UnReforming Schools

(Drumming)

  • Engineers Japan has complained
    many, many times, maybe too many times.

That the biggest problems
in Japan, sort of our part of

the issue is that the
leadership of Japan is very old.

The most politicians are very old.

These older people, they haven’t
updated the way of thinking.

These old men, they
got those biases from the

’60s and ’70s still take
and hold their brain.

They think the world hasn’t changed.

They haven’t updated their point of view.

Well, Dr. City has
decided to take a stance.

Not really, just voted in a
guy who’s probably capable.

They elected the youngest mayor in
Japan at 27 years old, at 27 years old.

I think 26 or 27 is when
I graduated university

because I’d messed up
university so bad, which is

very embarrassing to
say actually, it’s pretty sad.

And then I think the
prime minister of Canada,

so at 27, I was essentially
at that point of failure.

I hadn’t done anything right yet.

The prime minister of
Canada is the same age as me.

And so, you shouldn’t compare yourself.

He actually had an
advantage in that his father

was the prime minister of Canada
previously, and they were very rich.

He had like sort of
legacy money, old money.

I didn’t have that.

I certainly didn’t suffer in my life.

I’ll be really honest,
but I don’t think anyone

would go around calling
us rich, extravagantly so.

I wasn’t in a position to start making
campaigns to run for prime minister.

Maybe that’s what held me back.

So I should blame my parents.

There you go.

I should blame our parents for everything.

And the old people who
are running the country.

And this is why we
should elect 27-year-olds

to be the mayor of the city because
yeah, I’m sure, of course we should.

In a statement after he was
elected, he said he wanted

to attract businesses that
appeal to the young people.

He wants to address population decline, and
these are sort of his main agenda goals.

So it’s an interesting idea, like what
businesses appeal to young people

and they should take the forefront
versus Japan has an aging population.

So we should cater to them.

That’s a nice different point of view.

He’s a young guy.

He’s like, hey, we should think about
young people who are growing up.

This should be there world
as well, maybe even more so.

The addressing population decline so far,
no politician has come out with a policy

that actually is going to
have any impact that’s real.

And so I’m not very hopeful
that this guy’s going to have,

he might actually again
be a new way of thinking.

Maybe he’ll have an idea
that I haven’t thought of.

All my ideas been pretty basic.

Don’t make people work overtime so they
can go out and actually meet other people.

Like that’s the kind
of stuff I think is

really important when
it comes to this topic.

(upbeat music)

There was a very progressive high school.

They were making headlines because
they were doing such cool things.

They were essentially
doing away with school rules.

They were lauded as progressive.

And what is a very
restrictive and old system?

So this is maybe like our young mayor.

They’re deciding like we’re going
to change the way things work.

20 students were practicing hip-hop dance.

And they were practicing
this for, there’s an end of the

year every year they have
sort of like this celebration.

They put on shows.

They do this very Japanese thing.

They have sports day stuff like that.

Part of this was going to be putting on.

The dance club was going to put on a dance.

They decided it on this hip-hop dance.

The principal said he
wanted a different kind

of dance where everyone
is the main person.

So basically it seems like
from what I can extrapolate

’cause they didn’t give
you like perfect explanations.

The hip-hop dance had
a couple of main members

and maybe a bunch
of supporting people.

And he’s like, that’s not fair.

I want everyone to maybe be dancing in
concerts so that everyone is the main person.

I understand this point of
view, but it is also quite stupid.

I understand it as a point of view.

I clearly don’t agree with it.

That’s why I think it’s quite stupid.

I remember going to a
elementary school to see one of

these kids’ plays and
because you got like 20, 30 kids

and that most stories actually only
about three or four main characters.

It’s really hard to come
up with other characters.

Maybe it was a story in Indonesia, Japan.

I saw one where they had
like Goldilocks, let’s say.

And Goldilocks was played by
three girls at the exact same time.

So the three girls rolled out and
they all said the lines together.

They said one line at a
time, that kind of stuff.

They were trying to make sure
that everyone got to participate

but then they also wanted
to make sure it was the main.

It was a story and it was like
they had 10 or 15 snow whites

and they weren’t like, come on, do a
line and then swap out the snow whites.

They were all on stage at the same
time and which is of course ridiculous.

Most shows you’ll have a
couple of main and then support.

That’s not an unusual
or unreasonable thing.

The principal decided
this was not acceptable.

Everyone’s got to be the
main so maybe just a single

coordinated dance that
everyone does together.

The students went to him and said, Oh
man, we want to do our hip hop dance.

It’s part of our
performance at the festival.

This is what we’ve decided to do.

The parents said it was unfair.

So they sent a letter.

The kids have already been practicing.

They organized this.

It’s their club.

How can you come in at this later
stage and tell them not to do the dance?

They’ve already decided they want to do.

The news story said there
was a high school band’s hip hop.

That’s not actually the case.

I actually get very frustrated.

Now that I read a lot
of news for an engineer’s

Japan, I get very
frustrated at misleading titles

because they’re trying to
clickbait you into reading it.

I kind of understand that, but
also you don’t want to be deceptive.

There was one who last week who was like,

man, bumps shoulder of
other man and get stabbed.

And then it should
have been by an umbrella.

It’s getting stabbed and
getting stabbed by an umbrella.

Getting stabbed by an
umbrella is not fun, but it’s not

sort of the same caliber is
getting stabbed by a knife,

which is what you would assume
if you read the phrase stabbed.

46 parents signed a letter.

The principal does not listen
to the parents or the students

and just decided to hold on to this
like you cannot do this hip hop dance.

Now this seems really weird.

You had this school that
was incredibly progressive.

How did it get this way?

Well, like how did they get to this point?

Well, it’s very clear
actually 2014 to 2019.

You had principal Kuda.

And it was a very progressive person who
wanted to make a very progressive school.

Got a lot of media attention
and there was a lot of growth.

It went from 384 students to 570.

So this was appealing to students.

Students wanted to go to the school.

They wanted this experience.

They weren’t getting another schools.

2023, oh, oh.

Principal Horikoshi takes over.

2023, principal Horikoshi takes over.

So you know that’s already
going to have a different thing.

And principal Horikoshi says
they want to rebuild the school.

Now you know when someone
has done a ton of reforms

and then someone else
comes in and takes over

and says, I’m going
to rebuild the school.

What they’re actually saying
is I’m going to take the school,

take all this stuff you’ve
done and changed in advance.

I’m going to roll all that shit back.

I’m going to take it back to
what it was at the beginning.

I’m going to make this
the most traditional school.

I can.

And you know, everything’s
going to be super awesome

because it’s going to be
back the way it should be.

So this is again, old people thinking,

traditional way of doing
things, not successful.

So 2023, standardized tests
were brought back into the school.

So between 2014 and 2019, there
were no tests as we know them.

There was probably sort
of like checks and things.

And they did talk to the students.

They made sure they understood
stuff because they probably still

had to do national tests and
exams to get into universities.

But within the school, they were
taking away this pressure of the test.

They wanted the students
to study and learn and grow.

2024, back to uniforms.

So this school had done
away with the school uniform.

2024 comes along.

Horikoshi says, you know what?

We’ve brought back tests.

We’re going to bring back the uniform.

But bring back all the shit that was
done away with that maybe is unnecessary.

I don’t know.

But the question is, so
under principal CUDA,

the progressive principal, the school
almost doubled in size, student body wise.

In the two years, Horikoshi took over.

The enrollment of
students has dropped to 346,

which is actually below
the initial level of 2014.

So in 2014, it was 384.

Horikoshi has now driven it down
to about 40 people less than that,

which shows you just
how good his ideas were.

But of course, they’re not
going to take any responsibility

for that and just say, I’m putting
things back the way they should be.

I’ve rebuilt the school by tearing
down half the student body.

Japan is famous for not having
that many guns, not having any guns.

They have very strict rules.

And so there’s not a lot of shootings.

Actually, over the
last two weeks, there’s

been a lot of stabbing
stories in the news.

It’s been about three or four.

There was a lady.

Her ex-husband had a restraining over.

He came into a cafe.

He stabbed her and she died.

He stabbed her in the neck.

Staff, like five people held
him down till the police came.

There’s been a couple of
just inter-family stabbing.

This to me actually says,
it’s good we don’t have guns.

Japan is famous for not having
many guns, very strict gun rules.

One of the gun rules I
know is that if you register

a gun, you have a gun,
you have to register it.

That’s given.

That means the police can
come into your house at any point,

any time, and check on
the well-being of the gun.

So, four o’clock in the
morning, I’m in my bed, I sleep.

I sleep like a vampire.

I actually didn’t realize
this until very recently.

Like I sleep.

I lie on my back with my
hands kind of on my chest.

And I realize like I basically
just sleep like a vampire.

I’ve taken on a lot of vampire
attributes in my old age.

I don’t go out in the
sun if I can avoid it.

Because the sun hurts me.

I haven’t gone full of vampire yet.

I was just waiting to see.

Maybe that’s like an evolutionary
thing that happens over time.

What happened?

Oh, the police, this is
the problem with tangents,

is I actually lose the point
where I go off in the tangent.

The police can come into your house.

So it’s four o’clock in the
morning, you’re sleeping.

I assume not like a vampire.

They knock on your door,
they bring your doorbell.

You come down, you’re
like, “Oh, it was your garage.

” He’s like, “Dude,
it was four o’clock.

” And they’re like,
“Yeah, where’s your gun?

” And then they can
just walk in your house.

They don’t need a warrant or anything.

You basically sign away the right to
essentially privacy if you have a gun in Japan.

You have to allow the police
to come in and just check

as your gun loaded, is it unloaded, is it
locked away, is everything taken care of?

If there’s a mistake, they
just take the gun away.

That’s, I don’t know, I don’t
think that’s a terrible system.

I know I’m not American,
so Americans who listen

to this might be like
very like, I disagree.

You should have the freedom
to buy as many guns as possible.

I actually have no problem
with volume if you’re responsible.

This guy, this SAPro man who’s 59 years
old, he was arrested for having 33 handguns.

And he said he bought them for fun.

He had five handguns and 28 imitation
handguns without any ammunition.

But he also had no reason
that was permitted by law.

So he didn’t have a
reason for having the guns.

I’ve talked a couple times
about if you are searched

by the police and you
have like a Swiss Army knife.

I used to carry a Swiss Army
knife with me everywhere I went,

found out in Japan, carrying a knife is
illegal unless you carry it for a reason.

So you have to say, why do
you have this, the police stop you,

check your bag, they
look in your bag, they find

a Swiss Army, they go,
why do you have this?

You go, I just carry
it with me just in case.

They’re like, that’s illegal.

You say, oh, well, I’m
going camping tonight.

I want it with me for kindling or
something or I want to screw something in

whatever.
Then you have a reason, then it is legal.

So if I buy a knife at a shop, I can
obviously take it home, I could take a

fish scaling knife with
me when I go fishing.

But if I just carry a
knife around, that’s illegal.

So you have to have a reason
for having a knife with you.

This is kind of the
same statement for guns.

He has no legal reason
for having these guns.

He’s not permitted by law.

The interesting thing
that I found was this

was actually discovered
by the cyber patrol.

So Japan has like a section called
the cyber division, the cyber patrol.

They primarily try to deal with scams,
but they also come across information.

Information like this,
like, hey, this guy,

I’m assuming his bot guns
online or is talking about guns.

So they went and searched his
house. They go search his house.

They find, oh, where’s the number?

In his garage, he had 100 other
guns and rifles with no ammunition.

So he’s clearly just a
collector, a guy who likes guns.

He has no intention of shooting them
because he doesn’t have any ammunition.

So for me, I’m like, this
guy may be more responsible

because he’s like,
yeah, I got all these guns,

but none of them are functional.
They’re just big sticks at this point.

I like the way they look. He’s clearly not
even using them or practicing with them.

He’s just really likes
guns. So I’m really

torn on whether I
think this is okay or not,

because having the gun is just one
step away from getting ammunition.

So he has a bad day, he gets the
ammunition, and then off he can go with like

20 guns on a belt,
the wrong is chassis.

He doesn’t have to reload.
He’s just pulling about

shooting and dropping. So
who knows what could go wrong?

I understand the
potential danger.

But up to this point,
it seems like the guy

just really likes having
his gun collection,

but of course it does seem
like he’s done it illegally.

I have been buying guns
as a hobby for 15 years.

I have never fired any of them.

I actually believe that
statement. If you had no

ammunition in his house
at all, I actually believe

that he did not ever fire
the gun. I think that’s true.

But 15 years he’s
been collecting guns,

it does seem like he’s
been doing it illegally,

so there is a problem
there. The investigation is

now ongoing to find
out how he bought them.

But the fact that the cyber
patrol discovered this, I’m

betting it’s just like online
auctions or one-on-one deals.

I don’t know. But
clearly this is all

happening over the internet.
In August, a crowdfunding

project was started
to create a town.

Now Japan has a lot of sort
of small towns that are empty,

their ghost towns. And
so this group was like,

hey, what we’ll do is
we’ll get 500 million yen.

We’ll essentially buy this town.

We’ll restructure this town
and we’ll create this town.

And it’s going to
be for women only.

I had a conversation on a
different podcast about the

women only cars. And I
was like, look, Chican exists.

Chican is the guys
who will get on the train

and they’ll push up behind
you and they’ll touch you.

That’s disgusting. It’s gross.

I actually was wondering very
early on why there are not more

cameras in Japanese
train cars because I’d heard

about this issue before.
So why did the security

position things already
not exist? But maybe there’s

a privacy issue I’m
unaware of. It being public

transportation though,
I think there is no

expectation of privacy. So they
should have cameras in the cars.

But regardless,
they decided let’s

just make a car women only.
And a bunch of sort of men dicks.

They were like, this is unfair.

Why did they get
their own car and stuff?

Oh, I should be able to use
it freedom and all that stuff.

And I’m like, if everyone
would stop touching them, it

would not be a problem.
So if they need a safe place

to travel, they should
have a safe place to travel.

The town though takes on a sort of different
feelings or a misendry kind of feeling.

The goal was to make 500
million yen. They were going to

get a deserted village
and rebuild it and only

women could enter. Now
there is a constitutional

issue with this in
Japan. The constitution in

Japan dictates freedom
of travel. And this became a

problem during COVID in
lockdown because it’s you

can’t lock down people
if your constitution says

people have the
right to move around.

So there’s your first actual
issue is like we want everyone to

stay home in their house.
We can’t mandate that.

We can only ask very
nicely because we can’t make

it a rule that would
defy the constitution.

This does something
very similar. You’re a man,

you’re saying I can’t come
into this town because

of my gender that
defies the constitution.

So constitutionally, they
already have a legal issue

where this probably
would not be enforceable.

You could build a town. You
could try to get a majority

of the residents to be
women. But I don’t think

you’d be able to deny
men entry into your town.

But that was the stated
goal was to have this town

and only women could
enter. Now I actually weirdly

don’t have a problem
with that either.

Like, if you don’t want
me in your town, I’m kind of

okay with not going to
your town. But you know,

other people would
have a problem with it.

They want to make a
political statement what not.

You can’t lock off one
gender on anything and expect

to be successful, I
think, but whatever.

Project managers, they were
recruiting and they wanted

to recruit from only women.
It was very recently canceled.

And so the website where it was is now just
doing a 404. This doesn’t exist anymore.

One of the statements was we tried to
raise funds on a platform created by men.

So misogyny has been
blamed for the failure of

this project when if it
was crowdfunding, if you

only want women to be in this town, you
have to expect only women to crowdfund it.

Maybe they must have assumed
that the idea was that women

would contribute to this
town and then women would

live in this town. Is
there enough women who

are going to contribute
to this? Is there enough

women who actually agree that
will do this is actually the question.

Clearly not. The
fact that it was just

shut down so suddenly, maybe
there was another issue there.

And that might be
back at the legal issue

that I stated earlier.
The legal issue may be the

thing that was actually
holding them back because

you’re essentially not
allowed to do this in Japan.

There would be other
countries where if you

wanted to make a town
with only a certain amount

of people or certain kind
of people can come in,

that might be legal,
like you might be able to

create rules for your
town that are separate from

the national rules. In
Japan, you can’t do that.

I think that would
probably be more likely the

bigger problem than just
not getting enough money.

I’m pretty sure they did not
get enough money as well.

So did enough women contribute if they
did, there’s breaking the law probably.

But realistically, I don’t
think enough women are

on board with this idea
to actually contribute

all that money because
how many women are actually

going to live in that
town? It would only be,

to me, the town’s
people would be willing to

contribute to money.
Like, if I am a woman,

I’m not going to contribute
to a town that I’m

not going to live in.
Maybe I could go visit.

It would be interesting to a
spot, but how much money

would you be willing to
put up in the first place?

I have to get some
women’s opinions.

This is a one person
podcast, which makes that very

difficult because as
it turns out, I’m a man.

Nagoya University of
Arts has refused a request

from the union, so sort
of the student union.

Maybe teachers, unit
actually just said union in the

article now that I think
about it, to release a report.

There have been
multiple allegations of

sexual harassment of
the university president,

the university of Nagoya,
Nagoya University of Arts.

It’s a very interesting
thing that has happened.

So this guy clearly has
been harassing people,

probably students.
The students reported

this and then an internal
investigation was created

and that internal
investigation found something,

but now won’t say what
they found. The report was

set up by the educational
corporation and they

stated it cannot be
accepted that any sexual

harassment, warranting
punishment took place.

Very interesting phraseology.
I’m always very careful

about the phraseology of
an article of a statement

made by someone in the
news. So they’re saying

sexual harassment, warranting
punishment took place.

So there’s not saying
that sexual harassment

didn’t take place. They’re
just saying he doesn’t

deserve to be punished
for the sexual harassment

that did take place.
So maybe they’re saying

he made comments and those
comments are not deserving of punishment.

Maybe he touched someone, but he didn’t
touch them bad enough to warrant punishment,

So we don’t know what
their scale is and their

scale should actually
match the law. So in the law,

in Japan, if you say stuff
to people in that sexual

harassment, so actually,
if you can set anything,

it is probably breaking
the law. But this does

actually confirm some
kind of sexual harassment

actually happened.
Newspaper found out about

this and they were like,
they started doing sort

of an investigation. They
talked to some people and

they were like, we know
sexual harassment happened

and we do feel that it
warrants punishment.

The investigative group was
for internal members, one senior.

So basically, you
had three people

and they are boss where the
group investigating the person.

So the boss is
going to say, look,

we don’t want this university
president to get in trouble.

We’re going to cover for them.

And the three other people
were like, you’re our boss,

I want to keep my job. So
yes, we’re going to agree.

The unions demanded
they set up a third party

probe, which I do not
think is going to happen.

The statement was that
the students are not willing

to engage in dialogue.
So they’re like, we

can’t set up a third party
probe because when we

tried to talk to them, the
students didn’t want to talk to us.

The students
didn’t want to talk to

essentially the friends
who were covering for the

person who sexually
harassed them is the issue

they ran into and
they’re like, well, we tried.

And they just didn’t
want to talk to us.

They didn’t want to say the
things that we wanted them to say.

So a third party isn’t
going to do any better.

So there’s no reason to have a third party
organization do a probe. Then they came

out and had to make
an actual statement.

The actual statement was
the perpetrators rights must be

protected as well, which is
something I sort of agree with.

They do have some rights, but the rights
to not get punished because you don’t

like them like it or you
don’t want them to get

punished isn’t one of
those rights. So the fact is

this is just a cover up. Clearly
sexual harassment did happen.

This internal group,
this investigative

group is trying to cover
it up and now they’re

getting public attention.
They’re like, we have

to protect the human
rights of the perpetrator,

not just the victims,
but that also would imply

that they are the
perpetrator that they have

just done something and
they should get punished.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Mental Gymnastics

(upbeat music)

So I think it’s maybe getting
time for a new theme song.

So I just decided to try out
one of these AI generator things.

Just to see if it was any good.

So my prompt was news
intro, drums, and trumpets.

‘Cause you know, pretty much every new
show starts with like bam, bam, bam, bam.

(humming)

There you go, I should do it in my mouth.

Why am I, why am I getting AI?

When I have the natural
instrument of my body.

It was horrible.

Like every song was absolutely atrocious.

I had to do about eight
or 10, and not one of them

sounded even close to
what I would call music.

So musicians, you’re safe for
the next little while, at least.

I mean, I bet AI could at
this point generate the script

for this show, although almost
impossible because I don’t script it.

But you know what I mean?

If you fed all the ninja
news Japan’s from the past

into AI, it could
generate, if you take the,

I must be able to take
the news, take my style

of speaking and put it
together, clone my voice.

The podcast is automated now.

I don’t actually have to do anything.

But the theme song, you’re safe.

I’m still thinking about what to do.

I wanna pay people to do
it, but I don’t have money.

Like I’m not rich.

This is an update on a
story from previous week.

So we had our two gentlemen who
decided to graffiti Yes, Kuni Shrine.

I’ve talked about why.

Yes, Kuni Shrine is a controversial place
for people from primarily China in Korea.

We’ve talked about graffiti.

Is it bad?

And overall, basically, yes.

This guy, he sprayed, what did he spray?

It was dog poop, actually
could go back into my old notes.

I should’ve checked.

He sprayed what I would consider like
grade two level thoughts onto the shrine.

He was a little more honest about it.

The first guy was like,
this is a political statement.

The second guy’s like, I don’t like this.

I actually kind of
appreciate the honesty there.

He escaped back to China.

And so in my report, last time I was
like, he’s not going to get arrested.

No, he’s going to happen to him.

Chinese police do not care if
you’ve committed a crime in Japan.

You can read into that a
bunch of different ways,

but at the end of the day,
it is a fundamental truth.

But he did get arrested.

So I said he wasn’t going to get
arrested, but then he did get arrested.

But the reason he got arrested
for a different crime, of course.

So there is sort of a karmic
version of justice happening here.

He committed a crime
and he is being punished.

He has committed two crimes.

He’s being punished for one.

Does that count for both?

I think the criminal justice
system in China is pretty harsh.

So I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

The graffiti in Japan,
honestly, graffiti, how bad is it?

I don’t think you should graffiti
vandalize things, whatever.

But in the end of the day, how
many people are I still getting hurt?

You got to clean it up.

I would basically make the criminal
clean up the thing they graffiti.

That’s a pretty fair punishment.

He was arrested on suspicion of extortion.

He was threatening people involved
in online streams for shopping.

So China is very popular to have shopping
streams where you bring products out.

You talk about them.

You move it on people can buy that product.

And he apparently was trying
to intimidate these people

into getting them to put
money into a bank account.

So just essentially just
extorting them for money.

While I, of course, would judge
someone for graffitiing something.

I couldn’t understand the
politics behind graffitiing.

That’s a coony shrine.

I really can’t.

I wouldn’t do it, but I can understand it.

But when you get into extortion, it’s pretty
clear you’re just a bad person anyways.

And so there is not a lot
of a redemption arc here.

And I’m sure that Chinese justice
system is absolutely going to bury you.

So good luck to him.

A Japan Postman, I say
Postman because it’s a guy.

So I’m not trying to be sexist biased or
use my sort of older misogynistic style.

I was speaking.

It’s an actual Postman.

But also could be Postboy
because this Postman

was a teenager and I was like, wow, I
never thought about the age of Post people.

It’s kind of a neat thing.

But because I never thought about it
because in my image, they’re just adults.

But I don’t want to insult
people, male carriers.

And skill wise, you need to be able
to deliver male to certain addresses.

That is about it.

I’m sure there’s more to it.

Again, I feel like I’ve
already insulted someone.

I’m sorry.

I think it’s valuable job.

I think it’s important.

Japan Post is dedicated.

I once did an online thing.

It was probably for t-shirts or something.

And because the website, I put my
name in Japanese and Chinese characters.

So in Kanji, on the form, it
showed up as question marks.

So the Chinese script
wasn’t on the server

side of the system they were
using the payment system.

I guess they were set up for
only English perfectly makes sense.

They still sent it out because I assumed
the whole system was just automated.

Two months later, this package shows up.

All it has is my name in English and the
postal address and they still got it to me.

So that level of
dedication made me really,

really appreciate Japan Post as
a group of very dedicated people.

But now we get this story
and it’s a team who is hired.

So already it’s like,
maybe that’s the

problem, but also I
don’t think it’s like teens

are inherently lazy or
not capable or anything.

I don’t look at young people that way.

I look at individuals.

So this individual, the fact that it is a
teen, I think, is what got it to the front

of the news because it’s sort of playing
into people’s presuppositions about youth.

A teen Japanese postperson
dumped 2,378 letters

and 449 parcels in
seven different locations.

So over the course
of mid-June to July, so

that’d be about six weeks, just
like I can’t deliver all this mail.

So I’m just going to take it here.

I’m going to dump it.

I’m going to take it over here and dump it.

I’m going to take it over here.

1049 parcels, though, okay.

You’re a mail person.

You’re supposed to deliver the mail.

You decide you’re not
going to deliver the mail.

You start dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

If you’re going to commit, this is a crime.

I’m pretty sure this is a crime.

Just dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

You might as well steal the parcels.

I know I every
regularly say I should not

give advice to criminals,
but then immediately

sorry giving advice
to criminals, but it’s

because I’m like the police officer
who gets into the criminal mindset.

I just want to be in their thought, but in
my head, I’m like, well, if you’re going to

throw it away, you might
as well profit from it.

There may be some
good stuff in the parcels.

Keep them.

You might as well even take
the mail home and open it.

Maybe someone sending
someone some money or something.

