part of it is
the image of this place.

As the place to do this thing, he’s leading
people to come to this place and do it.

The good side is, since
these people are taking actions

with drones, they might
be able to help some people.

So actually, that’s very
optimistic, very positive.

To me, it’s a very Japanese thing.

Let’s use some technology and try to
save some people, try to help some people.

I think that’s great.

They’re testing this until 2025.

So this year, essentially,
they’re going to be flying

these drones around, trying
to help people with those.

The human-operated drone
is going to fly to the person,

and then through the
speaker, they’re going

to say, if you need
help, wave your hands.

So if they wave their hands,
it’s obviously got a camera.

They wave their hands.

This is me thinking, they
didn’t have a camera on us.

I was like, if you need
help, wave your hands,

and this is a guy in the forest waving
his hands, but the operator can’t see him.

And then just asking, are you all right?

But I was thinking, if I’m
an emotionally fragile state,

and I’m in the forest, I’m like,
really, really prepping to do something.

My guy, getting a bed, I got one story
to do, and then I’ll take you for a walk.

He’s agreed to my compromise.

See, I lost the end.

I had, I had like a final.

Yeah, if I was in that fragile mental state
and then a drone came out of nowhere

and started talking to me, that
might actually freak me out more.

So that’s actually, I think maybe the thing

they have to be most
careful of is how to approach

the people who are in
this very fragile situation.

There was a dentist
who regularly visits

facility for people with
different disabilities.

And there was one man
who had severe intellectual

issues and was very
poor communication.

So basically had a lot of issues
trying to communicate with people.

He didn’t like having his
teeth worked on fair enough.

A lot of people are scared of the dentist.

If you’re not able to
communicate with people

well, then that might
make it more scary.

He said he basically
didn’t want the treatments.

So the nurse, she decides
to go full mount on the guy

and hold him still, and then the doctor
proceeds to start working on his teeth.

We don’t know what he was
doing, maybe it was cavities,

maybe it was just checking his teeth,
maybe it was a clean, I don’t know.

But they had this woman
hold him down while he did it.

So if you’re already
freaked out by the dentist,

someone physically restraining you and
holding you down isn’t gonna make it better.

And if you have communication issues
and you’re like, I’m panicking, I’m scared,

and you can’t communicate that well,
it’s gonna make it a hundred times worse.

So I have a tons of sympathy for this guy.

And then you find out the patient died

from a combined factors
including respiratory failure.

So this nurse held him down
so hard he couldn’t breathe.

That may have led to other issues.

Health issues that he already had

who knows exasperated
something and he died as a result.

So of course, the nurse and the dentist

are both being brought
in, they’ve been arrested

for, manslaughter, maybe
even a certain degree,

a second degree murder,
third degree murder,

I’m not sure, accidental
death, something like that.

The dentist said I left the
physical restraints to the nurse.

So immediately throwing the
nurse under the bus on that one,

saying like, look, she was the one holding
him down, I was just working on the teeth.

I can’t be held responsible
for what she did.

The nurse said continuing the
treatment meant that the dentist

implicitly ordered the patients
be physically restrained.

So she’s saying it’s the dentist fault.

So I do enjoy that
these two people are

immediately throwing the
other one under the bus.

There’s no loyalty here.

I don’t know if this
actually works together.

Like she might be a nurse at the
facility, not a nurse for the dentist.

And so she might be interpreting him.

It goes back and forth, I
think both equally responsible.

The dentist could have said,
hey, maybe don’t crush this patient.

The nurse could have
gone, this dude’s freaking out.

Maybe we should just move on.

The police said, maybe we use some
anesthetic or anesthesia or something.

Let’s put him under, so
that he doesn’t freak out.

Or, you know, stop, don’t
give him some treatment

on his teeth this time,
as opposed to killing him.

And I think in this case, we dish
on the police on a lot of new shows.

I think this time the police
have given a reasonable answer.

Perhaps not working on his teeth
was better than killing the man outright.

Talking about the drones in the
forest, how do you answer like, I’m fine.

I am interested in haunted
places or something.

People do like haunted places.

Well, I’m assuming it has a microphone.

‘Cause yeah, so the reason
this was really famous for me,

I’d heard of the suicide force before,
but you run into the issue of Logan Paul.

He was there for entertainment purposes.

Now, you can judge him for that,
but honestly, it’s a freaky, weird place.

I probably would be interested in
going to a place like that myself.

I think the issue
we’re dealing with here

specifically is you’re
supposed to stay on the trails.

So, if someone is
intentionally going off the trail,

they’re going off and that’s
why they want to check on them.

So, I guess the thing is, the
drone would come up and say,

“Are you okay, wave your hands if you’re
okay, “or wave your hands if you need help?

” And if you don’t
wave your hands,

that’s actually, again, I didn’t think
about that until I just said it just now.

The drone comes up and
says, “Wave your hands

if you need help “and
you just stare at them.

” If you’re in a mental state,
you might just not react.

When I get upset or
angry, I just don’t react.

I just stay completely still.

So, that is a very interesting
question you’ve actually put forward.

Maybe just give them a thumbs up.

‘Cause, again, they have a camera.

But, I don’t know if there’s a rule
that you have to stay on the trail.

That’s gonna be the bit
where it would actually

come, it would actually
either fall apart or not.

‘Cause if the rule is
you have to stay on the

trail, then, okay, you
got to stay on the trail,

even if it’s you want
to go around the forest.

But it was Logan Paul finding the dead body

and videoing it and putting on the internet
brought a lot of attention in this place.

And, again, like you
see, the numbers in the

last story, they were
going up and up and up.

So that’s where the problems come in.

Punchy People

This is a bit rushed.
Normally I record tomorrow.

I don’t know if I’m going
to be able to get this

episode out early, but
this is going to be the

only opportunity I have to
record. So I’m going to record today.

Try to edit tonight
and tomorrow.

Who knows? Just want to
get the episodes out on time.

I have to work tomorrow.
So I’m a bit flummoxed,

confused, out of sorts because I’m just,
it’s not my regular schedule. I really like

keeping a regular schedule.
But to make me happy,

we got a message on speakpipe,
speakpipe.com/tongueveachas.

It means I get to
hear your voice.

And that is actually very
exciting for me to get to hear some

of the people who actually
have another podcast.

Let’s hear what Gray
has to say from the peak.

Fuck off from the speakpipe.
I just wanted to say,

bro, the discord link is
dead on your link tree.

Please update.
That would be sick.

So I have already updated
that. So if you go to the link tree,

Chongveveachast, now
you do get a links to a whole

bunch of stuff that you
probably are not interested

in, but it does have a
discord on it that I’ve

really set up ages ago, but
only started using recently.

So if you want to join
the discord, you can

go to the link tree,
join the discord there.

A tech support request. It’s
not a tech support request.

It is actually just helping
me out because there’s

no way I can keep track of all the links
and stuff that are across social media.

And let’s be honest, I hate social
media. I hate taking care of it.

I don’t mind doing it.

I don’t mind interacting. I
actually like interacting with people,

but the maintenance
that goes into social media,

it was just never for me. I
want to sit here and make stuff.

I want to put it out
there on the internet.

I want to make podcasts. I
want to make videos whatever.

I don’t want to promote
them maintenance is a pain.

That’s actually the thing.

I need a promoter. I don’t
can’t offer any money.

So the best I can offer is
beard oil. I have a five pack here

started using, am I
advertising? If I was getting

a sponsorship, then I wouldn’t
have to go to work tomorrow.

Here’s a deal. Is
near mile beard oil.

I have promoted your
product for free, but I would

love to quit my job. So if
you want to sponsor this

podcast, giving me enough
money so that I don’t

have to go to work
tomorrow, not even forever,

just tomorrow because this is,
I’m recording Monday morning.

I usually record
Tuesday morning.

I’m recording Tuesday
morning. Fuck, I’ve already

affected the sounds up.
I’m recording this morning

because I have to work
tomorrow because I have

a full-time job. So
I’m a bit out of sorts.

So this is the fifth or
sixth start to this podcast

episode and it’s not
going well. I’ll be honest,

but I’m very excited to
have a message from Gray.

I do appreciate anyone
pointing out any issues

because that’s the only
way I’m going to find them

or be able to try to fix
them. I have an RSS feed

issue going on right now.
I have stat tracking issues

going on right now,
knowing that the discord link

was old or not working.
It’s actually super helpful.

So I really appreciate
that. Let’s just get a

little bit more from Gray
and then we’ll move on to

the actual episode. And,
uh, two, uh, thank you so

much for making the
podcast. It’s nice to listen to

you before I end the
bed. I find it very weird

that people listen to
this before they go to bed

because as the podcast
goes, there is a structure to it.

Uh, the dirty or more
violent stories are

at the end, which means
while you are drifting into

sleep when you are when
you are mind is sort of

your body is closing, but
your mind is opening is

when I start talking
about the dirty weird stuff.

Um, I don’t know if that’s what
you should be falling asleep to.

Secondly, um, I think we should
be falling asleep to your voice.

I think Gray is a
way better of what

basically I’m saying why
is why am I podcasting?

And he’s not, he clearly
has a nicer sounding voice.

So if I was going to
fall asleep to a voice, my

own or his, I would
choose his, I think every

time is they got that
sort of nice timber to it.

It’s a little deep. It’s nice.
It’s better than my man.

Uh, secondary proposal,
I could write the podcast.

You could record the
what you could do the voice.

And then we’d maybe actually
this might go somewhere.

Yeah, I would like
to show up on one

of the segments. So it
would be cool to fuck around.

And it would be
cool to fuck around.

I don’t know exactly what you’re
saying, but I’m open to anything.

Uh, if you would
like to join, so we’ve

been doing quizzes and
the quizzes, I’m already

trying to change them
a little bit last week.

We didn’t do a quiz.
We did essentially a little

Japanese lesson. Uh,
my friend Tom joined and I

showed him a couple of
words that were sort of

new Japanese words.
He took them back to his

students and he tried
them on his students.

They knew Mofu Mofu, but
they didn’t know the other ones.

And it’s like, Hey,
maybe you guys need

to update your Japanese
and he’s saying that to

like a group of like young
people, which is pretty funny.

So I’m not going
to just do quizzes.

Quiz is was a great
format to start with, but I

want to expand it into
like every idea I can have.

And I want to do it with other people.
So if you would like to join the podcast,

send an email to
chuggavelefchest@gmail.com.

You could drop a message and
speak pipe like gray is just done.

Uh, you can join the discord,
which is in the link tree.

And we can arrange to record.

I usually do it over zoom
and I just record the audio.

So you don’t have to
be on camera or anything

like that if you don’t
want to, but we can try

to fit it to your schedule
because I recorded

outside of the live
recording that we do on

Twitch, usually on Tuesdays,
but today is Monday.

You can tell that’s
really resting on my mind.

I’m just not getting
anything right.

Let’s start the show.

Now I’ve already now
that we’re into the format

I’m comfortable
with that I’m used to.

I’m actually already
a little bit more calm.

We have an update.
We have the story.

So there was God fucking discord.
We have an update on a previous story.

We have the NHK
does national news and

they do it in multiple
languages and they do it in

Chinese and they had a
guy doing the national news

in Chinese and he decided
to sort of just go off

script for a bit. He
switched to English.

I found that part really
interesting. And he made a couple

of statements like the
Senkaku Islands belong to China.

Uh, he said, don’t forget about
comfort women and the rape of non king.

So he was basically saying
like we have to remember the

awful history of Japan
and there are these disputed

islands between China and
Japan and they belong to China.

He’s just making a staunch political statement
right out the gates. That’s a problem

when your radio show
represents the government of

Japan because it’s a
national broadcast system.

So it’s actually, it’s not
pro government, but you

certainly are working
for the government.

An executive had to quit
to take responsibility for this.

Two other executives had their
pay cut because this happened.

And I actually in
the last episode when

we talked about it said
like this seems unfair.

The executives, unless
they were sitting there

with like hovering
their finger over a mute

button with a seven
second delay or something,

they had no control over this. And they had
hired this guy to read the news in Chinese.

He decided to go off
script. So I was thinking it

was only he should be
punished. I said that was unfair.

The contract with that agency
that hired that guy was cut.

So that guy and
many of his co-workers

actually lost their jobs in
Japan if they were in Japan.

They might have been
doing it from overseas,

but that contract was
ended. So that guy killed

that contract for multiple
people, which I think

ah, that’s what that’s
what actually would happen.

So his friend should
be angry in him.

The executive quit, this
is a very Japanese thing

is you, there’s a problem
in your company and you

quit and you say, I
take responsibility for it.

I quit. I’ve always found
out a weird system.

We went through a period
around 2010 in Japan where there

were 10 prime ministers.
Because anytime there’s a

problem, the problem
would be like the prime

minister say, oh, it’s
my responsibility as like

punishment or whatever. I will
quit and then they would quit.

I realize that doesn’t
fix the problem.

You’re just moving the
problem onto the next guy.

You’re saying, okay,
you can blame me and I’ll

step down and then the
next guy comes in clean.

He’s still has to fix the
problem. So I think you

usually have to fix the
problem and then quit if

that’s the way it’s going
to work out or maybe

just fix the problem. If
you fix the problem really

well, maybe nobody
has to quit. I don’t know.

This is slightly different.
I thought it was weird

that the executive
quit, but then it turns out

two weeks later, he was rehired by the NHK.
They said they rehired him because of his,

they said they rehired
him because of his

experience as an overseas
journalist. So he’d worked in Russia.

He’d worked in China. He’d worked in a
couple of different places and they said that

experience was valuable. But
then it seems very convoluted.

So why did you let
him let him quit in the

first place or just don’t
let him resign or to say,

look, yeah, it is
responsibility, but we’ll just

keep you in the job. It
doesn’t say if he was rehired

is the same job,
which I find interesting.

I’m pretty sure he
was. It just seems like a

convoluted way for him
to take responsibility by

resigning, but then
not actually taking any

responsibility because
he got hired back on.

So it’s like an agreement
was made. Hey guys, this

bad thing happened. I’ll quit.
You hire me again in two weeks.

So I’m just going to
take a two week vacation.

And then you can say like someone took
responsibility for this thing happening, but

then also none of us in this
room right now get punished.

Although those two other executives
did get a pay cut for a couple of months,

but I’m assuming they’re
making enough money

that it’s not really negatively
impacting their lifestyle.

I did have a secondary question. As
soon as this seemed like a scheme,

I started going like, oh,
has his contract changed.

So when he was he quit and then he was
rehired, was he rehired at the same salary?

Was his salary improved?
Did what changed?

And then none of the
details came out in that.

But it being NHK, I was
like, oh, this might actually be

public information. So
I kind of started going

to look for it, but I
honestly just don’t know

what to look for. So I
am going to do some

research because I’m
wondering if in a weird way

this Chinese announcer
saying a very political

thing so that this guy had
to take responsibility for it.

So he quit and
then he came back.

If that actually worked
out is him getting a raise.

We’re living in the
future. It’s 2024.

Although some aspects of
Japan, if you’ve lived in Japan,

do not seem like
living in the future.

There are some bits
that are super futuristic.

There are some bits
that just you’re like, again,

so I live in a Japanese
house and the heating,

cooling system of Japan
as a country just has not

caught up with
anywhere else I’ve lived.

Korea had the heated floors.
Amazing, the heated floors.

Japan basically has air
conditioners in each individual

room, which means this
room will be cool or hot,

whatever I set it to.
And then I go out in the

hallway and then either
all the cold air, all the

hot air goes out as
soon as I open the door.

And the hallway is either
super hot or super cold.

And you just get these like
shocks to your system constantly.

I was on the train
the other day.

It’s getting to the end of
September. It’s still very hot in Japan.

But a lot of the
community is cut.

But I got on the train the
other day and the heat was on.

So I’m thinking it
was an accident.

But they turned on the heat.
I guess coming up to October

is officially fall. I
think it’s officially

fall now, but it still
feels like summertime.

Yeah, man. Japan has
this very weird thing where

people will change
their clothing and stuff

depending on the
season, not on the actual

weather outside. So
it’s like it’s still hot,

but it’s now fall. So I’m
going to start wearing

my fall warmer clothes,
even though it’s still

quite warm outside. And
I’m sweating all the time.

But anyways, that’s not
the story we’re talking about.

I’m talking about soft bank.

Soft bank is the first company
in Japan to offer digital salary.

So some companies when
crypto kind of went through

its boom, we’re saying,
we’ll give you crypto

as part of your
salary. I think it was an

investment, but it had
to be a very small amount.

There’s some legal
issues with paying with how

you pay your employees.
Pay pay is one of the

payment systems in Japan.
I actually had a conversation

with this with some
friends last night about

and they know there
is no Venmo in Japan.

It’s not recognized by
the Japanese government.

There is no cash app in Japan because
Japan has its own Japanese systems.

Japan is very insular and
pretty much everything.

So they don’t want other systems to come
in and kind of assert the ones that are

being used in Japan. I don’t
know if they’re better or worse.

I use pay pay. I
used to use line pay

because everyone had line
and if you needed to share

money or send money,
it was very easy.

That was kind of the main
reason I did that one and it was

already on my phone.
Pay pay took over line pay.

They’re going to be the
same company next year.

So I switched over to pay
pay early because why not?

I was scamming them
for double points for a

while because I used my pay
pay credit card in my pay pay app.

I used my line pay credit card in my
pay pay app. So I got points on pay pay

and I got points on line
pay but they shut down

that system very
recently. So now I just use

pay pay exclusively.
But with the government

approval, you can pay a
salary up to 200,000 yen

in pay pay directly. So it would mean on
pay day in my phone, in my pay pay account,

the 200,000 yen would
just show up. Now let’s say

I get paid more than
200,000 yen, which is very

likely if you have like
a regular full-time job.

The rest of that money
has to go to the bank.

So you can get part
of your payment up to

200,000 yen in pay pay
as a system. And if that’s

where you’re using all
the time, it makes sense.

You can split it. You can
decide how much like I

want 100,000 yen of my pay to
go into my phone every month.

That can happen as
well. 300 companies

have already contacted
pay pay about adopt about

adopting digital payment
systems. And I’m guessing

because at the end of the
day, it happens automatically.

You don’t have to deal
with banks in the same way.

It’s faster and I bet it’s
actually also cheaper.

A nursing nursing
home care worker.

So I mean these are
people who are taking care of

old people in Japan. It
has a grain population.

There’s a lot of old
people. There’s a lot of

demand for this job.
So there’s a lot of people

who can get jobs in
this kind of care system.

They were arrested for
assaulting 105 year old patient.

I don’t know that one
was like 105, like any

sort of assault is going
to be significant if the

person is 105 years
old. So that is crazy.

It turns out they also
assaulted three other patients.

The youngest being 94.
So these are like 94 year

old people end up. And
this guy is like getting

frustrated with them and
punching them in the face.

The actual statement
was I was so frustrated

with caring for them.
I couldn’t help myself,

which makes it very clear
that you should not be

working in this industry.
The home care facility

they were working
at was for exclusively

patients with dementia.
So you I mean dealing

with old people can be
frustrating dealing with

people my age can be
frustrating. Dealing with older

people who also you know
have dementia is going

to be extra frustrating.
If you’re going to get so

frustrated, you then think
punching him in the face

is the acceptable
response. And that’s going to

somehow make things better.
You probably shouldn’t be

working in that industry.
I think if you’re sort

of a punchy person all around,
you shouldn’t be in care work.

That’s just this is going to be one of
those statements that engineers depend for

moats out there. If you’re
a punchy kind of person,

you shouldn’t go into
care work. Staff noticed a

bruise on one of the
patients. So they decided

to go check the security
camera. And it turns out

the bruise the patient had
wasn’t related to the assault.

But because they checked
the security camera,

saw the assault take
place giving maybe different

injuries, different bruises.
So the person got caught.

So I’m like this other
person absolutely should

be in health care because
they’re like oh that guy has a bruise.

I should just go
check just to be

safe because again we’re
dealing with dementia patients.

We’re dealing with older people.

Maybe they fall down. Maybe
they get bruises all the time.

Maybe they bruise very easily.

This is all totally on board. It
would be very easy to ignore.

But they’re like, you
know what? Let’s bruise.

I should just go check
the security camera.

Goes and sees these
older people getting

assaulted and then is
able to call the police.

So that second person
should get a raise.

But care workers are
not appreciated and that is

probably not going to
happen. Since we’re talking

about people punching
people who should not be

punched, I guess no
one should be punched.

I mean you go into boxing.
I do. I practice due to

I get punched in the face. I
think it’s actually quite funny.

But that’s voluntary.

So that voluntary aspect
changes the whole atmosphere of

the getting punched in
the face. If you are an

old person in a home
care place, I don’t think

you expect or deserve
to be punched in the face.

I mean, okay old
people can be shitty too.

Sometimes they might
deserve it. But that doesn’t

mean you can do it.
There’s lots of people I

see dated to oh god now
we’ve got to do who you

should be allowed to
punch or not, which is

going to be a big book.
There are people I think

I should be able to punch just
me exclusively, not anyone else.

