Category: Podcast

(upbeat music)

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

The first week was just work.

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

So I took a day off.

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

off, but then we’re
having hosting issues.

I’ve dealt with hosting issues before.

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

well then my preparations
have all been successful.

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

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

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

So I guess everything
just worked out anyways.

But we’re back now.

A forewarning, my
mother is coming to Japan.

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

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

I’m gonna try my best.

I’ve actually had these breaks and stuff.

The problem with taking a break

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

And that’s what I’m trying to do.

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

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

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

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

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

Yugiko, it’s a card game.

I’ve never been into it.

I’ve never been into the card games.

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

I’m even, like I play video games.

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

I essentially don’t play side-scrollers.

I don’t know why.

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

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

So I only wanna, ooh.

Yugiko is not my thing.

I’m not saying I’m against it.

You like Yugiko?

You go, gi.

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

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

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

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

You have to have a Japanese address.

Why?

I have a Japanese address.

But entry is restricted
to Japanese nationality.

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

live in Japan from now until
I unfortunately pass away.

Any day now.

I shouldn’t bring up my own mortality.

Not at the start.

I should bring up my own mortality.

More towards the end of the episode.

But by this rule, I could not enter.

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

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

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

70s, 80s, that’s about right.

I couldn’t enter this.

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

which is an interesting
thing to think about.

‘Cause I’m still not considered Japanese.

I’m never going to be considered Japanese.

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

of the Canadian passport
and the same for my children.

I didn’t want my children
to not have access

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

So I wanted them to
have Canadian citizenship.

Just trying to keep the options open.

So this rule seems particularly strict.

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

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

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

but like I can
understand you don’t want

someone who comes here
short term on a holiday,

wins the Japanese championship
and then just moves on.

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

they’re not representing
Japan as a country.

But taking it to a point
where you are restricting it

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

is dedicated to living
Japan for X money years.

It would make sense if
they were allowed to enter.

I think the reason this became an issue

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

So if you haven’t thought about it,

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

You have to have a Japanese address.

And that would just be it.

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

You have to have like residency
beyond just permanent residence.

You have to be a Japanese citizen to enter.

So someone actually had that thought.

And that’s right.

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

I don’t think it’s racist.

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

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

I’m not just talking about Japan.

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

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

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

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

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

I wish you care about others.

There you go.

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

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

Aha.

It’s nice.

This is a new, a new chunkly beef chest.

The new, more positive, loving, kind.

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

Anyways, you go players.

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

You want to enter the championship.

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

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

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

Okay, since we’re on super nerd news.

A man was caught modifying
switch cartridges memory.

He was basically hacking
the switch to create

custom Pokemon characters
that he then sold online.

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

He was creating rare characters
and then selling them online.

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

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

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

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

You can’t find it, it’s rare.

So suddenly you feel like, oh, you know,

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

This breaks the unfair
competition prevention act

in Japan, which is related
to corporate espionage.

So basically because this
guy’s hacking a system,

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

espionage where he’s
going into the system,

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

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

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

and then manipulating them
to create his own product,

which he’s then selling
illegally without licensing.

That’s probably better.

So he was arrested.

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

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

because it is always
way more than I expect.

But these communities are
strong and they have money.

The you could go community,
the Pokemon community.

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

I spend a lot of money in my hobbies.

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

I buy the Judo soon.

I bought a super expensive one.

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

And I certainly I can buy
modified ones and stuff.

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

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

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

My voice is incredibly high pitched.

Dogs just react negatively
to move everywhere I go.

My laugh is atrocious.

That’s actually true.

I don’t like my laugh.

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

It’s almost like a hiccup.

Luckily, very few people make me laugh.

That’s so sad.

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

This was, I don’t know how I am.

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

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

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

Everyone in Japan will
have the last name Sato.

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

Sato is the most common last name in Japan.

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

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

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

They’ll call them Mr. Sato.

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

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

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

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

That’s incrementally,
but over the course

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

I’m using the wrong word.

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

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

My $5 words are all gone now.

It’s not extrapolation.

It’s an X. God damn it.

Cumulative, it’s cumulative.

Oh, this is going to bug me.

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

Goddammit.

Anyways, we’re just going to move on.

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

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

It’s a rough episode already.

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

Life gets in the way.

I’m dealing with back end issues.

I’m trying to deal with work.

I got stress.

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

That’s not getting better.

So there’s a lot going on.

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

And you know what?

I got some messages.

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

And I was really happy
to get the message

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

Appreciate the podcast.

Appreciate you.

And I appreciate those messages.

Let’s be clear about that right now.

I fucking tangents.

Okay, no, we’re going.

We’re going with the
tangent famous people die.

I’m not a famous person.

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

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

thoughts and art and other
things to commemorate their life.

And that’s a wonderful thing.

I’m not saying that shouldn’t happen.

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

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

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

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

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

you got some artwork
about it, put it out there

and dedicated to them,
send them a message.

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

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

someone who died that
would have an impact on me?

I’d like that.

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

Do it right now.

Don’t wait until they die.

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

And it was too late.

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

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

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

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

Man, yeah.

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

Hope you’re okay, that kind of stuff.

I meant a lot.

Like that is incredibly motivating.

It makes you feel like people
appreciate what you do.

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

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

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

If the population decline
in Japan continues.

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

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

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

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

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

called mountaineer and it
has like a lumberjack on it.

I’ve started sculpting.

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

keep this even because
this is where it goes out.

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

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

I’m trying to decide.

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

So let me close to the camera.

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

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

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

down because I actually
think that looks pretentious.

There’s like hipsters and stuff.

They do that on purpose.

I always thought that was like something.

Yes, like Captain Hook, I
always thought that was

something that people
did, like a style thing.

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

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

So they start to go like that.

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve been sculpted.

I put more work into
my beard than any other

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

And then I realized that’s the bit.

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

All right.

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

I usually go pretty
far and then just shave

the whole thing because
people like freak out.

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

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

I don’t get that because it’s hair.

It’s just hair on your face, man.

You’re not doing anything.

Some people are genetically
blessed with lots of hair.

Some people are not.

What the fuck?

Like what the fuck is going
on there where you think

like a beard is an
important aspect of a person.

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

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

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

blade and then come back and
pretend nothing had happened.

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

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

presentation again, I
think that would be funny.

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

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

all the big stuff off and
shave in five minutes.

No, I could do that.

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

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

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

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

These stats are
interesting because they’re

extrapolations of numbers
that are currently happening.

They don’t take into
account any other options.

So Japan is a closed system
and if that closed system

remains the same, it
basically succumbs to entropy.

So everyone will be named
Sato and everyone dies off.

Applying this much effort to
these statistics seemed kind of

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

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

It could be fixed by a multitude of things.

Now, Ninja Ninja Japan
has prophesies, proselytized

many times that the
problem is the work-life

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

They spend too much time at work.

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

I don’t think that’s just Japan.

That’s lots of countries.

Population decline in a lot
of countries is going down.

Population decline in
many countries is happening.

I have the simplest
solution to both problems.

Everyone being named Sato
and the population decline.

That is introduced
more foreigners to Japan.

More foreigners to Japan would
mean more variations in names.

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

And that’s it.

That actually solves the problem.

I can tell you the person
conducting this set

of statistical analyses
did not even come close

to considering the
idea that we would dilute

the population of
Japan with foreign blood.

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

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

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

And they would not accept it.

There is the governor of Shizuoka.

And he’s out.

He’s giving a speech.

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

And he decided to make
a speech to welcome

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

He said, “Civil servants,
being an inducted

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

” Now, the speech
actually had more.

He’s like, unlike people
who do like manual

labor, take care of
animals or sell vegetables.

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

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

I bet if you gave him
all the equipment and all

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

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

I do, of course, do it.

I have my biases, but I
look at mechanics and

I think there is someone
with a set of skills

that I have never and
probably will never have.

I have my set of skills.

They have their set of skills.

I think there is a
certain amount of respect

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

I couldn’t build a house.

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

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

I think tradesmen generally
actually are very smart.

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

There’s like the book smart.

There’s sort of social intelligence.

There’s a natural intelligence.

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

So there is going to be
like essentially a labor

intelligence, like working
with your hands, making things.

You’re just naturally good at that.

There’s athletic intelligence.

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

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

There’s people who
are just naturally logical

and they should not
be disrespected because

they have a different education
from other people and stuff.

But that’s what this guy’s doing.

So yeah, when I read
that sentence, my first

thought was this guy
couldn’t grow vegetables

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

So when the zombie
apocalypse comes, the

governor of Shizwoka
is useless and would die.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So he’s telling these
people who are joining

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

You have to be honest.

You have to be truthful.

You have to be careful
and care about other people,

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

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

the, the immediate thoughts
without censorship or anything.

He made a couple of gaps in the past.

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

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

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

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

laborers vote, those
are all valuable votes.

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

I don’t know.

This is it.

These guys get to this
level of disassociation

where they think
people are going to vote

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

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

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

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

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

That’s nothing gets done then.

Third thought I had.

So you can see this is great.

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

to this standard in
this day and age, like if

Trump, because he
insulted a person, had to

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

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

They got to has its
own issues, but it is

way better than what’s
happening in America.

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

They’re going for
more grandiose, more

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

holding on to like if
you don’t show the

fundamental level of
respect, you don’t deserve

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

Since we’re talking
about politicians, we

had from a couple
episodes ago, our man, the

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

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

He had to resign.

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

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

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

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

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

So maybe you have
to adjust, which again,

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

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

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

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

He’s been replaced by a woman.

I’m so happy about that.

The new mayor of
Guinan is a woman and she

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

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

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

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

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

basically came out to
vote to say, fuck that

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

And I’m actually really
proud of the people

of Guinan holding
people to standards again.

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

of Japan that deserve
criticism, their aspects

of every country
that deserve criticism.

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

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

So I’m very interested
in this because Nissan,

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

And then after the
contract went through

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

Now this is actually
illegal, what the

government, there was a watchdog
organization that warned them.

And then there’s like
the Japanese equivalent

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

Now there’s no single
person can get arrested

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

Companies commit crimes
and then no individual

gets punished, which
means no one gets punished.

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

They took away the
tax breaks they had in

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

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

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

They were getting from the
government to boost those.

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

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

and all these things
more money out of their

own pockets and not getting
nothing from the government.

So they’re not getting
like bailout or help

anymore because they decided
to try to cheat the system.

And I think that is
awesome and more company

should be held
accountable the same way.

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

It’s my people.

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

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

Sometimes something doesn’t happen.

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

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

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

That’s what’s going on.

You see a man ride by in a bicycle.

This man has decided to
emulate Winnie the Pooh.

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

I mean, nothing’s covering the down bottom.

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

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

So we’re going to arrest him.

So you arrest him.

And we’re going to search a person now.

They don’t have to search his pockets.

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

They did not say where the
smartphone was being kept.

I really was interested in that.

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

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

So it seems like he was
essentially bedying himself.