I’ve now realized that if
I became a postperson,

if I decided to just
start dumping stuff,

like I didn’t want to deliver the
mail, I didn’t want to do my job.

I would be like, well, let’s
take it home and I’ll go through

it and see if there’s anything
valuable that I could keep.

Less likely to get caught.

So the fact that he was dumping
it in seven locations outside.

So the report came in on July 31st.

Someone found mail
and parcels in between

house and a river, so
I didn’t write it down.

They found it, they
basically found one of

the places that the kid
was dumping the mail.

They called the post office and the police.

The post office talked to the
guy, he admitted to doing it.

He just said, I can’t
deliver all this mail.

You guys are crazy with all
the mail you expect me to deliver.

It’s too much.

Clearly should not have been a mail person.

So what they’ve done,
they didn’t arrest the kid.

I’m finding this the interesting part.

He’s not been arrested.

The post office is filing
for damages and that

means he’s going to have
to pay the equivalency

of whatever that all that stuff was
worth, so they have to work that out.

They found pretty much all
the mail could still be delivered.

There were three parcels
that were so damaged

probably because of rain or something
that they couldn’t read the address.

There’s three parcels
will not get delivered.

They’ve put the message out there.

If you are missing a parcel,
you can contact the post office.

Maybe they haven’t for you.

But at the end of the
day, it actually seems

like after 2,000 pieces
of mail go missing.

Someone should have
noticed a little sooner.

Japan, we’ve done a
lot of things about Japan.

Battening down the hatches.

There’s some good sailor talk
that I’ve learned from my father.

They get stricter.

Japan does not get
looser in its laws and rules.

They get stricter.

So what has happened?

Electric scooters became available.

They immediately started making
rules about electric scooters.

About a month ago, we did a story about
those little motorized suitcases you can sit

on and go through the –
supposed to be through

the airport, but some people
were riding them in the streets.

If you ride them in
the streets, they fall

under motorized vehicle
rules and you have to

have all these modifications to
make it legal to go on the streets.

Cycling, very common in Japan, you –
it’s a very convenient way to get around.

Because the trains are great,
but trains don’t go everywhere.

So if you take a train
somewhere, it’s often

more convenient to take a bicycle to your
final destination, not the movie franchise.

Why?

That didn’t even make sense.

Just as soon as I said final destination,
the movie comes into my head.

I have even watched those movies.

I know they’re all about like people
dying and they know they’re going to die.

I don’t care about that.

I don’t know.

I like horror movies.

I like movies.

I never cared about the
final destination series.

Maybe I should – maybe
I should be my – maybe

I’ve been overly judgmental
about something I haven’t seen.

So I gotta make some amends and
maybe actually go watch one of those.

There’s like six.

That’s a bad sign.

Anyways, cycling is very common.

So they have decided
to get a little stricter

with the rules for
riding your bicycle.

And it’s going to
be people riding their

bicycle drunk and people riding their
bicycle while looking at their phone.

So if you are cycling
while using your phone,

you can now get fees, fines,
not fees, fines and jail time.

If you are a repeat offender, you
have to go to bicycle safety school.

I go quite like that.

I bet it’s not very good.

I have the gold driver’s license

  • Japan has a tear system.

So if you have no reasons,
I don’t drive very much.

So I have never had accidents.

I’ve never had a ticket.

So I have gold.

My wife got one ticket.

She has blue.

It actually really bugs her that
I have gold and she has blue.

When I renew my license, I have to go in.

I think I have to just go in, change
it, maybe watch a 10-minute video.

But if you have blue, you’ve
got to watch the long video.

That’s literally punishment.

I love it so much because as I just
said, someone I know has to do it.

I don’t.

If you are a repeat offender,
you have to take a safety course.

I bet that course is miserable.

If you are found using
your phone on your

bicycle, it can be up to six months
in prison and a 10,000 yen fine.

If you found our
phone to be a threat to

pedestrians, so if you’re just riding
looking your phone, that’s a cry.

If you’re riding looking
at your phone and

you almost hit people, it can be
one year in prison and 300,000 yen.

So that’s a significant jump up.

So if you’re in danger in
other people, that’s a big deal.

If you’re drinking
and bicycling, it might

used to be, you’re not
allowed to drive drunk.

So riding your bicycle drunk
was therefore acceptable.

Now the only way acceptable to
travel while drunk would be walking.

It’s probably a good idea,
even that might be dangerous.

But if you’re drunk and you’re riding your
bicycle, it can be punished by up to three

years in prison and
half a million yen fine.

So they have decided that not
only are you going to be careful

on your bike, you’re going to
be sobering careful on your bike.

There are four options.

Okay.

So the story itself is
there is a reporter, a

lady reporter for
business sort of daily thing.

She was arrested for breaking stalker laws.

She texted a reporter
at another paper 64

times between August
17th and the 25th, which

I was like 64 sounds like a lot,
but that’s only eight texts a day.

That’s dedication.

I don’t know.

Eight texts.

I think if you and I had
a chat, it would be 50.

I guess it was just 64 initiating messages
where the guy didn’t really respond.

Anyway, like if it’s
on the session, 64 isn’t

it, but then if it’s 64 just you,
messages in a row, yeah, that’s a bit much.

That’s crazy.

Okay.

But that those 64
messages came after she

had been warned by the police not
to attempt to contact the man again.

So now you can see that 64 is way too many.

It is.

So the police show up and
they’re like, hey, don’t text this guy.

Okay, and all anymore.

And she’s like, okay,
well, just 64 more times.

The way she sent
messages, so this actually

implies to me because
the information was not

in the paper in the
news story, was not

overlined or a traditional
text messaging thing,

which would imply maybe
that he’s blocked around that.

She would send a message
via pay pay, the payment system.

She would send him
like one or two yet and

then the message she connected to it was
I want to see you or something like that.

So she sent 64 messages
through pay pay a payment system.

So for the American listeners
or whatever, it would be

like Google pay sending
it like a couple of pennies.

And then you can send why you sent
those pennies is like, I want to see you.

So she was actually paying
extra for each of those messages.

She’s pretty serious about it.

So her reason, so your job
is now to guess her reason for

continuing to send messages
after she had been blocked.

So I have four options.

One, I want to see you, but she
meant professionally, not personally.

B, it’s a payment app and
therefore they are not messages.

C, he didn’t block me, so like
he didn’t block me on pay pay.

So it must have been okay on pay pay.

Or D, it was for a story on stalking.

Man, so I don’t know how this story yet.

Good.

Because if you hear the
story, it kind of ruins the quiz.

This has been my biggest concern.

It hasn’t happened yet.

But my concern is I
start the quiz, get to

the quiz part and
they’re like, oh, but I’ve

heard this story and know the answer and
they haven’t like cut me off, in which case

I would have to abandon
the whole thing anyway.

But okay, you can ask
questions about the four options.

And again, the three that are not true, I
will try to make up real sounding answers.

Do you remember the options?

She basically got a restraining
order against this gun.

It was one step lower.

So the police warned
her that if you continue,

you’re going to be
breaking stalking laws.

He hadn’t officially
gotten a restraining order.

So there is maybe a little
legal wiggle room, but I

think the message was
very clear you need to stop.

The police had warned her, that’s yeah.

She’s clearly gone through pay pay,
just keeps sending messages, I don’t think.

I don’t know.

And I don’t know.

I’m walking on a mental gymnastics with
this level three still to go, be doing.

Does he see what do you have?

Okay.

So C was he didn’t block me
therefore, it must have been fine.

So he didn’t block me
on pay pay specifically.

Or it was for a story
I was doing on stalking

and just wanted to get
into the mind of a stalker.

Be is also pretty good mental
gymnastics, why is that right?

Yeah, it’s a payment app.

So I wasn’t sending messages.

I was sending payments
and you have to

connect a message like a thing to
the payment, like a receipt almost.

So the receipt was a I want to see
you, you can ask a couple of questions.

It’s hard to ask questions on this
one because it’s just guessing, I guess.

So the person she was
sending, the pay pay messages,

I don’t know, messages
to, is he also a stochist?

Is he also what is he also in
the same kind of a fashion?

Oh, he’s a reporter.

They are both reporters.

They work at different publications.

So I’m going to assume that they met
professionally somehow, like at the same, they

were at the same story
or at the same location

or a conference or something,
professionally, they overlapped personally.

They did not.

And I think I’m good
with D. D, it was for a

story I was doing on
stalking, is incorrect.

When she was arrested,
the statement she

made was, it’s true
that I sent him messages,

but I thought I’d been accepted
because he didn’t block me.

I’m not concerned by
the accusations, oh, I’m

sorry, I’m not convinced
by the accusations.

So she’s saying the police told me to stop.

He hadn’t blocked me
on pay pay, so therefore

I’m not convinced
he’s told the police.

So the police are just interfering
in her personal relationship.

They aren’t.

It has nothing to do with the guy.

She thinks that the police are
jealous of her relationship or something.

Well, they might, but
I mean, what other

logics are like, the
police have come and told

you stop messaging this guy, and she’s
like, well, wait a minute, he hasn’t blocked

me on pay pay and I
can send him messages

and then he gets those messages
and he hasn’t said anything.

Therefore I’m not convinced
that he told you to tell me to stop.

I see.

It was the line of mental gymnastics.

That was a, it’s a lot.

I mean, she’s gone
through the three or four

different justifications
to get to the point

where it’s like still acceptable for
me to send messages to this dude.

On pay pay pay, that’s the fact that it’s
on pay pay, a payment app really solidifies

to me that this, she
was not either he didn’t

give her his contact information
or he had blocked her elsewhere.

But because she saw
this one opening that did

you ever see the German
guy who was in love

with like a kpop band,
it was a video online.

That’s probably like pre
pandemics for like five, six years ago.

He’s, he’s doing
his justification, he’s

basically been given a
restraining order and he

says, ah, this restraining order wasn’t
given to me by the woman I am stalking.

It was given to me by
the management company.

So it’s the management
company trying to stop me, not her.

It’s sure that Naio
likes me and that she

wants me to come back
to Korea and here is why.

So first of all, at the start of this
year, I received a restraining order.

At this restraining order was not from
Naio, it came from JYP Entertainment.

It did not come from Naio
and JYP Entertainment

tried to destroy my image
and tried to intentionally

scare Naio away from me because they feared
that Naio might neglect her job if me and

Naio start a relationship,
but obviously that

would not be the case
because I would obviously

support Naio’s job as
an idol and stay with

her in Korea so that she can still
focus all her time for her career.

Secondly, I always have treated Naio with a
lot of respect and I truly, truly love Naio

with all my heart and I am working really
hard all the time trying to make Naio happy

and trying to make her
realize that I truly love her.

So why would she hate me
that would not make any sense?

I know one time I
accidentally leaked Cheyong’s

phone number and I admit it was a
mistake and I apologized for that already.

And I know that there
are a lot of fake news about

me on the internet
created from unprofessional

news outlets who
try to gain views with

click-pake titles and fake
rumors to make money out of it.

But Naio is smart enough
to know that there are

a lot of fake news
about me on the internet.

Naio knows that I am a
good person and Naio knows

that I am in love with
her for almost years now.

So like he is convinced in his head that
the girl does love him back or would accept

him but it is the management
company that is interfering.

Yeah they are just
going to stop us getting

together, the management companies and
scares that I am going to take her away.

That does seem like
it and so this seems

like on the same kind
of thinking, it is like

the police are trying to
stop us from getting together.

Why?

So in the other one, the management
company would be losing an asset.

So she falls in love
with this guy and they

disappear and she is not
going to do music anymore.

But in this case, the
police, why would they

bother to interfere with
a personal relationship?

They do not care.

If you ever get a message
on pay pay from me

and you don’t block
me, I hope you realize

what you have actually
done is just open that door.

I mean yeah, pay pay is also a
messaging app, it is time to figure.

I actually did an interview with another
podcast this morning called Requiem Radio.

So that should actually be
out this afternoon or tomorrow.

So if you are listening
to this, you want to

hear another two hours of
this noise coming out of my face.

You can listen to that as well.

He had another two hours of just me
and another guy we are talking about.

We talked about movies
and comics and anime

and we talked about Japan and
we talked about YouTube and stuff.

So some new interesting insights into me.

If you don’t get enough of listening to my
voice every single week, multiple podcasts

and YouTube channels
in Jesus, I bet it’s a lot.

Anyways, feel free to
check out Requiem Radio.

You get another two hours
of chunk of beef chest.

Don’t know why that popped into my head.

I think I had a link that has
now gone because I was talking.

There’s a city hall and they
were keeping Excel sheets.

Japan loves Excel sheets.

They use Excel sheets inappropriately.

Like they use Excel sheets
that should be Word documents.

I don’t know why, but just Japan, Japanese
companies, something about it, something

about Excel, really is attractive
to them as the catch all document.

Maybe it’s the cells.

I don’t know.

I find it frustrating
not because it’s wrong

or bad, but I’m like
this actually would

be more comprehensible as a Word
document than it is in Excel sheet.

And then the Excel
sheets I often get at work

are gigantic, like
incomprehensibly large.

So how am I supposed to actually
get any information out of this?

They don’t seem to understand that Excel
sheets are used to contain information.

And then make that
information more digestible.

That seems that last step, the
step that makes Excel sheets in

my mind useful is the one they
don’t seem to have adopted yet.

It’s very relevant.

Like most Japanese
offices, this city hall was

keeping an Excel sheet
on staff performance.

Between 2020 and 2022,
it was called Progress

Report and it was
delivered to the department

head every week or two so that they
could check the progress of employees.

This was about a specific employee.

There were multiple
categories, like words and

actions, so I guess if they said
inappropriate or appropriate things.

In the sufficient abilities, quite
direct, but stuff you’re not good at.

The marks were then
put into the Excel sheet,

making fun of one of the
employees’ appearance.

So one of the statements was, the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

Another statement was, his underwear can
be seen from under his polo shirt’s hem.

It’s disgusting.

It took me a moment
because was that, at

first I was like, is that
you’re tucking your

shirt into your underwear and the
underwear hikes up out of your pants?

I was like, no, because
it’s from under the

hem, so it sounds like the polo shirt is
too short and you can see his underwear.

Anyways, someone felt
that that was inappropriate,

instead of speaking
to the man, put it

into an Excel sheet that would go
as a report to the department head.

The thing is, this was
on a public network

within the city hall,
which means eventually,

of course, the man,
in this case of the

victim, found it, found the comments,
and then saw it as power harassment.

He reported the
harassment, the conclusion of

the investigation was
the document itself was

a measure necessary for smooth and proper
performance and therefore not harassment.

So what they’re saying is, this document’s
intent, so keeping track of things people

do well, keeping track
of things people do not

do well, so that we
can give them feedback.

That is appropriate.

They do continue, though.

However, it contained
sentiments unrelated to

duties, so his hair looking bad, his
underwear are sticking out of his pants.

That does not impact his actual ability to
do his job, like whether I like it or not,

is irrelevant and therefore,
that did constitute harassment.

They did meeting with the department head.

The department head, at
first, he said, “It’s just facts.

We only put facts in there, but the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

That’s an opinion.

In May or May not, I don’t know why I would
have to see a picture, and then you have

to show me a picture of a bird’s nest and
put them together to actually see if that

is factual, but his
underwear is sticking up

also, I guess that is
technically a fact, but

I think he was trying
to cover it up, but

then they said, you
know, let’s dig into it.

This is harassment.

When it became out
that this was harassment,

it kind of changed
his tune a little bit

to claiming he did not know
about the tab with the comments.

So he’s claiming that he was given this
Excel sheet every single week or so, that it

had comments added to
it every single week or so.

He claims that this
thing he was sent every

week with new added
comments every single week.

He didn’t know that there was
this one tab, just the one tab.

I looked at all the other
tabs, didn’t look at this one

tab that had the harassment
in it, so I didn’t know.

So I think maybe he’s
being a little dishonest.

I think maybe this guy actually has a
case that this is a former harassment.

Now, the department
head would have been very

justified in sitting down, have a
conversation with him about his appearance.

You just have to be
very sensitive about it.

And you have to realize
like, does this matter?

So in a lot of jobs, how you look will
not negatively impact your performance.

This is what work from
home is actually taught us.

Like if you’re working on a computer,
let’s just say software programming.

If you’re in your pajamas, it does not
negatively impact your performance.

In some cases, being
comfortable might even

increase your performance,
but it’s irrelevant.

So I think this might
be a case where could

they have dealt with
this more deftly, probably.

What they could have
had is really sincere

conversation, maybe
constructive criticism of

how we could help you in the future,
maybe we can make some recommendations.

Maybe when you’re
underwears hiked up, we

could actually suddenly
take you to the side

and be like, hey, you
might want to pull your

shirt down and your
pants up or something.

It’s about 11 p.m. and I’ll always 20/3.

And a guy works for Yomi
Udi, he’s a cameraman,

and he’s out at this
time, he’s working.

So he’s riding on his
bike, and he goes to a

place where he needs
to take some pictures.

And there’s some guy skateboarding
there, and he’s like, fuck these guys.

So he starts a fight
with three skateboarders,

and I’m going to assume the
skateboarders are younger.

Skateboarders do tend to be younger.

But one of the things I
know as a former skateboarder

myself, when I was in
my teens, skateboarders

band together and they have big pieces of
wood with metal tight, like stock to them.

So it’s never a good
idea to mess with us

skateboarder because
the other skateboarders

are going to join in
to defend their friend,

and they have big
pieces of wood with metal

screwed into it, that
they can then hit you with.

The cameraman then kicked
one of the skateboarders.

Now the skateboarders,
good boys to be honest,

they did not retaliate,
they just chased

them down, they did
not like attack them, he

tried to escape, he ended up getting
caught, no one else got hurt any further.

The police show up and they’re like, hey,
you’re not allowed to kick skateboarders.

I know some people
might consider them a

lower class of citizen, but you’re
still not allowed to kick skateboarders.

He said it’s not fair
that I’m working while

they’re playing, while
others are playing.

So he’s saying that because I
have to work at 11.30, no one

else should be allowed to have
a good time at 11.30 at night.

If I’m working, everyone else should be
working, no one should be having any fun.

That is unreasonable, and not a
reason to go around kicking people.

And I actually think he might be lucky he
got off as light as he did, because I think

what’s going through his
head, like how frustrated he is.

One of the things we
talk about is work life

balance, and again, yeah,
this guy is working at 11.

30 at night, when he doesn’t
clearly want to be working,

is what’s setting him off,
attacking other human beings.

He just, he got to set limits,
he can’t work all the time,

but then I guess that’s again
the Japanese work life style.

Okay, we’re getting into the darker stuff.

I’ve decided, okay, I
did a Seamig B episode,

and it was about murder
in Japan and on YouTube,

it got like 20 times more views
than any other video I post.

I usually get like
double digit views on the

podcast, because this is an audio format,
and that’s where most of the audience is.

It was never really
taken off, because I think

anyone who listens
to this, they’re listening

on podcasts, but to
try to make it worth

listening to, I had like
comments and stuff.

I used to not do any
murder on this, because

I tried to be so
flippant, and I realized

I’m not actually that
flippant, I just talk

and then give my opinion
and maybe make a joke.

So I did this episode
of Seamig B on murder,

and it got like triple
digits, 450 or 60 was

the last number I saw, which is
a huge increase from let’s say 25.

So I was like, well, there’s
no reason to shy away

from murder if that’s what
people want to hear about.

So in Indonesia, Japan going forward,
basically no topics off the table.

I just think if it’s got murder, I
probably will just make less jokes.

It will just be more fact stated,
maybe an opinion here or there.

But if that’s what
people enjoy, I mean, I

was hesitant, because I wanted to make
jokes, but I’m like, ah, still make jokes.

It actually is very obvious.

Here I am 300 in whatever
episodes later, just

figuring out I can
decide not to make jokes.

I can decide not to be flippant.

It’s a revelation for me.

I always feel like you have to, you have
to make jokes, you have to be flippant.

There’s a ferry that connects Japan
and South Korea, it’s about 200 kilometers.

It’s a passenger ferry.

So you get on in Japan
and you take this nice

boat ride, it’s probably
about a few hours,

and then you get off in
South Korea, you go on

holiday, Koreans do the same
thing, they come to Japan.

And I actually think it’d probably be on
a good weather, very nice way to travel.

And staff member was returning to
her room, and she found her door open.

Now she thought, ah, I closed my door.

Then she found her underwear
drawer open, she’s like, that’s weird.

Clearly if she thinks
she’s closed her door,

she’s the kind of
person who closes things,

not like my son, who now has gone into this
weird habit of just leaving drawers open,

which I’ve asked him
to close the drawers and

he looked at me and he
goes, no one’s going to die.

My immediate response was of
course, you will, if I see this open again.

That’s parenting.

So this is a room, a
birth on a boat, so the

bed has a curtain around it so
you can block out light and stuff.

She pulls back the
curtain and she finds a

30 year old man, first engineer on
the boat, attempting to hide in the room.

First of all, I’m going to be
really honest, terrible hiding spot.

There’s not going to be a lot of
places to hide in a room on a boat.

They’re going to be small
and very tightly packed.

But closing the
curtain to the only really

usable piece of furniture
in the room, I assume,

is not a good hiding
place, you get under the

bed, get behind the
bed, get above the curtain

maybe even, I don’t
know, something like that.

Then maybe you’d have a chance, I’m not
even, they’re still not successful, they’re

going to catch you,
but imagine just pulling

back the curtain,
there’s just like this

30 year old man, they’re going,
hmm, kind of just stole your own D’s.

He kept in game and could talk into and he
admitted to doing it, he quit the next day.

So they were like
saying, let’s not involve

the police, please no
charges, they actually

talk to the girl and they
said, please don’t press

charges, he’s going to quit,
he’s off the boat, he’s gone.

She was a little torn
because he’s like, we’re

worried about the
reputation of the boat,

we’re worried about
the duties, operations of

what’s going on, this is
going to negatively impact us.

So they were trying
to pressure her into not

pressing charges to
try to keep it quiet.

I think that’s really it.

I had a whole other idea though, if they
press charges, is this international law?

Is it maritime law?

Is it the South Korean jurisdiction
or the Japanese jurisdiction?

Because I believe it’s a Japanese
boat in South Korean waters.

So is it the Japanese
boat means they should

report to the Japanese police because it’s
Japanese citizen who would get arrested?

It was a South Korean staff
member who had her underwear stolen.

So should they report
to the South Korean

authorities that a South Korean person
had had a crime committed on them?

Should they call interpol
and solve it that way, just have

interpol international police
come in and just deal with it?

Should they do maritime law?

Now, I didn’t look up
maritime law for theft.

I actually do enjoy maritime law
because often it’s very, very logical.

So maritime law does
have a lot to do with intent.

So there’s float some in jetsam in this.

So basically your boat is
sinking, you throw stuff off.

If you threw it off, it becomes salvage.

If you threw it off with the intent
to come back for it, it’s not salvage.

So salvage you if you come across
it, you can find it and just take it.

It’s not salvage, you have to
give it back as maritime law.

So intent became the most important factor
when it came to float some in jetsam.

There’s also the stuff that syncs.

I forget there’s two names for that too.

Again, for the same,
some has been abandoned

and there’s no
expectation that it’ll come

back and then some they
intend to come back and get it.

That actually makes a huge difference as to
whether or not you are allowed to keep it

because some is salvage,
some is not salvage.

In this case though,
the Japanese guy clearly

intended to steal, so
that makes him a pirate.

So he should be treated like a pirate.

Now he didn’t do any of
the swashbuckling cool stuff

to escape because he should
have been able to escape.

So I think he should
be treated like a pirate

and how do you balance
it out to make it fair?

Yeah.

Walk the plank.

It’s the only answer.

Oh, I did the song too, sir.

I didn’t know what keel hauling was.

Keel hauling is when
they would drop you

over the front of the
boat and then drag you

under the entirety of the boat and then you
got to think there’s barnacles and stuff.

The stuff they scraped off.

Barnacles are sharp.

They cut you and then
this was before engines

and then you would come
up the backside of the boat.

If you’re still alive, that
was your punishment,

but most people
died in that process.

They could keel hauling
him but see, there might

not be barnacles because
of modern technology

but there is a big frickin
propeller engine at the back.

So if he survives that,
then God is on his side.

Anyways, we’ve got to
move on to the last story.

In 83 year old woman living in a care
facility in Fukuoka, she entered her room and

she found a stranger, someone sleeping
in her room and she became furious.

So she decided to do
the only logical thing.

She walked up and
started just punching her,

leading to the woman’s
death because it was

another older woman who
was sleeping in her bed.

Now it turns out the 83 year old
woman had entered the wrong room.

That is a very, very interesting
set of circumstances for this death.

So she’s walked into a room.

I’m going to give her
that it’s night in its

dark because the other one was
already sleeping in her own room.

If she had looked
around, she might have

noticed that this isn’t
my stuff, but at the

same time if it was dark, maybe
she didn’t because it’s a care facility.

So every room is probably
set up basically the same way.

So it would be a pretty easy mistake
to make, but I think it’s very clear.

You see someone sleeping in a
bed beating them is not the answer.

She should have gone
and gotten security and

then gotten them to check and
get the person out of the room.

And then she could turn around
because you make the same assumption.

Maybe that person came
into my room by accident

and went to sleep because these are
all older people they might get confused.

They might have sort of early
onset dementia or something like that.

Who knows?

But immediately going to
fist a cuffs on a sleeping

person who is defenseless
is an unreasonable reaction.

So the beating led to
this other woman’s death.