Because I think I
have good judgment.

All right. A teacher in
Shiga, since we’re going

to go to the other end of
the spectrum, we’ve now

talked about punching
old people on the face.

Let’s talk about punching
young people on the face.

A teacher in Shiga was
arrested for hitting an

elementary school age
boys about 10 years old

in the right eye. So he
decked a kid in the face.

He was reported to
police the same day.

So the kid went home
probably had a black eye because

he got punched in the eye
by a full grown adult teacher.

The parents called the cops.

Absolutely, 100% exactly what I
would do. Police are investigating

the reason for the assault.
Now, I am not saying

it’s okay to punch
little kids in the face.

But I can absolutely
tell you the reason.

Without even meeting this
kid, without even knowing the

situation, he was being
a mouthy little shit.

Now, kids are mouthy
little shits. This is one of the

things having had
experience teaching kids,

having dealt with kids.
I’ve dealt with kids in

education situations. I’ve
dealt with kids judo classes.

I’ve dealt with kids
just out in the street.

I’ve dealt with kids when I took my
kids to the park when they were younger.

I understand, in general,
kids are mouthy little shits.

I’ve never punched
one of the face.

So in all those situations as a teacher,
as a guy doing judo teaching kids judo,

as a guy in the park,
as a parent, I have never

punched a kid in the
face despite the fact that

they were being mouthy little
shits and probably deserved it.

But again, deserving it and actually
getting it aren’t always the same thing.

That’s what kids do. So this
is the same as the care worker.

If you can’t handle little kids getting on
your nerves, you shouldn’t be a teacher.

It’s really that simple.
We’ve had a couple of stories

where teachers
just kind of lose it.

There was a couple maybe a
month ago. Kid was mocking his

teacher and copying
him and the teacher just

goes over and tackles the
kid. You shouldn’t be a teacher.

That’s just straight up.
Don’t go into that industry.

They’re going to figure
out you have a weakness.

They’re going to
get under your skin.

That is, again, what kids
do. Hello, Dave, Dave.

I’m God damn it. God, I’m
going to settle you down.

You get this little puff here sometimes.
Hello.

I would like to angle the camera down
just a little bit so you can get his head.

But then when I do that, he
spends a lot of this time sleeping.

Then you would just
be looking at my nose

down and a sleeping
dog, which actually still

think would be aesthetically more
pleasing than what you’re seeing right now.

Kids are going to get your
weakness. They’re going

to figure it out. So let’s
say I’m self-conscious.

I wear a hat because
I’m losing my hair.

But I’m not that self-conscious,
but if you make fun of it,

I’ll make fun of it. But
if a kid understands

that it is sensitive to
me, they absolutely 100%

will make fun of it
constantly until I break.

A man was arrested for
violating stalking laws for

sending six text messages
to his ex-girlfriend.

And I was like, “Oh,
that’s a weird title because

that doesn’t sound too
bad.” Like he sent six,

usually the text messages
stalking stories are,

I sent 500 messages a
day. It’s always, I sent

thousands of messages over the
course of a month or something.

So it’s always a lot.
And I was like six,

the number stuck to me, stuck
out to me as being very small.

Like this was like an
insignificant amount of text.

It would be very easy to ignore.

Then of course, we got
to see the content of some

of the texts like, “I’ll
never break up with you.

Breakups don’t have
to be too sighted.

” So she broke up with
you, then you’re broken up.

You don’t get to really
decide. I was like, “That

has an underpinning that
maybe we’re not a big fan

of. I’ll come and get
you.” That contextually,

since you’ve been broken
up, has a very different

meaning than like if I’m
going to come get you

as an pick you up and
drive you somewhere and

be a good guy, that’s
great. But since she’s broken

up with me and made
it very clear she doesn’t

want to speak to me
anymore, I’ll come and get you.

It takes on a very
different meaning.

Again, being an outside
reader of this, we have

to sort of like try to
be as neutral as possible.

So once you get context,
that makes a big difference.

I’m trying to sometimes
try to think like a cop would.

So I see this message.

I’m like, “Well, that can be
interpreted two ways we need to

understand the situation.”
But the situation is

that she had blocked him
on all the ways they had

talked to before and then he
started sending these messages.

So I will come and get you.

Yeah, that’s a threat. So
I’m coming to your home.

I do like that this guy
is not explicit in violence,

but everything he’s writing
doesn’t apply violence.

Like this is actually a
fairly well crafted threat

because you could say
once you get arrested

because you’re going
to get arrested for this,

you could say once
you get arrested that you

were not threatening,
you were just giving facts.

Like I’m coming to your
home. I’m coming to get you.

Like what does that
mean? That means I’m

like going to come and
pick you up or I’m going

to come and take you
somewhere. I think maybe

this guy was smart
enough that he was banking

on that working, but
any reasonable outsider

like myself would go,
“No, you’re threatening this

woman because she
blocked you and dumped you.

” The woman broke up
with him at the end of August

and having now seen
the way he’s responded to

being broken up with,
“I can’t fathom why she’s

such a charming personality.” It’s
clearly he’s got like sort of anger issues.

He can’t handle rejection
or he can’t handle being told

he doesn’t get what he
wants or something like that.

These, this response
demonstrates why he was

dumped in the first place.
And so he’s not taking

a moment to reflect
and be like, “Maybe I have

to improve myself as a
person.” He’s like, “No,

I’m going to lean into
it and be even worse.

” And that’ll get her
back. He said he was angry

at being ignored because
she had blocked him previously.

So I’m assuming
he got a different

phone or a different phone
number or something like that.

So he can start sending
text messages again.

Which again makes it
very clear the way he

must behave while
they were actually dating.

He said when he was
being arrested, I thought if I

send her scary messages,
she wouldn’t respond.

And that’s why I
used a strong language.

So he’s again, he now he’s
trying to say like, “I wasn’t

threatening her. I was just
trying to get her to react to me.

” Which again kind of demonstrates probably
why he was dumped in the first place.

“80 year old man goes into the bank.” And
he’s decided, “I’m going to rob this bank.

” At 9.25 a.m. on a
Tuesday, which I was like,

“Ah, I don’t think he’s
planned this very well.

” I don’t know when banks
have the most money in

their cash drawers. But
that is the kind of thing

you, if you’re going to rob
a bank, you should check.

So they’re going to have
ways of dumping the money.

They’re going to have ways of
taking money back to the safe.

They’re going to have
ways of taking the

money from the safe to a central
location or something like that.

So you need to figure out the peak time to
rob a bank. And I bet banks have actually

figured this out as
well and they try to like

randomize the times.
So that you never really

have peak money in
the cash, in the tills.

But at the same time,
they have to have a

certain amount of money
on hand. He held up the

teller, he took a gun
out, and he held up the

teller demanding cash, and
then the teller hit a silent alarm.

So again, I don’t know if this guy
had really done his planning. He’s 80.

Maybe he’s basing this on what
banks were back like when he

would have been like in
his youth, so 40 years ago.

So maybe he’s 80 years
old and he’s basing his

knowledge of how banks
are run back 40 years ago

when he was in his 40s
when he was just like

a regular adult. And
he doesn’t realize like

everything has been
updated. Like maybe he doesn’t

know that there are
silent alarms, the police

as soon as you start
watching movies, you actually

gain a lot of information
by watching like

heist movies and stuff and
know that silent alarms are a thing.

The police showed up and caught him
before he was even able to leave the bank.

It turns out he had a toy
gun. No one was injured,

but again, also probably because he
was 80 years old and using a toy gun.

Now I kind of ended that
last story with a gentle

joke, a jai, but the
fact that this man was

80 years old and therefore
not much of a threat

and he had a toy gun.
Well, we immediately have

another story of an 81
year old man who is a threat.

So I guess even if
you’re 80 year old,

we shouldn’t underestimate
your ability to threaten

or hurt other people.
A tax official started

going to this guy’s
house. He had to because

there was a claim against
him, so he hadn’t been

paying his taxes or something, or
he’d done something a little shady.

This guy needed to deal with some
tax issues. So a tax official shows up to

this guy’s house. The
guy, the 81 year old man,

attempts to run the tax
official down with his car.

In his car, he also
had a hunting rifle.

He had license for hunting
rifles. So he had, when the

police arrested him, he
had foreign the house,

I want to get more
details about this guy

because this guy, 81
years old, sounds hard core.

So I’m wondering what the, I’m betting
he just decided not to pay taxes anymore.

Is he 81 years old? He’s like,
I’ve paid a taxes for 80 years.

I’m not paying taxes anymore.

You guys go screw
yourself. Tax official shows

up. He’s like, you know
what? I’ve got to run

him down with my car. I
got a hunting rifle in the back.

Whatever. Like, who’s
going to stop me?

I’m 81 years old. I go to
jail. How long do I go to

jail for a life? Life could
be like three more years.

Guy’s going to be arrested
for driving without a license.

So that’s not a very big thing.

Like he get in
trouble. You get a fine.

I don’t know how much trouble
you actually get in for driving

without a license. He was
driving a car and a motorcycle.

Technically, two
different licenses.

But again, I think it
would just be rolled into

one thing, driving
without a license.

You pay a fine. I think
that’s pretty much it.

The police know where this
guy is. So they show up to a hotel.

He’s staying at with
a girl. They show up at

7.20 a.m. I think that’s
perfect time to show up.

I mean, that is like the
guy’s up and he’s around,

but he’s not really
aware and ready for like a

kerfuffle, which is exactly
what’s going to happen

when the police show
up. Please bang in the door

like hey, where the
cops cut lettuce in.

He decides in his underwear to
jump off the third story balcony,

hit the ground and run
away. There is so much

in that sentence,
though. So first of all,

he’s in his underwear.
And he’s like, I don’t have

time to put on anything
else. I’m just going to go.

I’m on the third story.
I can make that jump.

I’m like, that would already
be a hesitant thing for me.

I know three stories
isn’t technically that

much, but it’s also a
lot at the same time.

I’m assuming he’s hitting
the ground. Even if it’s a

grass, it’s not going
to be like cushiony soft.

That’s going to be
really, really rough.

But then he gets up from
the jump and just runs away.

So no twisted ankle, no
broken foot, no nothing

that either that or
his adrenaline so high,

he’s able to run through it. I’m just
kind of shocked by the whole deal here.

He was suspected of being
part of under you under you is

a semi organized
group of criminals now.

I actually had her story last
week where we talked about a

semi organized gang. And I was
really unclear on how that works.

This one I’ve heard of before.

This is basically a loose
gang of individuals who

are willing to commit
crimes and what they do is

connect on social media
when they are in the same area.

They commit a crime
to it with each other

and then they separate.
So it’s very hard for

the police to track down
the entire gang or any sort

of network because the
network is always changing

because I commit a crime
with you and then I move

on to another thing. And
then on the social media

I connect with someone else.
I commit a crime with them.

And then I get
the support I need.

I get to commit the
crimes. But then none of

us are actually tied to
each other too closely.

So it actually depends
on how active you are,

how dangerous you are.
So he was suspected of

being one of these guys.
They didn’t actually have

as much proof, but they
did have proof that he

it was driving without
a license. So that’s what

they were going to pick
him up for because he was

a member of this disorganized organized
crime, which is a great way of saying it.

11 cops were waiting
for him. Now the thing

is, what do you do?
You surround the building,

you sort of get sort
of people in the area,

that kind of thing because
you only need two or

three cops to take
one guy into custody.

When he jumps out the window
off the balcony, off he goes,

there were no cops out there.

They did not expect him to
jump out the balcony and get away.

So they had no cops
sort of around that side

of the building. I guess
they were all around

the front door expecting
him to use the front

door very politely as
they just walked him out.

He got away. There were 11 cops waiting
for him and he still got away. Secondary,

the cops all they have to do is put out an
APB on guy running around in his underwear.

And it’s going to be pretty obvious.
Like they should be getting calls.

Hey, I just saw a dude run
down my street in his underwear.

Hey, there’s a guy
in his underwear in

this convenience store
buying pants or something.

I can’t, can you buy
pants? I think you probably,

you can buy t-shirts
in underwear and socks.

I don’t know if you can buy
pants. Maybe you can buy shorts?

I don’t know. You can
buy almost a full thing

of clothing and it can
be in the store in Japan.

That is how Japan
convenience stores aren’t

literally more convenient
than anywhere else.

But at the end of the
day, this guy got away

and I got to say like
I rip on criminals a lot

of ninja news Japan. But
I got to tell you, I do have

some respect for this
guy who if he’s going to be,

he’s one of the better
criminals we’ve had on the show.

Okay, December
15th, a body was found.

It has been drowned. The
police suspected suicide,

but then they turned out
there was no real motive.

Like this guy didn’t
seem particularly

depressed when they
started looking into his life.

They’re like, there’s
no real reason for

this guy to have killed
himself. So now they’re

like, we got to figure
out if maybe there’s some

foul play at hand 10 days
after his death, a friend

of his takes 160,000 yen
out of his bank account.

That’s like a thousand
bucks, let’s say.

So the police are like, Hey,
why do you have access to

his bank account? Why
are you taking money out

of his bank account?
He’s been dead for 10 days.

That seems a little
suspicious. The man claims

he held the bank card
and obtained consent

before taking the money
out. He had the bank

card for sure because
he had to have the bank

card to actually get it,
but did he obtain consent?

This is now when it
gets really suspicious.

Why are you, how do
you have consent to take

money out of this dead
guy’s bank account?

Did you get consent
before or after he died?

That kind of thing. He did have
the number and he claims to

have been managing
this guy’s finances for

quite a long time. So
there’s actually like,

this is again, very
good crime if it’s a crime

because we actually 100%
don’t know if it’s a crime.

So this is to me, one
of the more interesting

bits of this, they say
they became friends 30

years ago because
they both like baseball.

So they were at baseball
games, they saw each other,

they started talking, they hung out, they
watched baseball at the same bar, whatever,

they became friends
over baseball 30 years ago,

they’ve been friends
for a very, very long time.

The friend was the beneficiary
of the dead man’s life insurance.

Life insurance doesn’t often pay
out if you commit suicide though.

So that’s actually a sole other
sort of issue. If he murdered

this guy for the life
insurance, then he had to

make it look like an
accident, whereas the police

immediately assumed suicide
because he was pushed into a river.

So that’s kind of the
first issue that I have.

I’m like, this is, is it murder or was it
an accident? Because it was a murder,

it wasn’t planned out
well enough, whereas this

guy seems to have had
access to everything else.

So it seems like he would
have been in a position

to make a good plan. They’ve
been friends for 30 years.

He trusts him completely.

He did actually seem to
trust him with his finances.

It actually would have
made more sense to rip

him off bit by bit since you
have access to his finances.

And then if you were going to try
to kill him for the insurance payout,

pushing me into a river
does seem like suicide in

Japan because it’s going
to be like jump in front

of a train, jump into a
river. These are pretty

fundamental ways to
kill yourself in Japan.

One month before the
man drowned, the friend

asked how he would
collect on the life insurance.

So that’s another very suspicious thing
to ask immediately before someone dies.

So this is, again, this pushes
it more towards murder.

But at the same time, the
guy had so much control over

the other guy’s life, the dead man’s life.
It seems like it’s, there, there’s so much

accessibility. It
seems suspicious.

But what if he actually
is doing the thing he said,

and the thing he said was like he was helping
take care of this guy as he got older,

he was getting out of shape. So we used
to go down to the river, work out together.

I, because he stayed at
home and never did anything.

I took care of his finances.

I helped no, he sounds like during
the 30 years, he was a very good friend.

And then near the end of the time, it
becomes suspicious because if this was an

accident, the suspicion
would naturally lay

like go towards this guy. To me, the most
suspicious aspect of this is that the man,

they were apparently
seeing each other all the time.

This man dies, and the
friend wasn’t the one

who called the police.
To me, that is the one that

pushes it towards murder
more than anything else

because it was 10 days
after the death, he took money

out of the bank. That
means he hadn’t had contact

with his friend, he loves and
manages his finances and whatever.

Over the last 10
days, that’s a very

long period of time not to
have contact with someone

you’re so close with and
then not get suspicious

and call the police. So
if he wanted to do this

murder correctly, he needs
to play into the fact that

he was essentially a
caretaker of his friend for the

last X amount of years,
and he is the one who would

be most likely to report it
to the police and therefore

get the police on the
track. But the problem is

then you are opening the
case. Maybe he was just

hoping he would disappear
and nobody would notice.

But then again, how
do you collect on the life

insurance if no one
knows the guy is dead?

So there’s a lot of question marks in this
one. I am going to follow up on this case

very carefully as
much as I can because I

actually think there might
be enough doubt here

that the man doesn’t get
prosecuted, which in the

case, he would still have
access to the bank accounts.

I don’t know how that
gets shut down in Japan or

not, but he could take out
as much as he wants now.

I guess the police probably at this point
have already taken the cash card away.

But it seems like he
has messed up this plan if

he actually did it, but
there is a big question mark.

Maybe he didn’t
actually do it, which is

what great murder
mysteries we’re all about.

If you want to join the
show for a segment, you

want to do a quiz, you
want to do some Japanese,

you want to do some fun stuff,
you want to just chat with me.

I would love to have
you on the show.

You can send a
message to speak pipe up.

You can send a message to
speakpipe.com/truckmanbeefchester

and email to chunkmanbeefchestergmail.com.
I love interacting with anybody.

That’s actually not true.
I gotta stop being so fucking literal.

I do love interacting with
everyone who enjoys the show.

That might be the
caveat that I need.

Interaction with people who listen
to the show is very motivating for me.

So I actually was like,
I gotta work tomorrow.

I was like, I just won’t
do an episode this week.

I got the message from Graham.

I’m really motivated to try to
get an episode out this week.

So your interaction helps me
produce more and better shows.

So thank you to
everyone who’s listening.

And if you want to be
on a segment, if you want

to just chat, if you
want to send a question,

speakpipe or Gmail, links
are in the description.

The link tree,
hopefully is all working.

I’m actually going to go
check that again right now.

If you want to join the
Discord, it’s not very active yet.

But again, I’m sort of just building
it from scratch at the moment.

And thank you for listening.
Thank you for giving me your time.

And if you listen to this one, you’re
going to sleep. It’s creepy, creepy time.

Mofu Mofu Podcast

(upbeat music)

  • 6.

35 AM.

That’s a very dramatic time.

It’s very specific, very dramatic.

I don’t know why I felt that
way, but as soon as I said 6.

35 AM, I was thinking drama
and the train lines won’t switch.

So the switching tracks won’t
switch, something’s wrong.

Trains have to be stopped.

This causes delays in cancellations.

Driver of a train in the area
gets out of his train, runs

down the tracks to see
what’s wrong with the switches.

A turtle has crawled into the
switch, and as the track tries to switch,

it gets stuck, the turtle
gets stuck, both are stuck.

The turtle is stuck, the switch is stuck.

Everything is stuck.

The man removes the
turtle and fixes the situation.

There were six train
cancellations and five trains

delayed up to an hour,
affecting over 3,000 people.

It’s an interesting problem because
do you turtle proof your trains?

How do you turtle proof your trains?

How can trains be turtle proofed?

How can anything be turtle proofed?

If you have turtles in the world,
can you proof it against turtles?

This is the question we
have to ask ourselves.

This is the eternal question, the
question that maybe can never be answered.

School staff, they have to
plan meals, meal budgeting.

This is really a big thing ’cause
you think it’s not just for a group,

it’s for a school, it might
be for multiple schools.

This is a big job.

One person decided to swap out
thigh meat for breast meat now.

I always buy breast meat.

I guess I am just buying the
cheapest meat on the shelf.

I never even thought about
it, thigh meat might be better.

I mean, I like thighs.

That sounds creepy when I say it.

We’re talking about chickens.

The first year, the price of a school
lunch went from 310 yen down to 296 yen.

That is a 14 yen savings
on every single lunch.

That’s great, the second year, 330
yen was brought down to 280 yen.

That is a 50 yen savings.

This, of course, massive savings.

Again, we’re not talking
about individual lunches.

We’re talking about cumulative over
hundreds, if not thousands of lunches.

There were no complaints.

There are some great savings going on.

So what do you do with that money?

You have bezel it.

That is the only solution.

This person over a couple
of years embezzled 7.

98 million yen.

So I criticize a lot of
the crimes on Ninja Japan.

I criticize them for being overly ambitious

or being poorly planned
out, but this is good crime.

I’m just wondering where
it went wrong exactly,

because stealing tiny amounts consistently
over time if it goes unnoticed.

Again, you can build
up to 7.98 million yen.

Now, let’s be clear, when
we say 7.98 million yen,

for our listeners who don’t
have a full understanding

of what the yen is worth, that is a
really, really good salary for one year.

So they’ve stolen one year salary.

So this isn’t $7 million dollars,
where you could probably,

if you live frugally, live
for the rest of your entire

life after you get like
a million or $2 million.