I didn’t see the picture.

They didn’t release it.

I wouldn’t have wanted to.

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

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

I would have looked
at it for the story so

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

So you don’t have to look at it.

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

Now, public faucets in
Japan have drinkable water.

So people stick, like
kids mostly stick their

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

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

I mean, it’s a health hazard.

There’s a whole bunch of other things.

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

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

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

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

So I got binoculars out
and I checked that no one

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

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

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

Again, we give tons of
free advice to criminals.

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

Don’t take pictures of
you committing a crime.

Do not.

I mean, don’t commit the crimes.

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

a crime, don’t
photograph it as evidence

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

They didn’t have
them on like butt crack

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

I would actually go
with public health hazard.

That’s where I would start looking.

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

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

I would want to have
like multiple charges and

multiple venues so
that to ensure that this

is taken more seriously,
unless butt crack

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

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

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

I’m on board.

So the guys demonstrating
when he butt crack faucet

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

And then he decided to win.

He is poo the way home.

Winnie his poo.

He decided to win.

Winnie his poo sounds like
the butt crack faucet time.

And he thought poo
is when you go with a

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

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

If he was that careful
with the binoculars and

stuff, he think he
would have been sensible

enough to put his
pants back on because if

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

exposure, which would
have led to them finding

the picture of him
committing the initial crime.

I think some people have
said that king shaming

is bad and I think in
many cases that might

be true, but sometimes it
might actually be necessary.

[MUSIC]

(upbeat music)

Last week we talked about a scam.

It was elementary school
students and they scam their

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

He had collected New
Year’s money over, I

assume years, had access
to about a million yen.

And that million yen,
he then bought trinkets.

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

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

And these are 500 yen just stamped things.

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

which is just absolutely
not truly Canadian a comedy.

The Canadian economy doesn’t work that way.

A kind of understand a kid getting taken.

His classmates would
be able to convince him

and he’s trying to
impress them and stuff.

But then there is a secondary question,

why did this kid have
access to a million yen?

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

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

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

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

And that’s where people
really can get scammed.

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

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

So on Instagram, directly
she receives a message.

Someone slid into her
DMs, which is quite nice.

And the message said hello from
the International Space Station.

Now scams can be very convincing.

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

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

that said hello from
the International Space

Station, my first
question would actually be,

why are you sending
messages from the International

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

Like I would actually ask that question.

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

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

Clearly you have other
avenues of communication.

You have work to do.

You have other things that need to be done.

I mean, you should not
be wasting your time.

Especially with a random person.

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

that astronaut who sent
me a message, I might

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

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

This poor woman was not.

They got more messages.

They started, they were
in contact for a while.

And then the astronaut
said, the contract

for the internet I use
on earth has expired.

So I want your assistance.

I need money to pay this bill.

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

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

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

Let’s say that would be appropriate.

You can send a message to the space agency.

You are on the International Space Station.

I’m sure has access to the internet.

That’s how your community game with me now.

So why don’t you use that internet?

There’s a lot of things you could,

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

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

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

You have co-workers.

You have a space agency behind you.

You have family.

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

What was his name?

His name was Satoshi Furukawa.

So he’s just like a Japanese astronaut.

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

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

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

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

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

who’s saying he wants
his internet hooked up.

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

And he says, I have
discovered an asteroid containing

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

So now you’re vital to his space mission.

And so I have sympathy.

I have a lot of sympathy.

But this is one of those scams where it’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the supposed astronaut
asked for planetary shipping

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

She sent the money and then got suspicious.

If she got suspicious and
then went to the police,

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

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

What’s planetary shipping?

And because he’s on the
international space station,

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

bringing food up or bringing
food down or bringing

astronauts up or
bringing astronauts down?

Because they’re going anyway.

So just put the incredibly
important and special

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

Now there may be a lot more story here

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

But when you have to
pay planetary shipping,

which obviously is
going to be expensive,

then you realize maybe
the scam has gone too far.

So she went to the
police, calls the police,

and she says Satoshi Fukawa
has been communicating with me.

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

How much are they usually?

And then the police are
like, unfortunately, Satoshi

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

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

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

Because it just involves
astronauts in space.

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

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

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

We have to have something in place.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now, police are actually
trying to do a good

thing with AI in Japan,
which is pretty cool.

They want to have AI
recognize fishing websites.

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

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

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

your bank and get access
to your accounts and stuff.

Currently, the system
is based off reporting.

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

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

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

I have to go to the police and report it.

One of the issues with being scammed

is that people are
embarrassed, that they got

scammed, and they’re
less likely to report.

So the number of reports of getting scammed

is actually way less
than the actual scam rate.

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

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

So this is– I’m part of the problem.

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

But they just got tricked.

I now feel that I did the thing.

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

wouldn’t have even
done the story, though.

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

Interplanetary shipping
fees was a great phrase.

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

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

So there’s organizations,
like financial

institutions, they’ll
report websites they find.

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

And this was reported by antivirus software

and this sort of group
of financial institutions.

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

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

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

So this is a 21 times increase from 2019.

Weird choice.

I don’t know.

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

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

And the AI is just going
to troll the internet,

troll these emails,
troll this other stuff,

recognize the fishing
websites, and then automatically

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

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

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

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

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

create the fishing websites
to be more efficient.

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

So it becomes like a
cycle that just never stops.

There were the World Cup Qualifiers.

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

So they decided to do the game.

I don’t know how these decisions are made.

This is FIFA or something.

The game is going to
be done in North Korea.

Now North Korea and Japan
have very hostile political relations.

So the Japanese government
says, hey, Japanese

citizens, who are really
excited about soccer.

Soccer is a very popular sport in Japan.

Don’t go to North Korea.

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

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

I’m pretty sure North
Korea wouldn’t be

giving Japanese people
visas to go in anyways.

That’s a totally separate issue.

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

I think that’s a fair statement to make.

The relationship between
Japan and North Korea

is so contentious that
it would be dangerous

for a Japanese citizen
to enter the country.

So they have the soccer game.

So the soccer players go, and they

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

They play their game.

And Japan scores a goal
in the first 90 seconds.

Yeah, Japan.

Then nothing happens
for the rest of the game.

So two hours are assumed.

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

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

So of course, there are no more goals.

I understand the
reality in that the tension

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

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

But I don’t really enjoy soccer.

So for me, that just sounds
mindnumbingly painful.

It’s just low scoring, zero scoring games,

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

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

Now North Korea has, in the past,

reported that they have won
all the Olympic gold medals.

If you actually watch
North Korean state media,

they have just straight
out and said, North Korea

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

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

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

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

You can’t really lie to the same degree.

It’s much harder.

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

They’re actually supposed to play two games

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

So they do what North Korea does best.

They say, we are concerned
about a second game.

Oh, we are canceling the second game

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

I think that malignant infectious
disease might be winning.

Again, I’m not a big fan of soccer,

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s got a mixed heritage, yes.

And so that in Japan makes you stand out.

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

and when he apologized, they
started making derogatory statements.

They said, “Peruvians can apologize, huh?”

Which doesn’t sound
bad translated into English,

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

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

So when we translate
a lot of Japanese insults

in English, it sounds
just like a statement,

but it’s the
statement of like, “I’m

talking down to you,”
is the important part.

Another coach giving
guidance on his attitude,

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

and then makes a stabbing
gesture to one of his

teammates, like you’re
gonna kill your teammate.

I guess, maybe the kid got frustrated,

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

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

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

I mean, who knows?

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

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

The interesting thing is the guy
who made the murder statement

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

but then was removed from
soccer coaching and then returned.

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

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

and then put back in and
starts abusing kids again.

Story.

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

around kids anymore so you
can continue to smack them.

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

They don’t keep track of it.

It’s a bit insane.

They did 100 member surveys.

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

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

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

if they clearly are easily
frustrated with kids?

We’ve had the teachers
who are smacking kids

because the kids are
talking back to them.

I understand that frustration.

I’ve never had a kid.

We got these guys who become coaches.

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

These may be more lean
towards the just word,

just racist dudes because
you’re not Japanese kid.

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

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

I don’t know.

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

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

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

So these coaches cause
people a lot of stress.

They feel a lot of stress.

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

Takes a can of kerosene
into the mountain forest,

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

He gets arrested and he
does the most classic excuse

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

And lighting fires relieves
tension, which I struggle with.

I mean, has he tried stretching?

Maybe there’s this,
has he tried stretching?

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

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

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

I might actually say
drinking is your better option.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So the police are now
investigating several

suspicious fires in forests
in the surrounding area.

So I’m guessing this is lucky.

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

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

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

I’ve done this story before.

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

Why did you commit the crime?

Stress from work or just stress?

But now you’re getting arrested.

That is created more stress in your life.

So there is a maybe a
moment where you’ve

committed the crime
and it feels slightly better.

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

Are the police gonna catch on?

Am I gonna get reported?

Like I actually think that
would be more stressful.

I think committing a crime
and getting away from it

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

And then if you’re
already working and you

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

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

and I have the stress of
worrying about whether or not

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

That’s a lot of stress.

And then how do you relieve that stress?

You go like more forest fires.

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

This is the criminal paradox.

If you are successful in a
crime and you commit the

crime again, multiple times
each time you commit it,

you’re more likely to make
mistakes or get caught

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

So your stress should
actually go up the more

successful you are in
crime, which is interesting.

But it doesn’t seem to work that way.

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

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

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

and the politicians put
money in their mouth

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

And there were some other
pictures that showed up

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

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

moving towards more
egalitarian and wants

to be more open and
inviting and that stuff.

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

but the guys who
organized the parties were

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

So they mentally had not moved on to like,

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

I almost guarantee no women
showed up to that party.

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

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

These really gross old men don’t understand

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

Which is interesting issue,
because we had that mayor

who committed like a
hundred sexual assaults at work.

Like he was patent
bottoms and touching boobs

and sexually harassing
everybody around him.

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

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

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

two minutes of me doing
like gross creepy laughing.

He didn’t think the other guy was serious.

And like, this is literally
your peer telling you,

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

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

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

party because these
people are these people.

They can’t help but do what they do.

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

youth bureau and four of
these guys organized a party

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

And that to me was one of the issues.

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

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

So a magazine came out
with pictures of this party.

Great.

So what is the picture of?

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

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

So clearly on stage, doing
some sort of announcement

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

a school girl uniform
of some sort in front of,

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

but someone tied up
behind them basically naked.

And this is cool.

This is like high level
politicians who are aware

of implications and
optics and how things go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s just ridiculous, I quit.

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

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

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

So technically not as bad.

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

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

And the same day as the
party and assembly member

received 100,000 yen of
public funds from an activity

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

The activity fund is money for events.

So that isn’t really
regulated the same way.

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

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

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

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

And so this has put another sort of strike,

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

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

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

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

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

and then these scandals
keep coming up again and again.

And now using public money.

The public money part
is going to be the part

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

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

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

When you take my money
to do your dirty stuff,

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

(upbeat music)

• Sure, man, you could ask.