She was arrested.

into introducing murder
as a story into the podcast.

So I cut it off pretty quick.

I don’t want to talk
about it too much until

I get comfortable with where I want
to go and how much I want to say.

You can see this is a slightly
new direction for the podcast.

Smallest Union Podcast

(upbeat music)

There is a mangano museum
in Kyoto, and it’s very famous.

And so a lot of famous
mangano artists go there.

They display their talent, their arts,
and the museum has them sign the wall.

This has sort of become a tradition.

So they sign the wall,
probably they draw a picture.

This is a very sort of mangano thing to do.

You’re a mangano artist,
you’re gonna drink, you’re not just

gonna sign your name, you
put a little picture up there.

A French guy shows up and he does,

perhaps the most French
thing you could possibly do.

He shows up, and he walks up to the
wall, and he signs his name on the wall.

And then he walks out.

Now this is in a cafe.

So ironically when the staff were like,

“Hey, not only did he
basically graffiti our wall,”

because all the famous names, the
museum asked the artist to sign the wall.

So it was part of this like, if
you’ve come, you’ve done a show,

you’ve put on something,
you’ve talked to

people, or whatever
you’ve done for the museum.

Please sign the wall as a thank you,
and it will sit there for all of eternity.

This French dude walks up and he
just starts signing it, and he walks out.

They didn’t just say like he graffiti
the wall, when they called the police.

‘Cause they call the police
because he has just vandalized.

If you don’t have
permission, it’s vandalism.

So he’s vandalized this wall.

He’s, they probably have
to try to erase his name

or get his name off without
damaging the other signatures.

So there’s actually a whole other sort of
process that’s gonna have to call on there.

Part of the complaint was that
he didn’t buy any food or drinks.

So he went to the cafe.

He didn’t buy a coffee or
cake or whatever they sell.

And he just walked up to the wall,
signed his name, and then started to leave.

And I was like, yeah, that is super French.

He’s like, ah, I’m going to sign my name.

They want the famous people
to sign their name on the wall.

I will find sign my name on the wall.

This is very nice.

Yeah, it’s very good.

And then he walks out thinking,

oh, everyone is very happy
now, then he gets arrested.

Like, oh, what is happening?

The police go, what did you do?

And he goes, I signed my autograph.

That is an actual quote.

I signed my autograph.

I had a black, felt tip pen.

And of course he’s been arrested.

He says he’s visited Japan many times.

That doesn’t make you a famous artist.

I’m probably, he’s visited that museum
or something of that multiple times.

That doesn’t make you a famous artist.

None of the things he’s done as an artist

because he claims to be an
artist has got him into a position

where they actually would
ask him to sign the wall.

So this was vandalism, graffiti,
unwelcome, and very French.

To just be so presumptuous to think like,

of course they want my name that I’m
a famous artist that no one’s heard of.

I also enjoyed in the article
they didn’t publish his name.

So if he was an artist at all, he
didn’t receive any sort of fame

from this article or
this action that he did.

(upbeat music)

Since we’re talking about being presumptive,
NHK is a big news service in Japan.

They do all the news.

It’s like national broadcasting.

They do it in multiple languages.

So they contract out
news stories that are going

to be read on the
radio in other languages.

So like Korean Chinese stuff like this.

The NHK news broadcaster
doing a Chinese language broadcast

did a story about the Senkaku Islands.

The Senkaku Islands are a series
of disputed, small disputed islands.

China claims them for their own.

Japan claims them from their own.

That’s where sort of the impasse occurs.

In the Chinese version
of the story, the Chinese

announcer just went ahead
and claimed those for China.

So, and if he’s essentially,
officially speaking on a behalf of NHK,

which does often speak on
behalf of the government of Japan,

as a representative saying,
but we of course, although I don’t

know what the exact word, they
didn’t give me the exact phrase.

But he just said, these
islands are of course,

as we all know, part
of China, not Japan.

I guess he saw an opportunity to
just sort of solve this dispute in one go.

Like if I say it on behalf of
the Japanese government

and it’s official, because I am speaking as
weird sort of seven degrees of separation

on behalf of the Japanese
government by delivering news,

and then everyone believes
it, then it will just become true.

So in a weird way, he was just
trying to solve the issue, I guess.

Of course, the NHK got upset and like sort
of complained to the outsourcing company.

The Japanese government
got upset because they’re like,

“Hey, you can’t just go ahead
and start saying that these

islands are owned by China
when they’re still in dispute.

” And of course, the Japanese
government thinks these are ours.

But weirdly, there also
might be another secondary

claim here by Mexico, because
the Japanese Coast Guard

was going by these islands and
they sort of patrol these islands.

It was going by these
islands and they see a guy

in one of the islands, he’s
like trying to flag him down.

He’s like, “Hey, this is very classic
stranded on a desert island kind of stuff.

They actually see a guy waving his arms back
and forth trying to get their attention.

” They’re like, “Oh, well, actually
there’s a bunch of rocks or something.

We can’t get there.

” So they have to bring
a helicopter in an airlift

this guy off the Senkoku
Islands, this Mexican guy.

They think that this guy was trying
to leave Japan but avoid immigration.

So he didn’t want people to know

he was leaving Japan or he didn’t
want people to know where he was going.

There is something
very suspicious about this

whole thing, like everything
has been going on.

The belief at the moment
is that he was trying

to leave Japan and
get to Taiwan by canoe.

Now, I was going to try
to calculate how far it

would take to paddle from
Japan to Taiwan in a canoe,

like the average speed
of a canoe and stuff.

And then I was like, “Well, that’s
the kind of thing that I’m interested.

” I don’t know if people are
actually interested in that stuff.

Like, do people actually want
to know that kind of stuff?

So I didn’t do that.

I also was trying to organize
like five things this morning.

We’ve just had our vacation and that
takes a while to get back in the groove.

That’s actually maybe the first problem

of doing a podcast every
week is when you take a week

or two weeks off, getting
back into it’s actually quite hard.

What am I talking about?

I’m just basically just
claiming that this is not

as good as it could be
because I didn’t do the work

that I wanted to do,
but I was too lazy to do.

I’m not just sitting
here calling myself lazy.

This is sort of a pre-apology for
the quality of the podcast today.

This guy’s been arrested.

He left, he didn’t actually
tell us what kind of visa either.

There’s a bunch of information that’s
lacking from the story, which I would like.

What kind of visa was he on?

So is leaving the country like a big deal.

If he’s on a tourist visa and he leaves,

and that’s bad because
governments very much want to know

where you are at all
times, but at the same time,

I don’t know, why did
he want to get out of

Japan and get to Taiwan
without anybody knowing?

Why did he think a canoe was a good idea?

That’s actually an interesting question

because if I was
going to try to get from

Japan at the time, I
want to vote, not a canoe.

How much food do they have with them?

So this always goes
back to the other research

that I didn’t do. How long would it
take you to paddle from Japan to Taiwan?

How much food would you need?

Was he going to fish on the way there?

So many questions.

That’s really what it comes down to.

So, so, so many questions
about what this guy thought

and how he thought he
was going to work out.

Because if you said Peter, you
can canoe from Japan to Taiwan.

I don’t think you can.

I think he’d get pulled out to sea.

I think there’d be a storm where we’re
like, have a typhoon coming right now.

If he was out there during
then, he’d be in law trouble.

He didn’t get past the
Senkoku Islands, which is,

you know, northwards of
Japan going towards Taiwan.

But also didn’t even come close.

This guy’s got bad planning.

I think that’s just maybe the thing.

He’s not going to take
over the Senkoku Islands

because he’s obviously
worse at planning than I am.

But I was smart enough to
know not getting a canoe today.

A man has formed, what can
only be called, the smallest union?

A Yamato transport company.

This is a just delivery service.

It’s like DHL or one of any
of the ones you would know.

They partner with Amazon in Japan.

They just deliver stuff.

You get like three or four different
companies that just deliver stuff in Japan.

There’s black cat, Yamato or the
two that come to mine right away.

He’s a warehouse worker.

And he went on strike on August
19th because of working conditions.

I didn’t even really think that
you could go on strike by yourself.

That’s an interesting concept.

Like I am going to form a singular
union and go on strike alone.

Like you would actually
call that taking a day off.

If it’s only one person,
it’s not a strike, is it?

I don’t know.

It’s just an interesting concept
because he is officially on strike

because what he did is
he joined the general union.

Japan has this like weird
conglomeration union of other unions.

And he basically joined that
and said, I’m going on strike.

I want you to help and
represent me and support me.

And they did.

And he said because
of the working condition.

Now the working conditions in this
warehouse do seem to be horrendous.

So I actually right now am
full sympathy for this man.

I think he is right and going on strike
by himself in the smallest union possible.

The average temperature in the
warehouse was plus 40 degrees every day.

And he said, that puts
me in physical danger.

And it’s like heat stroke.

You collapse and you know, basically, yeah,

you cannot be just going
around in a sauna all day.

I don’t know how big this warehouse is.

But it’s just basically a big
greenhouse cooking in the sauna all day.

Japan, this summer, has
been exceptionally hot.

Also a humid.

It’s actually the heat
alone, isn’t that bad?

But the humidity, there was a tangent.

I was walking home from
the train to my house.

And it’s about 15 minute walk.

And it felt like I was
walking through moisture.

That’s how humid it was.

Which meant by the time I got home,
I was completely drenched in sweat.

And I had to just
immediately take a shower.

Essentially, if you walk
anywhere at the moment in

Japan, you have to take
a shower right afterwards.

But of course, you can’t just
take a shower every place you go.

We have a typhoon.

We’re supposed to come yesterday, supposed
to come today, supposed to come tomorrow.

Now it’s being predicted on a
Friday because the path is changing.

Often after typhoons, the
weather is a little less humid.

So that’s what I’m hoping for.

But I’m honestly not counting on it.

He was taking headache medicine.

And he went to the doctor.

And the doctor said, you have
severe signs of heat stroke.

You are clearly in actual physical danger.

This man’s in his 50s.

That’s not to say that a man
in his 50s can’t handle the heat.

But he used to be a delivery driver.

He’s now working in the warehouse.

And he’s like, you guys
are trying to kill me.

He’s asked for air condition
clothing and management reviews.

So in Japan, you’ll actually
see a lot of outside workers

where these jackets
and they’re very puffying,

they have like a little
fan in the back corner.

And what they’re actually doing
is circulating cool air in the jacket.

So it looks hot.

Like if you’re on the outside
and you see this jacket,

this big puffy jacket, it
looks like a puffy, down jacket.

And it’s big, and it’s puffed up
because the air’s blowing around.

But it’s actually blowing around
cool air and it’s keeping you cool.

He said, give me one of those.

Management, of course, said, no.

He said it was 40 degrees plus every day.

He took pictures of the thermostat.

And the claim for
management was that the

thermostat was broken
and it was 36 degrees.

Honestly, still way too hot.

If you’re doing physical work in a
warehouse, 36 degrees is too hot.

You need some air conditioners on in there.

So then he went on strike.

He actually had support from
the national union type thing.

Now the office is installing fans,
spot coolers, and water stations.

And I think they’re also gonna
put out like salted candies

to help replenish his
electrolytes and salt or whatever.

The single man, smallest union,

is successful to a degree.

I think, of course, we
would prefer air conditioning

so that the whole warehouse
is just cooler overall

and doesn’t have to deal with
all these spot fans and stuff.

But compared to nothing,
this is a big step forward.

Especially when it seems
like management was trying

to do nothing at all and
just tell them to tough it out.

Back in 2019, I actually
don’t know if I did this story.

I now forget when an
engine used to pass started.

It has to be more than five years ago.

So it has to have been
on during that period.

I was certainly podcasting that time.

I don’t know when the
engine used to pass started.

I know how many episodes I have, but of
course it’s not like I do 52 episodes a year.

So I can’t just do the math.

I can do approximations
because of the weeks off and stuff.

Basically, I think I get 50, about
50 episodes a year, probably less.

Anyways, we’re in the 300s now.

So yeah, it has to be.

Anyways, I remember this story.

I don’t remember if I did it
on the engine used to pass.

That doesn’t matter.

Back in 2019, there was a speech
by then Prime Minister Abbot.

He’s giving a speech in this lady.

It’s like, I’m gonna heckle.

You start shouting stuff out at him.

And the police take her and remove her
from this for heckling the Prime Minister.

Then the police
followed her around for an

hour, which is sort of
a form of intimidation.

Anyone following around for an hour.

That does have an impact.

So she said, by stopping
me from heckling the Prime

Minister, you’ve inhibited
my freedom of speech.

And Japan, they call it
freedom of expression,

but it’s the freedom of speech
is sort of the standard phrase.

And by following me around,
that is psychological intimidation,

which is the police
you’re not supposed to do.

So she sued the
government, got rejected like

five times, kept going
up, up a notch, up a notch.

She gets to the Japanese
version of the Supreme Court.

Five judges, five judges unanimously
agree that the police overstepped,

this had a psychological
impact leading to depression.

This leads to psychological
pressure and inhibiting

freedom of expression and
they’re giving her 550,000, yeah.

That’s half a million, yeah.

Again, Japan, the litigation.

So again, because
we’re doing it in the end.

Half a million, yeah, it sounds like a lot.

It’s not that much money.

Like it’s not certainly enough
money to change your life.

Any victory in a Japanese
court is a moral victory.

They don’t do payouts like North America.

They don’t do like emotional damages don’t
tend to be part of a settlement in Japan.

So if I try to sue my company
for let’s say unpaid wages

of $10,000 and then $20
million for the harassment

I experienced, I will
probably get $10,000.

I’ll get the material payment,
but the psychological

aspect often is not
taken into account.

Now, they’re saying this case you get some
extra money because that’s intimidation.

It’s not because of your depression.

It’s not because of the psychological
impact the police had on you.

It’s that they shouldn’t have been trying
to intimidate you in the first place.

So that is what she’s getting paid for.

You don’t get those massive
payouts like they do in other countries.

I’m thinking, of course, of America.

We don’t hear about court
cases from a lot of other countries.

So if you want to sue
someone in Japan, Japan’s,

you’re not, you shouldn’t
be doing it for the money.

You should be doing it for moral reasons.

And the fact that she went
up through like four, five, six

levels of court meant that this
wasn’t really about the five hundred.

She spent more than 500,000 yen in her
life just getting to this point anyways.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Neepal paper has sued a dio paper.

So we have the paper wars going on.

I actually kind of enjoyed this.

For infringement on some of their patents.

Now, what kind of patents do they have?

This is all about toilet paper.

And somehow, when you
have patents in toilet paper–

because my thought is, how many
patents can you hold on toilet paper?

I guess this is really the
story is going to tell us.

Because my thought is,
toilet paper, single ply, two ply,

three ply, I guess if
we’re going to go crazy

and go four ply, you
could have it like textured.

You could have pictures on it.

But I mean, all those patents
have to be done by now,

because I’ve seen, like, if
I’m starting my toilet paper

company, my paper company,
do I need to worry about that?

I guess you do.

I guess everything has a patent.

This doesn’t quite work
out for Neepal paper.

They’re very pissed
at the end of the story.

The patent is for the toilet paper
that is three times longer than normal.

So you would have a
normal roll of toilet paper.

I’m putting my hand up
the screen saying, miss pink.

This is an audio podcast.

So you have a– you can close your eyes.

Close your eyes with me for a second.

Close your eyes.

And just imagine you’ve
got back from the store.

And you want that rich,
deep, felt touch of toilet paper,

fresh from the plastic
bag that it comes in.

So you tear it open,
and you gently pull forth.

And it’s a little stiff.

It’s a little hard at first,
because they vacuum

packed of the toilet,
but it’s the sixth roll.

Of course, you can buy
at least six rolls, right?

And then you pull it
out, and you pull it out.

That sort of moment
of release, that release,

of that one roll of toilet paper in your
hand, just imagine that in your mind.

You can see it.

Imagine that being three times bigger.

That’s what they’re talking about.

I don’t see how you could patent.

My toilet paper is three times
longer than other people’s toilet paper.

The patent there would be application.

Here’s toilet paper.

It’s normally like x amount of meters long.

This one times three.

Like that’s it.

I don’t see how you have to patent that.

I guess I’m trying to protect
that we’ve made long toilet

paper if anyone else
makes long toilet paper.

They got to pay us money.

That’s kind of what this is about.

The patents are for paper that is
2.5 to 4.4 times longer than normal.

So I guess if I made one that was 4.5 times
longer, the patent doesn’t apply anymore.

Or maybe I’ve just had
an idea and I could apply

for a patent for a five
times longer toilet paper.

Their claim is that the depth and
area of the dense in the uneven surface

are within the range
specified by the patent.

So I guess this has to do with the
structural integrity of the paper itself.

That when you make it
longer, you have to do things

to make sure it doesn’t
like collapse in on itself,

create a black hole and suck
everything in the universe with it.

Dial countered with, nuh-uh, different.

And the judge went with
dial and they said, yes.

The things you’re claiming,
the range of pattern,

the structural integrity, that
doesn’t actually mean anything.

And so now, Neep on paper
is saying they will appeal.

They’re unhappy with this.

They think they are
infringing their patent.

So they’re going to appeal.

The paper wars are on my friend.

And it’s coming for all of us.

There is a company called Orient Industry.

Now, I know Orient as a watch company.

This is different.

I don’t want to mix up
my two Orient companies.

Orient the watch company.

I quite love the Orient watches.

I have a solar-powered one.

It’s called the Neo 90s Panda.

It’s a very nice watch.

That’s about $200.

Reasonably priced.

That’s one of the reasons I like Orient.

They have very nice watches.

Reasonably priced solar power
means you never change the battery.

We’re not talking about
that company at all.

We’re talking about Orient Industry, which
has been making love dolls since 1977.

So the founder, way back in
1977, said love dolls are gross.

They’re these blow-up dolls.

They don’t feel good.

They’re made of vinyl or whatever plastic.

And they don’t feel anything.

So he’s like, we’re going
to make a high quality once.

It’s going to be made a silicon.

Silicon in the ’70s, essentially
a new space-age material.

And the price of one of
his love dolls in the late ’70s

would have been equivalent to the
five-month salary for the average person.

So these were incredibly expensive things.

But everyone’s like, well, this is crazy.

You can’t sell a love doll to people
and it’s going to cost half a year salary.

But it was successful because
people were looking for quality.

And they didn’t sell it in a creepy way.

They sold it as, look, you have widowers.

They need companionship.

They’re lonely.

You have people who are socially awkward.

This will help this will
give them an outlet.

They had counseling services.

They had people who were not
judgmental, so they could talk about this.

And basically, they
approached it as not creepy.

Because even those
doll makers, the blow-up

dolls, that was always
kind of like a creepy joke.

It always showed up in movies.

It’s like, haha, you’ll
have sex with this thing.

He was trying to say,
like, there are people

in the world who
need this kind of thing.

And I want to make the best thing possible.

So a very unique philosophy,
which is pretty nice.

You’ve actually probably seen them.

They have this sort of
uncanny– the very modern

ones have this uncanny,
valley realism to them.

Because they don’t move
and they’re just sitting there.

But they have, like,
essentially a skeletal structure

and then the silicon skin and it’s soft and
it’s compliant, and then it’s positioned.

It’s like, you can articulate
the arms and stuff.

Like, they have put a ton of
research, a ton of resources into this.

The founder is in his 70s.

I think it’s close to his 80s now.

He says he’s going to
retire at the end of this year.

He’s going to retire in
his year for health reasons.

And because he’s going
to retire, he’s shutting down

the company, which I
was like, the company’s

making a sound like
this is a good thing.

I was thinking, like, ah, a bunch of
people are going to lose their jobs.

And I was wondering,
like, is it because it’s

very difficult to helm
a love doll company?

Because you are going
to be judged for just being

in charge of this company
that produces a sex thing.

But at the same time, his philosophy was

that there is a need for
this to be taken seriously.

There is a role for this in
society that can help people.

We should do that as much as possible.

I have a weird respect for that.

I may not want one of the products myself,

but I have a weird respect for
his attitude towards those things.

I think that’s fair.

This is like the people who challenged
censorship for pornography in Japan.

It’s a very difficult thing to
do because you’re immediately

judged, like whether you like porn
or not, the censorship is the issue.

And should it be censored or not?

There was one of the
guys in one of the parties,

again, it’s one of the Joe
parties, the anti NHK party.

And he was saying that if we
de-censored Japanese porn,

because it’s so popular in the
world, we would make more money.

It would be a good stream of income.

Looking at it financially, I
actually think it’s a really good idea.

Like my opinion on porn,
positive or negative, is irrelevant.

We’re talking about financial
stability and a product

that the people in the
world will buy internationally.

It’s very hard to argue that
it shouldn’t be de-censored

and therefore sold to the
world as a better product.

I mean, I fully believe in regulations.

I believe in safety.

I believe in all these other things.

You could form small unions.

I mean, we’ve seen that
they’re successful today.

So I don’t, but taking that stance in front
of the government is a difficult thing.

So this guy taking this stance
in the world and then just

shutting down the company,
I’m actually a little disappointed.

I would like to see someone
take over that company and run it.

I’ll do it.

I mean, I’m just going to put it out there.

I might have to shut down the podcast

because I’ve never run a company before,
but honestly, I will adopt the philosophy.

I will try to keep it going.

If you want to, if you want to give
that to me, I will absolutely take it on.

I will take on that responsibility.

Try to think of a joke, but I can’t.

It’s actually a really nice thing.

(upbeat music)

I don’t know if I want
to do this last story.

What are we at?

We’re at 26 minutes.

Oh, yes, and I see the funny part

that I actually, the reason
why I want to do this story.

So a college student at 11, 30
at night walks out onto the street.

He’s completely naked, runs up behind
a woman and then hugs her from behind.

She was just walking down the
street, and of course, he did it.

He got in trouble, he got arrested,
and he said I did it to really stress.

I mean, this is now step by step.

You could just, I could write the story.

I did it.

I did it to relieve stress.

I was stressed out.

In this case, he’s a college kid.

He’s stressed out about exams or something.

The funny part to me,
the reason I actually wrote

this story down is because
he fled on a scooter.

Now I’m going to cut this story.

It’s just funny, the image
of a completely naked

man jumping on a scooter
and then driving away

is actually very funny
to me, but the story isn’t.

There’s not enough, so
I’m just going to cut that.

He was charged with indecent
assault without consent.

And I’m wondering if there is
indecent insult with consent

because once you consent, it’s
not indecent assault anymore, is it?

I guess the police can
prosecute you on behalf

of a victim even if
the victim consented.

I guess I probably would
have someone’s underage.

Yeah, this last story’s a mess.

I think I’m just–

  • You can’t catch me.
  • Again, I think maybe you
    have the same idea as me.

It’s just like the dude hugs a chick, runs.

I imagine him fully leaping
into the air behind the

scooter, landing on the scooter,
and he’s just going, “Boom!

” Like there’s an image
there that’s very funny.

And then he gets arrested,
which means he was

naked on the scooter
when he got arrested.

And the police would just be like, “Hey,
let’s look for a naked guy on scooter.

” – I imagine his dick
flopping wildly in the wind.

  • Yeah, let’s hop during.

And then he gets torqu
and starts to lift off.

Yeah, the police are just up.

What are they on the lookout for?

Naked guy on scooter.

Hey, there’s a naked guy on a scooter.

Let’s pull him over.

He would have gotten arrested
for being naked anyways.

Like that in itself was enough.

You were naked in public.

So that’s indecent exposure
or something like that.

So now you’re going
to get arrested for that.

All right, I’m just going to end there.

Meiwaku Podcast

(upbeat music)

An update on the Yasakuni
Shrine graffiti situation.

The original one happened
about a month ago.

Nothing really came of it,
the guy who did the graffiti,

he wrote toilet on it, he said
this was a political message

about Fukushima power plant and how the
Japan is treating the world like its toilet.

So therefore he was going to take
this shrine and treat that like a toilet.

So he wrote toilet on it
and then he peed on it.

And that was all done on video.

Well this week, it’s
been about three, four

weeks since that initial
event had occurred.

Yasakuni Shrine was vandalized again.

And the political message this time was
dog toilet poo and militarism go to hell.

So I think the toilet message
is now going to be a through line.

Anyone who goes to
vandalize any of these sort of,

sacred areas that I
understand the controversy.

People are going to
just, I’m just wondering

if everyone who vandalizes
it from now in the future.

Now that this is now a copycat
thing and it’s now a thing,

are they all going to put something
toilet poop slash related on it?

And then they’re message,
the message that militarism

go to hell, I’m actually
kind of on board with that.

And it is a far more appropriate and
sensible statement compared to the first one.

So like, I don’t agree with the vandalism.

Let’s be clear about that.

But the first one, the message
of, I’m angry about Fukushima.

So I’m going to take
this shrine that has

militaristic connections
and write toilet on it.

That connection isn’t that strong.

That’s the problem.

So I think really the guy I
wanted to deface that shrine.

It’s famous and Chinese and
Korean people are angry about it.

I understand the controversy.

It’s very serious.

But the connection isn’t there.

Fukushima in this, the
relationship isn’t quite right.

This one, dog toilet poo, no poo, not poop.

It’s very important to be
accurate in our statement.

It’s not poop, poo, dog toilet poo.

That bit, I would say
it’s a bit extraneous.

Militarism go to hell makes perfect
sense to put on Yaskuni Shrine.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

It was the holiday.

So the holiday, there’s a lot of
people out having a good time.

There’s a lot of tourism, but
it means a lot of Japanese.

People are off.

Everything’s very busy.