This is $70,000 or $60,000 of the
current exchange rate, probably.

But I’m still thinking this
was a better way to steal,

because if you can just get
a couple of yen off each lunch

and put that in your pocket,
the problem is I don’t know.

They didn’t explain how the
investigation went to actually get caught.

So what was the mistake
that was made that got the

person caught is the bit I
actually am interested in?

We don’t get that information quite yet.

Of course, you have 7.98
million yen extra sitting around.

What are you going to do?

You go for beauty treatments.

You go for travel.

You go for dog care.

And this is it.

A lot of people who steal
money and they steal money

and then they start living a lifestyle
out of the range of the money they make.

That could have been the
thing that got them noticed.

Like, how are you able to
afford these beauty treatments?

How are you able to afford to travel as
much as you do on the salary you make?

I guess you’re easy to
cover and just say like,

my dad has money and he pays
for it and he just makes me work.

Something like that, I don’t know if
again, these people were that smart.

I think embezzlement is one of those ones
where I think it’s a better crime overall.

But they did get caught.

So if you start embezzling money,
you actually can’t change your lifestyle.

You have to scroll that money
away, put it somewhere else

until you have enough money
to quit the job you have now.

Living the same
lifestyle, this is a problem.

Everyone gets greedy.

You don’t increase your lifestyle.

You want to get enough money
so that you can stop working

and live the same lifestyle
for the rest of your life.

If you can do that, you’ve won the game.

‘Cause now you’re living at the same
standard, but you’re not working anymore.

The person was caught, fired, and then
had to return the full amount of money.

So, I mean, there’s no
jail time involved in this.

This is actually to
me the interesting part.

If there’s no jail
time, I get losing your

job as punishment, but
you can get other jobs.

I don’t know how much they got paid before.

I don’t know what was going on.

Returning the full amount is not
a particularly harsh punishment.

I think they got off really easy.

And it makes a really good case for
embezzlement being the crime of the future.

The highly promoted crime of
Ninja Ninja Japan embezzlement.

(upbeat music)

This actually happened a while
ago, but there’s an element of this,

I’m not going to say
till the latter part of the

story, but there were
seven quasi gang members.

I don’t know what quasi
gang members means already.

They’re kinda in a gang, they’re
in a gang that’s not well organized.

That actually might be what they’re saying,

because I feel like
the organization of this

gang was the core issue
of what was going on.

There were seven members of a quasi gang

outside an Apple store, and
they were having an argument.

And the argument got so
bad, I’m assuming pushing each

other around fighting and
stuff, being like gang members.

Of course, it’s disruption of business.

Woo, obstruction of business.

It’s been a while since we had that.

I actually was thinking,
for the stories we do,

all the, ’cause we have
obstruction of business.

Whenever that comes up, we ding.

Then we need one for to
satisfy my sexual desires,

because that is the non-excuse for
committing any kind of sexual crime in Japan.

I did it to satisfy my sexual drugs.

Almost every time a story comes up and it
involves some kind of like sexual element.

Like I can predict what they’re gonna
say, like I did it ’cause I was horny.

That’s really all they’re saying.

And that’s not an
excuse, it’s not a reason.

So I’m thinking of
making a couple of things

that after they repeat over
the next couple of weeks.

If it’s things I’ve heard many,
many times over the last few

years in New New Japan, I’m
gonna add you to the ding list.

We’re gonna have multiple
dings, hopefully per episode,

’cause it’s fun to keep
track of the lame excuses

people make for doing crimes
and dumb shit all the time.

These quasi gang members
wanted to buy iPhone 15s for resale.

So they’re basically scalping,

or they’re reselling them on
the internet or something else.

They were waiting in line, very
Japanese gang members waiting in line.

They’re waiting in line, and
then they start to get into it.

This gang is called the
Chinese Dragon Gang.

But it consists of Japanese
and Chinese people.

Now they’re probably
Chinese Japanese citizens.

I’m not really sure.

But the two guys who
got into it was a Japanese

guy and a Chinese guy
from the same quasi gang.

So this is why I’m
thinking the organization.

Aspect comes into it,
like, are these two gangs,

sort of the Japanese element and
the Chinese element of the same gang?

But then they sort of form into
little factions within the gang?

I’ve played that video again.

Or has it just been disorganized?

So they’re like, I think I should get
it, and they think they should get it,

and they start fighting
because they’re gang members.

They don’t know how to do it.

The bit they got me.

So this is a bad
organization across the board.

This organization needs better leadership.

And that is where I think
the big failure in this gang is.

The leadership is not clear.

There’s a secondary issue though.

The Japanese dude was 50,
and the Chinese dude was 43.

I understand like reselling
and scamming and stuff.

That is a great way to make money.

But I don’t know, being in a gang,

I guess it’s the word gang to
me has this implication of youth.

And so this 50 year
old still being in a gang

buying iPhones to
resell is kind of like sad.

I’m 52.

I would never want to be in a gang.

I’d want to be in a crew.

I’d want to be in an organization.

I’d want to be sort of moved up higher

in the structure, the
stratosphere of all these things.

Yeah, I think I’m just a little torn on.

I guess this guy’s life has not
worked out the way he wanted it to,

and this is the only option
he has, both these guys.

They’re in their 40s and 50s.

They’re in a quasi gang
arguing over who can

buy more iPhones so
they can resell them.

I assume on the internet.

I mean, that’s pretty much,
I’ve really depressed myself now.

I guess I should look at this
more as, look at how good my

life has turned out because I
sit around podcasting for fun,

as opposed to standing
around fighting with other people

who are supposed to be in the
same gang as me over iPhone 15s.

A doctor has fiance and they break up.

I mean, that happens.

They’re going to get married
something goes wrong and they break up.

The woman then
demands 10 million yen in

compensation for the
breakup of this relationship.

That already seems like a lot.

Like I get doctors make a lot of money,
but because your wedding doesn’t work out,

like if he’s paying for something,
maybe I could understand it,

but it sounds like she was saying,
you took away these years of my life.

We didn’t get married, so you owe me money.

That seems to be a very, it’s a very
sort of Japanese, I don’t know about Asian,

but you pay for a lot of things
in Japan, like just pay money.

When you get married, you don’t
give presents, you give money.

It’s a way better system in that aspect,

but there is a lot of direct monetary
compensation for things that in the West,

we probably wouldn’t even
consider giving money for.

So in this case, I’m
assuming that it’s the time

that she invested in the relationship
she wants that money back,

although she doesn’t really
have given any money in.

I assume, I don’t know
enough about the details.

All we really know is they
were engaged to be married,

broke up, and then she’s
like can be 10 million yen.

Doctors pissed about this, he’s like
why do I have to give you 10 million yen?

Maybe you should give me 10 million yen.

I was the catch in this
relationship, then he posted

on her social media,
probably Twitter or something.

This woman has demanded
10 million yen in compensation

from her ex for the unjust
annulment of their engagement.

That’s a pretty factual statement,
but now she’s suing him for defamation.

So there’s a very interesting
set of criteria here, defamation.

Defamation is when you
make someone look bad.

This case, and it’s a very
serious thing in Japan,

if you go and say things
about people that are

not true on the internet,
they can sue you.

Defamation in the internet in
Japan has become a very big deal.

Now, if the fact is that they broke up
and then she demanded 10 million yen,

and then he just goes and
says this woman demanded 10,

this woman demanded 10 million yen
for this breakup, is that defamation?

‘Cause there is the
added thing, I think that

statement is factual, but
it does make her look bad.

And so if it makes her
look bad, is that defamation?

Now, of course, the
reasonable solution would

be to just not give her
any money and break ties

and just not talk to her,
not try to get back at her.

And then she could
try to sue you for the 10

million yen, but there’s
nothing really to sue for.

We broke up what money
do I owe you for a breakup.

You’ve actually just in a way proven
that we should not have gotten married,

that I couldn’t trust
you in the first place.

Is a factual statement
that makes you look bad,

defamation by Japanese
law is the interesting aspect

of this case that I wanna
see how this plays out,

because there have been lots of cases where
the people did say the negative things,

and they were trying to
make them look bad, and they

weren’t necessarily factual,
so that is clearly defamation.

In this case, he’s just made a simple factual
statement that does make her look bad,

will that end up being
defamation in Japanese court?

(phone beeping)

So we’ve talked several times.

We talked about the,
it really came to light

when it was the little
suitcases you can ride on,

with a little motor in it, and
a lady got arrested for that,

and then there’s the
scooters that you can just rent,

and then ride around electric
scooters, and there’s electric

bicycles, and in Japan, all
these are classified as vehicles.

So you have to wear a
helmet, you’re supposed to

have like signal lights
and all this other stuff.

Tuna stuff that people do.

That brings you into a
secondary issue of drunk people,

there’s a lot of drunk people in Japan,

and they do a lot of fun
things like riding scooters.

I think if I was drunk
and I wanted to get home

and there was an
electric scooter available,

I could see that being like a really
good idea for me to do at the time.

They’ve now had like a year of this,

so they have a year of
data to tell people about,

and I know you love data because
you’re here because I love data.

We’re just a group of data fanatics.

So 17% of accidents involving
electric scooters involved a drunk driver.

That number is way lower than I expected.

I thought 50%.

If you had quizzed me
on, I would’ve gone like 50%

of the people who got an accident
on electric scooters were drunk, 100%.

4.2% of the injured riders wore helmets.

So basically, everyone is getting on
these scooters, not wearing a helmet,

and then when they have trouble, they
get an accident, not wearing a helmet.

They’re getting a lot of injuries.

So some people, when they ride the electric
scooter, they’re not very good at it.

They just sort of fall off.

40% of those people are drunk.

70% of collisions are
with guardrails or poles.

So actually, most of the
time they’re not hitting cars,

they’re not getting into
accidents with other vehicles.

They’re just running into something.

So like the guardrail, the
pole, they just like slam into it.

That’s 70% of the accidents.

So the other 30% probably is like with a
pedestrian, with a car or something else.

30% of the people have not had a license.

So because these are vehicles,

you actually need a driver’s
license to ride the vehicle.

So the electric scooter, the electric
bicycle, all these kind of things,

you’re actually supposed to have a
driver’s license so that you can ride them.

And I think that’s a lot of things people
are ignoring, or they don’t know about.

These are fairly recently,
the last year, rules.

So if you listen to Andrew’s Japan,

you’ll know that it is a law,
you’ll know you should do it.

You still might not,

but at least you’ll know you’ll be
like breaking the law on purpose.

(upbeat music)

Excited to be quizzed on the latest,

Kingley, sexy, absurd stuff
from Ninja News Japan.

Well, this time, the
quiz is a little different.

This time, we did it a little differently.

Just trying to make it sound exciting.

Okay, so today’s quiz
is a slightly different one.

It’s not actually about a new story.

It’s, how is your Japanese?

Let’s start with that.

My Japanese, my listening
is way better than my speak.

My speaking’s pretty
terrible, to be honest.

Me too.

(laughs) For the years I’ve been
here, my level is incredibly low.

I’ve been here like 20 years.

It is ridiculous how poor my Japanese is.

But one thing we do is try to stay up
on language, we know what’s going on.

So I have collected some
new slang or recent slang,

and I wanna see if you can
figure out what they stand for.

Japanese slang?

Yeah!

So if you don’t know, you’re gonna
learn, that’s a nice thing to learn.

You can try it with your students.

And if you know it, that’s even
cooler, ’cause I didn’t know any of these.

So my expectation is very low.

That you’ll have an understanding.

So Japanese has a lot of onomonopia.

Yes.

Like my, the first one I learned was
Pika Pika, which would be shiny or sparkly.

Is there any of that you know?

I like goto-goto for just rolling around
on your bed, having a lazy afternoon.

Goto-goto is very, very good,
’cause it means doing nothing, yeah.

Yeah.

And koro-koro, which is rolling something.

Oh, like koro-koro, like
so you roll the sushi roll.

Yeah.

So when you’re doing the physical
rolling, I actually didn’t know that one.

Yeah, koro-koro.

And there’s so many, there’s loads.

Yes, there’s, I was looking
online when I got this first one.

There are like 2,000.

Easy.

Because, ’cause there’s also
regional versions and stuff.

So this is a new one though.

And this is Mofu Mofu.

What do you think Mofu Mofu means?

‘Cause again, all this, you
have to go off the feeling, right?

Yeah.

It feels like it should be something soft.

Yes.

I think it’s, I’m not sure if I can
say the first thing against mine.

Okay.

No, no, I’m not doing anything dirty.

Let’s just go, we’ll put
that off the table right now.

None of these are dirty.

This is, it’s new, it’s slangs.

It’s got these young people.

It’s the softness.

It is the old wash of the gallery
man’s shoulder that you fall asleep on.

You have gone too far.

It’s simpler than that.

So you, you actually, when you said soft,

you’re really, really close
already when you say soft.

If you think about like a puppy or
a rabbit or something– Yeah, okay.

Something soft to cheer like that.

Yeah, yeah, I could, I could question.

A pillow.

Fluffy, lovely.

Yeah, and so this is a new one.

This is, if you look in the
dictionaries, even the Japanese

dictionaries, they won’t
really have this one in yet.

It’s Mofu Mofu is fluffy.

There you go, lovely.

The next one, to give you a hint in advance,
is actually comes from an English word.

So we have lots of English words to
get kind of condensed and Japanese.

I should have thought of an
example of this one first as well.

Because there’s so many.

And no, I can’t give you the–
Like, Brad Pitt is– Oh, Brad Pitt?

Yeah.

The one I actually just
thought of was Sekohara,

which we use all the
time on Indonesia Japan,

because there’s lots of
sexual harassment stories.

So sexual harassment becomes Sekohara,

so they shower on it and make
Japanese kata kana sounds.

This is similar.

This is manspu.

What is it?

Manspu.

Manspu.

What is manspu?

Oh, I know it.

It’s either.

It’s one of either.

Yeah.

Manspreading or mansplaining.

It is mansplaining.

Yeah, the fact that you got that as
quickly as you did is very impressive.

So mansplaining, I would
say, probably sort of became

a thing that made two
movement around that time.

We’re talking about like
five years ago, six years ago.

In Japanese news, they
adopted it like 2017, 2018,

but it didn’t get popular until they
shortened it in sort of 2020, 2021.

And now it’s become fairly common.

Manspu is mansplaining.

This one, you will not get.

OK.

I mean, maybe if you ask some students,
but it was just a really good word.

So I didn’t want to
like take it off the list.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

No, I can’t really give you a
hint because I think it’s just

Japanese words condensed
into other Japanese words.

But Hita, maybe you probably know Hita.

Hita is like bad at something, right?

I bet it’s something.

Yes.

If we expand that to more of a concept and
it’s going to be discussing a personality.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

“Useless is good.

” OK.

If you could get an adjacent word
to “Useless,” I think you’ve got it.

It’s an end of “Useless.

” Unusual.

[LAUGHTER]

So now we know what
your English level is, do?

You’re very close.

You’re way closer than
I would have expected.

What’s that, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh.

It’s written in Hita Ghana.

So I don’t have any konzi I
could actually give you as a hint.

That’s actually why it was hard for me.

And why I figured no one would get it
if you just didn’t know the word already.

Got it.

Hit that it.

Got it.

Pointless?

Yeah, very good.

OK, so it’s about a person.

So he is, hit that it.

It would be if–
Yeah, so I would say it.

Oh, that guy.

That guy’s hit that it.

OK.

So the new guy in the
office– God, he’s hit that it.

Yeah, he’s perfect.

It is an absolute– You have
a food, you can’t do anything.

Yes, he is pathetic, or weak, or nerdy.

OK.

So that’s a great word.

I’m really happy I learned
that I’m going to throw that

one around every now and
then to see if anyone notices.

But again, these are
new relatively new words.

So there’s actually a
chance that you say this.

And Japanese people may not know it.

And primarily, younger people will
know these more than older people.

So if you say this to an
older person, there’s a very,

very good chance to be
like, well, that’s not Japanese.

You go, huh, yeah, it is granddad.

Yeah.

Handen your japan card.

Yeah.

So the last one, “Ninja New
Japan” is primarily new show.

And so this is very news-appropriate.

It’s mushy Torah.

So mushy is Japanese.

Torah is Americanized word brought into
the Japanese and condensed the same way.

So do you know the word mushy?

Not mushy, like mushy.

Yeah, so if you have mushy in
a sentence, it’s like, for example.

Ah, mushy kashita.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

So that’s the mushy.

That’s the same mushy.

So this is, again, I’ll
give you another hint.

This is political.

So mushy Torah.

Torah.

Is it Torah input?

Yes.

Perfect.

An example of Trumpism or something.

It’s very close.

It is what if Trump wins again.

So for example– All right.

So they’re talking about, like,
they had a sentence, a full sentence.

And it was like, for example, if Trump
wins again, this would be bad for Japan.

For example, if Trump wins
again, he’s going to start a war.

That kind of thing.

So that sentence was coming up a lot.

So they condensed it to Mushtara.

OK.

So yeah, like I knew segment, they’re

talking about the Asian
Pacific Trade Act or something.

And they’re worried that
Trump will get in and ruin it.

They would say, oh, mushtara.

Mushtara.

So I think you should
pull that one out with

your students and see
if they can understand it.

Because I don’t know how common that is.

I know I’ve– it came from the news.

So I’m thinking it actually
has to be fairly common.

Mushtara.

Yeah, because it’s– obviously, it’s
just for this political cycle, isn’t it?

Yes.

So in four years, if Trump is not like–
I assume you can just keep running,

even though he is going
to be like 85, 90 years old.

But he’s clearly not the kind of
personality that’s ever going to give up.

It’ll be interesting.

If he loses, would he try again?

Because he might.

He’s that dumb.

Can you keep trying?

I guess so.

I’m not going to stop.

I found it interesting.

I was thinking about terms and Trump.

So like he had one.

And so this would be a second one.

Yes.

Because he claims that the election
was stolen and that he should be president.

So I’m like, well, that’s your second term.

So you don’t get a third one in America.

So you’re out.

But yeah, I actually
think he’s the kind of

guy who, even if he’s
approaching 90 years old,

you’d be like, well, I’m
still vibrant and youthful

and I should be able
to run for another term.

He’s certainly not
going to go just like off

into the horizon on a,
on a, on his horse, is it?

Yeah, what if he loses?

Well, this is where
Biden, I actually have like,

you know there’s a certain amount of
pride there because he’s come president.

What him stepping aside was a big decision.

And I think a very good one.

And that’s why it’s sort of
turn this whole thing around.

But yeah, I think most
of that, he can’t do it.

I used to, I used to, for example, Trump
would not be able to do the same thing.

Cool.

So there’s, there’s a little Japanese
lesson for anyone’s listening.

Don’t be surprised if
you haven’t heard these

words because I hadn’t
heard these words.

My associate Tom has not heard these words.

These are new for everybody.

Get out there, throw them out in the
world and see what comes back at you.

So 54 year old man, it’s 50 year old range.

Seems to be the most dangerous time.

It’s when you sort of like
seem to stop giving a shit.

And so what happens is, I mean,
that age now, like I just don’t care.

Maybe, or maybe that’s going to happen.

It seems like you can get
through your 50s most of the time.

You don’t revert to the sort
of base nature that these other,

like a ton of stories we
do or 50 year old men.

There was a couple of
weeks, like a two month period

where every single week, the joke was a
50 year old man was the intro sentence.

And it was always some
really heinous crime.

This guy’s just hanging out
on his eighth floor balcony.

It’s having a drink.

And then he down on the ground.

There’s an 81 year old man who’s
picking up trash from the street.

So he’s probably looking at him.

They lived in the same apartment.

There’s no known issues
between the two men.

Then suddenly the bottle smashes
on the ground near the 81 year old man.

So the man on the balcony gets arrested.

He says, I threw the bottle,
but I made sure no one was there

where this can be factually proven is
not true because there was a man there.

So you didn’t make sure no one was there

because you threw it and
there was someone there.

So that is sort of me, his initial
statement is already problematic.

So either when he says he’s
checking the people in there,

maybe he really did it,
but he did a really poor job.

So it would be negligent attempted murder.

Or he’s lying and then
it’s attempted murder.

Well, the police, they’re
not taking any chances.

They’re arresting this
guy for attempted murder,

for throwing a bottle off
the eighth floor balcony

and almost hitting this 81 year old
man, especially because previous week,

there was also a similar incident
where the 81 year old man

was down and a bottle
almost hit him in the head.

They don’t know if it was the same
guy, but they’re sure suspicious now.

There’s open air hot springs.

And one of the things you now have to do.

We had a story, it was
like last year or previously,

and it was a man who
had telephoto lenses.

Like he was up in the
mountains taking pictures

of these open air
baths of naked women.

This is the level of
creep these guys get into.

Well, now you also, you not
only have to like get a scope

and check the mountain
range around the open air bath

that you’re in, they’re
actually ruining it.

I like, I guess I don’t care
if you want to take pictures

of me naked, it’s not
particularly big thing,

but I understand a lot of people would
not want their naked pictures taken.