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

You’re more than welcome to ask questions.

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

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

What do I think if someone
join a secret society?

That question is unclear
because what is the secret society?

So like there’s several secret societies

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

But the Freemasons are
primarily a charitable organization

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

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

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

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

actually give me any information
to answer your question.

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

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

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

Because you wanna keep it secret is fine.

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

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

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

the important part is
the intent of the society

(upbeat music)

So this is not episode 300.

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

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

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

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

So there’s no way this is accurate.

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

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

Something like that
needs to happen right now.

That’s happened.

We can move on because
numbers are arbitrary.

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

The number will continue to go up.

But you are listening to Ninja News Japan.

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

Because again, the labeling
of that is very specific.

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

for something that no
one’s ever tried before.

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

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

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

myself down more than
probably anybody else ever will.

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

We seek out the news.

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

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

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

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

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

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

That makes it sound better.

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

Ninja News Japan.

So Japan as a country is going to update

the English spelling of Japanese words.

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

so ABCD, they have a
system for the spelling.

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

if you read it phonetically
as an English-speaking

person, you don’t
make the right sounds.

So that is called the Kunre Shiki rules,

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

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

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

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

So currently, the prefecture of Aichi.

If you spell it using
the Kunre Shiki rules,

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

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

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

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

which is more phonetically
similar to what the Japanese say,

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

I will be more likely
to say the right sounds.

The other one is Shibuya,
so very famous places.

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

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

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

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

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

That sounds better.

It sounds more like what
Japanese people say.

It sounds more like
what foreigners would say.

It’s a very weird system.

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

This is very Japanese thing to me.

They decided on a set
of rules and because

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

They just kept it going for years.

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

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

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

Signage will be updated.

Government documents are gonna be updated.

Everything’s gonna start
using these new rules.

Let’s say you’re an assembly member

and you have a political
party that comes to you

and they want to ban
sexy photo shoots at pools.

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

So you can understand
the sexy bathing suits,

which hardly cover anything at all.

The lavacious posing
might get some people up.

Like I didn’t mean it that way.

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

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

as sort of a double on
tundra unintentional there.

Please enjoy the
unintended double on tundras,

which I apparently do
a lot more than I think.

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

So you do it.

I’m gonna ban sexy photo
shoots in public pools

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

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

Now I’m gonna go home.

I’m gonna do what I like to do.

And what I like to do is go home

and take sexy pictures of
an acquaintance that I have

and post them to public
bulletin board on the internet.

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

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

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

I think of those kind of places.

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

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

Like they gather and they sort of simmer

and they kind of fester
together in these places.

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

They were sexual in nature.

They may have just been sexy poses,

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

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

in your political
life and then in your

personal life, you go and
do the exact opposite.

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

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

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

The hypocrisy is
enough that there was an

independent investigation,
what are you gonna do?

You decide to quit.

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

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

things you’re actually
putting for in politics.

And this is an interesting question.

I’m a politician.

I’m supposed to represent the people.

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

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

Should I do that thing?

So that’s always an interesting
question because a true

politicians’ opinions would
not be their own opinions.

It would be the opinions of
the people they represent.

So if the people they
represent want something,

you could do it, but
then maybe I am my

personal life, leave a
completely opposite life.

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

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

so that I post sexy photos
on internet bulletin boards,

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

I’m gonna shut that down.

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

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

life that you have and
pretend you disapprove

of sexy photo shoots when
you really are one step away

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

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

(electronic music)

Okay, remember last week
we talked about 99 Guinan.

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

He got in trouble for sexual harassment.

99 cases.

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

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

It actually sparked a
different conversation in Japan,

which is very interesting to me

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

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

form of sexual harassment
because the touch is unwelcome.

You shouldn’t be touching people.

Don’t touch people.

That’s actually pretty safe.

At work, do not touch people.

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

So don’t touch anyone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And he laughed it off
and then he can go back

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

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

He said in our generation, it was common

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

Now the operative word in that sense,

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

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

I am clearly demeaning
them even though I might

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t interpret the
signals correctly anyways

and always went ahead
and did whatever he wanted.

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

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

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

no, basically you shouldn’t
be touching anybody

at work, which I
fundamentally agree with.

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

There’s a different mayor.

The mayor, so we went
through a massive trend

on the engineers’ pan
for like an entire year.

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

And that was their final story of the day.

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

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

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

group makes it kind
of interesting in itself.

Different mayor was also
accused of sexual harassment.

He had department and division heads

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

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

of the mayor, staff,
initially three questions

were directed to the deputy mayor.

So everyone’s kind of ignoring him.

The fourth question asked
the mayor about a policy issue.

Seven people got up
and left because they’re

like, we don’t like
what this guy’s done.

He shouldn’t be mayor.

We’re not going to even listen to him.

We’re going to pretend he doesn’t exist.

So you got the cold shoulder from everyone.

The mayor, I like to enjoy this.

This is one of those like desperation moves

where in the moment you’re
like, this is going to work.

This is going to be the golden ticket and
it gets me out of this trouble that I’m in.

And I’m going to play the victim.

The mayor claims he is a
victim of harassment harassment,

which is a new one I
had never heard before.

So I love new phrases being coined.

Harassment harassment is brand new to me.

I don’t think it’s a thing.

So he’s basically saying
because I have been accused

of sexual harassment or
harassment or power harassment

or any kind of harassment
that now people seem

to think it’s acceptable to harass
me back and treat me poorly.

So the underlying message
he’s actually saying is like,

even if I have committed harassment,
you should still treat me nicely.

You should still be nice to me.

Because if you’re saying
it’s not nice to harass

people, then you should
not harass me back.

So he’s actually saying this is a
very much cake and eat it to situation.

I should be able to harass people
but people should still be nice to me.

And the fact that people
are not being nice to me

because I harass people is unacceptable,
which is not a load of bullshit.

It’s a very politics
oriented way of thinking,

but I’m betting he thought
in the moment he’s like,

ah, if I claim to be harassed by the people
who accused me of harassing, therefore,

those two things, they’re
negatives, they cancel each other out.

There is no more harassment.

He’s claiming that harassment harassment
is subordinates harassing their supervisors

because they now consider it acceptable,
which again, this is the load of bullshit

coming out of a politician’s
mouth, not a big surprise.

Student of an elementary school,
this is a massive story this week.

Because the numbers are so big,
one it actually gets to the end of this.

Student of an elementary
school, so we’re talking little kids.

He was scammed out of 930,000 yen,
so almost a million yen by a classmate

who sold him medals and bank notes, saying
they would increase in value over time.

So when you go to a lot of tourist places
in Japan, you can have a little medal made.

Usually 500 yen, it’ll
stamp it and spit it out,

and the kid had one of those.

He’s like, I’ll sell you this gold coin,
which will increase in value over time,

and the kid agreed to it.

He said I have a bank note made of plastic.

It also will increase in value over time.

It was a Canadian, I think, $10 note.

And he was selling this
to these kids the coin

he sold, which cost
500 yen for 360,000 yen.

And there were eight
transactions over time in the school

where the kid was buying
stuff from these classmates.

The classmates were essentially
bullying him at first for being poor.

And he said I have a million yen

from what he’s done has saved up his new
year’s money for years and years and years.

He accumulated a million yen.

The mistake there is he had
access to it so that he could do this.

He’d given 900,000 yen away.

He went to his dad, he said,
you know, it must have broken.

He went to his dad, and he
said, I’ve given all my classmates,

all this money, I think
they’re taking advantage of me,

I don’t think this stuff is worth anything.

The father calls to the police,
the police contact the parents.

He’s gotten apologies and 250,000 yen back,

but 250,000 yen is
essentially just a quarter of the

money he’s lost that
those other kids still have.

I, as a parent, have no idea
what I’ve done in this situation.

Like, I certainly would have
given all the kids money back.

No question.

It’s just how do you punish
your kids for scamming other kids?

Like, it’s one of those
things like bullying and stuff.

When it happens, it’s
almost like it’s inconceivable

that it happened.

That’s the weird part to me.

But yeah, you gotta be careful.

Because kids, I guess
if they learn to scam,

what happened to me, I
put myself in this situation.

I was in grade six or
seven in this other kid.

His name was Kirk.

He said to me that he
could sell me a butterfly knife.

Butterflies knives are illegal in Canada.

But he said he could get me one if
I gave him, I think it was five or $10.

So that was like a big chunk
of change for a kid in grade six.

But I really wanted a butterfly.

It’s so lucky I didn’t get this.

‘Cause there are only two results
of me having a butterfly knife.

It would have been me
practicing and cutting

off a finger or me
actually stabbing someone

because I lost my temper
because I was such a wild child.

So he took the $10 and he said,

I’ll give it to you next week
and then the next week went by

and then another week went
by and I went, hey Kirk, you

know, you took money from
me to give me a butterfly knife.

You better give me my money
back or the butterfly knife.

And he was just looking at
me like, what are you gonna do?

I can’t go to my parents or the teachers

and tell them that I attempted to buy
an illegal weapon and give them money.

So I had to just suck up that loss.

And I still to this day,
how many years later?

It looked like 40 years later,
still remember the frustration

and pain and the sense of
loss that I’d gotten myself into.

There’s nothing I could do about it.

So I mean, kudos to Kirk for getting me
in that situation and taking me for that.

But you know, also I didn’t
fall for that scam twice.

But yeah, man, I still
want that butterfly knife.

Guillain is an area of
what’s famous for geisha.

And people have like a image
of geisha from anime and movies

and stuff because in those
they make them very sexual.

Geisha traditionally are entertainers.

They’ll tell stories, they
will play musical instruments,

they’ll perform for you, they’ll do dances.

It’s kind of, it’s just entertainment.

These sex stuff came from
the guys wanting to have sex

with this person who was
a very engaging personality.

And they’re very charming,
it’s kind of their job.

So there’s, it’s sort
of like a dual play here

where they’re not prostitutes,
but if you can get into

a right situation, maybe
they’ll have sex with you

and then that involves you
spending a lot of time with them.

You spend a lot of time with them.

That’s going to cost a lot of money.

Is this prostitution, whatever.

You can go into that for a long time.

We’re not going to get
into that too deeply today.

But the average geisha walking
around Kyoto is not a prostitute.

Let’s just put that out there right now.

They are doing a job and
that job is to learn and study

different arts and then perform
those arts on behalf of customers.

Tourists seem to think
that they’re like paid

employees of the city
that can basically be abused.

So they have people will just grab
them and start taking pictures with them.

They don’t ask if it’s
okay to take pictures first.

I mean, these are private individuals.

You shouldn’t be just
taking pictures of them.

They don’t ask, they just run
up and take a picture together.

Sometimes they’ll grab them and pull them
into a position, which is assault in Japan.

So you can’t do that.

The geisha are complaining.

The city is like, we don’t know what to do.

There’s these small alleys.

And that’s where the geisha work in.