I spent the last two weeks on my holiday,

basically staying inside
and clean my house.

So hot outside, I did
not want to go outside.

My family didn’t want to go outside.

We just didn’t want to do anything.

We just decided to stay home.

It was a very good holiday.

It was actually relaxing,
which is really nice.

Not everyone has the same thing.

Some people, they want
to get out in on August 14.

They’re out, they’re partying,
they’re having a good time.

Two men tried to climb up onto
the sign outside of a family mart.

One guy boosted his friend,
and then his friend from the sign

was able to get onto
this like outcropping

roof of the family
mart, and he’s up there.

People are his friends
and filming him going like,

hey, ha ha, you’re doing
something you know is bad.

A bunch of people are
saying like, this isn’t cool.

Some people are laughing.

Some people are saying this is bad.

Then the staff come out and
they’re like, hey, get down from there.

And when he doesn’t get down from there,
they of course go and call the police.

His friends are like,
hey, police are coming.

We should maybe, upscond,
they didn’t know that word.

We should maybe run away.

The guy did not get down
fast enough to police show up.

They bring him down.

And then they give him a
verbal warning and they let him go.

I don’t– so this–
it’s a dual-edged sword.

I mean, every sword is a dual-edged sword.

I guess not.

That’s a dumb tangent
I just went on in my

head like is every sword,
a double-edged sword.

No, there’s lots of single-edged swords.

That’s not the point.

That’s not what I was talking about.

I’m talking about foreigner’s
behavior and the police.

And the question is,
should the police be stricter

or more kind with foreigners
the way they behave in Japan?

I don’t have a good answer.

This is actually really tough because
you want to encourage tourism.

But they are having a lot
of problems with tourism

because tourists are not following
the cultural norms or rules of Japan.

They keep doing things like this.

Like I actually don’t think there’s a
normal back wherever these guys came from.

They didn’t say the nationality,
but they just said foreigner.

That’s enough.

Climbing on to buildings, I
don’t think is OK anywhere.

If there is a place where it’s OK,
culturally speaking, please let me know.

I would actually be
really interested in that.

But I don’t think that’s
a normal common thing.

So he knew he was doing a bad thing.

The police, what should they have done?

So they don’t say if these
are permanent residents

or they’re on a visa or they’re
on a holiday or whatever.

So that’s really the
question I would have more

than anything else is
are these guys residents?

And I have this weird
thing where I think residents

should get treated more
harshly than tourists.

Tourists should get
warned, maybe once or twice,

and then if they get in trouble,
a third time, deport them.

It’s fine.

If you have committed
to living here and yet you

flaunt the rules, I feel like
you should be dealt with like

a Japanese person, which
I feel would be more harsh.

I’m not sure.

I think there’s again, it would
depend on the police officer.

Some police would be like
more harsh with foreigners

and one that someone would
be more forgiving and vice versa.

Like that’s just I think the case.

‘Cause these are people who have to
make interpretations on the moment.

But online, there is a
new term that has come up.

It is, “Mei waku gai goku jin.

” So, “gai goku jin” is foreigner
and “Mei waku” is nuisance.

And that is the foreigners coming, doing
whatever they want, getting away with it.

And I think, so just went into my head,
was the one Logan Paula came to Japan.

He went to the suicide forest and
found a body, and he videoed all this.

And just, I didn’t watch all that stuff.

I saw this sort of
essentially highlight clips.

And it was a lawyer
talking about how many

crimes he had actually
committed over the course

of the like five minutes of
highlight videos that we saw.

And it was numerous and
yet the guy didn’t get in trouble.

And I think that’s it.

And I think when, maybe this is my opinion.

I haven’t formulated my opinion strongly.

So that’s why I have to be a
little careful with what I say.

‘Cause I might actually talk myself through

and come out on the other
end with a different opinion.

If the nuisance is purposeful,

I think the police should
treat it in a purposeful way.

So I’m climbing on a building.

I know I’m not supposed to climb on.

I’m causing problems that I
know I’m not supposed to do.

That should be treated harshly.

If someone wanders into a building
site where they’re not supposed to be

and is genuinely confused and
just doesn’t know where they are,

I don’t think that should
be treated harshly at all.

That, I think I think I’ve hit on it.

I think this is where intent becomes the
factor as to how they should be dealt with.

So since this guy purposefully climbed
up there, knew he was doing a bad thing.

They were filming it probably
going to put on social media.

I think he should have
been dealt with more harshly.

I think this is a case where this guy
should have been treated more harshly.

I’m thinking back to the Johnny Somali.

Johnny Somali pushed these
boundaries again and again and again.

And he got arrested and he got held, but
he never actually got in any real trouble.

I think they should have
deported him right away.

Like after the first or second
time, he got in trouble to

just deport the guy because
he was doing it on purpose.

Whereas if it was a guy live streaming
and he’s done some things by accident

and maybe caused some problems,
but he didn’t do it on purpose,

it’d be like, “Hey,
don’t do that again.

” And then we’re fine.

A woman got arrested for throwing
eggs at her neighbor’s house.

They cited two days
specifically because they had

video footage of the events
happening on those days.

So those were the specific ones.

surveillance cameras show her throwing
eggs sort of sniper style from her window.

So you can see the window open

and you can see her huck
an egg out at the other house.

And she would throw two or three at a time.

And according to the
neighbor, the person actually

lived in the house
that was getting egged.

This happened every day.

And she threw five or six eggs every day.

So she seemed to take like
one or two shots at a time,

closed the window, wait 40 minutes,
opened the window, shoot two or three eggs.

And again, my mind stopped right there.

There’s more to this story
about what the fallout and what.

But five eggs, six eggs every day.

So you’re using a carton of
eggs, dozen eggs, every two days.

You’re paying for that.

She’s paying for the eggs she’s
throwing at the house next door.

She’s going through an
insane amount of eggs.

During the pandemic, there
was this story that we did.

And it was how the price
of eggs had gone up so much.

And I was like, this story seems to say

that over this entire period
she was throwing eggs.

So even when eggs got like,
oppressively expensive in Japan,

she was still buying a dozen eggs and
using them over the course of two days,

not for nutrition, but to
throw at her neighbor’s house.

The neighbor said at times it was 20 eggs.

I haven’t done anything to her.

She started throwing eggs at
my balcony around December 2019.

It has been happening regularly since.

So she’s implying that it’s
happening this whole time.

She’s probably complaining
to try to talk to them.

She’s talked to something else.

She talked to the police.

But there’s been no real proof.

There’s just a ton of eggs.

They have pictures around the house

where there’s just literally eggshells
and egg yolk and just egg everywhere.

And then the reporter
who’s going up to this

house is like, you can
smell the house from here.

The other secondary part of this though,

the woman who’s
throwing eggs has to live

next to the house that
smells of rotten eggs.

She’s the one who’s actually living,
she’s like punishing herself in a way.

They’ve been neighbors for about 20 years.

So 2019, we’re talking
about five years in the past.

That’s how long this has been reported for.

This is her second arrest for this.

She was arrested three years
ago for the exact same thing.

So this is a question.

So throwing eggs at a
house, form of vandalism,

I’m gonna get in trouble, maybe you gotta
find, maybe since it’s the second arrest,

you might get a little bit of jail time,
but it’s not going to be significant.

She’s gonna go back to that house and
then she’s going to continue the behavior.

We kind of know this.

So how do you stop this from happening?

Like, should you be able to
force this woman to move?

I got a lot of questions this
episode that I don’t have answers to.

And it seems like she
should bear the burden.

She’s the one causing the problem.

She’s throwing the egg.

She’s committing vandalism.

She’s attacking the neighbor.

She should bear the financial responsibility
of cleaning up first things first.

Then I would actually say if she
commits the crime again or she continues.

I think they should force
her to move somewhere else.

Like I’m not saying cost her extra
money, like put her out of self or sale,

whatever that house
goes for, put that money

into the next house
where she has to move to.

They’ve lived next to
each other for 20 years.

And it seems like at the
beginning there was no real problem.

And then it sort of developed over time.

When the neighbor says,
I haven’t done anything

to her, I don’t know
if I fully believe that.

I like, as much as this conflict
seems to be one side of,

I don’t know if I honestly
believed you did nothing.

Or maybe the fact that you ignored her

and did nothing actually
is what pissed her off.

‘Cause Japan does have this whole thing

where you’re supposed to
go like greet your neighbors

when you move in and try to form a positive,
social relationship, that kind of stuff.

That’s baked into society here.

We’ve had a couple
people show up to our house

and they give us like, traditionally
it’s literally cleaning products.

It’s laundry detergent or dish
soap or something like that.

And they give that and say like,
we’ve moved into the neighborhood.

If we have any trouble, can we rely on you?

Can we be friends like that?

You never actually see
them again after that.

Like I have this happen
maybe two months ago.

It’s a very nice couple
and their kids showed up.

And I said hello to the
kid and they were like,

whoa, foreign person living in our
area and they gave us the thing.

They said, we’re moving
in around this area.

Spoke Japanese too quickly.

I didn’t actually catch where they lived.

I haven’t seen them since.

But if I do ever see them, I do have a
positive feeling from that first interaction.

So I actually think there is a benefit
to doing this Japanese traditional thing

and showing up at someone else’s house
and being like, I moved into the area.

Hope we can have a good relationship.

Maybe she didn’t do that.

Maybe she did something
she’s not admitting.

But clearly the person she’s dealing with.

I can’t just going through
the volume of eggs

that she went through is
just lost her sense of reality.

So this is her second arrest.

I am going to see if I can follow up
and find out what the punishment is.

Because this house is littered in
eggshells and the smell is horrendous.

I didn’t actually smell it.

But there were multiple reports.

The woman says it always smells like eggs.

The reporter said, you
could smell it from here.

They talked about how like
from the area smells like eggs.

So she’s like negatively impacting houses

that aren’t essentially
part of this conflict

because she’s decided
to use like a smell attack.

Smell attacks are, of course.

Some of the worst attacks you can use.

(electronic music)

I haven’t done panty-feet
stories in a long time

because panty-feet
stories, they get repetitive.

I mean, there’s only so many
creative ways people can steal panties.

And sometimes I would do one because
the sheer volume of panties they found

when the police went to the
guys house was astonishing.

So it was like a lifetime career’s worth
of panties found in this dude’s house.

Like I remember like 4,000, 5,000,
like thousands and thousands of things.

These guys have stolen.

There were two stories though this week.

So it seemed like we’ve
hit the end of the break.

This is when the panty-feet
kind of like make their shot.

They go out there and they do their thing.

So there was a police
officer and he was caught

climbing over a balcony to steal the
panties that were hanging out to dry.

He said, I stole them.

I apologize to the victim
and the other police officers

because of course their reputation
has been damaged by my behavior.

Then we get a standard police statement.

And it’s a standard apology.

I’ve actually read it easily a
dozen times on the engineer’s trip in.

It’s regrettable.

They say that every time.

They apologize.

And then they get to this line.

We will thoroughly
instruct and educate our

officers to prevent this
from happening again.

And I find that when
you’re talking about

cops, do you need to
educate them in the fact

that you should not steal
stuff from people’s balconies?

Like let’s ignore even the panty bit and
sort of like weird purvey aspect of this.

Should you need to educate police more
thoroughly on not stealing stuff from people?

I think that’s already baked in there.

So it’s not an education issue.

This is a hiring issue.

You’ve hired a guy
who’s purvey in some way.

Now there’s no way to really suss that out.

So I don’t actually hold this
against the police force at large.

I wouldn’t hold it against this perfectural
police force or this town’s police force.

Because they hired a guy and I
like to steal women’s underwear.

It’s something you could very
easily hide by just not talking about it.

And this is what you should
do if you’re a good criminal.

Don’t talk about it.

We’ve had a dozen stories where it was like
they filmed it and put it on social media.

They talked about it to everyone they knew.

That’s how they got caught.

That is something you can prevent.

At least not make it easier
for the police to catch you.

So this guy I’m assuming knew I’m a cop.

I shouldn’t tell my
co-workers that I stole 70 pairs

of panties last week
or something like that.

Then we get on to our
second story, August 2nd, 8 p.m.

He broke into an apartment
to take a woman’s underwear,

go into the closet and sort of like
make a little nook and sniff them.

This guy was a former ballet dancer.

I wouldn’t go ahead and
say famous, but successful

in the dance world
had worked overseas in

America in multiple
productions as a dancer.

Productions of things I’d heard of,

because I mean they had
fisted in the rest of her.

He was in that.

And this is the pretty
privilege psychology issue.

When I saw a picture of him, I’m
like, this is a good looking dude.

Why does he need to do this?

Like, he’s good looking.

If he’s a ballet dancer, he’s fit.

All he has to do is get a girlfriend.

And then, yeah, get
someone who would be find

it acceptable for him
to sniff her panties.

When I’m like, make it
part of your relationship.

But then we get deeper into it.

And this makes more sense to me now as to
why he felt he had to break into a house.

I wanted to feel a strong sense of
tension by sneaking into someone’s home.

So for him, the pervy aspect wasn’t enough,

like just having women’s
underwear that he could deal with.

That wasn’t enough for him.

He needed the extra tension, the
danger of breaking into someone’s house.

And then doing this
perverted act in their

house is what actually
was exciting to him.

So it wasn’t even I bet
the panties or the stealing.

It was the breaking in and being
somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

And the chance that he could
get caught was a big part of it.

So he broke in, he got into the
closet, he started sniffing away.

The couple came home,
and of course he bolted.

They didn’t say if he
ran out the front door

or out back over the balcony or
the window or the way it came in.

Did this see how he came in?

No, just as he broke in.

I’m assuming he came in through a window.

I don’t know why I assume that.

But I’m pretty sure he didn’t, I guess
he didn’t come in through the front door.

He probably didn’t like Jimmy the lock.

That would have been noticeable
to the couple when they came home.

So he ran, they chased him, he gets caught.

Turns out this is not his first arrest.

And it turns out he’s very
serious about this practice.

In his first arrest, he was
using night vision goggles.

So this is a guy who’s
dead serious about this.

He’s like, I’m going to get equipment

that I can use to better
break into people’s houses,

break into their house and
then do this perverted act.

But I want the real tension.

I’m actually doing it in someone’s house.

That’s the bit that actually
makes it exciting for me.

(upbeat music)

A man had had some cocktails back in 2015.

We have to go back to the original.

This is when the actual story
happens and now we’ve had

lawsuits and the lawsuits
have basically just finished up.

So I do like when the story has
a finish like an actual conclusion.

The stories are exciting,
but the conclusion is also,

to me, very big part of
it, are they successful?

Do they win?

Do they lose?

That becomes part of the story for me.

You have a guy, he’s had some drinks.

It’s already, you know,
this story’s going a really

good way if it starts
out with, he was drinking.

And he’s like, huh, you
know what, let’s go into the

haunted house and this
little park thing over here.

You know, the haunted houses are,
they’re exciting, they’re fun, I’m drunk.

It’ll be more visceral for me, maybe.

I’ll have more, it’ll
have more of an impact.

It’ll be more fun, let’s do that.

So he goes in and he’s holding
his partner’s hand and going forward.

And then a actor jumps
out dressed as a ghost.

Now, I did not mention at
the beginning of this story

that this man was a fairly
high level karate practitioner.

So when a ghost jumped
out at him, he did a kick

and he kicked the actor
in the jaw and broke it.

So he, this actor,
probably like a teenager,

dressed up as a ghost,
doing like a summer job,

jumps out to scare a guy, like
he’s done a million times before.

Everyone has a good laugh,
ha ha, and then they move on.

In this case, he jumps
out, goes to scare the guy,

gets kicked in the face
and his jaw gets broken.

Then there’s a lawsuit and
the lawsuit is this karate guy,

he needs to pay the
actor for the damages done.

10 million yen, he accepts that.

Then he launches a counter lawsuit.

And the karate guy says that the management
company is also partially responsible.

Now, there are four points in the lawsuit

as to how the company
that runs this haunt his house

is actually responsible for
the results of this situation.

Number one, there was no barrier
between the ghost and the customer.

Now, the jumping out aspect
of it usually means there’s no

barrier ’cause they’re
kind of hiding around

a corner, they jump
out, that’s the scary bit,

they get very close to you,
that’s also part of the scare.

I think that is on purpose.

And therefore, I personally,
let’s pretend I’m the

judge, I think that’s an
unreasonable expectation.

This has also gone on for
years and years and years.

The actors, I bet, are not
allowed to actually touch you.

They jump out and they
go, well, well, well, well, well.

Or they do something right in
your face, but they don’t touch you.

There’s kind of like an
unwritten rule probably

for all these places where you’re not
touching the actual customers or guests.

Number two, the park failed to
train employees to avoid attacks.

That seems like an
unreasonable expectation.

So, hey, high school kids
who are gonna do a summer job

for me, we’re gonna
have to do a two week

training camp to avoid
high kicks to the face.

Because there is the off
chance that a single drunk

individual also practices
karate and booty in the face

while you’re doing your
job here at minimum wage.

I don’t think, I mean,
if this went through,

this would actually
imply that every company

where someone interacts
with the public in some way

needs to train them in
some form of self-defense.

Might actually not be a bad thing,
but in this case, what he’s saying is,

your staff need to be prepared
to stop or avoid attacks

of patrons, which again, I
think is quite unreasonable.

Number three, the park did not inform
customers that real people were inside.

I don’t know if you have to do that.

Because the whole point is we’re gonna
go in, you don’t know what’s going on.

It’s supposed to be scary,
it’s supposed to be a surprise.

So, if you told
everything that’s gonna

happen, then you’re
taking away the scare part,

and now you’re actually
messing up the whole ride.

I see the logic there,
like there’s real people

in there, but if a machine
jumped out at you,

and you kicked to the machine,
and you broke the machine,

I think you’d still be responsible
to pay for the machine.

The breakage or the damage
you did to the machine.

This is just more serious,
’cause it’s an actual

human being that
you’ve booted in the face.

Number four, the park, should
have stopped a drunk man.

I actually vaguely agree with this,
that when drunk people wanna do things,

they often don’t make good
decisions because they’re drunk.

But at the same time, how drunk was he?

Like, was it noticeable?

Was the fact that he
was drinking like an issue?

But also, I think drunk
people are more likely

to go on haunted houses,
because it’ll be more fun for them.

So, I actually would say that being drunk

might even be part of the
attraction of the haunted house.

So, I flip flop, the first three I’m saying,
no, but this one I kind of flip flop on,

because I think it should be up
to the management’s discretion.

I think if they say you’re too
drunk, you shouldn’t be going here.

I think that should be allowed.

But, they’re also in a
situation where it’s like,

well, am I gonna refuse
every drunk person’s

money, ’cause then I
might not make any money.

The karate guy asked
the park to pay 4.

8 million yen of the 10 million
yen that he was supposed to pay.

That was thrown out.

Then he came back to a higher level court.

So, this guy, he’s
showing the karate spirit.

He’s not giving up, and
he’s now trying to get

the park to pay 7 million
of the 10 million yen.

And, of course, it was also thrown out,

because he didn’t really
have anything new to add.

He didn’t have any sort of better
justifications than the ones I just read you.

But we did get the courts ruling.

The courts ruling was, it is
the aim to surprise customers.

So, the whole point of a haunted
house is to surprise people.

I’ve actually gone into
haunted houses a few times.

I would say they were
pretty low key, cheap ones.

You stepped on a panel, and
when you stepped on the panel

it was basically a giant button,
and then a thing going, “Maha!

” And then came
out at your face.

I was with my girlfriend at the time,

and she would scream every
time, and I would go like, “I had

no surprise reaction,” because
it wasn’t surprising enough.

I think an actor in a ghost costume probably
would have got a reaction out of me.

But the fact that I could
feel I would take a step

into a good chunk, and
then something happened,

I just was like, “Okay,
I’m actually gonna make

the front of my girlfriend at
the time, and I’m gonna tell her,

okay, something’s happening,
and then it happens.

” And she thought I was psychic.

But it’s because she was
walking slightly behind me,

so I could feel the big buttons
on the floor, and she couldn’t.

She was also just way more into it.

I’m also not really fun, you
know, amusement parks and stuff.

I ride roller coasters,
and my facial

expression does not
change, and I do not scream.

I have a good time, I
enjoy it, I just sit there,

and I enjoy the feeling,
and I go on the ride,

but a lot of people
say it’s actually not fun,

because I don’t react to the
stuff you’re supposed to react to.

It is done on the principle
that the haunted house is safe.

So yeah, if a haunted
house was actually

dangerous, it wouldn’t
be open to the public.

So the fact that the
public’s allowed to go in there

means there’s an understanding
that it’s a safe environment

that you’re not going to get hurt,
that nothing’s actually gonna happen.

Yes, they’re going to surprise you and
scare you, but nothing bad’s gonna happen.

Therefore, it is unreasonable
for you to react as if

something like this is
actually gonna happen to you.

It’s unreal, I’ve lost the sense.

It’s unrealistic for your reaction
to be as if something were real,

and something was
actually going to hurt you.

So you don’t need to defend yourself,
I think it’s what the judge is saying.

It is difficult to find
a justifiable rationale

for the action of
kicking a minimum wage,

probably teenager or university student
actor in the face and breaking his jaw.

And I think that is a very good judgment.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Defiling Fame

(upbeat music)

But weird bunch of stories this week.

I don’t know why.

It is the beginning of summer vacation,

so I may or may not
have an episode next week.

It depends how busy it is around the house,

but I can tell you honestly
it is so frickin’ hot in Japan.

No one wants to go outside,
no one wants to do anything.

I think it’s going to
be very much a holiday

of everyone just staying inside
watching TV, doing nothing the entire time.

What, that’s just some information, just
to just, you know, the world as it goes.

Japan, it’s here, where is
where we’re here to talk about?

We’re here to talk about Japan.

Japan’s rice inventory has
dropped to 1.56 million tons in June.

Japan has a rice inventory,
it has a bunch of rice

that they keep, like in
warehouses they keep stock.

Weirdly the very first thing
I thought like rice is staple,

it’s important to have a lot of rice if
you’re going to live in a country like Japan.

Canada has the maple syrup, and
there was a big heist where they stole like

three or four tank or
trucks full of maple syrup,

and there’s a lot of
questions and thoughts

going when you hear
about that, like, why?

I think it was the main one.

20% less rice compared to last year.

So last year in June, they
had 20% more than the 1.

56 million tons that
they have right now.

If it declines any further,
there may be price hikes,

annual demand within
Japan for rice has dropped as

people’s diets have changed
and a shrinking population.

So you have less people, you’re going
to need less food to feed those people.

In a way, not a terrible thing.

There’s been an increase in
the price of bread and noodles,

so a lot of people are now
taking bread and noodles

out of their diets, which they may have
had more in before and eating more rice.

But that, in addition to tourists,

so it’s been a big tourism boom,
probably the last three months,

we’ve talked about tourism
tourism tourism, people coming,

the problems they caused,
the problems of local people,

all that kind of stuff has been happening
over and over and again in Japan.

They want to eat Japanese food.

You want to come to Japan?

Japan is famous for food.

I mean, it’s famous for a lot of
stuff, but food’s pretty high on that list.

If you’re going to make your top 10 list,

I’m going to guarantee
foods can be the top five.

That food’s going to include rice.

So this tourism boom is feeding
the amount of rice that gets eaten.

So right now, the
forecast is actually saying

that demand will increase, but
production’s going to go down.

So it’s this interesting problem,

because the population
isn’t going to be buying rice

because they’re changing
their diet, but they might start

buying rice again, but
there’s a shrinking population.

So it’s really confusing as to whether or
not Japan, the country, or Japanese people,

are going to be eating or
buying more rice, but they’re

going to need more rice if this
tourism boom keeps happening,

and all the problems that
come with the tourism boom.

So it’s like everything
has a double-edged sword.

Everything is just problematic, and that
seems to be what it’s like to just live.

There are drain grates.

So Japan, I live in a small town.

Small towns in Japan do not have
sidewalks, and it’s very off-putting.

You’re all told to do tangent right away.

Problem is, I walk to the train station.

It takes about 15 minutes.

I don’t complain about the
walk, the walk’s quite nice.

Good way to wake you up
in the morning, to be honest.

The roads are very small.

It’s a small town.

There are no sidewalks.

So I am walking on the side of
the road, almost in the gutter.

Gudders aren’t the same here.

They tend to be just
like, yeah, well, gutters,

but they’re covered
over with cement blocks,

and then every now
and then they’ll have a

great where the rain
can drain down into it.

Almost lost my words there.

I walk on those, and
because if I walk on the

road, the old people
who live in the area,

again, Japan, Grand
population, most people are old,

they’ve been driving those
roads for 50 years, let’s say.

They know those roads, and that’s true.

They’ll say like, I know this
road like the back of my hand.

They don’t know if someone’s
on the road that they’re driving.

So they drive like they know the road,

but they’re not actually
paying as close attention

to whether or not
someone is on the road.

So I almost get hit by a car regularly.

Like I would say once a month, I almost
get hit by a car if I’m not being careful.

I certainly have to be
more careful than the drivers

who are actually driving
around the roads with me.

They’re so small, it’s
very easy to get hit.

So that’s just give you
a sense of the setup

of the roads in a lot
of places in Japan.

Once you get into
the cities, it’s different,

but you get these towns, which is a
lot of Japan that suburbs and stuff.

No sidewalks has these like gutter
systems, and they have greats on top.

Now, I didn’t think about this,

but greats are made of metal and
people steal the greats to sell them.

There’s a city called Tuchiki,

and what they’ve done is the
local governments had enough.