You now have to check the rocks as well.

‘Cause this guy took a
phone, it looked like a phone,

he said it at the camera,
but it looked like a phone,

and he pushed it in,
he made like a rock face

and he built the phone into the rock
face and had a brown covered cable.

So a good camouflage and
then a little couple meters away,

there would be a battery
pack to keep the camera going.

He had multiples of these
and he planted them around

some open air baths so he
could take pictures of women nude.

Now, this is the same guy
who did the telephoto lens thing.

So he was getting like
different angles, different spaces.

A customer noticed the camera.

Now, I’ve seen the rock, it
would have been incredible.

You have to look for it.

So kudos to this lady
who was really on the ball.

I don’t think I would have noticed at all,

I’m also pretty ignorant
of my surroundings.

I probably just would have walked in, you
know, helicoptering to see in what goes on.

You can take those pictures.

I don’t think you’d be able
to sell them on the internet.

I hope they don’t do anything for you.

They probably won’t do anything for you.

The police show up, she calls the police,

it says I found a camera
in this hot spring, the police

show up, they take the camera
and then nothing happens.

So they look on it, they’re like,
“Oh, someone’s taking pictures.

” The guy then turns himself in.

And this is where I get super critical.

So yes, he showed up probably to
collect his camera in his battery pack.

And then he goes, “Oh
my God, they’re gone.

” That means the
police must have them.

So then he turns himself into the police.

This doesn’t mean the police have you.

They don’t have anything on you.

They have a phone, they have a
camera, they have a battery pack.

Are your fingerprints on it?

Probably not, it’s been
outside for an extended period.

So they’re not getting
any fingerprints off it.

He wasn’t really thinking, but maybe
then he’s suddenly racked by guilt.

I don’t know, there’s a
lot of Japanese people

when they sort of get
caught turning themselves in.

And I think that’s bad criminality.

If you’re gonna be a criminal,
you gotta go all the way.

So you don’t turn yourself in.

You make the police do their job.

You have to make them hunt you down.

Now, if you wanna leave clues and tricks

and things to taunt the
police, you can do that.

I think it’s a bad idea, but you can do it.

That’s at least you’re
playing the part of the criminal.

They have to play the part of the police
and actually hunt you down and find you.

Otherwise, what are we paying them for?

The guy turned himself into the police

once he realizes they have his
phone camera thing, his little setup.

The police then find a
thousand plus photos of people.

So that’s not photos, a thousand
individuals, photos of individuals.

So there’s probably three,
four, five thousand pictures,

but a thousand different people have
had their picture taken of them naked.

He was sentenced to two years in prison,
which has been suspended for five years.

They, man, I’m really torn
on this one because this

is a guy who’s like, he’s
put a lot of work into it.

This is organized.

This is someone who’s
put a lot of time and effort.

He’s got the telephoto sit set up.

He’s got the rock set up.

He’s got camouflage.

How is this guy not going
to commit this crime again?

He needs to be punished.

But he has five years if he doesn’t
do anything again, he doesn’t go to jail.

Ah, again, I am torn.

I think maybe I need to go
study some law and specifically

punishments and the
viability of each punishment.

‘Cause he’s violated a
lot of people’s privacy.

He hasn’t technically hurt them directly.

He hasn’t, it doesn’t seem like he’s
been releasing these on the internet.

These seem to be all self use.

If we find out they
were all released on the

internet or something
like that, I don’t know.

I think that levels it up a bit.

I think you should get more
time or punished right away.

I don’t know.

It’s really tough.

Do you have opinions on this?

Should he be punished?

Should he be punished right away?

This is a suspended sentence
acceptable in this situation.

The defending attorney
said that he was showing

real remorse in court
and he did turn himself in.

So that should be taken into account.

And I’m like, that should be
taken into account, but that

just to me would mean you
don’t get the maximum sentence.

It doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t get punished at all,

which actually seems like
this is how it’s turned out.

So if you haven’t opinion on
this, I actually would like to hear it.

How do you, what do you think
would be the appropriate punishment

taking thousands of pictures of
people without their permission?

Send a message to
chugkingbeefchest@gmail.

com or
speakpipe.com/chugkingbeefchest.

If you want to leave a voice message.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[Music]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Pay Attention

(upbeat music)

We have an update on
the NHK broadcast incident.

So there was a English
language Japanese broadcast.

NHK, they do the news and
they do the news in multiple

languages, one of the
languages they do is English.

They also do Chinese and Korean.

It was a Chinese affiliate.

So a contract worker had been
hired to do the news in English.

He switched to Japanese.

We actually have a couple of details
that I didn’t have in the previous story.

He switched from English to Chinese

and he said the Senkaku
Islands belonged to China.

And he also said, “Don’t forget comfort
women “or the non-king massacre.

” So this guy, I mean, that’s a set of
politically charged statements he’s made.

I don’t actually necessarily
disagree with the latter points.

The Senkaku Islands, as far
as I’m concerned, are in dispute.

I’m not saying they are Japanese.

I’m not saying they are China.

I have no idea.

I’m not taking it to stands on that.

I don’t know enough
about international law.

I do know.

This isn’t what you say if
you want to keep your job.

They’ll fall out from this.

I thought, would, okay, contract
worker, fire the contract worker.

If you want to get really
serious, you just get rid of

the company and don’t work
with that company anymore.

Like that would be almost excessive.

Like fire that guy, yes.

He hasn’t done anything
criminal, so that’s enough.

But it went way further
than I would’ve expected it.

As a result, the board of
director in charge of foreign

language broadcasts will
step down to take responsibility

and three other executives
will take a 50% pay cut.

Now that is significant punishment

for something they didn’t
have any control over really.

They are technically responsible.

And what I actually realized from this is
this is the kind of level of responsibility

I would like to see other
executives in other companies held to.

I don’t know why these guys
are being held to this standard

and other executives in
other companies are not.

The president or CEO of one
of these big tech companies

are a gas and oil company
and they go and mess

something up or they
do something illegal.

They should be punished
and I bet a lot of executives

would be a lot more
careful about how things go.

And it would actually in
a weird way give a lot of

power to the people
because if you’re an employee

wanting these companies, you
want to screw over your boss,

you do something
illegal and he’s going to

get punished and they
would care a lot more.

This is not anti-upper
class billionaire class

warfare podcast, but
I mean, let’s face it.

I’d like to see some of
that happen in the world.

McDonald’s Japan.

I don’t go to McDonald’s a lot, but I
go to McDonald’s convenience often

overwhelms is an overrides
good decision making

and let’s face it, chocolate
shakes are pretty good.

At last time I went
there, I noticed that my

server had blue streaks
in sort of blondish hair.

So more blue than blonde.

I think it was maybe a transitionary
period between two colors.

It was actually odd that I noticed that.

I was like, why did I notice?

I see girls with brightly colored
hair all the time out in the streets.

Why did I notice in McDonald’s?

Because in McDonald’s
had a rule for many, many

years up until very
recently, this is the story,

that you could only
have natural color hair.

So good black hair, you could sort of
take it down a couple of shades to brown.

If you had brown hair,
you could darken it up

to black, but it had
to be a natural color.

And I think when they say natural

would they mean is a natural
sort of Japanese or Asian color?

And we need to hire more people,
and we want to hire young people,

and young people are
really the who we target.

So let’s relax this one standard
and make it easier for people to apply.

So you can keep your blue
hair and join McDonald’s.

Well, this has had a very positive impact.

They have that had three times
more recruits in the last year.

And again, my server had sort of bluish,

purplish, anime hair, which
didn’t do anything for me.

It was fine, she was very nice.

I mean, she was a
server, she was very nice.

Didn’t have a
conversation, didn’t interact.

This is fast food.

We’re not getting to know each other.

Back in 2021, they started to
allow beard citing religious reasons.

So they’re saying like we
don’t want to discriminate

against people who have a religious
thing where they can’t shade their beard.

We want to be able to hire them too.

Other companies have not
taken note of this kind of thing.

Starbucks and Japan
is relaxed, they’re dress

code, and it’s called
your preferred style.

Now, my preferred style
probably still too lazy for, it

would be just athletic where,
if I’m being really honest.

I wear a lot of like
track pants, sweatpants.

It’s a modern version.

So it’s not like sweatpants
in the traditional sense.

It’s not track pants
in the traditional sense.

It’s gonna have that.

So hybrid, so the under armor stuff.

It feels like wearing pajamas all day.

If I had the choice, I would
be wearing athletic wear all day,

not because I’m like a hyper
athlete and want to be super athletic.

It’s just very comfortable.

They are designed for
comfort first and then form

factor second, but they
always look fine as well.

Starbucks is relaxed, they’re
dress code to your preferred style.

Sushi dough is also being more relaxed.

They haven’t really
clarified what that means.

But these big companies are starting to
notice, almost if you make people happy,

if you accept people, if you
allow people to be who they are,

you get more people who
want to work at your company.

Who would have thought it is really the
question that needs to be thrown out there,

except everyone whoever
worked at a company.

(upbeat music)

There was a trading card company.

And a trading card company,
they’re doing a live stream.

So they’re like, let’s open some trading
cards, let’s put them on the screen,

let’s talk about them unboxing,
maybe that kind of stuff.

They’re talking about
special cards, rare cards.

The thing is, this is a company.

So it’s basically advertising.

No problem with that, you
want to advertise your product.

This is a very interesting way to do it.

Get the people who are interested in
trading cards, watching your live stream.

And they can learn about it.

And then of course they’re going
to want to trade or buy with you.

The difference is,
they’re like a live stream.

So I’m live streaming
this podcast right now.

But the thing is, hopefully
no one knows where I live.

So if I suddenly said like, “Hey,
here’s something very valuable.

“What’s something I
just bought recently?

” This is kind of advertising.

I bought this eyesner,
eyesner mile beard oil.

It’s a five pack.

This is going to be like five
years worth of beard oil right here.

So let’s say I hold that
product up, I talk about it.

You’re like, ooh, it’s
worth millions of dollars.

You know where I live.

So you can’t just come and
break into my house and steal it.

If you’re a business on
the other hand, you can look

up where businesses are
and you can go find them.

You can see where this story is going.

So they’re like, hey, here’s a card.

This card’s worth a million yen.

Here’s a card.

This card’s worth 10,000 yen.

So they have a pile of
very valuable objects.

They’ve just explained to
you how valuable they are

on the live stream and then
you can look up where they are.

I, in a previous very similar
story, said the problem

with me stealing, let’s
say rare Pokemon cards.

I wouldn’t know which ones are valuable.

I wouldn’t know which
ones are the rare ones.

I wouldn’t know which cards to steal.

If they had a live stream instructing me

in which ones were valuable, that would
make my job as the criminal a lot easier.

So two men enter after
the live stream ends.

So they’re probably standing outside
maybe on their smartphone or something,

watching the live stream
and the live stream ends.

And then they enter the room.

There are two staff.

They tie them up and then they say,

they came in, well, this
actually is a bit that bothered me.

So they tie up these guys and they
go, which ones are the valuable cards?

Now, if you’ve been
paying attention to the live

stream, you would know
which cards were valuable.

So this is maybe, again,
my, I look down on the

criminal element because I
look down on their planning.

I think their planning’s always poor.

But here they are.

These guys are delivering
the information they need.

They didn’t pay attention.

Like they probably didn’t
pay attention in school.

So they didn’t learn what was valuable.

So they had to waste
time asking these guys.

They just attacked and tied
up, which ones are valuable.

Good opportunity for them to
lie to you from being really honest.

They want to get just
a little bit of revenge.

This was clearly set up because this company
was not just sort of out on the street.

This company does trading online.

So the company itself, like
the office, is in an office building.

So it’s not like just a shop you walk into.

They buy cards online.

They sell cards online.

It was mostly done through a website.

So them doing a live
stream made a lot of sense.

These are like internet savvy people.

But they hadn’t taken into account the
security of maybe needing to lock the door,

which is something I think in a normal
office you wouldn’t really worry about

because you wouldn’t be thinking people are
going to come and try to see other stuff.

They managed to seal over
10 million yen’s worth of cards

and 250,000 yen from the wallets
of the people, the staff over there.

It’s only two staff members.

So I’m actually thinking these
guys are carrying a lot of money.

I should get into cards.

I’ve just realized, although I probably
goes bad as I went, like I got into crypto.

I did, I like a concept of crypto of
course, but then it’s crypto scams.

I got scams just enough
for me to go, is this worth it?

It’s probably not.

Clearly didn’t negatively
affect my lifestyle,

but made me realize like,
yeah, this is scams everywhere.

I just like the idea of digital
money, internet money.

I was looking for investments.

I did a little bit of the
money I had made as a profit.

I invested that and then basically
lost it all because it was a scam.

It was like, of course it was because
everyone’s scamming you all the time.

So please be careful.

And if you run a really
successful trading shop online

and have an office and do a
live stream, and lock your doors.

They’re two neighbors.

Always bad when you
start with two neighbors.

I guess the beginning of any story I’m
doing on the podcast is gonna be a problem.

You’re not getting on this podcast
because something good happened or you did.

I’ve done good feel good stories,
but they’re less interesting.

I guess it’s the slacious
attitude of the internet.

And I have it too.

That’s, I picked the stories.

So maybe if you went
through all the stories back

of names in Japan, all 300
and whatever 20 some episodes,

you’d get a pretty good
idea of what is interesting me.

But there is also the
bit like sometimes I hold

back and like, ooh, that
one maybe is too much.

‘Cause I do wanna talk about it
and put it out there in the world.

But this is a neighbor, neighbors.

And one has a cat named Tama.

And one neighbor was
complaining that the cat Tama,

three years old, was willfully
walking through his property.

Now here’s already the first problem.

Is this man doesn’t even understand
that cats don’t understand property lines?

Cats don’t willfully do anything.

Well, I guess they willfully do
everything and nothing at the same time.

Cats are very zen in that way.

The cat is just gonna go
where it wants when it wants.

It’s not targeting you specifically yet.

Cats can be smart enough to do that.

Like it realizes it’s pissing
you off so it starts doing it.

I could believe that.

But if the cat is just walking
across your lawn or walking

in your backyard, it’s probably
not doing it to piss you off.

It’s just trying to get from A to B.

The owner of Tama would
let the cat out at 8 p.m.

every night and just
let it go roam around.

It would come home every morning.

In April 18th, the cat did not come back.

So the guy is like, ah, someone’s done
something and I know my neighbor hates my cat.

So I’m really pissed off.

So then he starts looking for his cat.

The cat was chipped.

On April 21st, the cat was found

given to like an SPCA sort
of a pound kind of situation.

They scanned it, had the chip.

So Tama was returned
to the owner on April 30th.

So from 18th to 30th, the cat was gone.

So this guy’s kind of losing it.

He’s suspicious because this
cat was found 70 kilometers away.

And the cat did not
walk that far in its own.

And the cat was able to go out every
night and find its way home every night.

So the cat was sort of had it sort of area.

It was doing its little thing.

It was going around doing patrols.

I don’t know what cats do at night.

But it wasn’t leaving so far that
it would get lost or come back.

Cats don’t really tend to get lost.

A video shows at 4.50 AM on April 15th

that the neighbor picked
the guy up, got in his car.

And then the car, when
you go on to the expressway,

you have this little card
and it logs you into the car,

logs you in, also takes a picture
when you pass through the gates.

There’s no sort of like, you’re not really
escaping if you’re using the expressway.

It logged him getting on to the expressway

and then getting off 70 kilometers
away comes back, cats not there.

So then the police have
seen a, video of the guy

picking up the cat, b, video the same
night, him getting to the expressway.

That’s enough proof.

He admits he gets arrested.

He gets arrested.

This isn’t like what do you
get arrested for kidnapping?

‘Cause it’s not a person.

So it’s not really kidnapping.

Cat napping unfairly is not a crime.

So I was very interested
more than anything else.

What is the crime that he got arrested for?

Well, they decided to do property damage
because the cat is the neighbor’s property.

He’s taken the cat willfully.

So he has committed a property crime.

So it’s, I guess, mentally,
physically, I don’t know.

Some kind of damage to the cat.

Therefore, it’s property damage.

So that was an interesting thing.

The police wanted to arrest
this guy, but they had to like,

there’s not a really like
a cat napping law as such.

So they had to find something else.

That was an animal story.

There’s your feel-good stories.

I mean, animals are cute.

We do like animals.

I like animals.

Penguin escaped a zoo in Nagoya.

So I actually work in Nagoya.

It’s a six-year-old cape penguin.

What they were doing was they kind of like

take the penguins out and
they like take them into areas.

And so they run a beach and
they made this little shallow.

So the kids can come see the
penguins out sort of in the wild.

I know it’s not really in the wild,
but it’s kind of in the wild in nature.

But Nagoya, in the summertime,
crazy hot, not like the Antarctic at all.

So they dug a little pool in the
ocean to keep the penguin cool.

They put a net around it so
the penguin couldn’t escape.

But of course, the whole point of
this story is the penguin escaped.

How far did the penguin get?

This is again.

So the cat was stolen, kidnapped,
brought 70 kilometers away.

The penguin gets out, swims 30 kilometers
up the coast over a couple of days.

It escaped on August 25th.

And it’s, oh no, it swam 40 kilometers
along and then was found 30 kilometers away.

So it’s kind of swam up
the coast, 40 kilometers,

got onto land, maybe walked
back, swam back and forth a little bit.

But of course, it’s a little penguin.

It’s lost.

Staff got a call.

There’s a penguin out here,
clearly not native species

of penguin ’cause there’s
no penguins in Japan.

So they call them staff approach.

This is the thing I actually
would have loved a recording of.

Staff approach the penguin.

They call the penguin by name.

The penguin turns around
and starts coming to them.

I mean, that is just, I’m sorry.

Even if I don’t see it in my head, I
can imagine it’s the cutest thing ever.

The penguin answers to his name.

I got a dog behind me if I called his name.

He probably wouldn’t answer, he
probably just ignored me completely.

This actually should have gone
next to the card trading story

because it does go into
knowing or not knowing

the value of something
and that’s important.

Five people were arrested
for stealing golf clubs.

And I, again, I don’t know
anything about golf clubs.

I know golf clubs are expensive.

Golf is an expensive sport, which
is weird because it’s grass in a stick.

And then you hit a little ball into a hole.

I mean, I could probably
manufacture that at home.

I know equipment is
where men put their lives.

I have, over the course of my
judo career, had many judo suits.

The most expensive one
was probably $350 or $400.

This is for very heavy pajamas
that I will wrestle other men in.

So I kind of get it.

This is interesting because it’s my level
of expertise when it comes to judo suits.

I could look at the
judo suit and tell you

basically how much
that judo suit is worth.

Because I’ve dealt with them so much.

Golf clubs completely alien to me.

No idea what the value is.

So you have to have a golf
expert to steal golf clubs.

Effectively, you need a card
expert to steal card effectively.

So again, those guys should have
paid attention to the live stream.

That really bugs me.

It really bugs me that they
had to stop and ask the staff

which are the valuable
cards because they could

have just been paying
attention the whole time.

Oh, Taki is one of the guys.

We got to rest.

One of these five guys in this sort
of like golf club stealing scam thing.

Basically, they were
going into parking garages.

I assume close to– I like
that you call them judo suits.

They’re judo suits, isn’t that?

Well, I mean, I guess the
Japanese is judo ghee.

But in English, ghee, I don’t know.

It’s not really, it’s, again,
there’s not really a thing.

judo see.

Yeah, put on my judo
suit, my little judo tie.

I want to look, I want to
look correct for when I go.

Like a custom suit, you still do judo in.

I would love that.

I actually had the idea.

What I want to do is a
John Wick kind of thing.

So I wanted to just take
one of my regular work suits.

So they’re pretty good.

I spent a little extra money.

I got an actual tailored suit bespoke.

If I go to a tailor shop in Japan,
the shoulders are never big enough.

They cut from a pattern.

I had to go to a place
that actually made the suit.

So it’s not because I’m fancy.

It’s because just the Japanese tailoring
system is already set for a certain size.

So I went and got these suits made.

And I was like, you know
what would be awesome?

If I put on my suit and I got
my opponent to put on his suit

and we did a real fight and
see how much physical damage

was actually done to the
suit by the end of the fight.

Would be really interesting.

I actually had the idea, because
they have these old Kung Fu movies.

And they were like these jamas,
like these like sequined pajamas.

And I wanted to put on one of those and have
a real fight and see how long they last.

I think officially you
call it a judo gig, yes.

I kind of translate a lot of
Japanese for what I assume.

I know my audience is
like 70%, 80% in America.

We get some Europeans.

We get some, I think it was Estonia
suddenly became like really bumped up.

I forget the country now.

There was a very unusual country
for listening to Japanese news

just popped up out of
nowhere in the last month or so.

But you know, hello Estonia.

Thanks for listening.

I had a tailored judo gig.

Like I hit that level where I
was like getting it made for me.

Again, totally unrelated.