They come out of there
and people are going in there

and it puts them in this
very uncomfortable situation.

So they’re actually going to ban tourists

from being able to go
down into those little alleys

where the geisha study
and work and learn and stuff.

Is this going to happen from April?

And the city representative
said, we don’t want to do this,

but we are desperate.

So there’ve been some complaints.

One of the geisha said, like, she
was grabbed while walking down

the street and actually tore
her hormonal commandos.

Real ones are super expensive.

They’re like literally millions
of yen to buy a commando.

Lately, Japan’s been very
concerned about overtourism

and they’ve been putting
on sort of restrictions.

Since COVID restrictions were lifted,

Japan is now putting other
restrictions on tourism.

So now I think you have to pay 2,000 yen

if you want to climb up Mount
Fuji because too many people

were climbing up and they
weren’t taking care of their garbage.

So like, we have to pay people
to literally pick up garbage.

Well, we’re not going to absorb that cost.

The tourists can absorb that cost.

They can pay to go up the mountain.

These, again, private
individual citizens in

Japan walking around
the city don’t feel safe

because foreign people feel like perfectly
comfortable walking up and grabbing them.

That can’t happen anymore.

The city’s actually going to put,

they haven’t explained like what
the punishment is going to be.

They’re going to put up signs saying like,

this is tourists are not
allowed to walk down here,

but how do you enforce
that in a free society?

It’s actually the problem.

There might be fines, something like that.

But it will give at least
the gaitia some recourse

because they say, you’re
not supposed to be here.

I can now call the police
and have you removed.

Maybe that kind of thing.

But it’s a little sad because this is just

means like people are coming
to Japan and not behaving well.

We’ve done a lot of stories
on people not behaving well.

So they should do one where
they bend the mares of cities

because those guys apparently
are the grossest people in Japan.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

Update, ginger guy, so we
are deep in food terrorism.

And it doesn’t seem to be stopping.

The fact that people are getting arrested,

the fact that people are
being sued by companies,

the fact that there has
not been a popular outcome,

’cause what I mean by popular is, of
course, people are filming these things,

they’re getting on the
internet, and the only reason you

put stuff on the internet is
’cause you want to be popular.

That’s, you know, social
points is what you’re going for.

You maybe get it for a little bit,

but then it disappears
when you end up going to

prison, which is what
happened to the ginger guy.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was
a guy in a beef bowl, restaurant,

and they have communal ginger,

and he was eating the ginger
right out of the ginger bowl,

and he was like putting his
dirty chopsticks back in it.

They filmed it, they put
it on the internet, internet

goes crazy, he gets in
trouble, he gets arrested.

Okay.

The question was, for me, always, what
is the actual punishment for these crimes?

Kids in Japan basically don’t go to jail.

So now that it’s an
adult, he could actually get

punished, he’s actually
responsible for his actions.

The problem was, this guy was arrested

on multiple counts, and
they were all stuck together.

So he got two years and four months
and had to pay a 200,000 yen fine,

but those charges
included growing marijuana

for personal use or
distribution, drug offenses.

He got arrested for growing
marijuana to drug offense.

That is way, way more serious than
eating ginger out of a communal thing.

So that’s a problem, because
how much of the punishment

is growing marijuana, which
is an incredibly serious crime

in Japan, and how much of it
is for weird public harassment,

chasing internet clout, just being gross.

I mean, that’s what we’re talking about.

My guess is that the two years as
for growing marijuana, the four months

is tacked on for the ginger crime.

Maybe even the 200,000
yen, the interesting part.

This was the more interesting part to me,

which is why this became a
worthwhile follow up to the story.

The guy who filmed his friend eating
the ginger was fined 300,000 yen.

So I think that is a fair
view of the punishment.

So I think jail time for doing
something gross in public is a lot.

A fine seems appropriate.

The fine can be very big.

I think big fines are good
things, but it’s very hard.

I’m not a judge and Japanese law is
a bit hard to work your way through.

It’s got a lot of rules and stuff.

It has a lot of considerations
that I will not understand.

But filming someone
committing the food terrorism,

which is what this has been
dubbed, is a 300,000 yen fine.

So I think that’s actually
showing you how seriously

they are taking it because the
companies now are going to follow up.

Now that they have a guilty charge,
they know that this guy is guilty.

If they take him to court and they
sue him, they have a much better case.

And I think interestingly,

the punishing the cameraman
to me is an interesting tactic

because you are punishing not
the person committing the crime.

You’re punishing the person who videoed
the crime, who essentially made it popular.

So what you’re kind of doing is like,
okay, these guys want to do gross things.

Something I’ve said on Indonesia
pan, probably a thousand times now,

to the point where it’s
almost not worth repeating,

but I have to because
it flows into the thoughts

that we have is,

don’t film it and put on the internet.

Now, the crimes still may occur, and
there still may be these things happening.

But if the popularity that momentary fame

is taken away from this sushi terrorism

from the food terrorism that’s happening,

there’s going to be
less incentive to do it.

So if you punish the people
who are filming it and they’re like,

well dude, I’m not going to film that,
I’m not going to put it on the internet,

then there’s less incentives
for you to do it in the first place.

And I think that’s an interesting way

to maybe do attack this
issue is attack the goal,

because the goal is
to cloud the popularity.

If you can take that away, so the people
like it do it, I don’t want to film this,

I don’t want to spend 300,000
yen to film a 30 second TikTok

of you eating stuff that
you shouldn’t be eating.

That in itself is pretty interesting,
take on how to get a handle on this,

’cause this is a thing that’s
not going away, that said.

It happened like immediately right
after, it’s almost like the crime happens,

the punishment comes out and then like a
week later, it’s teenagers, mostly, right?

This guy, this guy who was just arrested,

it was in his 20s, he was an adult.

But mostly it’s teenagers
and there’s a whole thing

I learned here, so let’s
get to the second story.

I don’t want to do a transition sound.

(upbeat music)

Completely unnecessary, it’s
just to help me stay organized.

This is the second story, but it is the
exact same thing, it is the food terrorism.

And I didn’t know this had been
going on for as long as it had.

I learned about it, the main
instance was sushi terrorism,

but it was probably because
it became such a big story,

because sushi row, the Kaiten sushi
restaurant, sued like a 15 year old kid’s mom,

I forget it was like a billion
yen, it was some ridiculous

number, but they were
just out to prove a point.

But kids are kids, I
have trouble remembering

when I was a teenager, I know I was stupid.

I was stupid into my mid 20s.

Easy, maybe even late,
what am I talking about?

I might be dumb now
and just not realize it.

That’s the problem with being dumb.

These kids, I guess
they’re not reading the

news, they don’t know
these things are happening.

I don’t know, or they do and they
think they’re gonna get away with it.

That’s a very youthful
bravado kind of thing,

but there’s a dominoes, and Amagasaki,

and a worker at two o’clock
in the morning with his friend,

they’re goofing around, he’s needing dough.

And they’re talking back and
forth, and he picks his nose,

and he wipes it on
the dough, and he carps

needing it, and they
laugh and laugh and laugh.

They filmed it.

Now, these are not intended
to go on the internet, apparently.

These are intended to
be shared among friends,

but share among friends, and
then one of the friends is like,

“Hey, this will get
me internet clout.

” The only logical
thing for me to do

would be to post it on the
internet, it gets super famous.

Dominoes reacted so quickly.

So this dough that it had snot wiped on it,

was still in the fermentation
process, it wasn’t actually finished.

They found the restaurant,
they found the dough,

they disposed of it, they
closed the restaurant,

they sanitized the entire place
before 24 hours was even done.

So this thing hit the
internet, it started to

gain, just the smallest
Iodo of popularity,

and Dominoes was like in crackdown mode.

They probably have the Dominoes SWAT team.

You know how they get their
pizza to you in 30 minutes?

They’re gonna get to the store
where the food terrorism happens in 10.

I mean, that seems like
what’s really gonna happen.

I am now imagining there’s
the Dominoes headquarters.

It’s got all these monitors everywhere,

and then an alarm goes
off, and they just dispatch

the Dominoes sanitization SWAT team to go.

And those kids are fired.

I mean, again, I don’t know
about criminal charges.

They are talking.

Dominoes didn’t mention that
criminal charges are possible,

but criminal charges,
as I said in the last bit,

criminal charges towards teenagers
in Japan doesn’t really do that much.

So we know that no one ate that pizza.

Now, if you’ve eaten fast food,
there’s the logic part of my brain,

and then there’s the
emotional part of my brain.

The logic part of my brain is saying
that if the snot was in the dough,

and the dough was
cooked at a billion degrees,

or whatever it is, to make pizza
dough, nothing’s gonna survive in that.

It wouldn’t actually be that bad.

So logically speaking, no
harm would come to you

because it was pre before it was cooked.

Doing it after it was
cooked is somehow grosser

because you’re eating
the actual bodily fluid

that came out of the person.

But once you cook it, it’s all dead.

The emotional part of me
responds like everyone else does.

It’s like, I do not want to eat snot pizza.

So what I learned
from looking at several

articles, and soda news
24, big Japanese website,

they actually did a
little bit of a breakdown.

So this actually goes back to 2013.

It’s like a decade ago,
and they have bakatur.

So it’s bakah, which means stupid, and ter,

which is Twitter, so bakah,
Twitter, so stupid, Twitter.

And it’s filming yourself doing
dumb things and putting it on Twitter.

Twitter was 2013, the
biggest website in Japan.

And they’re also
calling it Baito-terrorism.

Baito is Japanese for part-time job.

So Baito-terrorism, so
we have food terrorism,

Baito-terrorism, but
this all seems to evolved

from bakatur, and it’s kids
filming dumb shit at work.

And I just remember
seeing this pre-pandemic,

and it was a part-time kid
in a community store at night,

and it was super hot, and he got in the
cooler where they keep the ice cream.

You just lay on top of the ice cream.

Very technically, all the
ice cream in there was in

packages, and he was
wearing his clothes and whatnot.

So nothing actually touched
anything, but it is gross conceptually.

Again, the logic part of
my brain kicks in and goes,

well, you know there’s probably
a ton of rat poop on that anyways,

because it was all in transit at
some point, and rats are everywhere.

You should wipe the top of a drink can
or bottle before you put it to your mouth,

if you’re ever gonna drink straight
out of the bottle, that kind of stuff.

‘Cause there probably is rat feces on it.

That’s your ninja new
Japan, thought for today.

There’s probably rat feces on it.

And I think I just came
up with a new t-shirt.

I mean, the chocolate
beef chest, Academy

of Martial Arts t-shirt,
it’s a best seller.

Everyone loves it, who gets it.

But you know, I need
to expand my repertoire.

Maybe I need to take more
of my classic phrases and turn

them into t-shirts like,
there’s probably rat feces on it.

And just say that.

Just something you just
keep in mind at all the time.

It’s probably rat feces on it.

So the trend seems to
have really hit in 2013.