They need to take
action, they need to do

something to stop
people stealing and great.

So they decided that the
best way to stop people stealing

these greats would be to
paint them white and red

so they were in sort
of a strawberry pattern.

It’s actually neat.

If you look at it on an angle, you can
see the strawberry really, really well.

They chose the strawberry
because Tuchiki in

this area is famous
for growing strawberries.

This is one of the things
about also living in Japan.

Every town has to be famous for something,

even though the fact that
no one’s ever heard of it

means it’s not actually
famous, but if you say,

oh, this is my town,
this is this town I visited,

it’s famous for is going to
be probably the next sense

of the Japanese person’s mouth
who’s talking to you about it.

What they actually mean is
that stuff is produced there.

It doesn’t actually
mean it’s famous for it.

So I’ve had that conversation I gave up.

There’s a lot of things that I realized

that I will not be changing
Japanese culture anytime soon.

So this town is famous for this thing.

As a statement, it defiles what fame means.

Defile is way too strong or weird.

But it’s like you’re actually demonstrating

that you’re not using
the word famous correctly.

And just saying it’s hot
when it’s hot out constantly.

I’ve given up on that.

And I really, you know,
some deep down inside

me, my body goes, no,
man, you can stop them.

They say, that’s it, that’s
me, that’s me, that’s me.

That’s me, it’s fucking constant.

And I know it’s hot because I’m in the
fucking same weather as you are, okay.

You can see how annoyed, how quickly I get.

I think it’s ’cause I come from Canada.

And if you walked out of the snow, out
of the minus 20 degrees snow in Canada,

and then you’re like,
hey, it’s cold outside.

Everyone would think, you’re a moron.

Because yeah, we know it’s cold.

It’s freaking minus 20 degrees outside.

Anyways, the painted
strawberries on these

grates that are along
the side of the road.

So I was like, how bad is this problem?

Well, in 2022, there were 25
great stolen in six different cases.

So just six different cases of theft

where in those six thefts,
25 greats were stolen.

In 2023, there were 25
cases where 40 greats were

stolen and so far into
like up to June in 2024,

there have been 11 cases
already with 23 greats stolen.

So this is actually a problem.

This is a really regular problem.

So the problem is if
these grates go missing,

that means when I
personally am walking along

the side of this road,
and I step in one of those,

I’m gonna fall into that
little area underneath,

the drain underneath,
and I could hurt my foot,

I could hurt my shin, I could
fall over, I could break a leg.

Cars also have to, when two cars go along
together, one has to get out of the way.

They probably both
have to get out of the way

because the roads are
that small sometimes.

This means that one of
the cars driving to the side,

the wheel could then go
down there, damage the car.

So this is actually a significant
and very real safety issue.

They decided that painting
the grates would make

them unfit to be sold,
which, in his new Japan,

has adopted a bit of a
philosophy of giving advice

to criminals or helping
criminals out in that.

I shouldn’t, but it’s
because I go into the

criminal mind when I
start doing these stories.

And my first thought is, would it?

So it’s a metal grade, and
you’re selling the metal,

which I assume is going to be
melted down to make something else.

So the metal itself has value.

So they’ve painted the metal, how
hard is it to strip the paint off metal?

And I was like, you
could use like a sand

blaster and have it done
in a couple of seconds.

Like I’m sure you could sand
blast that paint off really quick.

You could just melt it down.

I’m sure the impurities of the paint

would be minuscule compared
to the actual quality of the iron

or whatever they’re using
the steel of these grates.

So the value doesn’t seem
to have actually changed.

So like the fact that it’s been painted
might make it just more appealing,

you would be able to
tell where it came from.

Like, oh, this is one
of these tochi grates.

I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

Like I don’t know if it’s a
higher quality or lower quality.

You might be more likely to get caught

because like we can tell
this great has been stolen.

Is something that
police could lay on you if

you had one of those
greats in your possession.

But when they said
it makes it unfit to be

sold, I was like, I
don’t think that’s true.

And then I did try to transfer my thought
process over to the buyer of the great.

And he’s like buying stolen grates,
but he didn’t know they were stolen.

I mean, that seems almost impossible.

And then he’s like, hey, wait a minute.

This great has a strawberry painted on it.

You’ve been stealing
these, not making them

yourself at home and
then selling them to us.

And there’s a logical fault in the
statement from the local government.

But I hope it works.

I don’t want these like small
municipalities to have to pay for grates.

I’m sure they’re stupidly expensive.

When you look at anything that’s along the
streets, they’re always crazy expensive.

Like street lights, intersection
lights, they are all crazy expensive.

You go look up the prices in your city

or in cities around the
world, millions of dollars

for just a very small
area of just lighting.

And then these automatic
lights and the systems

and stuff are all
crazy, crazy, expensive.

Just thinking that, you know, maybe
if I’m going to be talking to your thing,

I don’t want to know,
start slurring and whatnot.

I should actually have done
podcasts while intoxicated in the past.

And it had entertaining results.

And I don’t think you’d want
to listen to that every time.

But it has been funny when it’s happened.

I want theme music.

I want– I want like
a– the Ninja Ninja Pips.

Like a quiz show.

Oh, I’ll see like my theme music.

Well, no, no, I can’t have
an individual guest music.

Because then I would
have– I guess I could.

I couldn’t make it.

That’s– the problem with music
in me is I don’t have the talent.

That’s why I have to pay
people to make music that I like.

I mean, no offense.

No offense.

No, no, I haven’t taken any yet.

I know.

But if you were to
just, like, just snatch a

son down from the
interwebs to put it on here,

I don’t think anyone is coming
to check you’re copyright.

Oh, it’s not– that’s
actually not the problem.

It’s the automated systems.

They catch it.

So like, I actually do stay
away from copyrighted music

and stuff, because I’m
doing that movie channel.

And it gets doomed regularly.

And I have to then send it
a letter to, I guess, YouTube.

I think it actually goes to
them, the copyright holder,

to say, like, this is– because
I’m doing reaction videos,

because I’ve transformed it, and
I have to do like fair use and stuff.

I do that like every second or third video.

Like, the automatic system is amazing.

Really, it catching stuff.

Are you talking computers?

Yeah, so, like, it’s not like
any person’s coming for me.

The algorithm is just waiting for you.

OK, anyway, so the quiz.

Dada, dada, dada, dada,
dada, that’s McDonald’s.

McDonald’s is going to come for me.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

Oh, that’s quite good.

I’ll take that.

So this is summertime in Japan.

It’s very hot.

That’s where it’s there.

Maybe the important– so
Japanese schools often have pools

and they’ll have swimming
classes, so all the kids can swim.

It’s part of gym class.

Oh, god.

You know that.

Oh, god, no.

What do you mean, you’re art?

What do you mean, oh, god, no.

We haven’t even started yet.

But school and swimming pools and a quiz.

Yeah, no, because the quiz
is always some horrible stuff.

So the premise now is, how
can I make the premise sound

innocent, knowing that
it’s going to be awful?

Two girls were four minutes
late for swimming class.

Now, you’ve had students
who are late for class.

You’ve been late for class yourself?

That’s probably, what kind of punishments

I basically teachers
like don’t do it again?

Yeah, that’s four minutes.

People are late sometimes.

If it’s not a regular occurrence, you just

tell them, please be careful
about the about your time

management in future,
and you keep it pushing.

Yep, good.

No, that’s very reasonable response.

OK, so you know that’s not how this went.

So the students were four
minutes late for swimming class.

This teacher said, like, what happened?

And the student says, it took
a long time to walk to the pool.

So the pool is about 50
meters away from the school.

But I’m assuming they have to, like,
change and go through things and so on.

So I don’t really know this,
the layout of the school.

What do you think the
punishment of the students was?

What do you think?

How do you think the
teacher punished the students?

So here are your four choices.

A, they had to swim laps
until failure, until exhaustion.

B, they had to stand on the
side of the pool on the sun.

C, the teacher insulted the
student’s appearance in a bathing suit.

Or D, the teacher made all the
students walk back to the school

and back again in the hot
sun to, like, check the time.

So again, now as you change
it, please ask questions.

I don’t want to get– I don’t
want to make a assumption.

So I’m going to ask, is the
teacher a man or a woman?

It was not disclosed, but it
seems like it was a woman.

OK.

Because I read it in
Japanese, and the Japanese

is technically gender
neutral when they use sun.

So it’s hard to– Is
this a new teacher?

I don’t think so.

I think this was a fairly
experienced teacher.

I actually think the teachers
who do the shitty stuff

are the experienced teachers, because
they feel like they can get away with it.

I think a new teacher
would be more careful.

Like, they might punish the student,

but they might be like, I
don’t want to get fired today.

Yeah, they would do the thing to extreme,

because the old school
teachers are the whole watch.

Yeah, all the stories, the
punishment stories and stuff,

has always been like
these old school teachers

have been doing it
forever, which I assume

means they’ve been
abusing children forever.

Or yeah, they’ve been getting
more and more bold with their abuse.

Yeah, my Japanese is so bad.

My camera just went out focused.

That’s all right, that’s all right.

No, I can’t use the video if
the camera is not in focus.

Come on, come back.

Come back.

It sounds like a backwater’s
place, so they’re old-fashioned.

It’s a small town.

It is not a big city, yeah.

Thanks, Sue.

So I’m going to– old-fashioned people
are kind of hardcore compared to– Yep.

So I’m going to, I’m
going to recheck to be.

You’re going to reject standing the sun.

That’s super hardcore.

No, it’s not.

OK.

I mean, you’re from Canada, right?

I’m from Canada.

Yeah, you think the sun is hardcore.

That’s not hardcore.

No, no, no, that’s just a sun.

So in Canada, we don’t worry
about the sun as much as the cold.

So all the– yeah, I remember in middle
school, I went to Emily Carr Middle School.

You don’t know who Emily Carr is.

She’s a very famous Canadian artist.

And we had to recess where
we would have to go outside

for like 40 minutes or
something on an hour.

And it would be like minus 20 regularly.

That’s child abuse.

Yeah, but they were
like, no, you’re Canadian.

Go outside and play.

And we did.

It was– like, now that I think about it,
I’m like, you can’t send kids out in that.

But yeah, every day.

February, February, where I lived almost
every single day was minus 10 would be warm.

Minus 2015, 20 would be normal.

So a cold day, minus 25.

Then then– OK, well then, I think

we can’t understand each other because
like, maybe– yeah, you’re extreme cold.

You know, it’s bare.

It’s livable to you.

I am from the heatwork
experience right now.

This is my home heat.

Jesus Christ, man.

I can send aside this
heat all day long, literally.

I might be unhappy,
but I’d be like, you know,

I didn’t play games with
you outside in a seat.

I’m unhappy, but yeah.

So standing, standing
beside a pool, our country.

No, they’ll be fine.

They’ll be fine.

I’ll be fine, OK.

That’s not enough.

All right.

Oh, women are hateful.

OK.

That’s a statement.

Old women are hateful.

I get a book quotes in that.

That’ll make a t-shirt.

We’ll make a t– we’ll have a– we
need to use Japan merch coming out.

Old women are hateful.

Old women are hateful.

They are though.

So they wouldn’t sell–
they wouldn’t sell younger,

pressure, you know, percure,
you know, women’s appearance.

So I’m going to keep staying there.

Body shaming is so normalized in Japan.

So much so.

Did I tell you about– did I
tell you about my elevator ride?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We’re the old man.

She’s like, I got it.

Old man literally touched
my belly and called me fat.

And I was so close to
punching me in the face.

Hey.

Like, I mean, your own medication now.

Yeah, man.

That’s rough.

Rolling by, rolling by, it’s home.

One brick wrapped in a towel.

It’s embarrassing on fire.

Wow.

I mean, if you didn’t
see it, I didn’t see it.

You planned it out.

I mean, I have years of paying to me.

Call me hateful.

How about that?

I’ll take it.

There’s another t-shirt.

That’s the back.

The front is old women are hateful.

And the back is Tommy’s hateful.

I don’t buy that today.

That’s a good shirt, actually.

So yeah, the old ladies would insult you.

Welcome back and forth in
the hot heat to understand time.

But also, that’s the same thing.

It’s standing in the heat.

D is out.

So you’re between A and C now?

Yes.

Swimming laps into the exhaustion.

And then teachers solstice appears.

A is so reasonable.

Like, like, if you’re a hardcore teacher,
he’s like, you know, you’re always late.

So I’m going to make
you fucking learn today.

You swim laps until you’re fucking
tired and you fucking understand.

That is that while extreme is reasonable.

And you had a swimming pool.

So like, you know, it all pans out.

I think that is the most sensible one.

Our red laps is being
swimming laps or running laps.

It’s the same thing.

So that’s too reasonable.

It’s the– OK, C, insult
to the students’ parents.

She went hard.

Incorrect.

It was D, the teacher made all 40 students
walk to the school and back barefoot

and 21 students ended up
having burns on their feet.

Oh, I’m sorry.

I don’t think you mentioned that all
the other kids were impacted by this.

I don’t know.

I said all the kids had to walk.

I did say that.

I didn’t say the burn part.

That’s a bit of a giveaway.

It’s too many people.

Yeah, all the– so the
teachers– these two

kids show up late, four
minutes late for class.

And the teachers like, all you guys suck.

Get out of the pool.

I don’t know if they’re in the pool yet.

But let’s say get out of the pool.

Walk back to the school and walk
back here and see if it takes four minutes.

And so they made all
them– but they’re all barefoot.

And it’s probably tarmac.

It’s probably black, like
parking lot or something.

Half the students, at
least half the students,

had burns on their feet
by the end of this process.

And had to go like the school nurse.

The next day, a parent called to school
saying, like, why is my child’s foot burned?

And I’m not even one of
the kids who was late, right?

So the kid who didn’t do
anything has burned feet.

The school pulled the wheel, make
sure there’s not a reoccurrence.

But I actually hate that one
because if you get in trouble

for making kids walk back and
forth, you’re not going to do it again.

So it’s already not going to reoccur.

You’re going to find some
new and creative weight

to punish them next time
because you’re an asshole.

The teacher apologized, but
has not– I don’t know, man.

I would have made the
teacher walk the same path.

On a hot day, take your
shoes off, walk with them.

I would post live the
fucking teacher accidentally.

Yeah, this is it.

Like, I don’t get what’s going
on in your brain at that point.

I guess it’s just like,
what are you thinking?

It’s like they don’t understand.

It’s 34, 35 degrees outside.

And the parking lot is black.

So it is like literally the hottest thing.

So I have– I walked Dave.

I got to think about
like, oh, he’s essentially

barefoot on the road if
we’re walking on the road.

No, it’s– if some of
the kids are in the pool,

there would be, you
know, soft and tender.

And yeah, no, like, moisturized
and ready to give you a burn.

Extra ready for the birds.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So I was never punished that badly.

I think, again, this is sort
of the weird extremities

of Japan, come to light in these news
stories that people don’t know about that.

With all the polite culture and stuff,

there is this like
underlying strictness that is

just off the chain with
some of these teachers.

And it’s like, god damn.

56% of 17 to 19-year-olds have
no interest in the imperial family.

That’s kind of the headline.

And in my head, I was like, 56%.

Seems kind of low.

I can’t imagine 17 to 19-year-olds care
at all about the royal family in any bit.

So they did a survey.

And they did a survey and
there were 1,000 respondents.

And they did this survey because the
voting age in Japan has been lowered.

It’s gone from 20 to 18.

And this means the opinions
of 18, 19, 20-year-olds

is now sort of more
important because they

can vote and influence elections
and whatnot if they get out and vote.

So what they care about is
something we need to know.

I actually think it’d be important
to know what everyone cares

about, but that’s an
opinion for another day.

One of the questions was, do
you care about the imperial family?

And it was, yes, somewhat,
yes, somewhat, no and no.

So the actual numbers were 9.8% said
yes, which again, seems very high to me.

Oh, sorry.

34.5% said somewhat, yes,
which if they had a completely

neutral option, that’s
where mine would be like,

I don’t not care like
if they do something

interesting, I’d be
interested in hearing about it.

But on an average day, I do not think about
the imperial family or any royal family.

I do come from Canada where
they don’t have a royal family,

but we do have the queen
on our money or used to.

I don’t know.

I think changing to the
king, I can’t believe they are.

Southern momentary lapse of thought, as I
think about something completely different.

28.8% said somewhat no and 26.9% said no.

And that became, and that
came to 55.7% said they have little

to no interest in the
imperial family, which is,

again, I thought going to
be a much bigger number.

I was thinking 70, 80% would say no.

And then the somewhat
no’s would be like 10% and then

everyone left over was
going to be on the yes side.

They followed up with another
question to the people who said no.

And they said, how could we increase
your interest in the imperial family?

And then I, again, first
question for me was, why?

Like, why do I need to care
about the imperial family?

Why is the imperial family important?

Prove them as being
important to me in some way.

And I will then show interest.

It doesn’t go the other way.

Like what can we make them do
to make you interested in them?

No, they have to do something interesting.

And then I’ll be interested in them.

48.1% of those respondents.

So this is again, 50%
of the previous survey.

So now we’re down to like
500 people said, I don’t know.

Perfect answer.

How can you make the imperial
family more interesting to me?

I don’t know because that’s
not my problem and I don’t care.

27.1% said, have a member of the royal
family close to my age, post on social media.

I was like, OK, I mean, that’s, again,

they could do TikTok challenges
and have the royal family.

But again, they were
actually very specific.

Have someone close to my age.

So I don’t want to see the emperor
doing TikTok dance challenges.

I want to see a team, a late team
doing TikTok dance challenges,

who just happens to be a
member of the royal family,

which I’m actually betting
they’re not allowed to do.

26% said the royal couple
could post on social media.

So maybe they do want to see the
emperor doing TikTok dance as I don’t know.

That’s a lot of people already.

I found it very, very weird
because I personally, at this point,

I think I’ve said it before,
you just get rid of them.

They don’t do anything.

There’s no benefit.

I understand that it’s a
nice idea, but it’s antiquated.

And I have no desire to follow up on it.

When he ate your old was arrested,
and he was arrested for shooting a BB gun

at people waiting at
a nearby train station.

So he basically had an apartment building,

an apartment building
overlooked a train line,

and he could see the train station
so people standing on the platform.

The platform was about 40
meters away from his balcony.

So I’m assuming that’s
not an angle and stuff.

He was arrested.

There were, uh, he hit at
least two or three people.

Uh, there was someone
who got hit in the

shoulder and then
someone got hit in the leg.

They said there were no injuries.

I bet it’s stung, but again,
yes, at the end of the day.

It’s not like they have to
go to the hospital or anything.

It doesn’t seem like
anyone got hit in the head.

So I don’t know if he was going for
headshots or it was just really bad shot.

80 BBs were discovered on
the platform over two days.

So either a lot of people didn’t
report it or maybe didn’t even notice,

because maybe he got hit
and just thought it was like a

bug or something and then
just didn’t notice what happened.

These couldn’t have been that powerful.

I got, when I was a little
kid, I was like nine or 10.

I was walking, it was like evening.

I was walking with my
friend and then this guy was

just standing in a field
and we were over playing.

I don’t know, we’re doing our little
kids, probably just walking in a circle.

And then as we started to
leave, I heard something and then I

got hit in the back of the ear
and it was BB gun and it hurt.

Like my ear was swollen, I was crying,
my parents called the police and stuff.

There wasn’t much they could
do, we never heard about it again.

So I mean, that’s not a
great resolution of that story.

There was no CSI
investigation into the great BB

murder of this place in
Ontario when I was a kid.

But this means multiple people
have gotten hit and not reported at all.

So it couldn’t have been
the same level of sort

of power of my
experience when I was a kid.

Or maybe they’re wearing
like clothes and stuff and it

hit the clothes and just
didn’t have any real impact.

The police, of course, figured it out.
It’s not hard to figure out.

Okay. There’s someone, someone
shooting BB guns, let’s look

up in the other direction of
where the BBs were coming from.

What do we see? Oh, hey, there’s
a building with a bunch of balconies.

Let’s go start doing a little
canvassing there or maybe they

did a little stake out and they
actually saw the guy shoot some.

They actually would have been interested
in that part. How did they catch this guy?

Did they do a stake out for the BB?

Oh, man, I just, again, I kind
of come with a cool nickname.

BB King, that wasn’t bad.
That’s not good, but it’s not bad.

When they arrested him,
they went of course, search his

house and they found eight
airsoft guns and confiscated them.

So he was obviously some sort
of collector. He enjoyed airsoft.

He enjoyed these kind of guns.
He enjoyed, you know, BB guns.

Couldn’t, couldn’t control
himself. So this is one of those

things like if this continues,
if this is sort of sparks off,

these things sort of come in
trends. So if I now get like three,

four, five more stories of people
shooting other people with BB guns,

even if they’re like
non-lethal, I could see Japan

just like, okay, we’re going
to do a BB gun control.

Again, I don’t know what I’ve said. In the time
I’ve been doing the indigenous Japan, there’s

a couple of things that have become sort of
controlled that weren’t controlled before.

Crossbows was the one
that sticks out the most.

The crossbows were not a
controlled weapon system thing.

And then there were like two
or three murders over a couple

of months or attempted
murders and then they became a

controlled thing. Now you
have to be licensed and stuff.

Japan doesn’t mess around like
if you do attempted murders or

attempt to hurt other
people with stuff, they already

have like knives and stuff.
They’re already controlled.

If I’m carrying around a knife
and I don’t have a reason for

carrying right a knife, I can be
arrested for carrying that knife.

So this is one of the thing tourists
who come to Japan, I used to carry a

pocket knife. You just carry a Swiss
Army knife with me wherever I went.

Primarily for the screwdriver,
but if I now get caught and I

don’t actually have a reason
for carrying that Swiss Army knife,

you can technically be arrested
for that. There’s supposed to be a

size limit on the blade, but they
don’t actually take that seriously.

They’ll hold you for the
full like 20 days just to

cause your life a lot of
problems. When he was arrested,

he was asked why he did
this and he said to the police,

“I wanted to shoot people
and see their reaction.

” The reaction couldn’t
have been that big because no

one seems to have been
significantly injured enough to

like go to the
hospital or report this.

A lot of people don’t seem
to have reported it at all.

So the reaction couldn’t have
been that big, so was it worth

getting arrested for? And he
got all his guns confiscated and I

Gonna go ahead and bet
those were expensive guns.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Too Old For Time

(techno music)

There have been a rise in incidences
of tourist using rideable suitcases.

So a few weeks ago, we had a Chinese lady.

She was using her motorized suit case
to travel around the sidewalk in Japan.

I think it was in Osaka.

She was arrested because she
was violating the Motor Vehicles Act.

She said, “I don’t
consider this a vehicle.

” And I thought that was
a very interesting defense

because I don’t think it’s that thing,
therefore you can’t arrest me for that thing

is a very interesting
way of thinking about it.

It’s sort of the entitled nature
of the modern person, I think.

But because these incidences
of becoming more common,

it’s important to know how things
are classified in the country you’re in.

So motorized suitcases are
classified as motorized bicycles.

So anything under 50cc, so electric bikes,
these electric suitcases, all these things,

if they’re probably under 50cc engine,
they are all classified together right now,

probably electric scooters
as well, as motorized bicycles.

If you wanna ride one, you need to
have a license in the safety equipment.

So of course, what does that mean?

What kind of safety equipment do you need
to ride your suitcases down the sidewalk?

Well, I think actually the first problem is

you shouldn’t be riding
this thing down the sidewalk.

That’s one of the rules
of motorized bicycles.

So you need to register your vehicle.

So you bring your suitcases to Japan,

you need to register it if
you wanna ride it around.

It needs a rear view mirror.

It needs turn signals.

So these are really small.

I don’t think, like, their
turning circle is so small.

I don’t think anyone
actually have a chance to like

dodge out of the way if
you actually were signaling.

I think the whole point is
that these are supposed

to be ridden on the
road and not the sidewalk.

So rear view mirror, turn signals.

You need liability insurance,
and you have to wear a helmet.

So if you wanna ride your suitcase,
you gotta get your helmet on.

You gotta get your license
and registration ready.

You have to have insurance
in case you have an accident,

and you have to have a rear
view mirror and turn signals.

That is gonna be one pimped out suitcase.

And I think we now have
our new show for Luda Chris.

I actually now forget that
joke would have worked

if I could have remembered who was actually
the guy who did the “Pimp My Ride” show.

I suppose I could look it up.

I could, the power of editing
means I could look it up.

And then like erase that mistake.

And it would seem as if I
knew my pimped my ride culture.

But I think I’m pretty
comfortable in knitting I don’t.

So we had the Ubisoft
releasing Assassin’s Creed.

I think it’s shadows,
it takes place in Japan.

And there was a petition.

So we did a story on a
petition again a few weeks ago.

These are all sort of the update bits.

The petition got to about 80,000
signatures, which is a lot of signatures.

They’re basically
saying you are being

inaccurate in your
depiction of Japanese history.

You are being dishonest
in your presentation

of Japan as a culture,
that kind of stuff.

I, my counter argument was I am currently
playing a game called Like a Dragon Ishing.

And it is your samurai and you go around
and you beat people up and take their money.

I may be that is accurate.

Anyways, I would say a
lot of things that happen.

Culturally in video games are not accurate
and that’s kind of the whole point.

Ubisoft came out with a statement
to try to respond to all of this.

I said, “While Yaski, so Yaski is
one of the two main protagonists.

“There’s a female ninja
and this black dude samurai.

“He’s actually
very famous, Yaski.

” Now the problem has come up,
it’s turned out in like about 2015.