But it’s the, it’s the
knowing I should look it up.

Make sure I got the country.

I don’t know insult to country.

But I just think to say
thank you to all the countries.

My favorite, so you look at stats.

If you do like a podcast,
you have to look at stats.

Because numbers make you
feel good when the numbers go up.

The problem is when the numbers
plateau or go down, you feel bad.

So you shouldn’t invest
yourself too much in

the numbers because
they don’t always go up.

But I do always weirdly enjoy.

It’ll be like, let’s just say the
Philippines or Singapore or something.

And you’ll get one listen and then no more.

So it’s someone in Singapore was like,

oh, here’s an interesting
news show about Japan.

I’ll listen to that and
then they listen to it.

And they go, they’re not for me.

And they never listen again.

You get one download from
Romania, one download from Mexico,

one download from, you
know, whatever country.

But it shows like someone gave you a shot.

And I’m like, hey, I
appreciate you gave me a shot.

And you gave me like a real shot.

That’s great.

And then it wasn’t for you.

I understand that.

It’s not for everybody.

But I do appreciate everyone
who’s taking, listen to one episode.

They’re not going to hear this.

They’re not going to hear this.

Thanks.

So honestly, go fuck yourself.

Otaki referred to himself
as a golf, the golf club thief.

So if you’re giving yourself that name,

you’re actually kind of
given away what’s going on.

He’s specifically targeted,
valuable head covers.

I assume that’s the end.

Again, we’ve already hit a level where I
don’t really know what I’m talking about.

And he sold them at retail shops.

So he went to parking garages,
found cars with the clubs

in the back, broke into the car, took
the golf clubs, and then resold them.

I’m assuming that
was either around golf

courses, or he knew
where people were parking.

There was a very set way he was doing it.

This is actually where
he gets impressive, though.

He did 286 thefts across
seven prefectures in four months.

So this was a man was working.

So I do, again, make
fun of criminals a lot.

I say they’re not doing their job right.

This guy was doing the work.

He probably the literal
volume was actually his mistake,

because what you need to
do is commit a crime once.

It’s a big crime, and
then you stop for a really

long time so you don’t get–
you don’t make mistakes.

If you have to keep committing crimes,

and you do it again
and again and again and

again, you’re going to
make enough mistakes.

They’re going to put together an
MO, and they’re going to catch you.

So the 286 theft sounds
good, but at the end of the day,

it’s too many because
they’re going to catch you.

That is more than too a day.

But the golf clubs he stole
were worth over 57 million in.

Now he probably didn’t
get 57 million in for them,

because he was selling them at pawn
shops, or e-mail shops, things like that.

But he was making a lot of money.

Why did he steal this many?

There was five guys
that he had to split it up,

so that would have been
10 million yen each, maybe?

The police arrest is only like,
dude, why are you stealing golf clubs?

And seriously, why are
you stealing this volume?

When he was arrested, he said
he was stealing the golf clubs

to raise money for a celebration,
because of a friend’s release from prison.

So his friend’s going to get out of prison.

He’s like, ah, we’ve got to get some money,

so we can put on just a killer party
for our boy who’s getting out of prison.

I know what to do,
let’s go steal golf clubs

and sell them, and
we’ll get a ton of money.

How much money do you
need for a party, though?

I have never been to
a 57 million yen party.

I guess I’m just not
running with the right crowd.

I also don’t, if I got out
of prison with my friends,

throw me a 57 million
yen party, a release party.

The irony is this man is
very, very likely going to jail

for the money he was
trying to raise for his party.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The manager of crocodile
tanning, that was enough.

Crocodile tanning already put me off,
because I am incredibly fair-skinned.

I burn in minutes if I’m in the sun.

So tanning is like a torture
chamber for me conceptually.

But people do tan, thinking
primarily like bodybuilders and stuff.

I just, the name, that’s the thing you
don’t want is to look like a crocodile.

But he was like pushing into the image,

like you’re going to have crocodile
skin, if you come here in tan.

This guy was clearly an expert.

He was a bodybuilder in his youth.

And he tanned a lot himself.

He had these machines.

He knew how to run them.

He gave people really good advice.

That’s kind of the start of the story.

He was arrested for taking pictures
of his favorite customers, of course,

to satisfy men desires
when he was arrested.

He was caught because a woman in her 20s
was suspicious, while she was using the bed,

she heard the curtain
open and a shutter clicking.

I’m always going to criticize the ability
or the thought process of the criminal.

You can turn off the shutter sound.

Like, you could come
up with different cameras.

You could get, you could put a hidden
camera, you could do something else.

You do not take a picture with
a camera with a shutter sound.

So in Japan, it is illegal to
take a picture with your phone,

to have your phone, and
it doesn’t make a noise.

And this is all because of the cheek on or
the up skirt photos, all this other stuff.

It’s illegal.

So you’re committing a
crime by, if you install an app

or do something else
or have a phone that

doesn’t make a sound
when you take a picture.

I’ve actually had friends
who, when they go overseas,

their camera doesn’t make a noise,
but when they come back, it does.

So it’s actually like location specific.

I have my phone makes a
sound, and it’s on by default.

So I think I can turn it off
because it’s a Chinese phone.

I never actually checked
because I don’t take any

pictures if we’re being
really, really honest.

But that’s not the issue.

The issue is, in Japan, they
considered it such a problem,

they made it illegal to have your
phone camera not make a noise.

But of course, we all know
these are things you can turn off.

You can get an app to turn it off.

You could download a different
camera app that doesn’t make the sound.

I’m guaranteed you could do all that.

I haven’t even checked, and I
know all of those things exist.

So I think that’s where he went wrong.

He wasn’t really thinking it through.

Yet, he was successful at
this for a very, very long time.

This lady in her 20s,
though, is kind of awesome.

She decided I’m going to
set up my own sting operation.

So she put her bag at
the end of the tanning bed.

She set up her phone recording
so it wasn’t making a shutter sound,

just recording while she
was in the tanning bed

so that she has a video
of him opening the curtain,

sticking the camera
out and taking pictures.

So she did her own sting,
and she caught this guy.

I mean, 99% of the stories
are the guys just doing

one really dumb thing,
not thinking it through.

That’s how they get caught.

She reported it to the police
and the men as arrested.

He says he’s been doing it for 30 years.

So weirdly, incredibly successful.

They had 400 pictures on his
smartphone when they seized it.

So the police arrest him, they’re
like, “Give us your smartphone.

We know you’ve been
taking pictures with this.

” They have 400
pictures on there already.

That doesn’t include
like any he’s maybe saved

to the cloud, and he’s
gone on a PC at home.

He says he’s been doing it for 30 years.

There are going to be hundreds,
if not, thousands of pictures.

He was popular with
bodybuilders and athletes.

And some women were given deep discounts.

So I think the deep discounts
were so they would keep

showing up, so you could
keep taking pictures of them.

They said the owner was known
to be skilled and knowledgeable.

And another customer is he
got a lot of recommendations

because he would show
them poses with a leg spread

and they’re butt shoved up so you
could tans as sort of the nether regions.

And that’s because if
you’re doing bodybuilding,

you don’t want like a white splotch
when you have on your teeny tiny bikini.

So he was like, “You get in this position,
and it will tan evenly in that area.

” And then he was probably
taking pictures of that as well.

Crocodile tanning is not temporary closed.

Temporarily, crocodile
tanning is now temporary.

He is very selective about his photos.

One photo per month, only the best one.

This is actually what you’ve just
said is very similar to what I mean.

Like, you don’t volume is
always a problem with crime

because volume means
you’re more likely to get caught.

You’re more likely to get lazy.

So him taking pictures
with the shutter sound on,

I don’t know how he
could have gone 30 years

with the shutter sound
on and not gotten caught.

So the fact that it took 30 years
already is a bit shocking in itself.

The, if he had taken
one picture a month with

no shutter sound, I
bet he’d still be going.

And he just, that, that
lack of satisfaction,

the desire for more and more and more
is always what drives these criminals.

Bigger score, more money.

Cause I’m always thinking, set a limit.

I’m going to make 50 million
yen on my criminal enterprise.

And then I’m going to stop for let’s say
extra money years until that money runs out.

And then I’ll do it again.

I’ll have that cooling off
period where I’m not at risk of

getting in trouble if they
haven’t figured out it was me.

That seems like the logical
way to commit crimes.

You want to go for
a big score as few as

possible and then stop
for an extended period.

They never think.

Could also be the one time he
forgot the special act of time.

Yeah, it could be also
the one time you forgot to.

It’s very true he could have.

Maybe he made a mistake.

But again, if he made a mistake,
it’s because he was getting lazy.

He wasn’t being conscientious
about the criminal enterprise

he was doing and he
wasn’t being conscientious

and caring enough about
doing his job properly.

And that is Ninja New Japan’s
news teaching to criminals.

I lost that sentence halfway through.

I had, I had an idea.

I’ve just said this a bunch of times.

As if you’re going to commit
crime, you know, put the effort in.

But I want you to put the
effort into everything you do

so that you can be the
best whatever you are.

So if you want to be the best criminal,
I want you to be the best criminal.

If you’re going to be a tanning person, I
want you to be the best tanning person.

You know, get all the nooks and crannies.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[MUSIC PLAYING]

UnReforming Schools

(Drumming)

  • Engineers Japan has complained
    many, many times, maybe too many times.

That the biggest problems
in Japan, sort of our part of

the issue is that the
leadership of Japan is very old.

The most politicians are very old.

These older people, they haven’t
updated the way of thinking.

These old men, they
got those biases from the

’60s and ’70s still take
and hold their brain.

They think the world hasn’t changed.

They haven’t updated their point of view.

Well, Dr. City has
decided to take a stance.

Not really, just voted in a
guy who’s probably capable.

They elected the youngest mayor in
Japan at 27 years old, at 27 years old.

I think 26 or 27 is when
I graduated university

because I’d messed up
university so bad, which is

very embarrassing to
say actually, it’s pretty sad.

And then I think the
prime minister of Canada,

so at 27, I was essentially
at that point of failure.

I hadn’t done anything right yet.

The prime minister of
Canada is the same age as me.

And so, you shouldn’t compare yourself.

He actually had an
advantage in that his father

was the prime minister of Canada
previously, and they were very rich.

He had like sort of
legacy money, old money.

I didn’t have that.

I certainly didn’t suffer in my life.

I’ll be really honest,
but I don’t think anyone

would go around calling
us rich, extravagantly so.

I wasn’t in a position to start making
campaigns to run for prime minister.

Maybe that’s what held me back.

So I should blame my parents.

There you go.

I should blame our parents for everything.

And the old people who
are running the country.

And this is why we
should elect 27-year-olds

to be the mayor of the city because
yeah, I’m sure, of course we should.

In a statement after he was
elected, he said he wanted

to attract businesses that
appeal to the young people.

He wants to address population decline, and
these are sort of his main agenda goals.

So it’s an interesting idea, like what
businesses appeal to young people

and they should take the forefront
versus Japan has an aging population.

So we should cater to them.

That’s a nice different point of view.

He’s a young guy.

He’s like, hey, we should think about
young people who are growing up.

This should be there world
as well, maybe even more so.

The addressing population decline so far,
no politician has come out with a policy

that actually is going to
have any impact that’s real.

And so I’m not very hopeful
that this guy’s going to have,

he might actually again
be a new way of thinking.

Maybe he’ll have an idea
that I haven’t thought of.

All my ideas been pretty basic.

Don’t make people work overtime so they
can go out and actually meet other people.

Like that’s the kind
of stuff I think is

really important when
it comes to this topic.

(upbeat music)

There was a very progressive high school.

They were making headlines because
they were doing such cool things.

They were essentially
doing away with school rules.

They were lauded as progressive.

And what is a very
restrictive and old system?

So this is maybe like our young mayor.

They’re deciding like we’re going
to change the way things work.

20 students were practicing hip-hop dance.

And they were practicing
this for, there’s an end of the

year every year they have
sort of like this celebration.

They put on shows.

They do this very Japanese thing.

They have sports day stuff like that.

Part of this was going to be putting on.

The dance club was going to put on a dance.

They decided it on this hip-hop dance.

The principal said he
wanted a different kind

of dance where everyone
is the main person.

So basically it seems like
from what I can extrapolate

’cause they didn’t give
you like perfect explanations.

The hip-hop dance had
a couple of main members

and maybe a bunch
of supporting people.

And he’s like, that’s not fair.

I want everyone to maybe be dancing in
concerts so that everyone is the main person.

I understand this point of
view, but it is also quite stupid.

I understand it as a point of view.

I clearly don’t agree with it.

That’s why I think it’s quite stupid.

I remember going to a
elementary school to see one of

these kids’ plays and
because you got like 20, 30 kids

and that most stories actually only
about three or four main characters.

It’s really hard to come
up with other characters.

Maybe it was a story in Indonesia, Japan.

I saw one where they had
like Goldilocks, let’s say.

And Goldilocks was played by
three girls at the exact same time.

So the three girls rolled out and
they all said the lines together.

They said one line at a
time, that kind of stuff.

They were trying to make sure
that everyone got to participate

but then they also wanted
to make sure it was the main.

It was a story and it was like
they had 10 or 15 snow whites

and they weren’t like, come on, do a
line and then swap out the snow whites.

They were all on stage at the same
time and which is of course ridiculous.

Most shows you’ll have a
couple of main and then support.

That’s not an unusual
or unreasonable thing.

The principal decided
this was not acceptable.

Everyone’s got to be the
main so maybe just a single

coordinated dance that
everyone does together.

The students went to him and said, Oh
man, we want to do our hip hop dance.

It’s part of our
performance at the festival.

This is what we’ve decided to do.

The parents said it was unfair.

So they sent a letter.

The kids have already been practicing.

They organized this.

It’s their club.

How can you come in at this later
stage and tell them not to do the dance?

They’ve already decided they want to do.

The news story said there
was a high school band’s hip hop.

That’s not actually the case.

I actually get very frustrated.

Now that I read a lot
of news for an engineer’s

Japan, I get very
frustrated at misleading titles

because they’re trying to
clickbait you into reading it.

I kind of understand that, but
also you don’t want to be deceptive.

There was one who last week who was like,

man, bumps shoulder of
other man and get stabbed.

And then it should
have been by an umbrella.

It’s getting stabbed and
getting stabbed by an umbrella.

Getting stabbed by an
umbrella is not fun, but it’s not

sort of the same caliber is
getting stabbed by a knife,

which is what you would assume
if you read the phrase stabbed.

46 parents signed a letter.

The principal does not listen
to the parents or the students

and just decided to hold on to this
like you cannot do this hip hop dance.

Now this seems really weird.

You had this school that
was incredibly progressive.

How did it get this way?

Well, like how did they get to this point?

Well, it’s very clear
actually 2014 to 2019.

You had principal Kuda.

And it was a very progressive person who
wanted to make a very progressive school.

Got a lot of media attention
and there was a lot of growth.

It went from 384 students to 570.

So this was appealing to students.

Students wanted to go to the school.

They wanted this experience.

They weren’t getting another schools.

2023, oh, oh.

Principal Horikoshi takes over.

2023, principal Horikoshi takes over.

So you know that’s already
going to have a different thing.

And principal Horikoshi says
they want to rebuild the school.

Now you know when someone
has done a ton of reforms

and then someone else
comes in and takes over

and says, I’m going
to rebuild the school.

What they’re actually saying
is I’m going to take the school,

take all this stuff you’ve
done and changed in advance.

I’m going to roll all that shit back.

I’m going to take it back to
what it was at the beginning.

I’m going to make this
the most traditional school.

I can.

And you know, everything’s
going to be super awesome

because it’s going to be
back the way it should be.

So this is again, old people thinking,

traditional way of doing
things, not successful.

So 2023, standardized tests
were brought back into the school.

So between 2014 and 2019, there
were no tests as we know them.

There was probably sort
of like checks and things.

And they did talk to the students.

They made sure they understood
stuff because they probably still

had to do national tests and
exams to get into universities.

But within the school, they were
taking away this pressure of the test.

They wanted the students
to study and learn and grow.

2024, back to uniforms.

So this school had done
away with the school uniform.

2024 comes along.

Horikoshi says, you know what?

We’ve brought back tests.

We’re going to bring back the uniform.

But bring back all the shit that was
done away with that maybe is unnecessary.

I don’t know.

But the question is, so
under principal CUDA,

the progressive principal, the school
almost doubled in size, student body wise.

In the two years, Horikoshi took over.

The enrollment of
students has dropped to 346,

which is actually below
the initial level of 2014.

So in 2014, it was 384.

Horikoshi has now driven it down
to about 40 people less than that,

which shows you just
how good his ideas were.

But of course, they’re not
going to take any responsibility

for that and just say, I’m putting
things back the way they should be.

I’ve rebuilt the school by tearing
down half the student body.

Japan is famous for not having
that many guns, not having any guns.

They have very strict rules.

And so there’s not a lot of shootings.

Actually, over the
last two weeks, there’s

been a lot of stabbing
stories in the news.

It’s been about three or four.

There was a lady.

Her ex-husband had a restraining over.

He came into a cafe.

He stabbed her and she died.

He stabbed her in the neck.

Staff, like five people held
him down till the police came.

There’s been a couple of
just inter-family stabbing.

This to me actually says,
it’s good we don’t have guns.

Japan is famous for not having
many guns, very strict gun rules.

One of the gun rules I
know is that if you register

a gun, you have a gun,
you have to register it.

That’s given.

That means the police can
come into your house at any point,

any time, and check on
the well-being of the gun.

So, four o’clock in the
morning, I’m in my bed, I sleep.

I sleep like a vampire.

I actually didn’t realize
this until very recently.

Like I sleep.

I lie on my back with my
hands kind of on my chest.

And I realize like I basically
just sleep like a vampire.

I’ve taken on a lot of vampire
attributes in my old age.

I don’t go out in the
sun if I can avoid it.

Because the sun hurts me.

I haven’t gone full of vampire yet.

I was just waiting to see.

Maybe that’s like an evolutionary
thing that happens over time.

What happened?

Oh, the police, this is
the problem with tangents,

is I actually lose the point
where I go off in the tangent.

The police can come into your house.

So it’s four o’clock in the
morning, you’re sleeping.

I assume not like a vampire.

They knock on your door,
they bring your doorbell.

You come down, you’re
like, “Oh, it was your garage.

” He’s like, “Dude,
it was four o’clock.

” And they’re like,
“Yeah, where’s your gun?

” And then they can
just walk in your house.

They don’t need a warrant or anything.

You basically sign away the right to
essentially privacy if you have a gun in Japan.

You have to allow the police
to come in and just check

as your gun loaded, is it unloaded, is it
locked away, is everything taken care of?

If there’s a mistake, they
just take the gun away.

That’s, I don’t know, I don’t
think that’s a terrible system.

I know I’m not American,
so Americans who listen

to this might be like
very like, I disagree.

You should have the freedom
to buy as many guns as possible.

I actually have no problem
with volume if you’re responsible.

This guy, this SAPro man who’s 59 years
old, he was arrested for having 33 handguns.

And he said he bought them for fun.

He had five handguns and 28 imitation
handguns without any ammunition.

But he also had no reason
that was permitted by law.

So he didn’t have a
reason for having the guns.

I’ve talked a couple times
about if you are searched

by the police and you
have like a Swiss Army knife.

I used to carry a Swiss Army
knife with me everywhere I went,

found out in Japan, carrying a knife is
illegal unless you carry it for a reason.

So you have to say, why do
you have this, the police stop you,

check your bag, they
look in your bag, they find

a Swiss Army, they go,
why do you have this?

You go, I just carry
it with me just in case.

They’re like, that’s illegal.

You say, oh, well, I’m
going camping tonight.

I want it with me for kindling or
something or I want to screw something in

whatever.
Then you have a reason, then it is legal.

So if I buy a knife at a shop, I can
obviously take it home, I could take a

fish scaling knife with
me when I go fishing.

But if I just carry a
knife around, that’s illegal.

So you have to have a reason
for having a knife with you.

This is kind of the
same statement for guns.

He has no legal reason
for having these guns.

He’s not permitted by law.

The interesting thing
that I found was this

was actually discovered
by the cyber patrol.

So Japan has like a section called
the cyber division, the cyber patrol.

They primarily try to deal with scams,
but they also come across information.

Information like this,
like, hey, this guy,

I’m assuming his bot guns
online or is talking about guns.

So they went and searched his
house. They go search his house.

They find, oh, where’s the number?

In his garage, he had 100 other
guns and rifles with no ammunition.

So he’s clearly just a
collector, a guy who likes guns.

He has no intention of shooting them
because he doesn’t have any ammunition.

So for me, I’m like, this
guy may be more responsible

because he’s like,
yeah, I got all these guns,

but none of them are functional.
They’re just big sticks at this point.

I like the way they look. He’s clearly not
even using them or practicing with them.

He’s just really likes
guns. So I’m really

torn on whether I
think this is okay or not,

because having the gun is just one
step away from getting ammunition.