So kids saw other kids doing stupid shit

in their part-time jobs, and
they would do something similar,

but there was a trend that had
happened in January and February,

and there are theories, it’s why.

So there were some nice
theories on Soto News 24.

I don’t wanna like
just steal their content.

So this isn’t my idea, but
it was pretty interesting

because January,
February is when you’ve hit

sort of the stressful
exam time in Japan.

So maybe this is a weird way of
kids trying to alleviate their stress,

where they’ve just hit this
point of stress where they’re

just the brain shuts down,
they start doing stupid stuff.

I don’t know, it’s interesting though,

there is a trend of an
increase of kids doing dumb shit

at their part-time jobs
in January, February.

So if you have a theory,
I mean, I’d love to hear it,

send an email to
chunkandbeefchest@gmail.

com or speakpipe.com/chunkandbeefchest
and tell me your

thoughts on why you think
teens in January and February

do dumb shit at their part-time jobs.

There’s a street vendor in Asakusa.

He’s been out in the street for 15 years,

selling soda, they
call rumnay, it’s like a

very, very sugary
ginger ale, I guess, soda.

I don’t like it, it’s
actually too sweet for me.

I like sweet things and
it’s too sweet for me.

The thing is, this is also
a member of the Yanayah

Yakuza family and apparently a
fairly high-ranking member of that.

So there’s a lot of
questions they’re already.

My image of Yakuza comes from the Yakuza
video game series more than anything else.

It used to be Yakuza movies
and then the Yakuza video

game series took over in my
mind as to how Yakuza’s live their

life, basically you don’t open a
door, you only kick open doors.

There was someone else
came out on the same street

where he was selling his
sodas and it was a guy dressed

as a ninja and he was giving
out flyers for a ninja experience.

Now, let me tell you, I went
to Iga Castle and I took my

mom when she visited
Japan and they had Iga is

famously were ninjas or
supposed to come from.

I learned that ninjas always
sleep on their left side to be

able to protect their heart,
which weirdly makes sense, but

also doesn’t make any sense
at all because if your head’s

exposed and you’re lying
down, I’m not going to

attack your heart, I’m
going to attack your head.

But still, they slept on the
left sides and they didn’t wear

black, they wore navy blue because
that blends in better in the evening night.

There was also a thing where
you got throwing stars and you

threw it at a target and
hit the target three times.

You want a t-shirt?
Now, let me tell you, you’re good friend,

showing a beef chest.
He threw those three throwing stars and he

hit that target three times and he
won that t-shirt and it was too small.

That is the second
t-shirt I’ve wanted to

pay. They don’t have big boy sizes
in Japan. That’s pretty much a given.

I was at a bar with a
friend and they had a

thing and it was this Apple Jack Daniels.
Maybe it was Apple

whiskey of some sort,
which is already pretty bad.

But if you bought one, you got a
lottery ticket. You pulled it out of

this like box and if you got
the thing, you want to add

Jack Daniels, Apple, whiskey
t-shirt and something in my

brain clicked because I bought
one. I actually was being stressed.

What does this taste
like? It wasn’t bad.

Again, too sweet, weirdly.
Then I said to the waitress the

next time she came to the
table, I said, can you promise me

there really is a winning card in that box.
She said, yes, we

have three t-shirts in the
back right now that I know of,

there are probably more.
So I said, fine. Please continue to

bring me drinks until I win. I don’t
remember how many drinks I had.

It was a lot. Like we’re
in excess of six to seven

easily because I was drunk,
like real drunk, like proper drunk.

And I won the t-shirt and it
was a very nice t-shirt and it was

also way too small.
That’s two t-shirts I’ve

taken the time to win in Japan
and two t-shirts that I’ve won

that are too small.
Not what we’re talking about.

What I am saying though is you
have the opportunity to go to the ninja

experience in Ega
Castle. You should do it.

My mom really enjoyed the ninja castle
experience. You go through this little house,

has ninja doors and stuff.
I’m doing like tourist services for Ega

man.
Ega may be want to drop a coin this way.

Just putting that out there as well.
I don’t really do free advertising.

And then they put on a little show.
So you go through the house and they show

you like the trick floors and
the trick this and the trick that.

And then they do a little show with some
guys who do some martial arts and stuff,

which was quite fun. My mother
really enjoyed it. I actually really got

talking to the guy next to me who
actually worked for like a news company.

We had a really great chat about
like would this be good TV or not.

The irony being that he clearly
thought this was not going to be good TV,

but he was going to film it anyways,
which does directly express my

feeling of most Japanese television.
So we’re back on the street.

We got this guy. He’s dressed
like a ninja and he’s giving out

flyers for a ninja experience.
We got this Yakuza. It’s been selling

ginger ale for 15 years on the street. No
one can figure out why I’m supposed to be

a high level Yakuza. The quality of
Yakuza and the drama there and has

dropped significantly is this if this is
how these guys are spending their days.

15 years on the street selling soda
is not the life I would imagine for a

high level Yakuza. It’s not sitting in
like gold cars with like three women

draped off you who loathe you,
but you know they’re too afraid to

get away from you that kind of thing.
You know movie stuff.

I actually would prefer a honest and loving
relationship. Just want to put that out there.

Chocolate beef chest
of an engineer’s Japan.

He’s not into a press of relationships.
He’s into a open, honest,

mutual relationships. Don’t know
where I am right now. I’ll be honest.

The Yakuza walks up to him and he does
a very very Yakuza thing. He says if you’re

gonna give out flyers on my street,
you’re gonna have to give me 10,000

yen a month or get the fuck out.
No one really knows what happened.

If the guy actually paid any money
and stuff, eventually the intimidation

tactics, the extortion
got back to the police.

The police come out
and arrest this guy.

The reason that this blew up on
the internet in Japan was that he was

calling the Ninja Ninja Kun. Kun is
what you would call like, so if I was a

teacher and I go into a classroom
and I talk to the kids, there’s you

probably no Chan, so like Lucy
Chan would be Lucy as a young girl.

Kun is for boys. She calls him
Ninja Kun. So he’s talking like this

lower status person in society, which was
pretty funny, but the guy is in his 60s,

so probably the guy who was the
ninja dress up as the ninja was actually

probably younger, fair enough. On February
8th, he was arrested for extortion,

which is a very Yakuza thing to be arrested
for. So I’m very, I’m happy that that’s

at least consistent
with my image of Yakuza.

His defense was I
was just giving him a

warning because he was being impolite.
Now that to me is Yakuza code for,

I told him to give me money or I’d break
his bones, but also it’s also a pretty

weak defense. Like you shouldn’t really
be telling other people how to live their

lives, and I bet the 10,000 yen, if
you want to stay on this street, was

something that came out of your mouth.
But that’s again, that’s a bias on my part,

and I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t
want to like sully his reputation.

Problem is, if you remember last week,
we talked about Yakuza apartments,

so was the guy who was on the poster.
Next to the guy who had died,

who had had people have been looking for
him since the 70s. That guy in the poster

was found at a Yakuza apartment.
Yakuza on apartments. Now the police have,

since they’ve arrested this guy, they
have a reason to go into where he lives,

which may be one of these apartments
or maybe a house, and then get information

about other places, Yakuza. So if he’s a
high-level guy, he has information about

other Yakuza stuff
that leads to the cops

on this sort of network
they can go through,

which could cause a huge amount of
problems for that Yakuza family over 10,000

yen from a ninja they just
could have just left alone.

I suppose I do this all the time. I finish
the story, I hit the transition sound,

and then I have a thought while
the transition sound goes on.

That isn’t how crime things.

Crime isn’t thinking, this
isn’t worth 10,000 yen.

Crime is thinking,
this is 10,000

yen I could get for doing
nothing, which is what extortion is.

It’s getting money for nothing.

Yeah, I don’t think
like a criminal.

That’s maybe the problem.
Maybe why I haven’t, you know,

really, my criminal
empire hasn’t really taken

off is I just don’t
think like a criminal.

I don’t think like, hey, let’s
abuse the people around

me and get money for
nothing and cheat and lie.

God, maybe I have
not done this right.

Is that how I ended up
podcasting? A 64-year-old woman

had been making fake
designer brand bags for the

last few years by hand. So
she had started her own shop.

She was making bags
of her own design.

And they weren’t selling very
well. She saw some news and

she saw some really popular
bags. And some were similar enough.

She’s like, I think
I could make that.

So she made it. She made
Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci.

And she would sell
them for about 3,500 yen.

And what she was doing
in some cases, she was

trying to copy the bag.
And in other cases, she was

making her own original bag
and putting like a logo on it.

I found this interesting
because I was

like, I bet her handmade
bags were of the same

if not better quality
than the actual brand bags

that people were buying. She
was only charging 3,500 yen.

Unfortunately, that is illegal.

So you can’t do that. The
police searched her shop and

they found 330
bags ready for sale.

So she just basically made a
couple bags every day, all day,

every day, I guess.
And then she was selling

him in her store. I don’t
know. The thing that struck

out to me, there’s not
really much else to say,

this lady was basically
hand making bags.

But I was like, if you can hand
make a bag, man, that’s pretty cool.

I kind of had this
weird respect for the

lady’s ability to make a
bag that was of the same

quality as a Chanel
bag, if not better.

Because she just bought,
bought the material.

She’s like, what are those made of?
She bought similar materials online.

And then made those
bags. And I’m like,

man, I wonder if
her bags were good.

That was pretty shit story. I
didn’t have anything to say about it.

I just did it again. Hit the transition
sound and then finished my fault.

It’s an interesting story, but I
didn’t have anything to say about it.

Because I should
actually, if I could

have got it early, I’m
not going to find out about

it until she gets
arrested, but I kind of want

to buy one of her bags
now and just see what the

quality of the bag. Prison
inmate was not allowed

to wear his glasses because
they were one millimeter

over the Sives limit.
And he was without his

glasses for two months.
That doesn’t sound too

bad. Not having your
glasses though. He had trouble

going up and down stairs
because he couldn’t see the stairs.

So his eye set was terrible.

And he was wearing glasses.
It sounds like they were blacked

out like basically dark
lenses. He might have had

a light sensitivity thing.
Who knows? But he was like,

he had trouble walking
around without his glasses.

And they said the the frames
were one millimeter too thick.

So I don’t know what
they meant like the arm

of the eyeglasses were too
thick or they were too big.

I’m guess the reason I try to figure out
the reasons for this. I guess the reason is

because the arm of
the glasses could be like

shaved down into a shiv
depending on what they

are minor made of plastic.
So I would do that and

just still would just
bounce off people.

I don’t think I can make it sharp
enough to actually shiv someone.

But they took away his glasses
and didn’t give him anything else.

So he’s just basically blind for
two months. The bar association

in Japan is claiming
that taking away his

glasses as a human
rights violation, which I

think is probably pretty
accurate because you’re

basically saying like,
hey, you could see, but

we’re going to take away
the thing you see with

because we’re
annoyed. And this is it.

This shows more the actual
reason why they took away his

glasses because the
prison complained, these

glasses were arousing
the curiosity of others.