This guy wrote a book called Yaski, the
true black samurai or something like that.

The original black samurai,
maybe the first black samurai.

I didn’t get the title.

Turns out that guy who wrote that book
edited the Wikipedia page to say some stuff

that would match better with his book as
opposed to maybe being factually accurate.

That’s some pretty shady stuff.

That shouldn’t reflect too
poorly on Ubisoft in this case

because this is an author
trying to change the narrative

so that his book could be more popular
’cause he’s maybe he’s discovered something.

But Ubisoft has said like look,
there’s a lot of people talking about this.

Some people seem to be upset.

Let’s clear the air.

So their statement is,
“While Yaski is depicted

“as a samurai in Assassin’s
Creed shadows, “we acknowledge

that this has been a matter
“of debate and discussion.

” So the not saying he
wasn’t, they’re not saying it was.

A lot of people are saying
that Yaski was not a samurai.

Maybe he was a lower
level tier because again,

Japanese society at that
time was very hierarchical.

He was maybe an assistant to a samurai,

maybe not on par with a samurai
I think is what they’re saying.

Back to the quote, “We
have woven this carefully

“into our narrative and with our other
lead character, “the Japanese Shinobi, Noi,

“who is equally important in the game,
“our dual protagonists provide players

“with different
game play styles.

” So they’re not apologizing.

They’re just saying, look, there’s
a story that this guy’s a samurai.

We thought that was pretty neat.

We also got a girl, you don’t
even have to play the guy,

I bet you have to
play the guy a little bit.

But essentially, why are you
focusing so much on the guy?

We got a hot girl in it.

You guys focus on the hot
girl, forget about the guy.

Some boss fight clip came out
and he walked out to rap music

and a lot of people were
deeply offended by that.

I think it’s dumb but I
wasn’t offended by it

’cause I don’t know, maybe
Yaski would’ve liked it.

That’s the problem is we don’t
know what he would’ve been down for.

And we can’t trust
Wikipedia because we know

the author of the book to
promote this character’s history

altered in order to
coincide with the release

of the book so that it
would be more accurate.

Then it came out that
this was being discussed

in the government in Japan
and I thought, wow, that’s weird.

The government in Japan
discussing video games

because again, they
don’t discuss Mario Kart.

They don’t discuss like a dragon Yakuza.

These are media properties,
whether they’re accurate

or not, it’s kind of
irrelevant to the government.

So what happened was there’s
a guy, he’s part of the NHK party.

The last month, maybe we’ve
talked about the posters that the

NHK party has put up for the
gubernatorial election in Tokyo.

They are making a mockery of the elections.

They’re putting up porn stars.

They’re putting up lonely people.

They’re selling the spaces
to just anyone so like a

social media influencer
wants to put their poster up.

They would sell them their space.

They don’t take it seriously.

So this is essentially a joke party

that tries to find not
significant issues in Japan

and then tries to push
them to the forefront

so that people start
taking them seriously or not.

I don’t know, it’s hard to see
what their actual end goal is

because they’re spending
their time actually doing this.

I guess if I could get paid to
say dumb stuff to the other

members of government,
that wouldn’t be a terrible job.

This guy, one of the guys from this
party that’s essentially a joke party

’cause there’s about
five, six members in the

government ’cause they do
here and there get voted in.

I think that would actually
be like a protest vote,

like everyone else is so
bad we’re voting for the joke.

NHK party asks for comments

because they had concerns
over the historical inaccuracies.

Again, they didn’t do this
for any of the Yakuza games

any of the other samurai, how
many samurai games have I played.

Historical inaccuracies
would just be rife in the game.

Yeah, it’s a fictional thing.

And that’s maybe why I’m like, why
are you spending any time on this at all?

The Japanese Foreign Minister said, this
is not our concern, pretty good statement.

I mean, he’s like, look,
there’s an American video

game company making
video game, it’s set in Japan.

Whether it’s accurate or
not, we don’t give a shit,

we got other stuff to
do, we got North Korea,

we got Russia, we got other actual
things that we have to deal with.

The education minister said,
please don’t violate morals.

So that’s it, like you’re making a video
game, kids are gonna play the video game,

try to keep a certain
amount of morality in it.

I mean, they also know
what video games you like.

So they’re like, not even
saying it too strongly.

They’re like, you know, do
your best, don’t violate sort of

humanity and morality and
be nice people, pretty accurate,

pretty fair statement from
the Minister of Education.

The NHK party, though I just
found out, lost their political

party status this year because
two members were expelled.

So basically they didn’t have
enough members in parliament

anymore to be considered
an actual political party.

So I’m wondering if that’s
gonna have any effect

on them later, ’cause I
guess you can still try

to run for office even if
you’re not a political party.

But the NHK name now, the
NHK party name is now being

sullied to the degree where even
the joke isn’t worth it anymore.

(keyboard clicking)

There is a bar in Shinjuku called Okubo Bar,
and it is an Italian bar and restaurant.

Not very interesting.

There’s lots of bars, lots of Italian
bars and restaurants in Shinjuku, I’m sure.

This is actually on the
border of what you would call

korea town in Tokyo, on
the window of the restaurant.

This is why they got attention.

They’d written in sort of
that chalk ink stuff marker.

They’d written on the
window of the restaurant.

Although diversity and
tolerance may be fashionable,

and I was like, you
can stop right there.

With the beginning of
this statement laid out

the way it is right there, you
know it’s not gonna get better.

You know there’s not gonna be
an improvement or like a revelation

by the end of this, whatever
paragraph they put on the door.

These are people who
have just made a decision.

We’re gonna sink this ship
as hard in as fast as we can.

Diversity and tolerance may be fashionable.

So they’re actually
saying that there’s a time

when diversity and tolerance wasn’t
fashionable, which in Japan is very, very true.

I would not call those modern times.

Japan, I would not say it’s diverse,

but I would actually say
overall is quite tolerant.

We do get, I’m sorry, Dave’s moving around.

I’m very interested in what Dave does.

This question is used a lot.

I gotta get this used
to check that actually.

Do you want your bed in the corner?

  • I can’t get it, shoot.
  • I know what my buddy wants.

All right, if I could just
get my shoulder right here

so that he’s his heads in the picture the
whole time would be pretty cool actually.

This might be the new video.

This did be like a good
screenshot of just like Dave.

If he was sitting up, oh
he’s already laying down.

Okay, the statement continues.

We refuse to serve Chinese and Koreans as
it’s unpleasant and saps our will to work.

So there’s been again a lot
of issues with tourism in Japan.

There’s a lot of people feeling
the burden of over-tourism.

There’s a lot of restaurants saying like,

we can’t deal with foreign
people who come in who don’t

try to speak any Japanese,
who don’t learn any Japanese.

How is it our burden, that kind of thing?

There’s been the two tier
pricing has become an issue.

They have a price that’s more
expensive for foreign people

and tourists and one
that’s cheaper for locals.

And then they actually went ahead and said,

no, no, no, the tourist
is the regular price.

We just give a discount to locals,

which I thought was an
interesting way around the problem.

The most interesting, so this is an Italian
restaurant and yet Kimchi is on the menu.

So they have Kimchi on the menu,

but they’re saying we don’t
want Koreans in our restaurant.

And so it was, because it was so specific,

a lot of people on the internet were
like saying like, well, how can you tell?

If it’s a tie or a Cambodian or
some other kind of Asian person

comes in, how are you
going to be able to tell?

It’s the right kind of
person for you to hate.

The tweet with the image of
the picture got 360,000 likes.

I’m wondering if that means
that 360,000 people liked it,

like actually liked it
or they were marking it

or trying to promote it so
that other people could see.

‘Cause there’s one
way like you boost the

performance to say like,
hey, everyone look at this.

And now that everyone’s
looking at it, yeah, I don’t know.

I don’t know what that means.

Likes, ’cause remember the old Facebook,

it had the like and
they’d be like, my cat died

and then you want the
person to know you saw it

so you click like and
I liked your cat died.

So that’s kind of, there’s a
communication issue there maybe.

There’s also the irony
of this being a Italian

restaurant run by Japanese
people and they’re racist.

So if they were, I think a real racist
in Japan should just do Japanese food.

Like if you’re gonna, if you’re
gonna be racist, do it right.

Like just don’t, you wouldn’t
do no Italian, no French food,

you’re Japanese food, you
can only do Japanese food

if you’re being racist or
Japanese racist person.

Then there were people
coming up with the

issues of what if you
have a Japanese person,

what if you have a second
generation Chinese person?

So someone who’s born
in Japan speaks Chinese,

is ethnically Chinese, but
speaks Japanese perfectly.

So you can’t tell the difference.

Are you still going to refuse them service?

This is kind of the issues
of they’re making statements.

I think just to push people away, but the
statements are so broad and so unclear.

This is one of the
problems with racism is

they don’t tend to
define themselves for you.

One of the problems with racism,
they don’t really go through the efforts

that I would like to see people
put into defining themselves.

This is, in essence, illegal in Japan.

There’s the Japanese
constitution, guarantees equality.

So you technically can’t
refuse service based on ethnicity,

but at the same time management
does have the right to refuse service.

So that’s one of those sort of issues that
comes up like, is it okay, is it not okay?

You can refuse specific
customers who cause problems,

but I think they have to
cause the problem first.

So if I just walk in as a foreign person
and you say, I don’t want to serve you

because you’re a foreign
person, that’s illegal.

If I walk in and I knock over
some tables and you say,

I don’t want to serve you
because you’re knocking over tables,

the fact that I’m a foreign
person is now a relevant.

So it’ll be interesting to see if this
restaurant adapts its philosophy or goes under

or if there’s any sort
of real problem at all.

I actually, this came out
at the beginning of last week

and I haven’t heard about it since,
so I actually think it’s a non-issue now.

I think people have just decided,
I’m not going to that restaurant.

Dear Rome Nara.

So Nara City is famous for the deer that
Rome, they’re essentially domesticated.

They wander around.

At Golden Week, I went to a place called
Miojima, which also has a similar thing.

It has a lot of deer on this
island and they all roam around.

They’re all very plump.

They are vaguely interested in
you to see if you give them food.

I was walked with a couple.

It was actually very nice.

They’re very calm.

It’s very soothing.

They’ll stop.

You can take pictures with them.

They’re very, very used to
people and tourists and getting fed.

There’s a video that went a little
viral in Japan of a man in Nara.

He’s walking through a small herd of deer.

So they’re on the sort of the sidewalk.

They’re wherever the people are because
that’s again, where they can get food.

When one gets in the way and doesn’t
move immediately, he kicks it in the butt.

No, he doesn’t kick it hard, but he does
kick a deer and the deer is fairly innocent.

And if you just walk up to them,
they do move out of the way.

They are not looking for
any sort of confrontation.

These are deer.

These are not like angry animals.

They are just like trying to chill out.

They just want to live their lives.

They want nothing.

They just want food.

I mean, that’s all they really want

is to be fed all day every
day until they explode.

He moves on.

Same deer still in front of him.

He kicks it again.

Another deer looks at me.

Slaps the deer in the face.

So this went viral because you
beat the shit out of some deer.

What’s wrong with you?

Like the deer will get out of your way.

You don’t need to hit them
or kick them or do anything.

If you just nudge them, they’ll
just start to walk out of the way.

We can all agree, dick move.

But in Japan, these deer are
considered natural monuments.

So they’re actually
protected by the government.

It’s a crime to abuse the deer in any
way, which means that they are protected.

Abusing them can get you
up to five years in prison.

There’s no info on how far
the police are on in this case.

But I do know the police
are actually looking for him.

There is a video of him
with a full face on camera.

So I actually think he will not
be too hard for them to find.

An eight-year-old girl
was riding her bicycle.

A guy jumps out and
tries to steal her backpack

from the basket at
the front of the bicycle.

She stops.

She shouts to the guy, shouts stop.

She grabs her bag and she holds on them.

The guy takes off.

He’s later arrested.

Turns out it’s an American guy.

I just want to know, what are you
trying to steal from an eight-year-old?

Like, what does an eight-year-old
have that you think you’re going to steal?

Like, in that backpack.

I can tell you that when
my kids were eight years old,

they had nothing of value
or interest in their backpack.

They probably had
schoolbooks, maybe a snack.

They didn’t have any money.

They didn’t have anything of value.

I mean, they’re eight years old.

They get what I give to them to take
to school or wherever they’re going.

They don’t get anything else.

I really want to know what
this man’s motivation was

for trying to steal a backpack
from an eight-year-old girl,

only because I don’t see
any value in the act at all.

Like, the theft isn’t valuable.

Why are you attacking
eight-year-old children?

This is weird.

Is this worth getting arrested?

One of the questions I do the most often

when we talk about crime
is was this worth getting

arrested over and this
is one of the ones it’s like,

not only was the crime
not particularly good,

you weren’t going
to get anything for it.

Like, at least if I can commit a dumb crime

and get a ton of money
and I get arrested later.

I have the potential to get a ton of money.

In this case, that
potential’s not even there.

I’m fucking useless.

Three Japanese men.

Age 69, nice.

70, and 80, I shouldn’t
do that job, that’s dumb.

All right, I can’t help it.

That joke has now been drilled into me.

Three men, age 69,
70, and 88, met in prison

and they decided that
once they get out of

prison, they were going
to team up and rob houses.

They had a name.

I love when the police
give criminals nicknames.

These were the G3S.

So in Japanese, if you put those sounds
together, it sounds like grandpas, basically.

So the police were calling the grandpas

and they came up with an
essentially an acronym for them.

This is how far they’d gone.

That’s kind of awesome.

In May, they robbed a
house and they got 200 yen.

200 yen is less than $2 at
the current exchange rate.

They did also get three bottles of whiskey

that worth about 10,000
yen or something like that.

So they went off, they didn’t have any
money, but they had some party time.

Then in June, a month
later, they robbed a house

and they got jewelry
worth about a million yen.

So this is actually a real score.

So those are the two we
know of for sure at the moment.

They are suspected in 10 other burglaries.

So maybe this actually was a very
profitable thing that they were doing.

So as opposed to the
previous story I just did

where I talked about a crime that seemed
to have no value for the criminal at all.

Million yen, I mean, that’s something.

You’re actually gonna
get something out of it.

They even had like what I considered
one of the flaws of most criminals.

These guys had a plan.

They were organized.

Unlike our racist restaurant.

These guys were organized.

So the 88 year old was the
burglar, which is, at first I’m like,

wow, so the oldest guy is gonna go in and
like rummage around the house and stuff.

But maybe that’s what he was sort
of, he could do, he was known for.

The 70 year old was the driver.

So he waited outside in the
car so the 88 year old could,

I was about to say run,
hustle as best he could out of

the house, jump in the car
and they could drive away.

The 69 year old, his job
was to sell the stolen goods.

So this is it.

They had a system, they had an organization,
they had a pattern, they had a plan,

which makes me think
that the other 10 robberies,

why it took 10 robberies
for them to get caught is

’cause they actually kind of
knew what they were doing.

They were actually
doing a good criminal job.

When they were arrested,
’cause there was security cameras,

this might have been something that
when they were back committing crimes

back in the day, security cameras
weren’t as much for the thing.

There were security
cameras on two instances,

which is how they
kind of started to figure

out there was more
than one person involved,

they were older men and
they started to put it together.

They were arrested, apparently they needed
physical support while being arrested.

So the police are there,
they’re arresting the guy.

They’re basically
partially carrying the guy

to get into the police car
because he’s so old and frail.

They ask for his motive.

Again, most of the time
we don’t get a motive,

so I’m very happy
when we get a motive.

The motive for the
crimes was to make a living.

So these are three older men.

They spent time in prison.

They probably couldn’t get jobs.

They’re probably not out of pension.

They need a way to live.

So they went back to what they knew.

They started committing crimes.

So the benefit is that they
get to go back to prison

where they get fed
and are clearly familiar.

And they can try to make a better plan

if they managed to live long
enough together in prison.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Nampa Failure

The surprise cyclists,
we did a story on

him a little while ago
when he got arrested.

His whole shtick
was, he would ride his

bicycle and swerve into
traffic and then swerve

out of traffic, hopefully
not getting hit, but

he was causing a lot of
difficulty, stress, danger for drivers.

He was arrested for his reckless driving.

He’s in court now.

He claims that it was never
his intent to block traffic.

So I find that confusing
because there’s

video of him, multiple
videos of him swerving

into oncoming traffic and swerving
out of the way the last minute.

So I guess if you were
going by the absolute

letter of what he’s
saying, if you’re going

by the definitive words that came out
of his mouth, he wasn’t blocking traffic.

He was trying to swerve
into traffic and then

swerve out of traffic
at the last minute.

That’s not blocking traffic.

So maybe in this very technical
sense, he’s telling the truth.

He is recklessly driving.

He’s maybe obstructing
the flow of traffic

because the drivers
have to be more careful.

They’re hitting their brakes.

They’re doing dangerous maneuvers
in the hopes of not hitting the cyclist.

This started back in
2019 and he was wearing

like black hat and
sunglasses and a mask.

So it was very hard to identify him.

There are multiple
videos that went online

of this guy just driving, riding his bicycle
sort of insanely in and out of traffic.

He was caught in April
2024, now he’s on trial.

When asked if the charges
were accurate, I think

this might be his whole
defense is technicalities.

It says I was going 19 kilometers
an hour, but I wasn’t going that fast.

I’m wondering if his bike had a speedometer
because if you were going to be technical

with other people, like the technicality
is that they’re saying I went 19 kilometers

an hour and I’m saying
I didn’t go that fast.

Is there any way for
me to measure for me to

know that I was going less
than 19 kilometers an hour?

And when he says I wasn’t
going that fast, does he mean 18.5?

Does he mean 17?

Because again, he
seems to be working on

technicalities, not
actually, you know, was I

following the rules, the
road, was I riding my bike

in an appropriate manner,
was I not being dangerous?

He then said I wasn’t driving
in a way that would harm others.

And again, I think this
might be technically true.

He was riding in a
way that if he collided

with a van or a car or a truck or
something, he would be the injured party.

The person in the car would not be harmed.

He would be slammed into a two ton car.

So you can see like in a
way, he is telling the truth.

I was not driving away that
would harm other people.

I was driving away
that would harm me if

there was an accident and I
was causing danger in that again.

These drivers, the people on the road were
having to do their best to avoid me having

to drive in a more erratic fashion themselves,
it may be endangering other people.

So there might be like a butterfly
effect, like he causes a minivan to swerve.

It’s rose into a car that
swerves into another

thing and then hits some
people or causes a crash.

And that injures people and then other
cars are coming too fast and they hit them.

A pile up, let’s say,
that is his fault when

if again, if you’re going to be very
technical, he didn’t cause that accident.

He caused the initial
thing that caused something

that happened that caused a
domino effect down the road.

He’s primarily a danger to himself and
quite obviously not a very good lawyer.

A 26 year old was arrested for
making his car look like a police car.

This story came up before.

He had his car
painted in the black and

white police colors and he
had like an emblem put on it.

The police here have
very distinctive looking cars.

But that wasn’t enough.

He’s already gotten in trouble for that.

This is actually like the second
charge in this whole story.

Having the car look like a
police car wasn’t enough.

He needed more, he
had more of that sort of

visceral realism that
he was trying to live.

So he had someone
at a red light to the car.

So he, now red lights
in Japan, I’m pretty sure

that’s probably true
in most kind of reasons.

Red flashing lights on your
vehicle are reserved for like

emergency vehicles, police
and ambulance and whatnot.

Some of his other chargers
were using a fake police ID.

So he had like a badge
and an ID that said

he was part of the U.S.A.C.,
that said he was part of the U.

S.A.C.A. Police Department.

He has unauthorized use of official marks.

So again, he put these
official markings on his car

to make his car look
like it was a police vehicle.

What was he doing, though?

And that’s actually was again
sort of the interesting part.

He was patrolling the area.

So not necessarily always the same place.

He would go around in different
places and he would do patrols.

He pulled people over and
he took their information.

And he would like stop and talk
to people and take their information.

So he was performing
police duties in a way,

but in a completely
unofficial capacity.

He said, “I wanted
to experience how it’s

like to drive with the
emergency lights on.

” There’s a secondary
issue there, though.

So like I am a foreign
person living in Japan

and there’s a lot of
stories that go around

about foreign people getting stopped by the
police and they check your identification.

And this is perfectly legal in Japan.

If I’m a foreign person,
I’m walking around in

Japan, I’m supposed to
have my residence card

with me to say my visa status so
that you know I’m not an illegal alien.

So them stopping and
saying, “We’d like to

look at your identification,
perfectly legal, I cannot deny it.

” But what if I’m in a situation
where I don’t think you’re a real cop?

And then he pulls out
his badge and I’m like,

“Well yeah, but I
know I’ve seen a story

where someone has faked
that badge and the identification.

” So I still don’t
think you’re a real cop.

What point do we get
to where we actually have

to believe that cops are cops
and we believe in their authority?

Because if this guy
stops me and asks for

my ID, it’s perfectly with my rights to
say, “No, because he’s not a real cop.

” And how do I know
he’s not a real cop?

He has the identification.

He has the badge.

He has a car that looks like a cop car.

What do I do in that situation?

I don’t have an
answer and it would be

interesting to see if
anyone does have an answer.

But at what point,
when you’re suspicious

that a police officer
is not a police officer,

are you within your rights to
start denying their requests?

But if this guy rolls up
in his patrol car, painted

like a patrol car, then he
gets out of his patrol car.

I’m assuming he had a
police uniform of some sort.

And then flashes a badge that means
as I want to see your identification.

But there’s something just
like off about him and I go,

“No, if it’s a real cop,
I’m going to get arrested.”

So you kind of have to submit and this guy,
this is the abuse of power aspect of it.

But how much trouble should he get into?

Because we know he’s
stopped multiple people.

We know he’s taken the personal
information of multiple people.

We know he’s like interfered
with people’s day-to-day lives.

That seems significant in something
he should be significantly punished for.

But he also hasn’t hurt anybody.

That’s the bit I’m most confused by.

This would be interesting
to get a lawyer or a judge

to weigh in on what would
be an appropriate punishment.

No one was personally hurt.

He don’t know if he abused
the personal information.

But we know he did interfere with
sort of the ongoing of everyone’s lives.

And he diminished the authority
of the police department overall.

Because I, when I meet a police
officer, may be more suspicious.

That is a real police officer.

And then if I actually
get arrested because

I think this guy’s not real
cop, what happens then?

Am I in the wrong for
denying someone who I

think is not a police
officer in my information?

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

The quiz today, we
have kind of a creepy

dude, which is a very common
theme in Japanese news.

This young man is 25 years old.

He’s out in the street and
decides he wants to hit on girls.

And so he introduces
himself by asking for

directions, which is
not particularly creepy.

But then which of the
following do you think he did?

So this is where you get to
ask me questions and stuff.

We have three choices, A, he asks for
directions to a love hotel specifically.

B, he says, “Hey, I think you
have burp poop in your hair.

” Or C, “Can I take
pictures of your feet?

” You can ask me some questions.

Yeah, this is a JPEG.

You can ask me some questions.

One is correct, one is true,
and the other two I’ve made up.

So I have to fill in the blanks myself.

This is like an improv exercise.

Where is this?

This was in Tokyo.

He was basically trying
to find ways to talk

to girls to get more
involved with women.

He clearly does not have
what we would call a game.

And he’s very awkward.

So he would go up
and say, “I actually have

to admit, when I came
to Japan, I would talk

to girls by asking for
directions, but if they

didn’t see me interested,
I would just leave.

” I think that’s why I
stopped being creepy.

But he had to take it to the next
step and he had to be like, “Hey.

” This is like, what do
they call it here, nampa?

Nampa is the picking people up.

But the nampa guys,
there’s kind of two versions.

There’s like just regular
nampa, which would

be normal people
just hitting on people.

Then there’s the nampa where it’s a guy who
would stand in the station, and they always

have these like terrible suits
on, like they’re kind of ill-fitting.

And then they talk to every single girl
that walks by, and they’re like, “Almost.

” It’s basically a step
below harassment.

They’re walking with their face in the
girl’s face, and she’s usually trying to look

away from them, and then he’s just like
talking at her, and then she runs away.

Is he doing either of
those versions of nampa?

This guy, I would say
he’s hit a middle ground,

because he’s asking for directions,
which I don’t think is too bad.

You can tell if the girl
doesn’t want to give

you directions and just
walks away, he just let her go.

This is where he
made his mistake, is he

did not want to let them go if they
were not interested in speaking to him?

He’d be like, “Hey, where’s this place?

Oh, I have a secondary follow-up thing
in the hopes of engaging with her further.

” Okay.

Then maybe it could be B.

Oh, you want to make them?

Ah, so what do you think happens next?

So he says, “Hey, you
have bird poop in your hair.

This is speculation now, so we
have no idea what he actually did.”

So if that did occur,
maybe she would freak out

and be like, “Oh, where
do you have a tissue?

” Oh.

And then she would
be like, “I don’t want to.

” But if you come into
this convenience store

with me or this little,
I don’t know, bassoo

plays, I can get you
a tissue and it kind of.

He could be the hero.

He could be the hero.

Yes, he could be the hero and save the day.

That’s actually pretty good strategy.

I’m not going to do it, but
yeah, so that makes sense.

What do you think about
the aggressive tactic of?

Can you give me directions to a love hotel?

I guess it would depend,
right, because if he

approaches someone
who is very naive, maybe

they would genuinely
think he needs directions.

And then he’s like,
“Can you walk him?

” Can you walk him?