So he has a bad day, he gets the
ammunition, and then off he can go with like

20 guns on a belt,
the wrong is chassis.

He doesn’t have to reload.
He’s just pulling about

shooting and dropping. So
who knows what could go wrong?

I understand the
potential danger.

But up to this point,
it seems like the guy

just really likes having
his gun collection,

but of course it does seem
like he’s done it illegally.

I have been buying guns
as a hobby for 15 years.

I have never fired any of them.

I actually believe that
statement. If you had no

ammunition in his house
at all, I actually believe

that he did not ever fire
the gun. I think that’s true.

But 15 years he’s
been collecting guns,

it does seem like he’s
been doing it illegally,

so there is a problem
there. The investigation is

now ongoing to find
out how he bought them.

But the fact that the cyber
patrol discovered this, I’m

betting it’s just like online
auctions or one-on-one deals.

I don’t know. But
clearly this is all

happening over the internet.
In August, a crowdfunding

project was started
to create a town.

Now Japan has a lot of sort
of small towns that are empty,

their ghost towns. And
so this group was like,

hey, what we’ll do is
we’ll get 500 million yen.

We’ll essentially buy this town.

We’ll restructure this town
and we’ll create this town.

And it’s going to
be for women only.

I had a conversation on a
different podcast about the

women only cars. And I
was like, look, Chican exists.

Chican is the guys
who will get on the train

and they’ll push up behind
you and they’ll touch you.

That’s disgusting. It’s gross.

I actually was wondering very
early on why there are not more

cameras in Japanese
train cars because I’d heard

about this issue before.
So why did the security

position things already
not exist? But maybe there’s

a privacy issue I’m
unaware of. It being public

transportation though,
I think there is no

expectation of privacy. So they
should have cameras in the cars.

But regardless,
they decided let’s

just make a car women only.
And a bunch of sort of men dicks.

They were like, this is unfair.

Why did they get
their own car and stuff?

Oh, I should be able to use
it freedom and all that stuff.

And I’m like, if everyone
would stop touching them, it

would not be a problem.
So if they need a safe place

to travel, they should
have a safe place to travel.

The town though takes on a sort of different
feelings or a misendry kind of feeling.

The goal was to make 500
million yen. They were going to

get a deserted village
and rebuild it and only

women could enter. Now
there is a constitutional

issue with this in
Japan. The constitution in

Japan dictates freedom
of travel. And this became a

problem during COVID in
lockdown because it’s you

can’t lock down people
if your constitution says

people have the
right to move around.

So there’s your first actual
issue is like we want everyone to

stay home in their house.
We can’t mandate that.

We can only ask very
nicely because we can’t make

it a rule that would
defy the constitution.

This does something
very similar. You’re a man,

you’re saying I can’t come
into this town because

of my gender that
defies the constitution.

So constitutionally, they
already have a legal issue

where this probably
would not be enforceable.

You could build a town. You
could try to get a majority

of the residents to be
women. But I don’t think

you’d be able to deny
men entry into your town.

But that was the stated
goal was to have this town

and only women could
enter. Now I actually weirdly

don’t have a problem
with that either.

Like, if you don’t want
me in your town, I’m kind of

okay with not going to
your town. But you know,

other people would
have a problem with it.

They want to make a
political statement what not.

You can’t lock off one
gender on anything and expect

to be successful, I
think, but whatever.

Project managers, they were
recruiting and they wanted

to recruit from only women.
It was very recently canceled.

And so the website where it was is now just
doing a 404. This doesn’t exist anymore.

One of the statements was we tried to
raise funds on a platform created by men.

So misogyny has been
blamed for the failure of

this project when if it
was crowdfunding, if you

only want women to be in this town, you
have to expect only women to crowdfund it.

Maybe they must have assumed
that the idea was that women

would contribute to this
town and then women would

live in this town. Is
there enough women who

are going to contribute
to this? Is there enough

women who actually agree that
will do this is actually the question.

Clearly not. The
fact that it was just

shut down so suddenly, maybe
there was another issue there.

And that might be
back at the legal issue

that I stated earlier.
The legal issue may be the

thing that was actually
holding them back because

you’re essentially not
allowed to do this in Japan.

There would be other
countries where if you

wanted to make a town
with only a certain amount

of people or certain kind
of people can come in,

that might be legal,
like you might be able to

create rules for your
town that are separate from

the national rules. In
Japan, you can’t do that.

I think that would
probably be more likely the

bigger problem than just
not getting enough money.

I’m pretty sure they did not
get enough money as well.

So did enough women contribute if they
did, there’s breaking the law probably.

But realistically, I don’t
think enough women are

on board with this idea
to actually contribute

all that money because
how many women are actually

going to live in that
town? It would only be,

to me, the town’s
people would be willing to

contribute to money.
Like, if I am a woman,

I’m not going to contribute
to a town that I’m

not going to live in.
Maybe I could go visit.

It would be interesting to a
spot, but how much money

would you be willing to
put up in the first place?

I have to get some
women’s opinions.

This is a one person
podcast, which makes that very

difficult because as
it turns out, I’m a man.

Nagoya University of
Arts has refused a request

from the union, so sort
of the student union.

Maybe teachers, unit
actually just said union in the

article now that I think
about it, to release a report.

There have been
multiple allegations of

sexual harassment of
the university president,

the university of Nagoya,
Nagoya University of Arts.

It’s a very interesting
thing that has happened.

So this guy clearly has
been harassing people,

probably students.
The students reported

this and then an internal
investigation was created

and that internal
investigation found something,

but now won’t say what
they found. The report was

set up by the educational
corporation and they

stated it cannot be
accepted that any sexual

harassment, warranting
punishment took place.

Very interesting phraseology.
I’m always very careful

about the phraseology of
an article of a statement

made by someone in the
news. So they’re saying

sexual harassment, warranting
punishment took place.

So there’s not saying
that sexual harassment

didn’t take place. They’re
just saying he doesn’t

deserve to be punished
for the sexual harassment

that did take place.
So maybe they’re saying

he made comments and those
comments are not deserving of punishment.

Maybe he touched someone, but he didn’t
touch them bad enough to warrant punishment,

So we don’t know what
their scale is and their

scale should actually
match the law. So in the law,

in Japan, if you say stuff
to people in that sexual

harassment, so actually,
if you can set anything,

it is probably breaking
the law. But this does

actually confirm some
kind of sexual harassment

actually happened.
Newspaper found out about

this and they were like,
they started doing sort

of an investigation. They
talked to some people and

they were like, we know
sexual harassment happened

and we do feel that it
warrants punishment.

The investigative group was
for internal members, one senior.

So basically, you
had three people

and they are boss where the
group investigating the person.

So the boss is
going to say, look,

we don’t want this university
president to get in trouble.

We’re going to cover for them.

And the three other people
were like, you’re our boss,

I want to keep my job. So
yes, we’re going to agree.

The unions demanded
they set up a third party

probe, which I do not
think is going to happen.

The statement was that
the students are not willing

to engage in dialogue.
So they’re like, we

can’t set up a third party
probe because when we

tried to talk to them, the
students didn’t want to talk to us.

The students
didn’t want to talk to

essentially the friends
who were covering for the

person who sexually
harassed them is the issue

they ran into and
they’re like, well, we tried.

And they just didn’t
want to talk to us.

They didn’t want to say the
things that we wanted them to say.

So a third party isn’t
going to do any better.

So there’s no reason to have a third party
organization do a probe. Then they came

out and had to make
an actual statement.

The actual statement was
the perpetrators rights must be

protected as well, which is
something I sort of agree with.

They do have some rights, but the rights
to not get punished because you don’t

like them like it or you
don’t want them to get

punished isn’t one of
those rights. So the fact is

this is just a cover up. Clearly
sexual harassment did happen.

This internal group,
this investigative

group is trying to cover
it up and now they’re

getting public attention.
They’re like, we have

to protect the human
rights of the perpetrator,

not just the victims,
but that also would imply

that they are the
perpetrator that they have

just done something and
they should get punished.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Mental Gymnastics

(upbeat music)

So I think it’s maybe getting
time for a new theme song.

So I just decided to try out
one of these AI generator things.

Just to see if it was any good.

So my prompt was news
intro, drums, and trumpets.

‘Cause you know, pretty much every new
show starts with like bam, bam, bam, bam.

(humming)

There you go, I should do it in my mouth.

Why am I, why am I getting AI?

When I have the natural
instrument of my body.

It was horrible.

Like every song was absolutely atrocious.

I had to do about eight
or 10, and not one of them

sounded even close to
what I would call music.

So musicians, you’re safe for
the next little while, at least.

I mean, I bet AI could at
this point generate the script

for this show, although almost
impossible because I don’t script it.

But you know what I mean?

If you fed all the ninja
news Japan’s from the past

into AI, it could
generate, if you take the,

I must be able to take
the news, take my style

of speaking and put it
together, clone my voice.

The podcast is automated now.

I don’t actually have to do anything.

But the theme song, you’re safe.

I’m still thinking about what to do.

I wanna pay people to do
it, but I don’t have money.

Like I’m not rich.

This is an update on a
story from previous week.

So we had our two gentlemen who
decided to graffiti Yes, Kuni Shrine.

I’ve talked about why.

Yes, Kuni Shrine is a controversial place
for people from primarily China in Korea.

We’ve talked about graffiti.

Is it bad?

And overall, basically, yes.

This guy, he sprayed, what did he spray?

It was dog poop, actually
could go back into my old notes.

I should’ve checked.

He sprayed what I would consider like
grade two level thoughts onto the shrine.

He was a little more honest about it.

The first guy was like,
this is a political statement.

The second guy’s like, I don’t like this.

I actually kind of
appreciate the honesty there.

He escaped back to China.

And so in my report, last time I was
like, he’s not going to get arrested.

No, he’s going to happen to him.

Chinese police do not care if
you’ve committed a crime in Japan.

You can read into that a
bunch of different ways,

but at the end of the day,
it is a fundamental truth.

But he did get arrested.

So I said he wasn’t going to get
arrested, but then he did get arrested.

But the reason he got arrested
for a different crime, of course.

So there is sort of a karmic
version of justice happening here.

He committed a crime
and he is being punished.

He has committed two crimes.

He’s being punished for one.

Does that count for both?

I think the criminal justice
system in China is pretty harsh.

So I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

The graffiti in Japan,
honestly, graffiti, how bad is it?

I don’t think you should graffiti
vandalize things, whatever.

But in the end of the day, how
many people are I still getting hurt?

You got to clean it up.

I would basically make the criminal
clean up the thing they graffiti.

That’s a pretty fair punishment.

He was arrested on suspicion of extortion.

He was threatening people involved
in online streams for shopping.

So China is very popular to have shopping
streams where you bring products out.

You talk about them.

You move it on people can buy that product.

And he apparently was trying
to intimidate these people

into getting them to put
money into a bank account.

So just essentially just
extorting them for money.

While I, of course, would judge
someone for graffitiing something.

I couldn’t understand the
politics behind graffitiing.

That’s a coony shrine.

I really can’t.

I wouldn’t do it, but I can understand it.

But when you get into extortion, it’s pretty
clear you’re just a bad person anyways.

And so there is not a lot
of a redemption arc here.

And I’m sure that Chinese justice
system is absolutely going to bury you.

So good luck to him.

A Japan Postman, I say
Postman because it’s a guy.

So I’m not trying to be sexist biased or
use my sort of older misogynistic style.

I was speaking.

It’s an actual Postman.

But also could be Postboy
because this Postman

was a teenager and I was like, wow, I
never thought about the age of Post people.

It’s kind of a neat thing.

But because I never thought about it
because in my image, they’re just adults.

But I don’t want to insult
people, male carriers.

And skill wise, you need to be able
to deliver male to certain addresses.

That is about it.

I’m sure there’s more to it.

Again, I feel like I’ve
already insulted someone.

I’m sorry.

I think it’s valuable job.

I think it’s important.

Japan Post is dedicated.

I once did an online thing.

It was probably for t-shirts or something.

And because the website, I put my
name in Japanese and Chinese characters.

So in Kanji, on the form, it
showed up as question marks.

So the Chinese script
wasn’t on the server

side of the system they were
using the payment system.

I guess they were set up for
only English perfectly makes sense.

They still sent it out because I assumed
the whole system was just automated.

Two months later, this package shows up.

All it has is my name in English and the
postal address and they still got it to me.

So that level of
dedication made me really,

really appreciate Japan Post as
a group of very dedicated people.

But now we get this story
and it’s a team who is hired.

So already it’s like,
maybe that’s the

problem, but also I
don’t think it’s like teens

are inherently lazy or
not capable or anything.

I don’t look at young people that way.

I look at individuals.

So this individual, the fact that it is a
teen, I think, is what got it to the front

of the news because it’s sort of playing
into people’s presuppositions about youth.

A teen Japanese postperson
dumped 2,378 letters

and 449 parcels in
seven different locations.

So over the course
of mid-June to July, so

that’d be about six weeks, just
like I can’t deliver all this mail.

So I’m just going to take it here.

I’m going to dump it.

I’m going to take it over here and dump it.

I’m going to take it over here.

1049 parcels, though, okay.

You’re a mail person.

You’re supposed to deliver the mail.

You decide you’re not
going to deliver the mail.

You start dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

If you’re going to commit, this is a crime.

I’m pretty sure this is a crime.

Just dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

You might as well steal the parcels.

I know I every
regularly say I should not

give advice to criminals,
but then immediately

sorry giving advice
to criminals, but it’s

because I’m like the police officer
who gets into the criminal mindset.

I just want to be in their thought, but in
my head, I’m like, well, if you’re going to

throw it away, you might
as well profit from it.

There may be some
good stuff in the parcels.

Keep them.

You might as well even take
the mail home and open it.

Maybe someone sending
someone some money or something.

I’ve now realized that if
I became a postperson,

if I decided to just
start dumping stuff,

like I didn’t want to deliver the
mail, I didn’t want to do my job.

I would be like, well, let’s
take it home and I’ll go through

it and see if there’s anything
valuable that I could keep.

Less likely to get caught.

So the fact that he was dumping
it in seven locations outside.

So the report came in on July 31st.

Someone found mail
and parcels in between

house and a river, so
I didn’t write it down.

They found it, they
basically found one of

the places that the kid
was dumping the mail.

They called the post office and the police.

The post office talked to the
guy, he admitted to doing it.

He just said, I can’t
deliver all this mail.

You guys are crazy with all
the mail you expect me to deliver.

It’s too much.

Clearly should not have been a mail person.

So what they’ve done,
they didn’t arrest the kid.

I’m finding this the interesting part.

He’s not been arrested.

The post office is filing
for damages and that

means he’s going to have
to pay the equivalency

of whatever that all that stuff was
worth, so they have to work that out.

They found pretty much all
the mail could still be delivered.

There were three parcels
that were so damaged

probably because of rain or something
that they couldn’t read the address.

There’s three parcels
will not get delivered.

They’ve put the message out there.

If you are missing a parcel,
you can contact the post office.

Maybe they haven’t for you.

But at the end of the
day, it actually seems

like after 2,000 pieces
of mail go missing.

Someone should have
noticed a little sooner.

Japan, we’ve done a
lot of things about Japan.

Battening down the hatches.

There’s some good sailor talk
that I’ve learned from my father.

They get stricter.

Japan does not get
looser in its laws and rules.

They get stricter.

So what has happened?

Electric scooters became available.

They immediately started making
rules about electric scooters.

About a month ago, we did a story about
those little motorized suitcases you can sit

on and go through the –
supposed to be through

the airport, but some people
were riding them in the streets.

If you ride them in
the streets, they fall

under motorized vehicle
rules and you have to

have all these modifications to
make it legal to go on the streets.

Cycling, very common in Japan, you –
it’s a very convenient way to get around.

Because the trains are great,
but trains don’t go everywhere.

So if you take a train
somewhere, it’s often

more convenient to take a bicycle to your
final destination, not the movie franchise.

Why?

That didn’t even make sense.

Just as soon as I said final destination,
the movie comes into my head.

I have even watched those movies.

I know they’re all about like people
dying and they know they’re going to die.

I don’t care about that.

I don’t know.

I like horror movies.

I like movies.

I never cared about the
final destination series.

Maybe I should – maybe
I should be my – maybe

I’ve been overly judgmental
about something I haven’t seen.

So I gotta make some amends and
maybe actually go watch one of those.

There’s like six.

That’s a bad sign.

Anyways, cycling is very common.

So they have decided
to get a little stricter

with the rules for
riding your bicycle.

And it’s going to
be people riding their

bicycle drunk and people riding their
bicycle while looking at their phone.

So if you are cycling
while using your phone,

you can now get fees, fines,
not fees, fines and jail time.

If you are a repeat offender, you
have to go to bicycle safety school.

I go quite like that.

I bet it’s not very good.

I have the gold driver’s license

  • Japan has a tear system.

So if you have no reasons,
I don’t drive very much.

So I have never had accidents.

I’ve never had a ticket.

So I have gold.

My wife got one ticket.

She has blue.

It actually really bugs her that
I have gold and she has blue.

When I renew my license, I have to go in.

I think I have to just go in, change
it, maybe watch a 10-minute video.

But if you have blue, you’ve
got to watch the long video.

That’s literally punishment.

I love it so much because as I just
said, someone I know has to do it.

I don’t.

If you are a repeat offender,
you have to take a safety course.

I bet that course is miserable.

If you are found using
your phone on your

bicycle, it can be up to six months
in prison and a 10,000 yen fine.

If you found our
phone to be a threat to

pedestrians, so if you’re just riding
looking your phone, that’s a cry.

If you’re riding looking
at your phone and

you almost hit people, it can be
one year in prison and 300,000 yen.

So that’s a significant jump up.

So if you’re in danger in
other people, that’s a big deal.

If you’re drinking
and bicycling, it might

used to be, you’re not
allowed to drive drunk.

So riding your bicycle drunk
was therefore acceptable.

Now the only way acceptable to
travel while drunk would be walking.

It’s probably a good idea,
even that might be dangerous.

But if you’re drunk and you’re riding your
bicycle, it can be punished by up to three

years in prison and
half a million yen fine.

So they have decided that not
only are you going to be careful

on your bike, you’re going to
be sobering careful on your bike.

There are four options.

Okay.

So the story itself is
there is a reporter, a

lady reporter for
business sort of daily thing.

She was arrested for breaking stalker laws.

She texted a reporter
at another paper 64

times between August
17th and the 25th, which

I was like 64 sounds like a lot,
but that’s only eight texts a day.

That’s dedication.

I don’t know.

Eight texts.

I think if you and I had
a chat, it would be 50.

I guess it was just 64 initiating messages
where the guy didn’t really respond.

Anyway, like if it’s
on the session, 64 isn’t

it, but then if it’s 64 just you,
messages in a row, yeah, that’s a bit much.

That’s crazy.

Okay.

But that those 64
messages came after she

had been warned by the police not
to attempt to contact the man again.

So now you can see that 64 is way too many.

It is.

So the police show up and
they’re like, hey, don’t text this guy.

Okay, and all anymore.

And she’s like, okay,
well, just 64 more times.

The way she sent
messages, so this actually

implies to me because
the information was not

in the paper in the
news story, was not

overlined or a traditional
text messaging thing,

which would imply maybe
that he’s blocked around that.

She would send a message
via pay pay, the payment system.

She would send him
like one or two yet and

then the message she connected to it was
I want to see you or something like that.

So she sent 64 messages
through pay pay a payment system.

So for the American listeners
or whatever, it would be

like Google pay sending
it like a couple of pennies.

And then you can send why you sent
those pennies is like, I want to see you.

So she was actually paying
extra for each of those messages.

She’s pretty serious about it.

So her reason, so your job
is now to guess her reason for

continuing to send messages
after she had been blocked.

So I have four options.

One, I want to see you, but she
meant professionally, not personally.

B, it’s a payment app and
therefore they are not messages.

C, he didn’t block me, so like
he didn’t block me on pay pay.

So it must have been okay on pay pay.

Or D, it was for a story on stalking.

Man, so I don’t know how this story yet.

Good.

Because if you hear the
story, it kind of ruins the quiz.

This has been my biggest concern.

It hasn’t happened yet.

But my concern is I
start the quiz, get to

the quiz part and
they’re like, oh, but I’ve

heard this story and know the answer and
they haven’t like cut me off, in which case

I would have to abandon
the whole thing anyway.

But okay, you can ask
questions about the four options.

And again, the three that are not true, I
will try to make up real sounding answers.

Do you remember the options?

She basically got a restraining
order against this gun.

It was one step lower.

So the police warned
her that if you continue,

you’re going to be
breaking stalking laws.

He hadn’t officially
gotten a restraining order.

So there is maybe a little
legal wiggle room, but I

think the message was
very clear you need to stop.

The police had warned her, that’s yeah.

She’s clearly gone through pay pay,
just keeps sending messages, I don’t think.

I don’t know.

And I don’t know.