So again, because he
was allowed to wear these

what sounds like
sunglasses all the time,

other people in the
prison are like, hey, why

can’t I wear sunglasses and
look cool while I’m in prison.

Hey, why does
that get those weird

glasses on? Hey, how come
my glasses are just regular

glasses and that guy
has special glasses.

And the guards had difficulty
confirming eye contact.

So because he’s wearing
darkened glasses, they

can’t tell if he’s actually
looking at them when

they’re talking to him. So he
might be being disrespectful.

We don’t know. So
I think this is where

we see the actual reason they wanted to
take away his glasses because they’re like,

I don’t think that guy’s
paying attention when I

was speaking to him. I
think he thinks he’s too cool.

I think we take away
his glasses and we

make him blind and we treat
him like ship for a couple months.

And then he’ll
learn some respect

because this is all about
respect. He was unable to

read and he could not go
up and downstairs very well.

He isn’t prison. I
don’t know what he did,

but yeah, I think if you’re
in prison and you wear

glasses, you should be
allowed to wear your glasses.

Okay, so we get to a new
porn law introduced in Japan.

And this was very
interesting because it

was stringent enough
that porn stars were out on

the streets protesting.
And they say if it goes

through the Japanese
adult videos will disappear

forever, like the
industry will just die.

I found this interesting
on a conceptual level.

Let’s say you agree with
the stars that this law

is unfair, but like I’m
not in the porn industry

and I live a very normal
life. So it would be

very difficult for me to
go out and lend my voice

to the porn industry
because then people would

then say like, well, tongue
of beef chest is big horn dog.

The rule itself was
interesting because

there’s one of the directors
started speaking up on it.

He was of course in
the public protesting,

saying like, this is my
livelihood. You’re actually

attacking my livelihood.
And he said, I think

it’s good for girls filming
for the first time, but

not for those who make
adult videos for a living.

And I actually agree. He seems like a very
reasonable guy, this director he’s talking.

He is saying it violates
the freedom of business

that is in the constitution.
The director says

it has some good points,
but too many hindrances.

So what this is designed
to do is I am going to do my

first adult video. I
sign the contract.

There has to be a one month waiting
period before we actually film the video.

So I’m sitting down with you.

We’re doing the
contract negotiation.

I say, yes, I will take this
much money and I will put

my very attractive sexual
body on screen for you,

which I know is what everyone
wants at the end of the day.

Let’s go and go, no, no, we
have to wait for one month.

So I have essentially one month to change
my mind and back out of the contract,

then after we film the video, of course,
has to go through editing and whatnot,

I doesn’t need too much
CG for me because I actually

know you’d have to like
really tone down the whites.

My bare skin would probably
blow out the cameras.

So we’re going
to have to film it in

complete darkness
and my body will light up.

It’d be like watching
luminescent jellyfish have sex

would be very similar to
the experience of having

sex with me and motion wise,
like the very I assume very floppy.

What am I doing? I’m insulting
my own sexual prowess.

It feels bad about
making fun of myself now.

So we filmed it.
We’ve edited it.

It’s ready to go. There has to be
another four-month waiting period.

And that means from the date you sign
the contract to the actual release of the

video is going to be going to
be between five to six months.

And that is also that this person
who’s doing their first video for the first

time can back out, which I
actually agree with that director.

I think if this is
your first time,

you seem very excited about it. Your
circumstances are such circumstances changing.

Like I don’t want to do this
anymore. I think having the

ability to back out
is a really good idea.

Japan also has the law
that after X amount of years,

you have to re-sign with
the star to keep the video out.

So the star like let’s say I did a porn
five years ago. And I don’t want that in

my life anymore. I don’t
renew that contract.

You have to take all that
stuff down from the internet.

Now there are going to be clips and stuff,
but basically it becomes harder to get.

And that part of my life may be
not erased, but is greatly diminished.

You’re far, far less likely to find out
that I made this porn video in the past.

So I actually think these
protections for people

starting out and for
people who’ve retired from

that industry are
a really good thing.

But I also think he is right
in that putting this much

hindrance like a six month period between
contract and final production and release

is problematic for
people who actually make

this as their livelihood.
And so they need to

continue to produce content
to be able to make the money.

The other danger
is that this goes into

place and then people
instead of doing it through

their proper channels
start to go to underground,

start to do things
illegally, start to do things,

which therefore
immediately become less safe.

I actually agree
with this director.

I think this should be in place
for first timers. I do actually

agree with that. But once
you’ve done two or three

videos, then there’s no
need to have all these

sort of roadblocks
in place. I was thinking

about like who’s going
to stand up for them,

because this is
about fair treatment.

And to stand up for porn
stars, you are then connecting

yourself with porn stars,
which no politician wants to do.

And that’s where the
problem is going to arise.

That’s a certain amount of bravery,
because we know about the proliferation of

pornographic material
on the internet.

So we know there’s more than
like three people watching it.

We know there’s a lot
of people who watch it.

We know the statistics.
So I think the fair

representation there
actually needs to happen.

But I don’t think
there’s ever going to be a

politician in place who’s
actually going to have

the balls to do it, because
it immediately puts you

on this position where,
well, if you support

porn, then you’re a dirty,
dirty person who does

dirty, dirty things,
ruins your reputation.

They’re in a really tough
spot. But I will actually

stay up because I mean
stay up. I actually follow

up on this story primarily
because I’m always

interested in new rules
and how they go into effect.

It’s funny, I love the
dirty, dirty stories,

but I never loved the
dirty, dirty aspect of them.

Like the actual
porn parts, not the

interesting part to me. It’s
the contract negotiations.

It’s the production.
It’s the rules in place.

It’s the things that
have to happen before

and after is the stuff
I actually care about.

I’m really interested in
the complicated contract

negotiations that go into
Japanese productions.

And production’s all over the world. Movie
contracts and stuff. We’re all fascinating.

You should look them up
and make yourself a more

informed person. I have
just got lost at that last part.

[Music]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

(upbeat music)

Okay, just a bit of a
pre-warning for this week.

Is normally, I have trouble reading
my notes because I write really messy.

This week, I’m gonna have
trouble reading my notes

’cause I write really messy
and my eyes all messed up.

So that’s a bad combination.

Writing messy and bad head.

(sighs)

I shouldn’t say bad head.

All right.

Couple weeks ago, we
had a kid who was licking

the lid of a shared water
pitcher in a restaurant

and posted online, just like all these
other, like again, the sushi terrace.

We’re now calling food terrists in Japan.

Couple details have come out

because he and the person
who filmed it have been arrested.

This is an interesting thing for
me, is the second part we’ll get into.

The boy is 16 years old.

So he’s not, I mean, he wasn’t
gonna do jail time anyways.

It becomes, once you get
arrested for it, it becomes sort of a

civil suit between you and the
company that owns the restaurant.

So I think it was sushi dough,
was the sushi terrace and thing.

And then that company was
suing them for a stock price drop

when that kid did some
gross stuff in the restaurant.

So that’s something to be aware of.

Like it’s not like he’s going to prison.

He could be opening
his family to a lawsuit.

I found out that this incident
happened at five, 10 in the morning.

So first of all, they’re
at a ramen restaurant.

And who’s eating ramen
at five, 10 in the morning?

Like even if you’re a night worker,

five, 10 in the morning
isn’t, it’s not ramen time.

I mean, I guess it different,
different people, different moods.

I have become a very serious, serious.

That makes it sound like I got a problem.

I’ve become a very adamant lunch drinker.

If I’m going to drink, I
want to drink at lunch time.

And then over the course of the day,

I can sober up and I’m asked
to feel a little hangover come

and I can start drinking
water and then I go to bed

and then I wake up next
morning and I feel great.

I’ve realized that night
drinking is actually the mistake.

We should all be drinking at lunch
time, day drinking, almost exclusively.

So the boy, the 16 year
old boy and his 20 year

old friend who was
videoing it, so already again,

I can see there’s a bad influence,
the older boy, videoing the younger boy,

probably encouraging
him to do the bad thing.

That’s going to be the first sort of issue

is the young guy’s going
to take the lead from

the, what I’m going to
go ahead and just assume

is a negative influence because
he ended up getting arrested.

So you’re not going to call that
a positive influence on his life.

The 16 year old is underage.

So again, probably very
little is going to happen to him

again, open to a civil lawsuit that
could affect his family or his parents.

The 20 year old though, he’s in a different
set of trouble because he’s an adult.

So he’s responsible for himself.

When arrested, the 20 year old said,
I posted the video on social media,

but I don’t remember why I
filmed it or why I uploaded it.

And let me, let me fill you in.

Not even being there, not
even knowing who you are.

You filmed it because
other people had done this

kind of stupid stuff and
gotten attention for it.

You uploaded it because
you wanted the attention.

And that’s it.

That’s the whole, it sounded
like I had a third point.

I didn’t.

Those are the only two.

You saw other people
were getting attention.

You thought, hey, maybe I can
get the same amount of attention.

So you did.

Both were arrested for our
favorite abstraction of business.

Dave’s, Dave’s gently resting his paws.

He’s been doing this lead lately.

Let’s see if I can get the video down.

He rests his paws on my arm.

And it makes me not want to move my arm,
but it means I can’t control the mouse,

which means it’s very hard
to hit the transition button.

And then, so usually, right
now, he’s only got one paw.

He’ll put on two paws, right?

And then it’s quite heavy.

He took the one paw off when I was moving.

You know, it was very nice of him.

I talked about last week
about the guy from the ’70s

who had planted a balm,
he was part of a group.

He blew up some stuff.

And he went into hiding, went
into hiding until he was 70 years old.

He stayed off the grid for the entire time,

which is really impressive,
if I’m being honest.

He didn’t use his national health insurance

until the point where
he actually got cancer

and the cancer got so far
he had to go into hospital.

And then he had to use
his national health insurance.

And then they found out who he was.

He then died like a week later.

So that was national news.

It was all over in the news.

And the picture they put
up was of his mug shot.

Now in Japan, they have
these sort of yellow posters.

And they put on like the
nine most wanted people

in Japan at the time,
or they’ll put on like,

here’s the nine most biggest
scammers or whatever.

So this guy, because
they let talk about this

guy from the ’70s, now
he’s been from the ’70s,

but they put his poster up
again and again and again,

and every time they talk about it and post
them, and there’s a picture next to it.

And it’s another guy, not another guy.

He’s also a criminal.

He’s also another guy
who’s been a criminal in hiding

the entire time, wanted for an
attempted murder back in 2020.

Turns out having his
picture on the news every day

for a couple of weeks was
enough for someone to go,

“Oh, come on, come on, I
think I know who that guy is.

“I think I’ve seen
that guy around before.

” He hangs out in that
building that’s full of yakuza.

In Japan, they actually, the yakuza
will buy a building to house the yakuza.

And the whole point is, if
you are a yakuza in hiding,

you go into one of these
apartment buildings where it’s

all other yakuza, and
they’re not gonna turn you in.