Not so man-new.

Ah, yeah.

Can you walk me there?

Yeah.

No, I mean, this is it.

A guy working at that level of social
awareness, he’s going to think that’s a really

smooth move and not
realize, like, dude, that is gross.

Yeah, he’s tipping his fedora.

I wonder what the
Japanese version of that is.

What?

What?

Well, so we have the neck beard
fedora wearing guy in North America.

I don’t know what the
Japanese version of that is.

It must just be like the otaku guy.

Maybe.

They’re different.

So it just means
that you have, like, an

obsessive interest
in, like, any field, right?

Yeah.

Otaku just means, like, super fan.

So, like, I could be an otaku game
otaku, because I play a lot of video games.

I could be a judo otaku,
because I love judo

so much, but I don’t
think I crossed the

line into being creepy or
off-putting, which they tend to.

In Japan.

Otaku, like, generally looked
at as maybe a little weird.

Yeah.

Because their, their
obsession goes to another level.

And then they’re also usually obsessed
with, like, the trains or the idle groups or

anime, and they have
low social awareness,

I think would be a pretty
standard aspect of the definition.

Okay.

So maybe it is the neck beard equivalent.

Yeah.

I think the problem with neck
beards is they think they’re smooth.

Like it’s that lack of
self-awareness, like

tipping your fedora
and going, “Melady is not

cool,” and they don’t
realize that’s not cool.

So I used to go to a
lot of anime conventions

when I lived in North
America, and I would say

most people acted,
like, relatively socially

aware, but there were
people who genuinely

thought they were
smooth, or they were, like,

kind of being the hero,
like, a white knight.

And that’s how they acted.

They would, and they would also
speak what they were doing out loud.

They would, like, narrate themselves.

Like, like, I’m coming
up to you now, or was

that, like, because
I’ve seen that in chats.

I’ve never done it, but I’ve
seen in chats where he’s

like, and then I, you know,
bite my lip, like role playing.

Yeah, it’s kind of, like, very
similar to, like, role playing in a chat.

Okay.

That seems very off-putting to me.

Yeah, but, again,
like, these, a lot of

people are not socially aware,
because they’re really chronically online.

Yeah, that’s, that this
is the feedback loop

of the internet
that’s actually going to

ruin a lot of society, is because
they meet other guys who

think that’s cool as well, and
then they get, like, reinforced.

Like, yeah, it is cool.

I do know.

It’s an echo chamber.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let’s choose one.

So, A, ask for
directions, and then get

directions to a love hotel,
B. Oh, you have some

bird poop in your hair, or C,
can I take pictures of your feet?

Which do you think it is?

I think after we spoke,
it could be A, because

it’s pretty plausible for someone
to be, like, where’s the love hotel?

Can you bring me there?

But B made sense to
me because that’s, like,

plausible story in my
brain, but, you know,

not everybody who’s socially aware
could, could probably think of that story.

Yeah.

So, like, oh, this is a good idea.

I’m going to do this.

Maybe C is too straight forward.

C is pretty aggressive.

Yeah.

You have to be pretty
confident in yourself.

I’m going to say A.

Okay.

It was B.

It was B.

Yeah.

So, what he would do
is he’d stomp the woman

and ask for directions,
and then while talking,

he would squirt some
glue into her hair,

and then tell her that it
may be a bird poop daughter.

They never, in the
stories, I tried to find more

stories, but they only
give so many details.

They never said how he
thought that would be successful.

And then he said to
have done it about 10

times, because he’s
squirting stuff into their

hair that’s sticky and
they would have to, like,

literally probably cut
their hair to get it out.

That’s now assault.

So he has 10 assault
charges pressed against him.

Oh, my God.

I know.

It is so insane.

And I don’t actually
see how that works, like,

hey, you’re, I didn’t
understand it until

you actually said what
you said, which was, then

he could be like, oh, let
me get you some tissues.

Let me help you clean up or something.

But it sounds like that
still wasn’t successful.

You did the girls, like, were they aware
that he was putting glue in their hair?

No.

It seems like–

It seems like he would be, like, maybe
check on my phone or show me something.

And then when they’re
looking at that with

his other hand, he
had, like, a squirt thing.

And he would squirt some stuff and he’d go,
oh, my God, look, you got some bird poop.

I just don’t see that as an opener.

That’s a pretty, that’s a
pretty desperate move.

It is.

It is.

This is someone who
spent way too much time

thinking about the plan and not
thinking about would this plan work.

No execution.

He’s just like, this is
definitely going to work.

So you want kids to be interested
in sort of the world around them.

You want your kids in your class to
get experience with all kinds of things.

So one of the things
that’s good for students

to know is how the
world works, politics.

So let’s take the kids
out to, like, a session

where politicians are
discussing the needs

of the people and the
issues of the day and

trying to make policy
decisions that are going

to impact you, perhaps
for the rest of your life.

Well, they did that.

They took them on a field trip
and they got to see a session.

I mean, there’s nothing
more exciting than

watching 73 year old
politicians in political discussion.

The only thing maybe
more fun than that is

catching a 73 year old
politician in a session

supposedly doing his job
playing a video game on his phone.

So none of the kids
said anything, but what

happened is when you
go back from your field

trip, you have to make
like an activity out of it.

The school has to make you do something.

So you do something
that something you do is

your right to report
and they wrote a report

and multiple children
wrote about how they saw

this politician in a session
playing a video game on his phone.

So then that of course the
teachers were like, that’s not cool.

That’s not giving the
students the impression

they should be getting from someone who’s
supposed to be like a political leader.

So they sent a
message back and they’re

like, hey, it seems like
this guy was playing

games on his phone when
he should have been doing his

job and it’s given a really
bad impression of the kids.

And then it has to go on television
and apologize, which is awesome.

And he said, he apologized
for giving children

bad memories of their field trip, which I
sort of disagree with because I think for

like an eight year old
getting a 73 year old

politician to go on TV
and apologize to you

would actually be one
of the best days ever.

This story took over my
news feed for a couple of days.

But teen kids were taken to
hospital after eating super spicy chips.

So some kid got a bag of these supers.

I remember that the
one chip challenge it

was like this big Dorito
looking thing and it

was black and it was
just covered in all kinds

of like spicy stuff
and you would eat it.

And they would
actually said like people

were having like heart
palpitations and stuff it was so hot.

It was really causing people
actual physical damage.

Similar chips still exist.

I actually think that one’s been
taken off the market because it

has caused problems multiple
times and they got sued within it.

I believe it actually had a
waiver that maybe you had

to sign but of course no
one’s forcing you to sign it.

So maybe you didn’t sign it.

But that would leave the
company open to getting sued.

So they’re saying like, you
know, kids shouldn’t eat this.

Well, some kid got his hands on
a bag of very, very spicy chips.

He gave them to 30
people, 13 girls and one boy.

I was wondering if he was giving them.

So he gave them to 30 people.

I think maybe just more
the boys didn’t admit

it because that’s kind
of like a boy thing to do.

13 girls and one boy
felt nausea, had stomach

aches, a certainly mouth pain
and they were taken to hospital.

So 14 kids out of 30 tried this chip
and were taken to hospital as a result.

It is labeled as 18 plus curry chips.

So 18 plus they’re saying
you have to meet a doll you

have to be over 18 years
old to buy and eat this chip.

But of course, everyone thinks that’s just
a marketing ploy that’s not enforceable.

You go to 7, 11 or whatever.

You get the 18 plus curry chip.

You take it to the counter, the person
flying the counter, they don’t look at it.

They’re not looking at it.

It doesn’t say 18 plus.

They flip it over, get the
barcode, scan it and off you go.

If it was something like alcohol or something,
there’s actually a button you have to

push on the register
to say that you are

actually an adult and you can buy
cigarettes and you can buy alcohol.

Chips don’t fall under
that same category yet.

This being Japan and
this many kids going to

hospital because of this, I
actually could see that happening.

On the chip maker’s
website, it says for bids,

the chip maker forbids
anyone under 18 years

old from eating them because you know every
time I buy a bag of chips, I then go to

the chip maker website to see if it’s
acceptable for me to eat those chips.

That’s just a really normal
thing that happens in the world.

So the spiciness
factor of this is this

contained jolokia which
is 200 times hotter than

Tabasco sauce and these
are Japanese kids and

there’s a very good
chance that a lot of these

Japanese kids have
never actually eaten any

spicy food, Japanese food
is not particularly spicy.

So Tabasco sauce is
already very hot, Shiracha

is already very hot
for Japanese people.

They have Japanese
versions which are toned down

virgins, it was very
Freudian all of a sudden,

toned down virgins of these hot sauces
that you can put on and they’re still good.

But I actually don’t
like things to be

excessively spicy myself but
I do enjoy slightly spicy food.

I don’t think the spice factor should
overwhelm the actual flavor of the food.

When you do that,
you’re actually there’s no

point in eating the food anymore,
you might as well just ingest the spice.

So a chip like this
that is so hot you don’t

taste any chip or
anything other than the

spice, I’m thinking it
would be more efficient

to just put the spice
directly in your mouth

and then like talk about
how much of a man you

are, but kids do gotta
be careful when the chip,

the chip company did
say like this is not for

kids, there’s tons of
warnings on the bag,

this is spicy stuff, they
did it to themselves,

I don’t have a lot of
sympathy for them.

So we have a shoe thief, we haven’t done a
lot of these people who steal tons and tons

of stuff lately and
it’s because there’s

nothing to be said that
I haven’t said before.

It’s not like I’m against
these stories or I’m

going to stop these
stories but the reality

is I say it so many
times, I get bored of it,

but this was again a significant
number and this guy had a whole thing.

This man was accused
of stealing 29 pairs of

indoor shoes from an
elementary school, so

it’s Japan, so you can’t walk around in
the building with your outside shoes on.

So kids, when they
go to school, they have

their outside shoes,
they come in, they change

into their inside shoes and then they
walk around the building, they go to class.

I would think this would
be really normal for

gyms, like you have outside shoes and then
you change them into your gym shoes that

are clean and you go around
your gym wearing your gym shoes.

You don’t want to
bring the outside stuff

inside and vice versa,
you take your outside

shoes off when you’re
about to leave, you

put on your outside
shoes and then you leave.

So this was not a weird thing
that there are inside shoes.

They’re really hefty
slippers just because kids,

they’re going to wear
through them, they’re

going to run around,
they’re going to be psychotic.

He was caught stealing 29
pairs of these kids indoor shoes.

They, of course, then
searched his residence

and they found 4,000
pairs of shoes in his house.

They were like, what are
you doing with these shoes?

This is always the
bit that I’m always like,

mmm, because creepy
dudes, stealing, creepy

stuff, doing creepy, I assume
they’re doing creepy things with them.

I mean, sometimes good, they don’t say what
they’re doing, but at the same time it’s

like, why do you kind of want to
know what they’re doing with them?

Just so that I can have like, is
this dirty thing, is it a pervy thing?

This guy sold between 4 to 5,000
pairs as used goods on the internet.

So he actually seems like
he wasn’t doing creepy stuff.

He was stealing shoes
from the school, going

home, putting them on
Metcote or some other

like Yahoo auctions
or something and selling

them as secondhand
goods like, oh, my children

have worn out their shoes.

They don’t need them anymore.

They’re still a good pair.

I’ll sell them to you.

And that’s a way he was making money.

So this guy may not be pervy.

My concern is that he
was selling to pervy people.

Like a website like MacKara, we’re
probably not buying it for pervy purposes.

They were like, oh, a cheap pair of shoes.

My kid needs new shoes.

Let’s buy those shoes.

He denies the allegation of theft.

So we’ve discovered 4,000
pairs of shoes in your apartment.

You’ve been selling those shoes online.

We caught you stealing 29 pairs of
shoes, probably to replenish your stock.

Did you, do you want to
admit to stealing those shoes?

He’s like, no, never stole anything.

Now I have a lot of
respect for that as a

criminal because the Nile means
the police have to do their job.

And there could be a mistake made on
the way and you might get away with this.

It would be in his
best interest to slough

stealing shoes
because now he has that

accusation in the past
and that doesn’t go away.

If he gets off and
I’m hoping he doesn’t,

it would be in his
best interest to shift to

some other thing to
steal or try another form

of crime, which is always
one of the mistakes

that criminals make
is they always go back

and do the thing they
know, which is the thing

they’ve been caught for
was the police then find

it more easy to catch
you for in the future.

[MUSIC]

Fully Autonomous Podcast

The Gunma Prefectural Convention – I mean,
you talk about Japan being wild in the 90s.

I don’t think those guys
ever understood what

it was going to be like to go to a
political convention for Gunma Prefecture.

Of course, there got
wild, an 88-year-old man

decided to tell everyone how
to fix Japan’s birth problem.

I’ve talked about it many times.

The government trying to get
people together awkward and weird.

The government is trying to
give people money to have babies.

Okay, it only works if you really
want to have babies in the first place.

They’ve had some solutions this guy.

He’s like, “You know what, shut up.

I’ve got this.

I’ve got it solved.

I’ve got it worked out.

You don’t need to talk anymore.

It just doesn’t mean everyone.

Shh.

Listen to the man speak.”

He said, “It’s not the
government’s job to

supplement the economic
burden of having a child.

” I mean, I guess very
technically that could

be true if the government didn’t
want people to have more babies.

So if the government wants the population
to increase, if the government wants people

to have babies, then
it is the government’s

responsibility to try
to make that happen to

try to support people in
their efforts to make babies.

Little wages in Japan have
dropped for 26 months in a row.

So, basically, inflation has gone
up, wages have been stagnant.

So your real earning
potential has dropped

every month for the
last two years and more.

So then what is a solution?

He’s saying, “Look, we’re
not giving you money.

Giving you money
isn’t going to do it.

” And I actually think partially right, I
think giving money is a good idea because

you want babies that are
born to have food and stuff.

So they survive into
being more than just babies.

So what do you do?

If men have their act together, women
will, without fail, have their children.

Even if you don’t ask,
they will think, “I want

to have a baby for the
sake of the husband I love.

” Do men ask for babies?

Like I would say, if
you took the most

traditional view of the
male-female relationship,

it’s generally the woman
who wants the babies.

I’m not saying that’s true.

I’m not saying it’s
universal, but I’m saying

it’s a stereotype and a stereotype
based on just a drop of reality.

It’s generally not the men who
are gung-ho about having kids.

I actually know a couple of
people who do guys who do want

to have kids and they want
to have more and more kids.

So 100% I know that’s
a real thing, but I’m

thinking, if we’re talking
about the population

of the country, so we
have to broad strokes,

general swaths, men don’t tend
to go around asking for babies.

They do ask for the baby making process,
but they don’t ask for babies themselves.

He’s making it sound like
having a baby’s reward,

and while I wouldn’t say it’s a
punishment, he’s absolutely not a reward.

It can be rewarding, but I
would say that comes later.

He’s also very much
in heavily implying that

money is at the issue, but I
don’t think money is the issue.

I think work-life balances the issue.

I’ve talked about this a billion times
now, so I’m very hesitant to say that

the same thing again and
again and again every week.

So I haven’t said it in a long
time, so I am going to say it now.

The work-life balance in Japan is the
reason why people are not having babies.

People are not having babies
because people do not get together.

People do not get together because
they don’t have time to get together.

They don’t have time
to meet people and form

relationships and have
relationships outside

of work because they’re
working all the time.

Therefore, they don’t
think about having kids.

They’ve created a situation where women are
so career-focused, but then give them no

support if they want to have
children as well as a career.

They don’t give enough
people enough options and

this is, again, the
government’s responsibility.

If the government
wants the population to

increase in Japan, the
government is going to

have to do something to make that happen
and I think the first thing they need to do

is put a really significant
restriction on overtime.

They have found at maximum people tend to
be able to work for about six hours a day.

There might be like,
again, unique individuals.

They can do 12, 13,
14, 15 hours of solid

work that’s really
good for the entire time.

The average person isn’t and you’re not
hiring individual rock stars all the time.

You’re hiring average
people most of the time.

So making them stay and
work late is not beneficial to you.

It’s not beneficial to the company.

It’s not beneficial to the population.

It’s not beneficial to human relationships,
which is what, at the end of the day, this

is all about, which is exactly what this 88
year old man does not understand because he

has not changed his thinking since
those wild parties in the 80s and 90s.

Previously we talked
about a Chinese man who I

think he was iron-headed
something, iron-head

dong maybe, he came to Japan from China
and he went to Yasukuni Shrine and Yasukuni

Shrine is very
controversial because it is

where soldiers, veterans
and stuff, they are

on tomb there is where
people go to pray for

them but World War
II, a lot of war crimes.

So it is seen internationally,
China and Korea

specifically, as a place that
has enshrined war criminals.

So politicians going to pray there is very
controversial internationally and whatnot.

This guy came and he said
I’m going to make a statement.

His statement didn’t match his actions.

His statement was that they shouldn’t
release water from Fukushima into the ocean.

He said, “Since you
guys are treating the

world like a toilet,
I’m going to treat this

place like a toilet and he climbed up on
like a thing that said Yasukuni Shrine like

a big pole made of stone and he peed
on it and he spray painted toilet and red.

” He went off back to
China, didn’t get arrested

and the Chinese police are saying, “Yeah,
which I actually think is a fine response.

Since there is no
extradition treaty and the

relationship isn’t
that good, I don’t see

why you would extradite
one of your citizens

back to Japan, but there
were two other people involved.

“

So you know there
was someone holding the

camera and the police want that guy
and they have all three other names.

There’s also the guy who
bought the spray paint.

That guy was arrested the other day.

Now, here’s the question.

They did in total 4.2 million
yen worth of damage to that post.

So the spray paint, I
guess they have to clean

it off, pee, I mean
you just wash it off.

I don’t see how that
comes to 4.2 million yen.

I’m not arguing because I
don’t know anything about it.

I guess trying to get the paint
off without damaging the rock

and maybe it’s marble or
something special, I don’t know.

But are they going
to lay it all on this

one guy or are they going to try to
use that to lure the other guy’s back?

Because the other
guy, the first guy, the

guy in the video said very clearly,
“I’m not going back to Japan.

” Why would I?

I went there, committed a crime,
filled it, filmed it, and stuck it online.

So yeah, it actually makes
sense that he wouldn’t come back.

I don’t think he is going to come back.

I think his friend who’s been
arrested here is screwed.

The question is, do they get the
guy who filmed it, the cameraman?

That’ll be an interesting question.

But if that guy’s smart, he’s
back in China already as well.

We have also talked about, this is kind of
like an updates of recent stories episode.

We’ve talked several
times over the last

month about the gubernatorial election
process in Tokyo where they put up posters.

The NHK party, which
is a legitimate, in its

sense party, because
it’s a real party, they’re

just not particularly
serious about the issues.

They’re not actually trying to
push things through in a serious way.

They’re there making a
mockery of democracy,

which I actually don’t
have a problem with.

It’s just I sort of think
some of the stuff they say

could be useful to actually
say in a serious way.

That’s a whole side issue.

I think underneath they
have beliefs, but they’re

not actually getting those beliefs across,
which I think is a wasted opportunity.

What they did as a party is they
bought all these spaces on these things.

So for a very limited
period of time in

Japan, you’re allowed
to put up a poster, your

election poster, as you want to
become the governor of Tokyo.

They bought up a whole bunch of extra ones
and then they sold them to just anybody.

So we had a girl who’s like a kick box or
a girl who wanted people to follow them in

social media, someone
who put a picture of

their dog up, someone
who just put up a poster

the same poster many,
many times, a woman

who’s in the NHK party,
who is a adult actress.

She put up pictures
of herself very lightly

censored in a full spread
Eagle pose, basically.

So then went out to
the people and they said,

Hey, do you think we
need to change the rules?

Not surprisingly, 76.2%
said they feel there

should be a revision
in the candidate posters

law and the rules that
govern them therein.

I mean, I actually think this has proven a
weird point in that you got to kind of take

the government stuff seriously if you
want people to actually take it seriously.

So again, I do believe
there is value to

people trying to exploit
these rules and trying

to show make a mockery
of government, but

at the same time, I’m also,
I flip flop back and forth.

I mean, also how else
are you supposed to get

anything done if you don’t
start taking it seriously?

Japan last week, I mentioned that
Japan introduced new bank notes.

There’s a thousand yen,
5,000 yen, 10,000 yen note.

There’s new ones very exciting.

I got paid last week.

I went to the bank and I got a whole bunch
of money up, did not get any new pills.

I don’t expect to
actually see one for a

while, someone’s going
to roll into the office

and be like, Hey, I
got the new bill and

everyone’s actually going to
crowd around and look at it.

I do get vaguely interested in it.

It’s only exciting for about 10 minutes,
but still, you know, it’s a new thing.

So everyone wants to see the
new thing and maybe look at the

new security features and
hold it up to the lightning stuff.

But a new run of money
means that people who

collect things like money got
a new thing to be interested in.

And I learned a little
bit about the money

system, which was
interesting on Yahoo auction.

If you go on Yahoo
auction, you can buy 1,000,

5,000, 10,000 yen
bills, but it’s auction.

So the price is going up and up and up.

Some of these are
selling for more than 40

times more than the
actual value of the bill

itself officially
collectors add value by

saying, you know, it’s
rare or I want this thing.

What do the collectors want?

So this was the bit I
wouldn’t have known

nothing about the serial number on the
first run of bills has a double a on it.

So be a and that means that is
part of the first run of those bills.

When it gets all the way
through, it switches to a B.

That’s the second run of bills and then
a C and it keeps going and going going.

Once it gets to ZZ,
so it goes through the

whole alphabet, they hit the start again,
but they change the color of the ink.

So that was another
thing I didn’t know about

if you get AA and AA
and you compare the

two ink colors, you can tell which
one came first and which one came later.

A 1,000 yen note
with 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 on it.

That’s six sevens I may
have said more I didn’t count.

I count people shooting bullets in
movies, but I didn’t count the sevens.

I just read off a piece of paper.

Six sevens on in a row is
right now worth 28,000 yen.

So the serial number itself, if it’s
unique, collectors will pay for that.

This one I don’t understand,
so I’m going to go looking for it.

If you have ZZ, 555,
Z, that is worth 500,000

yen, half a million yen for a
bill with that serial number.

So should you get one
of these new bills, take

a moment if it’s still
early days and look

at the serial number,
maybe you got one of

those double A’s, maybe
you got an AA with some

unique lettering in it, you might be
able to sell that online for a profit.

I do know license plates,
like you can pay for

license plates in Japan and the
Yakuza always get dot, dot, dot, eight.

So it basically has
nothing, just a number

eight in it and those I think
are super, super expensive.

It’s funny to me that it’s a Yakuza
thing to get this license plate.

The government sells
you that license plate

for money, but then
you’re basically telling

the police, I am or I think I am a Yakuza,
which doesn’t seem like the greatest idea.

I think maybe Yakuza are not
very good criminals all the time.

Japan editors from
Kodansha went to California

and they went to a
convention, they started

speaking to up and
coming, want to be artists

like I want to be a manga
artist, I want to be a bit mean.

They want it, but they
want to be manga artists.

They would start talking
about like how do you

improve, how do you
improve your skills, how

do you improve your
art, how do you improve

your story, how do you
improve your structure,

how should your
character design reflect the

character in the book, how
does it affect the side character?

These are all really
useful, interesting stuff.

These guys obviously know
what they’re talking about.

Then they got into
Americans, spend too much

time making merch for those of you
in the audio version of the podcast.

I am now pulling my
shirt back to make sure

the chunk of McBeaf
Chest Academy martial arts

shirt I am wearing is seen
within the borders of the video.

Again, there’s a difference in the way
the world works or how the cost of living.

I don’t know specifically, I’ve never lived
in America and I certainly haven’t lived

in America in modern
times, but I’m going

to go ahead and guess
it’s more expensive to

live in most places
in America than it is to

live in Japan, Japan
has a lot of services.

Despite our earlier
story of declining wages

over the last 26 months,
if you have the same

salaries before and you live a
frugal life, you actually live quite well.

All the stories I read online though, it
is stories online, so I don’t want to make

any strong statements about
what it’s like to live in America,

but I’m betting making money is
important to survival in America.

If you want to be a
manga artist in America,

let’s just say it is
unlikely you’re going

to get a massive payday right away, so you
have to find some way to supplement your

art to make money for your art, and it seems
like the way to do that would be merch.

So I do sell chunky
beef chest t-shirts, I have

books that I am
publishing that I’m selling,

I have other things
I’m trying to do, I’m

just, I’m not trying to
be greedy, I’m trying

to supplement my income so I
can do this stuff that I want to do.

If I ever got to a point where I could
quit my 40 hour a week job and do this full

time, that would be like
a dream come true for

me, but realistically
speaking I know that’s

not likely, so I keep
the 40 hour full time job.

Some people would
say that means I don’t

believe in myself, but
I have to feed children.

I have a very realistic view
on the chances of success

in any format, podcast,
YouTube, streaming or whatever.

I know the reality
and therefore I know, I

should keep my 40 hour
a week job, retirement

could be really good for
me, because most people

who work and work and
work and then they retire,

they don’t have to do
them with themselves,

whereas I, if I just
keep doing this, I would

have a full set of
things I enjoy doing in my

free time and now it
becomes all my free time.

So then maybe it could actually be popular,
it could be one of those really old people

who gets popular on
the internet for just being

old, those people all seem
to be good at something.

I’m actually thinking about the streamers
like, there’s the Call of Duty Granny

lady, and then there’s the old guy who used
to be like a sniper in the military and

he streams, but he like
uses actual calculations

and has like a notepad and then it
starts nailing people miles across the map.