I’m walking on a mental gymnastics with
this level three still to go, be doing.

Does he see what do you have?

Okay.

So C was he didn’t block me
therefore, it must have been fine.

So he didn’t block me
on pay pay specifically.

Or it was for a story
I was doing on stalking

and just wanted to get
into the mind of a stalker.

Be is also pretty good mental
gymnastics, why is that right?

Yeah, it’s a payment app.

So I wasn’t sending messages.

I was sending payments
and you have to

connect a message like a thing to
the payment, like a receipt almost.

So the receipt was a I want to see
you, you can ask a couple of questions.

It’s hard to ask questions on this
one because it’s just guessing, I guess.

So the person she was
sending, the pay pay messages,

I don’t know, messages
to, is he also a stochist?

Is he also what is he also in
the same kind of a fashion?

Oh, he’s a reporter.

They are both reporters.

They work at different publications.

So I’m going to assume that they met
professionally somehow, like at the same, they

were at the same story
or at the same location

or a conference or something,
professionally, they overlapped personally.

They did not.

And I think I’m good
with D. D, it was for a

story I was doing on
stalking, is incorrect.

When she was arrested,
the statement she

made was, it’s true
that I sent him messages,

but I thought I’d been accepted
because he didn’t block me.

I’m not concerned by
the accusations, oh, I’m

sorry, I’m not convinced
by the accusations.

So she’s saying the police told me to stop.

He hadn’t blocked me
on pay pay, so therefore

I’m not convinced
he’s told the police.

So the police are just interfering
in her personal relationship.

They aren’t.

It has nothing to do with the guy.

She thinks that the police are
jealous of her relationship or something.

Well, they might, but
I mean, what other

logics are like, the
police have come and told

you stop messaging this guy, and she’s
like, well, wait a minute, he hasn’t blocked

me on pay pay and I
can send him messages

and then he gets those messages
and he hasn’t said anything.

Therefore I’m not convinced
that he told you to tell me to stop.

I see.

It was the line of mental gymnastics.

That was a, it’s a lot.

I mean, she’s gone
through the three or four

different justifications
to get to the point

where it’s like still acceptable for
me to send messages to this dude.

On pay pay pay, that’s the fact that it’s
on pay pay, a payment app really solidifies

to me that this, she
was not either he didn’t

give her his contact information
or he had blocked her elsewhere.

But because she saw
this one opening that did

you ever see the German
guy who was in love

with like a kpop band,
it was a video online.

That’s probably like pre
pandemics for like five, six years ago.

He’s, he’s doing
his justification, he’s

basically been given a
restraining order and he

says, ah, this restraining order wasn’t
given to me by the woman I am stalking.

It was given to me by
the management company.

So it’s the management
company trying to stop me, not her.

It’s sure that Naio
likes me and that she

wants me to come back
to Korea and here is why.

So first of all, at the start of this
year, I received a restraining order.

At this restraining order was not from
Naio, it came from JYP Entertainment.

It did not come from Naio
and JYP Entertainment

tried to destroy my image
and tried to intentionally

scare Naio away from me because they feared
that Naio might neglect her job if me and

Naio start a relationship,
but obviously that

would not be the case
because I would obviously

support Naio’s job as
an idol and stay with

her in Korea so that she can still
focus all her time for her career.

Secondly, I always have treated Naio with a
lot of respect and I truly, truly love Naio

with all my heart and I am working really
hard all the time trying to make Naio happy

and trying to make her
realize that I truly love her.

So why would she hate me
that would not make any sense?

I know one time I
accidentally leaked Cheyong’s

phone number and I admit it was a
mistake and I apologized for that already.

And I know that there
are a lot of fake news about

me on the internet
created from unprofessional

news outlets who
try to gain views with

click-pake titles and fake
rumors to make money out of it.

But Naio is smart enough
to know that there are

a lot of fake news
about me on the internet.

Naio knows that I am a
good person and Naio knows

that I am in love with
her for almost years now.

So like he is convinced in his head that
the girl does love him back or would accept

him but it is the management
company that is interfering.

Yeah they are just
going to stop us getting

together, the management companies and
scares that I am going to take her away.

That does seem like
it and so this seems

like on the same kind
of thinking, it is like

the police are trying to
stop us from getting together.

Why?

So in the other one, the management
company would be losing an asset.

So she falls in love
with this guy and they

disappear and she is not
going to do music anymore.

But in this case, the
police, why would they

bother to interfere with
a personal relationship?

They do not care.

If you ever get a message
on pay pay from me

and you don’t block
me, I hope you realize

what you have actually
done is just open that door.

I mean yeah, pay pay is also a
messaging app, it is time to figure.

I actually did an interview with another
podcast this morning called Requiem Radio.

So that should actually be
out this afternoon or tomorrow.

So if you are listening
to this, you want to

hear another two hours of
this noise coming out of my face.

You can listen to that as well.

He had another two hours of just me
and another guy we are talking about.

We talked about movies
and comics and anime

and we talked about Japan and
we talked about YouTube and stuff.

So some new interesting insights into me.

If you don’t get enough of listening to my
voice every single week, multiple podcasts

and YouTube channels
in Jesus, I bet it’s a lot.

Anyways, feel free to
check out Requiem Radio.

You get another two hours
of chunk of beef chest.

Don’t know why that popped into my head.

I think I had a link that has
now gone because I was talking.

There’s a city hall and they
were keeping Excel sheets.

Japan loves Excel sheets.

They use Excel sheets inappropriately.

Like they use Excel sheets
that should be Word documents.

I don’t know why, but just Japan, Japanese
companies, something about it, something

about Excel, really is attractive
to them as the catch all document.

Maybe it’s the cells.

I don’t know.

I find it frustrating
not because it’s wrong

or bad, but I’m like
this actually would

be more comprehensible as a Word
document than it is in Excel sheet.

And then the Excel
sheets I often get at work

are gigantic, like
incomprehensibly large.

So how am I supposed to actually
get any information out of this?

They don’t seem to understand that Excel
sheets are used to contain information.

And then make that
information more digestible.

That seems that last step, the
step that makes Excel sheets in

my mind useful is the one they
don’t seem to have adopted yet.

It’s very relevant.

Like most Japanese
offices, this city hall was

keeping an Excel sheet
on staff performance.

Between 2020 and 2022,
it was called Progress

Report and it was
delivered to the department

head every week or two so that they
could check the progress of employees.

This was about a specific employee.

There were multiple
categories, like words and

actions, so I guess if they said
inappropriate or appropriate things.

In the sufficient abilities, quite
direct, but stuff you’re not good at.

The marks were then
put into the Excel sheet,

making fun of one of the
employees’ appearance.

So one of the statements was, the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

Another statement was, his underwear can
be seen from under his polo shirt’s hem.

It’s disgusting.

It took me a moment
because was that, at

first I was like, is that
you’re tucking your

shirt into your underwear and the
underwear hikes up out of your pants?

I was like, no, because
it’s from under the

hem, so it sounds like the polo shirt is
too short and you can see his underwear.

Anyways, someone felt
that that was inappropriate,

instead of speaking
to the man, put it

into an Excel sheet that would go
as a report to the department head.

The thing is, this was
on a public network

within the city hall,
which means eventually,

of course, the man,
in this case of the

victim, found it, found the comments,
and then saw it as power harassment.

He reported the
harassment, the conclusion of

the investigation was
the document itself was

a measure necessary for smooth and proper
performance and therefore not harassment.

So what they’re saying is, this document’s
intent, so keeping track of things people

do well, keeping track
of things people do not

do well, so that we
can give them feedback.

That is appropriate.

They do continue, though.

However, it contained
sentiments unrelated to

duties, so his hair looking bad, his
underwear are sticking out of his pants.

That does not impact his actual ability to
do his job, like whether I like it or not,

is irrelevant and therefore,
that did constitute harassment.

They did meeting with the department head.

The department head, at
first, he said, “It’s just facts.

We only put facts in there, but the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

That’s an opinion.

In May or May not, I don’t know why I would
have to see a picture, and then you have

to show me a picture of a bird’s nest and
put them together to actually see if that

is factual, but his
underwear is sticking up

also, I guess that is
technically a fact, but

I think he was trying
to cover it up, but

then they said, you
know, let’s dig into it.

This is harassment.

When it became out
that this was harassment,

it kind of changed
his tune a little bit

to claiming he did not know
about the tab with the comments.

So he’s claiming that he was given this
Excel sheet every single week or so, that it

had comments added to
it every single week or so.

He claims that this
thing he was sent every

week with new added
comments every single week.

He didn’t know that there was
this one tab, just the one tab.

I looked at all the other
tabs, didn’t look at this one

tab that had the harassment
in it, so I didn’t know.

So I think maybe he’s
being a little dishonest.

I think maybe this guy actually has a
case that this is a former harassment.

Now, the department
head would have been very

justified in sitting down, have a
conversation with him about his appearance.

You just have to be
very sensitive about it.

And you have to realize
like, does this matter?

So in a lot of jobs, how you look will
not negatively impact your performance.

This is what work from
home is actually taught us.

Like if you’re working on a computer,
let’s just say software programming.

If you’re in your pajamas, it does not
negatively impact your performance.

In some cases, being
comfortable might even

increase your performance,
but it’s irrelevant.

So I think this might
be a case where could

they have dealt with
this more deftly, probably.

What they could have
had is really sincere

conversation, maybe
constructive criticism of

how we could help you in the future,
maybe we can make some recommendations.

Maybe when you’re
underwears hiked up, we

could actually suddenly
take you to the side

and be like, hey, you
might want to pull your

shirt down and your
pants up or something.

It’s about 11 p.m. and I’ll always 20/3.

And a guy works for Yomi
Udi, he’s a cameraman,

and he’s out at this
time, he’s working.

So he’s riding on his
bike, and he goes to a

place where he needs
to take some pictures.

And there’s some guy skateboarding
there, and he’s like, fuck these guys.

So he starts a fight
with three skateboarders,

and I’m going to assume the
skateboarders are younger.

Skateboarders do tend to be younger.

But one of the things I
know as a former skateboarder

myself, when I was in
my teens, skateboarders

band together and they have big pieces of
wood with metal tight, like stock to them.

So it’s never a good
idea to mess with us

skateboarder because
the other skateboarders

are going to join in
to defend their friend,

and they have big
pieces of wood with metal

screwed into it, that
they can then hit you with.

The cameraman then kicked
one of the skateboarders.

Now the skateboarders,
good boys to be honest,

they did not retaliate,
they just chased

them down, they did
not like attack them, he

tried to escape, he ended up getting
caught, no one else got hurt any further.

The police show up and they’re like, hey,
you’re not allowed to kick skateboarders.

I know some people
might consider them a

lower class of citizen, but you’re
still not allowed to kick skateboarders.

He said it’s not fair
that I’m working while

they’re playing, while
others are playing.

So he’s saying that because I
have to work at 11.30, no one

else should be allowed to have
a good time at 11.30 at night.

If I’m working, everyone else should be
working, no one should be having any fun.

That is unreasonable, and not a
reason to go around kicking people.

And I actually think he might be lucky he
got off as light as he did, because I think

what’s going through his
head, like how frustrated he is.

One of the things we
talk about is work life

balance, and again, yeah,
this guy is working at 11.

30 at night, when he doesn’t
clearly want to be working,

is what’s setting him off,
attacking other human beings.

He just, he got to set limits,
he can’t work all the time,

but then I guess that’s again
the Japanese work life style.

Okay, we’re getting into the darker stuff.

I’ve decided, okay, I
did a Seamig B episode,

and it was about murder
in Japan and on YouTube,

it got like 20 times more views
than any other video I post.

I usually get like
double digit views on the

podcast, because this is an audio format,
and that’s where most of the audience is.

It was never really
taken off, because I think

anyone who listens
to this, they’re listening

on podcasts, but to
try to make it worth

listening to, I had like
comments and stuff.

I used to not do any
murder on this, because

I tried to be so
flippant, and I realized

I’m not actually that
flippant, I just talk

and then give my opinion
and maybe make a joke.

So I did this episode
of Seamig B on murder,

and it got like triple
digits, 450 or 60 was

the last number I saw, which is
a huge increase from let’s say 25.

So I was like, well, there’s
no reason to shy away

from murder if that’s what
people want to hear about.

So in Indonesia, Japan going forward,
basically no topics off the table.

I just think if it’s got murder, I
probably will just make less jokes.

It will just be more fact stated,
maybe an opinion here or there.

But if that’s what
people enjoy, I mean, I

was hesitant, because I wanted to make
jokes, but I’m like, ah, still make jokes.

It actually is very obvious.

Here I am 300 in whatever
episodes later, just

figuring out I can
decide not to make jokes.

I can decide not to be flippant.

It’s a revelation for me.

I always feel like you have to, you have
to make jokes, you have to be flippant.

There’s a ferry that connects Japan
and South Korea, it’s about 200 kilometers.

It’s a passenger ferry.

So you get on in Japan
and you take this nice

boat ride, it’s probably
about a few hours,

and then you get off in
South Korea, you go on

holiday, Koreans do the same
thing, they come to Japan.

And I actually think it’d probably be on
a good weather, very nice way to travel.

And staff member was returning to
her room, and she found her door open.

Now she thought, ah, I closed my door.

Then she found her underwear
drawer open, she’s like, that’s weird.

Clearly if she thinks
she’s closed her door,

she’s the kind of
person who closes things,

not like my son, who now has gone into this
weird habit of just leaving drawers open,

which I’ve asked him
to close the drawers and

he looked at me and he
goes, no one’s going to die.

My immediate response was of
course, you will, if I see this open again.

That’s parenting.

So this is a room, a
birth on a boat, so the

bed has a curtain around it so
you can block out light and stuff.

She pulls back the
curtain and she finds a

30 year old man, first engineer on
the boat, attempting to hide in the room.

First of all, I’m going to be
really honest, terrible hiding spot.

There’s not going to be a lot of
places to hide in a room on a boat.

They’re going to be small
and very tightly packed.

But closing the
curtain to the only really

usable piece of furniture
in the room, I assume,

is not a good hiding
place, you get under the

bed, get behind the
bed, get above the curtain

maybe even, I don’t
know, something like that.

Then maybe you’d have a chance, I’m not
even, they’re still not successful, they’re

going to catch you,
but imagine just pulling

back the curtain,
there’s just like this

30 year old man, they’re going,
hmm, kind of just stole your own D’s.

He kept in game and could talk into and he
admitted to doing it, he quit the next day.

So they were like
saying, let’s not involve

the police, please no
charges, they actually

talk to the girl and they
said, please don’t press

charges, he’s going to quit,
he’s off the boat, he’s gone.

She was a little torn
because he’s like, we’re

worried about the
reputation of the boat,

we’re worried about
the duties, operations of

what’s going on, this is
going to negatively impact us.

So they were trying
to pressure her into not

pressing charges to
try to keep it quiet.

I think that’s really it.

I had a whole other idea though, if they
press charges, is this international law?

Is it maritime law?

Is it the South Korean jurisdiction
or the Japanese jurisdiction?

Because I believe it’s a Japanese
boat in South Korean waters.

So is it the Japanese
boat means they should

report to the Japanese police because it’s
Japanese citizen who would get arrested?

It was a South Korean staff
member who had her underwear stolen.

So should they report
to the South Korean

authorities that a South Korean person
had had a crime committed on them?

Should they call interpol
and solve it that way, just have

interpol international police
come in and just deal with it?

Should they do maritime law?

Now, I didn’t look up
maritime law for theft.

I actually do enjoy maritime law
because often it’s very, very logical.

So maritime law does
have a lot to do with intent.

So there’s float some in jetsam in this.

So basically your boat is
sinking, you throw stuff off.

If you threw it off, it becomes salvage.

If you threw it off with the intent
to come back for it, it’s not salvage.

So salvage you if you come across
it, you can find it and just take it.

It’s not salvage, you have to
give it back as maritime law.

So intent became the most important factor
when it came to float some in jetsam.

There’s also the stuff that syncs.

I forget there’s two names for that too.

Again, for the same,
some has been abandoned

and there’s no
expectation that it’ll come

back and then some they
intend to come back and get it.

That actually makes a huge difference as to
whether or not you are allowed to keep it

because some is salvage,
some is not salvage.

In this case though,
the Japanese guy clearly

intended to steal, so
that makes him a pirate.

So he should be treated like a pirate.

Now he didn’t do any of
the swashbuckling cool stuff

to escape because he should
have been able to escape.

So I think he should
be treated like a pirate

and how do you balance
it out to make it fair?

Yeah.

Walk the plank.

It’s the only answer.

Oh, I did the song too, sir.

I didn’t know what keel hauling was.

Keel hauling is when
they would drop you

over the front of the
boat and then drag you

under the entirety of the boat and then you
got to think there’s barnacles and stuff.

The stuff they scraped off.

Barnacles are sharp.

They cut you and then
this was before engines

and then you would come
up the backside of the boat.

If you’re still alive, that
was your punishment,

but most people
died in that process.

They could keel hauling
him but see, there might

not be barnacles because
of modern technology

but there is a big frickin
propeller engine at the back.

So if he survives that,
then God is on his side.

Anyways, we’ve got to
move on to the last story.

In 83 year old woman living in a care
facility in Fukuoka, she entered her room and

she found a stranger, someone sleeping
in her room and she became furious.

So she decided to do
the only logical thing.

She walked up and
started just punching her,

leading to the woman’s
death because it was

another older woman who
was sleeping in her bed.

Now it turns out the 83 year old
woman had entered the wrong room.

That is a very, very interesting
set of circumstances for this death.

So she’s walked into a room.

I’m going to give her
that it’s night in its

dark because the other one was
already sleeping in her own room.

If she had looked
around, she might have

noticed that this isn’t
my stuff, but at the

same time if it was dark, maybe
she didn’t because it’s a care facility.

So every room is probably
set up basically the same way.

So it would be a pretty easy mistake
to make, but I think it’s very clear.

You see someone sleeping in a
bed beating them is not the answer.

She should have gone
and gotten security and

then gotten them to check and
get the person out of the room.

And then she could turn around
because you make the same assumption.

Maybe that person came
into my room by accident

and went to sleep because these are
all older people they might get confused.

They might have sort of early
onset dementia or something like that.

Who knows?

But immediately going to
fist a cuffs on a sleeping

person who is defenseless
is an unreasonable reaction.

So the beating led to
this other woman’s death.

She was arrested.

into introducing murder
as a story into the podcast.

So I cut it off pretty quick.

I don’t want to talk
about it too much until

I get comfortable with where I want
to go and how much I want to say.

You can see this is a slightly
new direction for the podcast.

Smallest Union Podcast

(upbeat music)

There is a mangano museum
in Kyoto, and it’s very famous.

And so a lot of famous
mangano artists go there.

They display their talent, their arts,
and the museum has them sign the wall.

This has sort of become a tradition.

So they sign the wall,
probably they draw a picture.

This is a very sort of mangano thing to do.

You’re a mangano artist,
you’re gonna drink, you’re not just

gonna sign your name, you
put a little picture up there.

A French guy shows up and he does,

perhaps the most French
thing you could possibly do.

He shows up, and he walks up to the
wall, and he signs his name on the wall.

And then he walks out.

Now this is in a cafe.

So ironically when the staff were like,

“Hey, not only did he
basically graffiti our wall,”

because all the famous names, the
museum asked the artist to sign the wall.

So it was part of this like, if
you’ve come, you’ve done a show,

you’ve put on something,
you’ve talked to

people, or whatever
you’ve done for the museum.

Please sign the wall as a thank you,
and it will sit there for all of eternity.

This French dude walks up and he
just starts signing it, and he walks out.

They didn’t just say like he graffiti
the wall, when they called the police.

‘Cause they call the police
because he has just vandalized.

If you don’t have
permission, it’s vandalism.

So he’s vandalized this wall.

He’s, they probably have
to try to erase his name

or get his name off without
damaging the other signatures.

So there’s actually a whole other sort of
process that’s gonna have to call on there.

Part of the complaint was that
he didn’t buy any food or drinks.

So he went to the cafe.

He didn’t buy a coffee or
cake or whatever they sell.

And he just walked up to the wall,
signed his name, and then started to leave.

And I was like, yeah, that is super French.

He’s like, ah, I’m going to sign my name.

They want the famous people
to sign their name on the wall.

I will find sign my name on the wall.

This is very nice.

Yeah, it’s very good.

And then he walks out thinking,

oh, everyone is very happy
now, then he gets arrested.

Like, oh, what is happening?

The police go, what did you do?

And he goes, I signed my autograph.

That is an actual quote.

I signed my autograph.

I had a black, felt tip pen.

And of course he’s been arrested.

He says he’s visited Japan many times.

That doesn’t make you a famous artist.

I’m probably, he’s visited that museum
or something of that multiple times.

That doesn’t make you a famous artist.

None of the things he’s done as an artist

because he claims to be an
artist has got him into a position

where they actually would
ask him to sign the wall.

So this was vandalism, graffiti,
unwelcome, and very French.