The problem with having your
face on the news every day

means if you go outside
and which you probably do,

you go outside and go for groceries and
do some other stuff, it means other people

will see your face, and
someone put it together,

put an anonymous tip
in, hey, that guy lives in

Sendai, the police arrested
him on February 1st.

So it’s an interesting thing,
just throwing the pictures

up on the news again and again and
again, was enough for people to go like,

“I actually think I
recognize that guy.

” So you think about
wanted posters not working,

but they kind of work if
you get it on national news

so that a whole bunch of people can
see it, and then, you know, nosy neighbors,

that’s not just a Japanese thing,
but it is a very big Japanese thing.

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow.

I was of recording, this is February 13th.

This is tomorrow is February 14th
with his traditionally Valentine’s Day.

Japan, if you are a fan of Japan, it’s
pretty fairly common knowledge now

that it’s not done in
the Western tradition.

They made their own
tradition where a woman

will give a man chocolate
on Valentine’s Day.

And then a month later, on White Day,

man are supposed to
reciprocate by giving cookies.

There is a tradition in Japan that the women
in an office give really shit chocolates

to everyone in their office,
all the guys in their office.

They don’t like them, they don’t find them
attractive, it’s just something you do.

That’s called giddy choco.

Now, giddy, giddy, giddy
is like almost, but it’s in

English, they translate
it to obligation chocolate.

And I never thought about the word,
but giddy, it kind of means like barely.

So it’s like barely
chocolate or maybe barely

affectionate chocolate
or something like that.

I actually need to go
get the etymology of that

’cause I was thinking about
it as I was writing this down

that the direct translation
while it makes perfect sense

doesn’t actually translate the words,
it translates the spirit of the phrase,

which is an interesting
aspect of translation.

When you have something
called super dragon punch

in Japanese and you’re
gonna translate to the

English, do you call it
super dragon puncher?

Do you change it to something else that
would be more sort of in the right atmosphere

or feeling of the words,
which would be interesting?

Totally relevant.

I just, I realized that giddy choco

or giddy giddy choco doesn’t
translate into obligation chocolate

would actually translate into
on essentially shit chocolate.

The practice has reached its
lowest point since this survey began.

I didn’t write down when the survey began,

which is a big failure on
my part as a journalist,

but luckily I’m not being held to journalistic
standards because I don’t get paid.

The benefit of being
an independent anything

is that you can kind of just
make up the rules as you go.

If someone accuses me of not being a
good journalist, I’ll be like, wow, pay me.

Then I might become a good journalist.

There was a 19,000 person
survey, 37.6% plan to give gifts.

That’s up 3.2%.

Usually gifts are given
to spouses or partners.

Worst reporter ever.

The cost.

Look, I mean, again,
how much have you paid?

Like, when you start throwing money my
way, then maybe you can start holding me

to some sort of standard
you imagine in your head.

Or when the advertisers
roll in, maybe whatever.

It is true, though.

Well, actually, no, it’s not.

I’m going to now suddenly
after having agreed.

What’s your Venmo?

You send me money
on paper and link in the

description of the YouTube
channel’s has my PayPal.

I actually had my first donation.

The month ago, two months
ago, it was very exciting for me.

Some guy just like dropped me 20 bucks.

I was, that’s the most money I’ve made
off any of endeavors I’ve ever had so far.

Anyways, no, I’m not the worst reporter.

See, the thing is, I actually
double check everything I say.

So if I get a story, I don’t accept it.

If it’s only one story, I
have to have two sources,

which a lot of journalists in online
sources, they don’t do that anymore.

They’ll just take it and repeat it.

And maybe even make changes to it.

There was the story of the guy who
hit the taxi driver who hit the pigeon.

And I found two sources.

And then the third source actually said,

they changed it from pigeon
to dove to try to create

that sort of more
sympathetic sound to the story,

which was an embellishment,
which made it inaccurate,

which made me realize like, okay, this
person, this writer cannot be trusted.

So as far as a trusted news source,
while I am not the investigative reporter,

when it comes to the things
I say, they are verifiable.

Better than Fox News,
which legally is entertainment.

This is not entertainment.

This is fucking news.

All right. Anyways, the average this,
this was a story about Valentine’s Day,

which is, you know, sort of one of those
light stories that has no actual meaning.

The average intended
cost of the gift is 3,238 yen,

which is down from 3,329
yen in previous years.

66.2% of people are planning to
give it to their partners or spouses.

Co-workers are down to 14.

1%, where 72% of the people surveyed
said, it is either somewhat unnecessary

or completely unnecessary to give
chocolate to your shitty stinky co-worker

who laughs too loud and
eats with his mouth open.

I’m not thinking of anyone, and specifically
who works in the office where I work,

who eats crackers every
morning that smell like shrimp,

and I’m across the fucking office, and I
can smell it and eats with his mouth open,

and he’s eating sembe,
which is like a hard cracker.

So it’s also, it’s not
only like a really noisy

food to eat, the fucking
wrapper is weirdly noisy.

It’s like the noisiest food ever invented,

and he’s the only
one in the office who’s

making any sound, and
I don’t want to kill him.

I don’t want to pick up a
chair and throw it at him.

I don’t want to push him out the window.

No one in particular.

I mean, that was just a
hypothetical that came

to mind, has no bearing
on any person in reality.

This was the interesting
part of this article, though,

was they were blaming the
reduction in wanting to give

a giddy, giddy choco to an increase
in teleworking and not inflation.

Because to me, it would
make way more sense,

like if chocolate as its
baseline gets more expensive,

it would make way more sense
that people don’t want to pay

for something that they
already see as unnecessary.

But they’re saying,
like, “Oh, people are not

as in the office, they’re
not as connected.

” It almost felt conspiratorial,

like this was one of those
weird return to office pushes,

like, “Oh, you’re losing the
connection that the office creates,”

which is, as we all know,
complete and utter bullshit.

Speaking of inflation, oh my God, I put my
stories together in the right order today.

That’s a piece of magic right there.

People are buying less
because of inflation.

I actually noticed that I buy
less overall because of inflation.

Previously, I would go
out for lunch regularly.

Now I have basically stopped.

I don’t go out for lunch.

I meal prep.

So I make burritos.

I make like 20, 30 burritos and I freeze
them and I bring them into the office.

That’s it’s cheaper and I’m not
spending money to go to restaurants.

So, and that’s inflation.

Like, I could see the price go out, go up.

I can see that going out is too expensive.

I’m not going to do it anymore.

Convenient stores in supermarkets
are also, they’re like feeling it.

They’re getting feeling hit.

So what they’re doing is creating
larger products to lure people in.

And the owner of, I think it
was, you know, incorporation,

said, because of the appearance, larger
food can provide excitement and fun.

The price cuts can’t.

And here’s, here’s the thing
from a consumer perspective.

I would rather have normal food at a
discounted price or let’s just put it this way.

One inflation is no longer an issue.

Like, inflation is capped out and you’re
like, we’re not selling enough of this.

Capitalism actually dictates
that’s when you lower the price.

I don’t want an extra large, only giddy.

I don’t want a cake
with more frosting on it.

I would just like the regular
version at a lower price.

And then you’re more likely to
get my patronage on a regular basis.

It is interesting that
these, it’s convenience

stores and supermarkets
are like, instead

of lowering the price
of our regular products,

we’re going to take some products and
make them extra big for the same price.

And I, they’re only
choosing select products.

So it’s not really like the
necessities of the things you need.

They would make a lot more money if
you just said, let’s make a regular price.

And let’s actually drop the price on regular
items and then people would keep coming

back because, hey, it’s slightly
cheaper here than somewhere else.

That is exactly what I would
think and that’s where I would go.

They’re increasing the size
of only giddy, bento boxes,

so the pre prepared lunchboxes
and a bunch of sweets.

Obviously, it’s one
of those things that

sounds like a good plan
to executives, but then

doesn’t translate into the real world
where people actually live and work.

The Japan Education Minister.

This was actually something
I learned, so that’s nice.

He said, I never received
support from the unification church.

And then next week
he’s like, okay, I kind of

received support from
the unification church.

Unification church is a big issue in Japan.

Way back.

Now, a year ago, the former
Prime Minister Abe was shot.

He was shot by a guy
who was angry at the

unification church because
the unification church

had ruined his family
because his mom had

joined and given all the
family money to the church.

And he said he wanted
to exact revenge.

Abe’s father was the
one that brought the

unification church into
Japan as an organization.

He was a politician.

He let them into the country.

He let them become an organized religion.

So it wasn’t a direct
link, but there was

supposed to be unification
church leader at this

thing where the guy showed
up and Abe was there.

The guy didn’t show up.

So he shot Abe instead.

It was like actually a
target of opportunity.

This set off a whole
thing where people are

like, well, is the unification
church taking money from people?

And then it turns out they’re
doing a lot of really weird stuff.

We’ve actually covered
that in a previous

episode, so I’m not
going to go over it again.

But what they did find
out is the unification

church does a lot of pandering
to politicians, not a big surprise.

You want to enact political power.

You got to get politicians so they
give a lot of money to politicians.

Politicians are all now scared
because now if you’ve received

money or anything from the
unification church, it looks bad.

It looks like you’ve been bought
and paid for, which you probably have.

You fucking education minister.

Turns out the thing I
didn’t know, the education

minister is also in
charge for religious

issues, which if you
are in charge of religious

issues and you’ve
taken money from the

unification church, there’s a
bit of a conflict of interest there.

That’s kind of the issue
that maybe has come up.

So he said, no, I’ve never
dealt with the unification church.

Turns out he participated
in an event hosted

by the unification church and accepted
a letter of recommendation from them.

But he says, and this
is on record, if there

happened to be photos, I think I must
have received a recommendation letter.

So I do like the initial part of that
sentence more than anything else.

If there happened to
be photos, he’s like,

basically, if you have
evidence, then it must be true.

If you don’t have evidence, then I’m going
to deny it because you don’t have evidence.

So if you have evidence, bring it
forward and then I’ll admit that I did it.

It’s a very interesting piece of logic he’s
working on because he’s basically saying,

if you can prove it,
I’ll admit it, but if you

can’t, I’m not gonna
ask a he shimblin, publish

these photos and
it’s him at the event

receiving the letter of
recommendation and being

very chummy, tell me
with the unification church.

This is coming after a
scandal in the government

where a whole bunch of
people were taking money.

I mean, again, not
particularly the surprising

scandal, but it’s actually meant because
she to the current prime minister, like his

whole cabinet is now
being called into question

and it is going to be a big problem
for him in the upcoming elections.

Crimes in Japan rose
for a second straight year

in 2023 went up 17% to
703,351 crimes recorded.

This is basically because coronavirus
restrictions have been reduced.

So all the criminals,
all the criminals were

in lockdown, which
meant it’s really hard

to commit crime if
you’re stuck in your house,

but also there’s been
a legislation change.

So the penal code has been
revised, the interpretation

of forcible intercourse has
been updated in the penal code.

And so those cases rose by 63.8%.

This sounds like there
are thousands of forcible

intercourse cases that
have suddenly happened.

What actually happened
was before they were

happening and not getting
prosecuted, now they

are being prosecuted,
so this incredible rise,

63% rise in forcible
intercourse crime means that

it’s actually being prosecuted
now where before it wasn’t.

It’s good that these are being prosecuted.

This huge rise in
numbers, though, has meant

the atmosphere, the
feeling of the average

citizen in Japan thinks that
Japan is a less safe country.

So a survey said 70% believe that Japan is
less safe than it was before, before being

a very vague term,
because yeah, during the

pandemic, when everything
was locked down, everything

was very safe because no one
was allowed to leave the house.

But getting to
actual statistics, a 4.

8% increase in fraud and
robbery, cyber scams are

up 8%, there were 19,033
cyber scams recorded last year.

It’s the most in 10
years, obviously the

internet is where these
scams are going to take

place from now on, 44.1 billion yen,
it’s up for the second year in a row.

The scams are not
just coming from within

Japan, the scams are actually
coming from all over Southeast Asia.

Gassy, we talked
about Gassy a lot, and I

talked about Gassy a lot because
he had a very interesting thing.

He was living in Dubai,
he was a YouTuber,

and what his YouTube
was like all scandals in

Japan, and then he said
he was living in Dubai

because if he came
back to Japan, they would

arrest him, and there
were people against

him, and it was like
all very conspiratorial.

And then he ran for
office, and he thought

like I can run for office
remotely, and he won,

he was running in the
government remotely,

and they’re like no, you
have to show up, he’s

like if I show up, you’re
going to arrest me,

and then they’re like
no, that’s not going

to happen, then he
showed up and got arrested,

and now the case
is actually coming to

sort of a conclusion,
essentially online intimidation.

So he was basically a cyber bully, he would
get scandals, he would get information,

and then he would like
blackmail people, or pick

people isn’t like, and he
would like harass them.

So he’s online
intimidation symbolizes the

problem of online
defamation and its extreme

maliciousness, whoo,
that’s what the judge

said, prosecutors are
looking for four years in prison.

So in a weird way,
though, this is actually

funny, because he was
talking all conspiracy,

and everyone’s like no, no, that’s not a
conspiracy, that’s not going to happen.

And then it was true, the whole time it was
true, they’re like as soon as you step foot

in this country,
you’re going to get

arrested, which is exactly
what he said would happen.

He’s being accused of
threats against actors.

I know go seems to be the main
one, who said I have been slandered.

I’ve lost contracts, and I
demand a strict punishment.

So this is actually a big thing.

Like when your name
gets dragged through the

mud in Japan, companies
will not work with you.

So he lost advertising
contracts and probably

millions and millions of yen
because of the things that Gassy said.

So Gassy having to pay
the price for that is good.

Again, I think this opens
him up once he’s found guilty.

There’s also a civil suit that I and I will
go could levy towards him and probably try

to recoup some of
those funds, although I

bet Gassy’s not going to have that
much money left over after all this.

So there was a man
and he’s a fan of this ex

porn star, and she
goes live on TikTok now.

And he sends her 80,000 yen
and he says, let’s meet for tea.

Now, if you’re a cool person in Japan,
young person, this actually a pickup line.

So it sounds, let’s meet
for T sounds very innocent.

Most Japanese pickup lines and stuff do.

In Korea, what does it like,
let’s go to my house and I’ll make

you ramen is like come over and
sleep with me at my apartment.

In Japan, let’s go for tea
means like let’s go on a date.

So he sent her 80,000 yen
and like dropped a pickup line

and she’s like, well, I got a
simp on the hook, let’s go.

She replied later with
if I’m driving, so like if I

have to come meet you,
that’ll be another 150,000 yen.

And so the dude paid it.

So the dude has paid out 80,000 yen for the
initial dropping line, 150,000 yen to get

her to drive to him or to
wherever they’re going to meet.

And then she said, not
having, not being satisfied.

She said, I haven’t been
able to pay my phone bill.

So give me another 40,000
yen, which he then paid.

But then she never actually met him.

So this is 270,000 yen total this man
has spent has given to this ex porn star.

And she actually still hasn’t met him.

Then during email
conversations or it’s like

online, line is like a chat
system they use in Japan.

It’s probably the
most popular one.

She said that he started
treating her cold, he’s probably

treating her coldly because
she’s taken 270,000 yen.

And average salary in Japan is
going to be 250 to 300,000 yen.

So he’s paid the average
monthly salary just

to have a meeting with
this woman who said

she will meet him and
then she’s not doing it.

She’s like, oh, I’m angry
that he’s now cold to me.

She said she would return all the money,
but he could never contact her again.

He said fine.

And then she hasn’t returned the money.

So I’m wondering, yeah,
like where’s the legality here?

Because the money was given under
a condition, but there was no contract.

Can he take this a step further?

And now let’s face facts, he
wanted to meet a porn star.

I think we all know
what he actually wanted

to have happen, but it
seems like a good story

to end on, but there’s no conclusion
because the story hasn’t ended yet.

The story hasn’t ended yet because we don’t
know if he’s going to get his money back or

if she’s actually going
to meet him, which

is not going to meet him because she
was just trying to like scammer for money.

Is there a scam here because
he gave the money willingly?

Like if you were going
to donate money to a

podcaster, and then make
demands of the podcaster,

and then they didn’t
meet those demands.

Would he then be obligated
to give that money back?

I don’t think so, but
the fact that there was a

disingenuous agreement
made is a kind of fraud.

So with my very
shallow understanding of

Japanese legal law, I
actually bet the fact that

she said, if you give me 150,000
yen, I will come and drive to meet you.

That is an oral
contract, that’s an oral

contract and therefore he
would have some kind of civil case.

It wouldn’t be punitive.

I bet he could get his money back.

I don’t think he could actually
like get extra money from her.

Just like if you gave a podcaster money, so
let’s say 80,000 yen, if you dropped 80,000

on your favorite podcast, I mean, what
kind of demand would you make of me anyway?

It’s like take off my shirt.

The problem is I would do it.

I would take off my
shirt and it would be

disgusting because it
would blow out the camera

and you wouldn’t be able
to see anything anymore.

Would it be 80,000 yen and only, all right,
so Ignat’s is just putting the chat sing,

but you please know the
Ignat’s is not dropped any money.

So when the money gets dropped, then we
will have an oral contract if I agree to it.

That’s the problem.

That’s the bit you’re missing.

So, yes, you can say,
I request that you sing

and then I can say,
well, I want 100,000 yen

and I will sing the song of
my choice and then I will sing

and then it would be like, I’m
not satisfied with that song.

Unfortunately, then
I would have actually

fulfilled my side of the
contract and you would

just lose, you would not be
able to accuse me of fraud.

Whereas if you gave
me 100,000 yen and I

said I would sing the
song of your choice and

then I sang a different song,
that could be problematic.

But if I just didn’t sing at all, well
then, absolutely, that would be fraud.

Oh, look at Dave, look at how cute Dave is.

He sat up just for the
end of the show, oh, my

little buddy, he’s still
got his eyes half close.

The dude is like barely asleep all the
time, okay, let’s just do the end song.

That was really messy today.

I do not know what happened.

I think I just kind of
mentally am not there.

Oh, he’s actually asleep.

He’s like doing the deep breathing,
sleeping as eyes are closed.

He’s sleeping while sitting up.

I bet if I just left this on Twitch, this
would be the most popular thing I’ve ever done.

Can I get the microphone
down to his nose?

Oh, no, he’s laying down again.

Ah, that’s too bad.

(upbeat music)

With the declining, man, right off,

that’s, I did a good first start and then
messed up to say, okay, let’s try again.

With the decolon, fuck!

Declining, declining, declining.

I need to do some mouth warmups.

Declining.

With the declining population in Japan,

recruiting for pretty
much anything is difficult.

So companies are
having difficulty recruiting.

Things like the military,
let’s say, there are less

people to recruit from,
so numbers are going down.

And the military, honestly,
for a lot of people, not the

most attractive option, it’s
self-defense force in Japan,

has decided to try to increase recruitment
by relaxing some of the standards.

And this is one of the slippery slopes,

because when you get so
desperate to need people

and you start accepting
people with hippie haircuts,

which is like, mm, there
are other other way.

So they’ve decided to
relax hairstyle regulations.

So I guess so you can
look good on the battlefield.

So as I run across the battlefield,
like I do in COD, guns aiming at nothing,

because I’m just shooting
randomly in the air,

you can see my golden
locks fly out behind me.

They’re trying to attract younger people.

And what they’ve decided is that
women don’t have to have short hairs.

So they had to have
very, very short haircuts,

like still just like above
the ear kind of haircuts.

Men don’t need to have buzz cuts anymore.

So women, the hair must be tied back, and
it cannot obstruct the wearing of a helmet,

and it cannot touch your shoulders.

So it’s not long hair, but it is longer.

And then men, they said, “There
is an athletic standard for men.

” And the thing is, I don’t know what the
athletic standard is when it comes to hair.

I assume by that they actually
just mean short-ish all around.

The thing is, an athletic
haircut where I come

from in Canada, would
be the hockey mullet.

So short in the front and long in the back,

that would be very much what I would
associate with a certain kind of athlete.

And I don’t think that is
what the Japanese military

is really going for.

They have tried anime in the past,
but we’re not going to see any anime

wife who’s on the battlefield, because
you are not allowed to die your hair.

So that’s actually,
again, the sensible rule,

because remember, all those
stories from the last couple of years

about high schools and whatnot,
saying you had to have black hair.

The rule wasn’t that you
shouldn’t die your hair.

The rule was that you
had to have black hair

with the base assumption
that every Japanese kid

is born with black hair, and
then these mixed kids come in.

And they have dark brown, light brown hair,

and they were being
forced to die their hair black,

because the rule
wasn’t, don’t die your hair.

The rule was, you have to have black hair.

They’re being more sensible.

They’re saying don’t die your hair.

So if you have naturally brown hair,

the military is more than
happy to welcome you,

which is a step forward,
I think that’s pretty nice.

You can only die gray hair,

which I thought was interesting.

So they’re saying as men, women get older,

they get gray hair, you’re allowed
to cover that up, if you want.

Otherwise you have
to have natural hair.

So we’re not going to
see any bright pink hair,

main character,
syndrome stuff on the

battlefield, at least with
the SDF any time soon.

They have also tried anime in the past,
which takes us deftly into our next story.

There is a, the reformed church,
which is also trying to recruit people,

and they’re doing
something very interesting,

which we’re going to take
a moment and listen to.

They’re trying to teach Calvinism.

They decided to go on the internet
and say the best way to teach Calvinism.

I honestly did not take the time

to look up Calvinism.

Calvinism, I do have a coworker

who I’m sure would be more
than happy to tell me about it,