To just be so presumptuous to think like,

of course they want my name that I’m
a famous artist that no one’s heard of.

I also enjoyed in the article
they didn’t publish his name.

So if he was an artist at all, he
didn’t receive any sort of fame

from this article or
this action that he did.

(upbeat music)

Since we’re talking about being presumptive,
NHK is a big news service in Japan.

They do all the news.

It’s like national broadcasting.

They do it in multiple languages.

So they contract out
news stories that are going

to be read on the
radio in other languages.

So like Korean Chinese stuff like this.

The NHK news broadcaster
doing a Chinese language broadcast

did a story about the Senkaku Islands.

The Senkaku Islands are a series
of disputed, small disputed islands.

China claims them for their own.

Japan claims them from their own.

That’s where sort of the impasse occurs.

In the Chinese version
of the story, the Chinese

announcer just went ahead
and claimed those for China.

So, and if he’s essentially,
officially speaking on a behalf of NHK,

which does often speak on
behalf of the government of Japan,

as a representative saying,
but we of course, although I don’t

know what the exact word, they
didn’t give me the exact phrase.

But he just said, these
islands are of course,

as we all know, part
of China, not Japan.

I guess he saw an opportunity to
just sort of solve this dispute in one go.

Like if I say it on behalf of
the Japanese government

and it’s official, because I am speaking as
weird sort of seven degrees of separation

on behalf of the Japanese
government by delivering news,

and then everyone believes
it, then it will just become true.

So in a weird way, he was just
trying to solve the issue, I guess.

Of course, the NHK got upset and like sort
of complained to the outsourcing company.

The Japanese government
got upset because they’re like,

“Hey, you can’t just go ahead
and start saying that these

islands are owned by China
when they’re still in dispute.

” And of course, the Japanese
government thinks these are ours.

But weirdly, there also
might be another secondary

claim here by Mexico, because
the Japanese Coast Guard

was going by these islands and
they sort of patrol these islands.

It was going by these
islands and they see a guy

in one of the islands, he’s
like trying to flag him down.

He’s like, “Hey, this is very classic
stranded on a desert island kind of stuff.

They actually see a guy waving his arms back
and forth trying to get their attention.

” They’re like, “Oh, well, actually
there’s a bunch of rocks or something.

We can’t get there.

” So they have to bring
a helicopter in an airlift

this guy off the Senkoku
Islands, this Mexican guy.

They think that this guy was trying
to leave Japan but avoid immigration.

So he didn’t want people to know

he was leaving Japan or he didn’t
want people to know where he was going.

There is something
very suspicious about this

whole thing, like everything
has been going on.

The belief at the moment
is that he was trying

to leave Japan and
get to Taiwan by canoe.

Now, I was going to try
to calculate how far it

would take to paddle from
Japan to Taiwan in a canoe,

like the average speed
of a canoe and stuff.

And then I was like, “Well, that’s
the kind of thing that I’m interested.

” I don’t know if people are
actually interested in that stuff.

Like, do people actually want
to know that kind of stuff?

So I didn’t do that.

I also was trying to organize
like five things this morning.

We’ve just had our vacation and that
takes a while to get back in the groove.

That’s actually maybe the first problem

of doing a podcast every
week is when you take a week

or two weeks off, getting
back into it’s actually quite hard.

What am I talking about?

I’m just basically just
claiming that this is not

as good as it could be
because I didn’t do the work

that I wanted to do,
but I was too lazy to do.

I’m not just sitting
here calling myself lazy.

This is sort of a pre-apology for
the quality of the podcast today.

This guy’s been arrested.

He left, he didn’t actually
tell us what kind of visa either.

There’s a bunch of information that’s
lacking from the story, which I would like.

What kind of visa was he on?

So is leaving the country like a big deal.

If he’s on a tourist visa and he leaves,

and that’s bad because
governments very much want to know

where you are at all
times, but at the same time,

I don’t know, why did
he want to get out of

Japan and get to Taiwan
without anybody knowing?

Why did he think a canoe was a good idea?

That’s actually an interesting question

because if I was
going to try to get from

Japan at the time, I
want to vote, not a canoe.

How much food do they have with them?

So this always goes
back to the other research

that I didn’t do. How long would it
take you to paddle from Japan to Taiwan?

How much food would you need?

Was he going to fish on the way there?

So many questions.

That’s really what it comes down to.

So, so, so many questions
about what this guy thought

and how he thought he
was going to work out.

Because if you said Peter, you
can canoe from Japan to Taiwan.

I don’t think you can.

I think he’d get pulled out to sea.

I think there’d be a storm where we’re
like, have a typhoon coming right now.

If he was out there during
then, he’d be in law trouble.

He didn’t get past the
Senkoku Islands, which is,

you know, northwards of
Japan going towards Taiwan.

But also didn’t even come close.

This guy’s got bad planning.

I think that’s just maybe the thing.

He’s not going to take
over the Senkoku Islands

because he’s obviously
worse at planning than I am.

But I was smart enough to
know not getting a canoe today.

A man has formed, what can
only be called, the smallest union?

A Yamato transport company.

This is a just delivery service.

It’s like DHL or one of any
of the ones you would know.

They partner with Amazon in Japan.

They just deliver stuff.

You get like three or four different
companies that just deliver stuff in Japan.

There’s black cat, Yamato or the
two that come to mine right away.

He’s a warehouse worker.

And he went on strike on August
19th because of working conditions.

I didn’t even really think that
you could go on strike by yourself.

That’s an interesting concept.

Like I am going to form a singular
union and go on strike alone.

Like you would actually
call that taking a day off.

If it’s only one person,
it’s not a strike, is it?

I don’t know.

It’s just an interesting concept
because he is officially on strike

because what he did is
he joined the general union.

Japan has this like weird
conglomeration union of other unions.

And he basically joined that
and said, I’m going on strike.

I want you to help and
represent me and support me.

And they did.

And he said because
of the working condition.

Now the working conditions in this
warehouse do seem to be horrendous.

So I actually right now am
full sympathy for this man.

I think he is right and going on strike
by himself in the smallest union possible.

The average temperature in the
warehouse was plus 40 degrees every day.

And he said, that puts
me in physical danger.

And it’s like heat stroke.

You collapse and you know, basically, yeah,

you cannot be just going
around in a sauna all day.

I don’t know how big this warehouse is.

But it’s just basically a big
greenhouse cooking in the sauna all day.

Japan, this summer, has
been exceptionally hot.

Also a humid.

It’s actually the heat
alone, isn’t that bad?

But the humidity, there was a tangent.

I was walking home from
the train to my house.

And it’s about 15 minute walk.

And it felt like I was
walking through moisture.

That’s how humid it was.

Which meant by the time I got home,
I was completely drenched in sweat.

And I had to just
immediately take a shower.

Essentially, if you walk
anywhere at the moment in

Japan, you have to take
a shower right afterwards.

But of course, you can’t just
take a shower every place you go.

We have a typhoon.

We’re supposed to come yesterday, supposed
to come today, supposed to come tomorrow.

Now it’s being predicted on a
Friday because the path is changing.

Often after typhoons, the
weather is a little less humid.

So that’s what I’m hoping for.

But I’m honestly not counting on it.

He was taking headache medicine.

And he went to the doctor.

And the doctor said, you have
severe signs of heat stroke.

You are clearly in actual physical danger.

This man’s in his 50s.

That’s not to say that a man
in his 50s can’t handle the heat.

But he used to be a delivery driver.

He’s now working in the warehouse.

And he’s like, you guys
are trying to kill me.

He’s asked for air condition
clothing and management reviews.

So in Japan, you’ll actually
see a lot of outside workers

where these jackets
and they’re very puffying,

they have like a little
fan in the back corner.

And what they’re actually doing
is circulating cool air in the jacket.

So it looks hot.

Like if you’re on the outside
and you see this jacket,

this big puffy jacket, it
looks like a puffy, down jacket.

And it’s big, and it’s puffed up
because the air’s blowing around.

But it’s actually blowing around
cool air and it’s keeping you cool.

He said, give me one of those.

Management, of course, said, no.

He said it was 40 degrees plus every day.

He took pictures of the thermostat.

And the claim for
management was that the

thermostat was broken
and it was 36 degrees.

Honestly, still way too hot.

If you’re doing physical work in a
warehouse, 36 degrees is too hot.

You need some air conditioners on in there.

So then he went on strike.

He actually had support from
the national union type thing.

Now the office is installing fans,
spot coolers, and water stations.

And I think they’re also gonna
put out like salted candies

to help replenish his
electrolytes and salt or whatever.

The single man, smallest union,

is successful to a degree.

I think, of course, we
would prefer air conditioning

so that the whole warehouse
is just cooler overall

and doesn’t have to deal with
all these spot fans and stuff.

But compared to nothing,
this is a big step forward.

Especially when it seems
like management was trying

to do nothing at all and
just tell them to tough it out.

Back in 2019, I actually
don’t know if I did this story.

I now forget when an
engine used to pass started.

It has to be more than five years ago.

So it has to have been
on during that period.

I was certainly podcasting that time.

I don’t know when the
engine used to pass started.

I know how many episodes I have, but of
course it’s not like I do 52 episodes a year.

So I can’t just do the math.

I can do approximations
because of the weeks off and stuff.

Basically, I think I get 50, about
50 episodes a year, probably less.

Anyways, we’re in the 300s now.

So yeah, it has to be.

Anyways, I remember this story.

I don’t remember if I did it
on the engine used to pass.

That doesn’t matter.

Back in 2019, there was a speech
by then Prime Minister Abbot.

He’s giving a speech in this lady.

It’s like, I’m gonna heckle.

You start shouting stuff out at him.

And the police take her and remove her
from this for heckling the Prime Minister.

Then the police
followed her around for an

hour, which is sort of
a form of intimidation.

Anyone following around for an hour.

That does have an impact.

So she said, by stopping
me from heckling the Prime

Minister, you’ve inhibited
my freedom of speech.

And Japan, they call it
freedom of expression,

but it’s the freedom of speech
is sort of the standard phrase.

And by following me around,
that is psychological intimidation,

which is the police
you’re not supposed to do.

So she sued the
government, got rejected like

five times, kept going
up, up a notch, up a notch.

She gets to the Japanese
version of the Supreme Court.

Five judges, five judges unanimously
agree that the police overstepped,

this had a psychological
impact leading to depression.

This leads to psychological
pressure and inhibiting

freedom of expression and
they’re giving her 550,000, yeah.

That’s half a million, yeah.

Again, Japan, the litigation.

So again, because
we’re doing it in the end.

Half a million, yeah, it sounds like a lot.

It’s not that much money.

Like it’s not certainly enough
money to change your life.

Any victory in a Japanese
court is a moral victory.

They don’t do payouts like North America.

They don’t do like emotional damages don’t
tend to be part of a settlement in Japan.

So if I try to sue my company
for let’s say unpaid wages

of $10,000 and then $20
million for the harassment

I experienced, I will
probably get $10,000.

I’ll get the material payment,
but the psychological

aspect often is not
taken into account.

Now, they’re saying this case you get some
extra money because that’s intimidation.

It’s not because of your depression.

It’s not because of the psychological
impact the police had on you.

It’s that they shouldn’t have been trying
to intimidate you in the first place.

So that is what she’s getting paid for.

You don’t get those massive
payouts like they do in other countries.

I’m thinking, of course, of America.

We don’t hear about court
cases from a lot of other countries.

So if you want to sue
someone in Japan, Japan’s,

you’re not, you shouldn’t
be doing it for the money.

You should be doing it for moral reasons.

And the fact that she went
up through like four, five, six

levels of court meant that this
wasn’t really about the five hundred.

She spent more than 500,000 yen in her
life just getting to this point anyways.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Neepal paper has sued a dio paper.

So we have the paper wars going on.

I actually kind of enjoyed this.

For infringement on some of their patents.

Now, what kind of patents do they have?

This is all about toilet paper.

And somehow, when you
have patents in toilet paper–

because my thought is, how many
patents can you hold on toilet paper?

I guess this is really the
story is going to tell us.

Because my thought is,
toilet paper, single ply, two ply,

three ply, I guess if
we’re going to go crazy

and go four ply, you
could have it like textured.

You could have pictures on it.

But I mean, all those patents
have to be done by now,

because I’ve seen, like, if
I’m starting my toilet paper

company, my paper company,
do I need to worry about that?

I guess you do.

I guess everything has a patent.

This doesn’t quite work
out for Neepal paper.

They’re very pissed
at the end of the story.

The patent is for the toilet paper
that is three times longer than normal.

So you would have a
normal roll of toilet paper.

I’m putting my hand up
the screen saying, miss pink.

This is an audio podcast.

So you have a– you can close your eyes.

Close your eyes with me for a second.

Close your eyes.

And just imagine you’ve
got back from the store.

And you want that rich,
deep, felt touch of toilet paper,

fresh from the plastic
bag that it comes in.

So you tear it open,
and you gently pull forth.

And it’s a little stiff.

It’s a little hard at first,
because they vacuum

packed of the toilet,
but it’s the sixth roll.

Of course, you can buy
at least six rolls, right?

And then you pull it
out, and you pull it out.

That sort of moment
of release, that release,

of that one roll of toilet paper in your
hand, just imagine that in your mind.

You can see it.

Imagine that being three times bigger.

That’s what they’re talking about.

I don’t see how you could patent.

My toilet paper is three times
longer than other people’s toilet paper.

The patent there would be application.

Here’s toilet paper.

It’s normally like x amount of meters long.

This one times three.

Like that’s it.

I don’t see how you have to patent that.

I guess I’m trying to protect
that we’ve made long toilet

paper if anyone else
makes long toilet paper.

They got to pay us money.

That’s kind of what this is about.

The patents are for paper that is
2.5 to 4.4 times longer than normal.

So I guess if I made one that was 4.5 times
longer, the patent doesn’t apply anymore.

Or maybe I’ve just had
an idea and I could apply

for a patent for a five
times longer toilet paper.

Their claim is that the depth and
area of the dense in the uneven surface

are within the range
specified by the patent.

So I guess this has to do with the
structural integrity of the paper itself.

That when you make it
longer, you have to do things

to make sure it doesn’t
like collapse in on itself,

create a black hole and suck
everything in the universe with it.

Dial countered with, nuh-uh, different.

And the judge went with
dial and they said, yes.

The things you’re claiming,
the range of pattern,

the structural integrity, that
doesn’t actually mean anything.

And so now, Neep on paper
is saying they will appeal.

They’re unhappy with this.

They think they are
infringing their patent.

So they’re going to appeal.

The paper wars are on my friend.

And it’s coming for all of us.

There is a company called Orient Industry.

Now, I know Orient as a watch company.

This is different.

I don’t want to mix up
my two Orient companies.

Orient the watch company.

I quite love the Orient watches.

I have a solar-powered one.

It’s called the Neo 90s Panda.

It’s a very nice watch.

That’s about $200.

Reasonably priced.

That’s one of the reasons I like Orient.

They have very nice watches.

Reasonably priced solar power
means you never change the battery.

We’re not talking about
that company at all.

We’re talking about Orient Industry, which
has been making love dolls since 1977.

So the founder, way back in
1977, said love dolls are gross.

They’re these blow-up dolls.

They don’t feel good.

They’re made of vinyl or whatever plastic.

And they don’t feel anything.

So he’s like, we’re going
to make a high quality once.

It’s going to be made a silicon.

Silicon in the ’70s, essentially
a new space-age material.

And the price of one of
his love dolls in the late ’70s

would have been equivalent to the
five-month salary for the average person.

So these were incredibly expensive things.

But everyone’s like, well, this is crazy.

You can’t sell a love doll to people
and it’s going to cost half a year salary.

But it was successful because
people were looking for quality.

And they didn’t sell it in a creepy way.

They sold it as, look, you have widowers.

They need companionship.

They’re lonely.

You have people who are socially awkward.

This will help this will
give them an outlet.

They had counseling services.

They had people who were not
judgmental, so they could talk about this.

And basically, they
approached it as not creepy.

Because even those
doll makers, the blow-up

dolls, that was always
kind of like a creepy joke.

It always showed up in movies.

It’s like, haha, you’ll
have sex with this thing.

He was trying to say,
like, there are people

in the world who
need this kind of thing.

And I want to make the best thing possible.

So a very unique philosophy,
which is pretty nice.

You’ve actually probably seen them.

They have this sort of
uncanny– the very modern

ones have this uncanny,
valley realism to them.

Because they don’t move
and they’re just sitting there.

But they have, like,
essentially a skeletal structure

and then the silicon skin and it’s soft and
it’s compliant, and then it’s positioned.

It’s like, you can articulate
the arms and stuff.

Like, they have put a ton of
research, a ton of resources into this.

The founder is in his 70s.

I think it’s close to his 80s now.

He says he’s going to
retire at the end of this year.

He’s going to retire in
his year for health reasons.

And because he’s going
to retire, he’s shutting down

the company, which I
was like, the company’s

making a sound like
this is a good thing.

I was thinking, like, ah, a bunch of
people are going to lose their jobs.

And I was wondering,
like, is it because it’s

very difficult to helm
a love doll company?

Because you are going
to be judged for just being

in charge of this company
that produces a sex thing.

But at the same time, his philosophy was

that there is a need for
this to be taken seriously.

There is a role for this in
society that can help people.

We should do that as much as possible.

I have a weird respect for that.

I may not want one of the products myself,

but I have a weird respect for
his attitude towards those things.

I think that’s fair.

This is like the people who challenged
censorship for pornography in Japan.

It’s a very difficult thing to
do because you’re immediately

judged, like whether you like porn
or not, the censorship is the issue.

And should it be censored or not?

There was one of the
guys in one of the parties,

again, it’s one of the Joe
parties, the anti NHK party.

And he was saying that if we
de-censored Japanese porn,

because it’s so popular in the
world, we would make more money.

It would be a good stream of income.

Looking at it financially, I
actually think it’s a really good idea.

Like my opinion on porn,
positive or negative, is irrelevant.

We’re talking about financial
stability and a product

that the people in the
world will buy internationally.

It’s very hard to argue that
it shouldn’t be de-censored

and therefore sold to the
world as a better product.

I mean, I fully believe in regulations.

I believe in safety.

I believe in all these other things.

You could form small unions.

I mean, we’ve seen that
they’re successful today.

So I don’t, but taking that stance in front
of the government is a difficult thing.

So this guy taking this stance
in the world and then just

shutting down the company,
I’m actually a little disappointed.

I would like to see someone
take over that company and run it.

I’ll do it.

I mean, I’m just going to put it out there.

I might have to shut down the podcast

because I’ve never run a company before,
but honestly, I will adopt the philosophy.

I will try to keep it going.

If you want to, if you want to give
that to me, I will absolutely take it on.

I will take on that responsibility.

Try to think of a joke, but I can’t.

It’s actually a really nice thing.

(upbeat music)

I don’t know if I want
to do this last story.

What are we at?

We’re at 26 minutes.

Oh, yes, and I see the funny part

that I actually, the reason
why I want to do this story.

So a college student at 11, 30
at night walks out onto the street.

He’s completely naked, runs up behind
a woman and then hugs her from behind.

She was just walking down the
street, and of course, he did it.

He got in trouble, he got arrested,
and he said I did it to really stress.

I mean, this is now step by step.

You could just, I could write the story.

I did it.

I did it to relieve stress.

I was stressed out.

In this case, he’s a college kid.

He’s stressed out about exams or something.

The funny part to me,
the reason I actually wrote

this story down is because
he fled on a scooter.

Now I’m going to cut this story.

It’s just funny, the image
of a completely naked

man jumping on a scooter
and then driving away

is actually very funny
to me, but the story isn’t.

There’s not enough, so
I’m just going to cut that.

He was charged with indecent
assault without consent.

And I’m wondering if there is
indecent insult with consent

because once you consent, it’s
not indecent assault anymore, is it?

I guess the police can
prosecute you on behalf

of a victim even if
the victim consented.

I guess I probably would
have someone’s underage.

Yeah, this last story’s a mess.

I think I’m just–

  • You can’t catch me.
  • Again, I think maybe you
    have the same idea as me.

It’s just like the dude hugs a chick, runs.

I imagine him fully leaping
into the air behind the

scooter, landing on the scooter,
and he’s just going, “Boom!

” Like there’s an image
there that’s very funny.

And then he gets arrested,
which means he was

naked on the scooter
when he got arrested.

And the police would just be like, “Hey,
let’s look for a naked guy on scooter.

” – I imagine his dick
flopping wildly in the wind.

  • Yeah, let’s hop during.

And then he gets torqu
and starts to lift off.

Yeah, the police are just up.

What are they on the lookout for?

Naked guy on scooter.

Hey, there’s a naked guy on a scooter.

Let’s pull him over.

He would have gotten arrested
for being naked anyways.

Like that in itself was enough.

You were naked in public.

So that’s indecent exposure
or something like that.

So now you’re going
to get arrested for that.

All right, I’m just going to end there.