Yeah, they have skills
and the granny’s good.

She’s really good at Call of Duty.

I’m not actually good at anything.

I think now I’ve actually seen my actual
fatal flaw as to why I have to keep my day

job and it’s not because
of dedication or belief

in myself, it’s not
actually good anything.

Oh fuck, that was the saddest
story I’ve ever done in my life.

Japanese government has set a policy
on fully autonomous weapon platforms.

This has actually
come up in NATO, so it’s

not like Japan just
did this out of nowhere.

I cannot talk about
any military aspects of

Japan and not immediately start
thinking about are they developing Gundam.

As we all know, Gundam or piloted, it’s an
AI system that learns as it does combat and

connects with the pilot and then
they sort of feed off each other.

I think that’s a really interesting idea.

The movie Atlas that came out very recently
on Netflix, very mediocre movie, not bad.

I mean, people were trashing it.

These are not
terrible, it’s just there’s

nothing new or interesting
in it really, nothing unique.

Had the same sort of premise, like you had
to sink the pilot and the machine and the

AI and then working
together, you could be

a more effective fighting
machine, touch up.

That kind of stuff.

They were saying that
human control has to be

a principle and should
be maintained because

human involvement is required
because humans can be held accountable.

So once you make a machine and that machine
makes a decision and decides to like kill

an orphanage, you can’t really
hold that machine accountable.

You can turn it off,
but no one actually

gets punished, no one
has to think about it.

That does imply that
there are everyone involved

with weapons is moral, might be an issue
as far as I’m concerned, because there are

bad people and bad
people would do bad things

even with non-autonomous
weapon platforms.

Then weirdly, they got into the benefits of
autonomous weapon platforms because there

would be less human
error and they have

significant, it would
actually deal with significant

manpower shortages which ironically is
exactly what Japan is dealing with right now.

Japan’s population is shrinking.

The military is not
particularly a tractive career

path, very few people
are joining the military.

Therefore, the military
in Japan is shrinking,

is having more trouble
getting people, autonomous

weapon platforms
would actually be the

solution, but here’s where
you get them because

they’ve done manga posters in the past, and
they weren’t particularly successful, but

you could get nerdy dudes,
manga fans and whatnot.

The nerdy group is what
they’re actually going for.

When they made manga posters,
there was a target audience.

That target audience didn’t
go for the posters alone.

They did try to collect
the posters and maybe

went and collected some
military paraphernalia,

but they did not
actually join the military.

These are the people
who are like technology

and computers, and
if you sell it that way,

you will be piloting
technology and computers

and things like that
working on a computer

in your comfort zone and
contributing to the military.

That might be more appealing.

This is where the, it’s
not going to be a gun

dome, it’s going to be
more like a guy sitting

at a desk with a
bank of computers and

monitors and keyboard
and controller and stuff.

Controlling systems from afar, but he would
be in his comfort zone and probably very

effective because this is sort
of the environment he’s used to.

There is a way to make this work
if they are actually serious about it.

Here’s the last story, I wanted
to cleanse our palette a little bit.

The most popular pet names
from last year, for male dogs, for

the last nine years, the most
popular pet name has been Leo.

I guess Jeff needs to be Leo, but I think
it’s like lion, the most popular female dog

name.

Over the last year,
nine years, so these two

names have been the
most popular names for

the last nine years in a row
together, running in parallel.

Female dog name, cocco, so you have Leo and
cocco, if you have two dogs, it’s a male

and a female.

The most popular male cat
name for the last nine years.

Can you guess what it is, given
the hints that just came previously?

It is Leo, the most popular
female cat name for the

last two years, so this
one’s going to be different.

We found this interesting
because my first

thought is, I’ve heard
this name before, Luna,

which is I believe is
the cat from Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon’s quite old,
but it’s come back in a

couple of iterations, so,
or maybe it’s still back.

I’m not watching a lot of
Sailor Moon these days.

The most popular combined
names, so this could

be male dog, female
dog, male cat, female

cat, just overall, combined
pet name in Japan

is, oh, this is where I
should have done the quiz.

I did do a quiz today because
I didn’t organize myself.

I actually had a holiday yesterday.

That actually seems to
have made my organization

worse because I do
everything set on schedules

and I took yesterday and did a
different project because it was a day off.

Did not organize a quiz.

I do need people, if you would like to join
the quiz, because it’s like a 10, 15-minute

Zoom call, we could do it on
Discord, send me a message.

I’m going to be
interested in gmail.

com, speakpipe.com,
speakpipe.com/chongandbeefchast.

I would love to have anyone who listens to
the podcast on and we can do a little quiz.

The quizzes are not meant to be hard.

We have a little chat, we do the
quiz, I tell the story, give the answer.

If we can get more people doing it,
I actually might start keeping score.

It’s going to be an engineer
in Japan versus the world.

And then when I get real serious
about those quizzes, it can be hard.

My only concern though
is we run into a story

that the person I would be
speaking to is already right about.

So that’s going to be the hardest part
of managing that if I get to that point.

But the big reveal, the
most popular combined

male female dog cat
name last year was Mugi.

I feel like there should be
some sort of flourish after

that, but I don’t know
what the flourish would be.

It’s going to turn
us up, popcorn, it’s a

pretty good name for a
pet, Fukuru, and Giorno.

I think it’s Japanese
would be Giorno, but if

I read it, it looks
Italian so I say Giorno

and I have to do the
do a hand gesture with it.

Now, surprisingly
non-emolist, Dave, best

animal pet name ever, I
mean any animal should

be called either Dave
or Stephen, regardless

of gender, I mean,
gender is irrelevant.

If you’re going to call it, if you have an
animal and you want to give it a name that

I would prefer, like a
Penelope, but then you

just can call it pen,
something like that.

But single syllable is
to me one of the more

appealing aspects of a pet
name, it should be single syllable.

And I do know from my days
working in dog food when I

read training books, it
should have a hard sound in it.

So that’s why Dave
is a good name for an

animal because the animal
doesn’t often know their name.

They hear that syllable in that tone
and that’s what gets their attention.

So when you’re naming your next pet, popcorn
would actually be really good because

the pop is probably
what’s going to get their

attention, Leo, not a great choice
because it has all kind of soft sounds.

Cocoa, pretty good,
two hard sounds in a row,

Luna, cats aren’t paying
attention to you anyways.

Cocoa, it’s the key, it’s the key,
is going to actually probably get it.

So if you’re thinking
about naming your pet,

certainly I would not
recommend using the

most popular names in Japan,
but I think it should be Dave.

[MUSIC]

Petition Your Own Games

(upbeat music)

January last year, a whale
wandered into the Yoda River.

This is a bad thing, it’s Neurosaka.

It means that the whale was probably lost.

Japanese media immediately
sort of globbed onto

this whale and gave it
Yoda Cha is the nickname.

Excellent nickname, you
know, really create sort of

a support and feeling
for the whale, it then died.

The whale was then sunk.

And it might not to underline that

because they don’t explain
what they did to sink the whale.

How do you sink a whale like it?

Of course, I only can think of torpedoes.

Now, I’m sure there is a much more gentle,

more meticulous way
of doing the sinking of

the whale, but the whale
had to be disposed of.

It couldn’t just sit
there and rot in the river.

Contractor was hired
by the city to sink the

whale and then remove
as much as they could.

The city estimated the
cost at 20 million yen,

but at the end of the
ordeal, it cost 80 million yen.

So four times more than the projected
cost is what they ended up paying.

A civil group is very angry
about this, not about the whale.

They’re angry that no other firm was
considered, which makes the contract illegal.

So basically, the city was like,

we’re gonna contract these guys
to take care of this dead whale.

I mean, we’re gonna pay them.

We sign a contract with them.

And then the contract quadrupled
in price, and they just paid it.

And they didn’t talk to any other contractor
about whether or not they could do it.

So there’s non competition.

The government isn’t supposed to
show this kind of bias towards a company.

This could be some
sort of like nepotism,

favoritism, any other tism
you wanna put in there.

They’re suing the city
for contract rigging.

That is not a great first story.

I think I’m just gonna not
do that as the first story.

Let’s start again, starting
again is good for your health.

(upbeat music)

There’s been a petition created in Japan

to cancel the upcoming game, Assassin’s
Creed Shadows, which takes place in Japan.

Now, a lot of people who like
the Assassin’s Creed video games,

they’ve been saying like, why don’t we
have one of these video games in Japan?

‘Cause it’s a historical thing.

Japan’s really cool settings,
swords, jumping around, fighting.

It’s all perfectly sensible.

It makes a lot of sense for
this game to exist in Japan.

Well, let’s read the statement
that these guys put out.

This is from change.org, and
it has nearly 50,000 signatures,

which is the first goal, I guess,
for someone to take it seriously.

Recently, the lack of historical
accuracy and cultural respect

has been a serious issue
regarding the upcoming game,

Assassin’s Creed Shadows,
by game developer Ubisoft.

The game is based on Japanese
samurai and ignores the fact

that samurai were a higher class of
warrior, a higher class of warrior class,

and should have been
gokini, or servants of nobles.

In fact, the first European to
receive the title of a samurai,

William Adams, which I believe
is the main character, Neo.

Served to Tokugawa, Esu,
as the 250th Koku Atamoto.

In this history,
Ubisoft continues to

misunderstand the nature
of the role of samurai.

This is a serious insult
to Japanese culture and

history, and may also
be linked to Asian racism.

We call on Ubisoft to
immediately cancel the release

of Assassin’s Creed Shadows
and show sincere research

and respect for Japanese
history and culture.

We need your signature, sign this petition,

to let Ubisoft know the importance of
cultural respect and historical accuracy.

Now, cultural respect is
something I understand.

But when they start talking about
accuracy, I got a pause for a moment.

I’ve played a lot of video games,

and a lot of video games I’ve played
are set in Japan, or would be Japanese.

Japanese companies made them, let’s see.

And currently, this is ironic
that this came out right now,

because there is a remake of a
video game called Like a Dragon Ishing.

And it is a samurai video game, set in
Japan, made by a Japanese company.

Now, I’m going to go ahead and tell you
I don’t think it’s historically accurate.

I don’t think they’re paying respect
to the samurai tradition or history.

So all the things they put in this petition
would apply to Like a Dragon Ishing.

I’ve played a lot of
Japanese like a Dragon games.

They’re the Yakuza video game series.

And I can tell you, I don’t
think they depict Yakuza

culture accurately,
because you have a Yakuza

who goes around spending
a lot of time helping people.

And he beats up people to help others.

He doesn’t do it to
sell drugs or prostitution

or any other like
trafficking or any other

things that Yakuza are
actually well known to do.

He does it to help a little orphan

that he wants to take care of,
because he cares about people.

And he talks about honor and stuff.

They took those
characters and they put them

in a traditional setting and
just made another game.

I decided I thought, what would be some of
the other sort of famous Japanese games?

Now, you do have to pick
something that would be

Japanese, set in Japan
and kind of about samurai.

And guess what?

The game I mentioned
earlier, Neo is all those things.

And you know what?

It has demons running around.

It has magic powers.

It has all these other stuff.

So I think maybe there is bias here.

But I don’t think it’s bias
towards Asia or Asian racism.

I think there might be a bias
against Western video games.

I don’t really care if your video
games are historically accurate.

There’s actually a very
easy way to do this.

Just call it alternate history.

Then you can do whatever you want.

You could just, again, in
Neo, as long as you throw

magic into it, now pretty
much everything’s on the table.

Once you’re like throwing fireballs

and you explode into fire
and cut people in half and stuff,

I don’t think historical
accuracy is really a big deal.

The most recent Assassin’s
Creed games have gotten

pretty far away from the
whole historical accuracy thing.

‘Cause you are fighting mythical creatures.

You are fighting monsters.

You are fighting things that
didn’t exist in actual history.

So I wanted to look at some of
the games that were maybe Japanese

and most popular, but then
they don’t hit all the criteria.

It’s not Japanese and
samurai and supposed to be

historically accurate
and all that other stuff.

So it really came down
to the bias in the game.

I know, how do I say that?

It really came down to what?

It really came down to do
the Japanese developers

who make these kind of
games follow the same rules.

And if they don’t, have you
made a petition against them?

Which has not happened.

The only other ones, it’s those ones
where it’s, I think they’re set in China,

but I mean, they’re certainly samurai in
there where you go around, it has a name,

the word that stuck in my head is Isekai.

‘Cause I know there’s probably a
Japanese video game where some

guy gets Isekai back into samurai
times and has to be a samurai.

There’s a harem and stuff.

But it’s not that, it’s when
you run around and you

kill hundreds of people, it’s
really super cheap games.

Dynasty Warriors is the game.

What is that game called?

It has a name.

And suddenly the word Isekai shot up
in my head and now I can’t get rid of it.

So I did look at some other video games,
but they don’t follow the same things.

Mooso, yeah, mooso is right, thank you.

A mooso game.

And they don’t follow the same rules.

In fact, I don’t think one
swipe of a sword is gonna pick a

hundred men up in the air, spin
them around and throw them away.

I changed my notes.

This is the failure on my part because I
was like looking at the most popular games

in Japan and did anyone
get upset about them.

So of course, the Mario series.

So Mario is probably the most popular
game in Japan made by a Japanese company.

It’s got like a million iterations.

I would say it has a cultural
bias towards Italian men.

If we’re gonna, if we’re gonna start making
like legitimate complaints about accuracy,

I would say the representation of the
Italian plumber in Mario is not accurate.

And it’s got a bias behind it.

And you should start a petition.

Another one I thought about was Pokemon.

Of course, everyone’s heard of Pokemon.

A game where 12 year old
kids wander around the country

on their own sucking monsters into
balls and making them fight each other.

Also, not how evolution works.

Was there a petition about that?

No.

The only other one I was
really thinking about ones

that I have actually
played is Resident Evil.

Now it doesn’t happen in Japan.

It doesn’t happen in Samurai
times, but it is a Japanese game.

And it’s doing the same thing.

It’s representing Western
people in a Western setting.

And is it accurate?

No.

And actually I would say
a lot of times the people

in Resident Evil behave
like Japanese people

or like the anime version’s
characters of Japanese people.

So I think if this petition, if you wanna
take it seriously, that’s absolutely fine.

But if you’re gonna take that seriously,
you have to take it seriously the other way.

So all these Japanese
people who sign this

petition need to sit
down, just take a think.

Is the other games I played?

Do they follow the same rules?

Are they as accurate?

Are they as respectful?

And I think you’re gonna find a big
problem in every single game you play

because they make a lot of
adjustments for a lot of things.

Am I excited about
Assassin’s Creed shadows?

No.

And the reason I’m not excited about it

is because Assassin’s Creed
has become very repetitive

and I basically only play it
two years later when it’s on sale.

Will I play it?

Probably at the $10 price point, I will.

And that’s because it
is kind of dumb fun I can

have while talking to
people about other things

because you don’t have
to pay attention to it.

That’s how much I concern
myself with accuracy in that.

And let’s say you’re gonna
go learn about a culture,

I don’t think video
games is the place to go.

I think I should start a
leaderboard because I haven’t

been keeping track of
wins and losses or anything.

So I should actually start doing that.

So maybe it’s Ninja News
Japan versus the world.

So anyone who comes
on contributes to the wins,

but then people who lose,
they like Ninja News Japan wins.

Okay.

So this story, I found a bit disturbing.

I’ll just start off with saying it’s a
YouTube channel and it’s a family.

So it’s a family YouTube channel

and you know those are
always got like dark underbelly’s.

Oh, what is that about that?

Because you’re willing to, I think if
you’re willing to exploit your children

for entertainment and fame,
you don’t have a lot of morals.

Like that’s just what it comes down to.

Like I will do a lot of
dumb shit on the internet.

I won’t put my kids in it.

Like if they wanted to, it’d be different.

Especially now that
they’re older, but where they

were little, absolutely not,
because they don’t know.

And then like I’m very
worried about exploitation.

My daughter was at
one point and saying like,

she wanted to do those like kids magazine
things where you do like little fast stuff.

And I was like no.

And they’re like, why not?

And I’m like, is that like a gateway to
creepy dudes hanging around with you?

So no.

You, you have spent too
much time on the internet.

No, I’m sorry.

I’m just, I was like, no, absolutely not.

Unless I am like by
her side the whole time.

It’s the only way it would work out.

And I don’t have time for that.

So, but, okay.

So the family of youtubers,
they got in trouble.

So the quiz is what do you
think they got in trouble for?

So I have multiple children.

It’s Japanese, right?

Japanese family youtubers, yes.

Yeah, okay.

So there’s four options.

A, they dressed up like a
monster to scare the kids.

B, they locked a child in a hot car.

C, they tried to sell a
child on Merkari for Western.

It’s like a eBay.

You can sell, you can sell
your old stuff on Merkari.

So C, they tried to sell
their stuff on Merkari

or D, they forced a child
to eat until they vomited.

Jesus Christ.

And I guess because
you’re actually having trouble

shows how bad family youtubers
are, it should be really obvious because,

oh, that’s the only one
normal people wouldn’t do.

So let’s go through that really quickly.

Dress up like a monster to scare the kids.

Locked to try.

It’s two mother and father.

Because mother and father,
there’s two kids in total,

but this video that they
made only involves one child.

How old are the children?

I think it was two, is the oldest one?

There’s a baby, so the baby’s, I think
that’s why the baby’s not really involved.

So the child that is in the video
we’re talking about is two years old.

It’s just like monsters.

So dress like monsters to scare the kids.

Like not like, like on a,
like full on zombie, want to

terrify the children, give
them nightmares for a week.

So they scream, Japanese
TV shows do that though.

Yeah, they don’t know if they do it
anymore, but they used to do it a lot.

Oh, they still do it.

Yeah.

And then like the most popular shows,

that like when they jump out
and surprise people, though,

like their chairs, like throw them back and
then they end up down a slide into some.

If it’s adults, I’m okay with it.

‘Cause they’re basically,
it’s always comedians, right?

But this is like a little kid.

Like there, I do remember a show,
it was like the bean throwing thing,

and the dad’s supposed
to dress up like a monster,

and then come in, that’s actually a
pretty normal thing in a Japanese house.

My wife is like, let’s
do that, I was like, no.

I’m not scared.

It’s like a thing of like getting
super restless to hold your children.

That’s an annual festival.

That’s not right, yeah.

That is an annual
festival they have in Japan

where they hold the
baby oven, make them cry,

and whichever kid hits the highest
decibels, I think, is the winner.

It’s just like what?

And it’s a festival.

It’s not like a one weird fit.

Like this is one weird
family doing something.

Ring their children to it.

Like yeah, my fucking lungs on it.

Nice.

Okay, so you can ask
questions about each option.

‘Cause I have to.

This to me is my challenge of
the quiz is trying to cope with it.

The hot car one, just
like people just do that.

Yeah, but this was, he filmed it.

So the kid was in the
hot car, he filmed it.

The premise of the video is that
he’s left the keys in the car with the kid,

and the kid only being two years old
couldn’t figure out how to unlock the car.

  • The third one was the trying to sell you.
  • Try to sell the child a Merkari.
  • Merkari, so it’s like used
    clothes or like if I want to sell

one of my old watches,
I try to sell it a Merkari.

So they just took some
pictures of the kids,

posted on and saw what kind
of comments they would get.

But then of course they got in
trouble for attempting to human traffic.

  • And then the last one was…
  • Fourth of a child to eat so much until they
    vomited so they could video the kid throwing up.
  • Ah, it’s a weird thing about vomit in
    Japan and I think they would take that,

they have that
knowledge, people don’t like

to see stuff coming
out of bodies in Japan.

  • In vomit spit and like
    if they eat something

and they spit it out, it’s
always censored on TV.

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah, on
    TV they have like the eating

competitions and they’ll
have comedians attempt it.

And they of course always throw up
and they put a rainbow in front of it.

  • Yeah, so I feel like
    being Japanese they

would just go, “Ah, this
one won’t go very far.

” So I’m ruling that one out.

  • You are correct.

D is not correct.

  • I’m also gonna rule out the car.

I just, it’s a bit too vanilla.

  • Okay.
  • Yeah, people already die on that one.

Just day to day.

So you’re between A and C.

  • A and C.
  • Just like a monster
    or tried to sell the child.
  • See, selling the child actually
    is kind of one of the child.
  • Yeah, I think that’s
    what the thinking was.

I mean, this is kind of funny.

We’re obviously not
gonna do it, but let’s do it.

  • Yeah, okay.
  • It’s C.
  • It is incorrect.
  • Now you lose zombies.
  • It was locked the child in the car.

So it was an extremely hot day.

The father put the two-year-old in the car

and put the keys down and
then went to get the second

child prepared to put him in the
baby seat and then the door locked.

Now I’m doing finger quotes as I say that.

So then, instead of
calling emergency services

or doing something, I, my first
instinct to smash the window.

  • Smash the window.
  • I can get another window.

I maybe wouldn’t do it right away.

So the video he’s walking around the car
going, oh my God, oh my God, emergency.

Whatever the kid’s
name is locked in the car.

I actually have a kid’s name here.

  • I don’t wanna know the kid’s
    name ’cause I’ll make it worse.
  • Okay.
  • If we humanize the child.
  • Yeah, like if it becomes even more human,

because I already think
this is the most monstrous

thing that could have
all of those options.

  • This is the worst one because
    you know it was on purpose.

So then, he pretends to panic, but he
gets his camera out and starts videoing.

And then he starts trying
to tell the two-year-old,

like get the keys
and press the button,

press the button, and
of course two years old,

panicked now hot, ’cause this
is a hot summer day in Japan.

Yesterday in Shuzuoka
was the hot, hit 40 degrees,

which is a record for
this early in the year.

  • It’s crazy.
  • So the kid’s 30 minutes in the car,

then he calls the locksmith
who comes and opens it.

Very calmly.

So this is where the
panic suddenly goes away.

He’s like, “Well, I actually
gotta save my kid now.

” So then he gets on the phone with
the locksmith, shows up fairly quickly.

I don’t know if it’s suspiciously quickly,

but fairly quickly unlocks
the car and gets the kid out.

So the kid’s technically okay.

He still has to live with his family.

There was backlash.

  • Yeah.
  • Really?
  • Yes, I was shocked.

Shocked there was backlash of
attempting to murder your child.

So then they went on a break.

They did an apology video.

They went on a break, and
then they came back, and

he’s kind of saying like,
“Oh, I’m a young parent.

You know, I’ve got a lot to learn.

We’ve learned a lot from this experience.

Let’s keep going
into the future.

” So like, let’s make more fun in
videos where we torture our children.

  • We accidentally put a
    children in, very dangerous.
  • They’re going to kill a child.
  • If I was an equity accidently as of that.
  • Yeah.
  • No, that one is actually one
    of the more disturbing things.
  • I don’t like it.
  • Yeah, there’s no
    comedic end to that story.
  • There is not.
  • You think YouTube
    would just shut them down?
  • I saw a thing talking about
    how Japanese YouTube is kind

of behind the West because
they’re not already trained.

  • Well, in moderation, but also in content.

Like, the West had all of this, like,
pranking and doing dumb shit to the public.

It’s kind of died off now.

  • Yeah, overall.
  • But it’s been rising in Japan
    in the last couple of years.
  • ‘Cause I remember the clown trend.
  • Oh, yeah.
  • And I’m surprised, ’cause
    it was mostly American.

I’m like, I’m surprised
people are not getting shot.

  • Yeah.
  • Like, you go around in the city in America dressed as
    a scary clown with a hatchet or something and step out.

I’m like, dude, it’s gonna shoot you.

  • Gonna get shot.
  • You’re just gonna get shot.

I guess that’s just what’s gonna happen.

I’m surprised there were not more stories.

Maybe those stories
didn’t get told as much.

  • Yeah.
  • Because most of the people
    doing it was fucking idiots.

Dude, we did not be in a
following experience of that.

  • Maybe, yeah.

So yeah, the pranking has, it’s
not gone, but it certainly died down.

It’s the, so we did the stories on
Johnny Somali and the bad behavior.

And that seemed, that
seemed to be its own thing,

but that’s already
seems to be drifting off

because those guys just keep
getting in trouble and their lives end.

  • It’s all on kick, apparently.

All the fucking, there’s a huge
pranking, like pranking, but it’s like–

  • It’s not pranking.
  • It’s ridiculous.
  • I wanna know what, like the definition
    of prank seems to be like, I’m an asshole.

And then when you get
angry, I go, it’s just a prank.

  • It’s just a prank, it’s just a joke bro.
  • But then you just
    do it back, like you start

hitting it and go, it’s
just a prank, just a prank.

  • Man, my older brother kind of thing.
  • Yeah, ground and pound.
  • And what are you
    hitting yourself, hit yourself.
  • A 34 year old woman was
    being questioned by the police.

So that’s bad.

She was accused of dining and dashing.

This is not a huge problem in
Japan, but of course it does happen.

I think it happens everywhere.

While being questioned, the
woman appeared displeased.

Now, if I was being held in question for
anything, I think I would appear displeased.

I don’t think that’s an unfair statement.

The woman appeared displeased.

I really enjoy that sentence though, because
does anyone get arrested for something,

brought into detention,
and then get held for

questioning and they’re
like, “Mm, this is neat.

” Although I did go to court,
and once the initial stress

had gone past me, I did
quite enjoy the experience.

It’s incredibly intimidating
Japanese court,

’cause they set it up, you’re sitting on
the ground, and it’s almost like the judge,

and there’s like, it’s a
triumphant judge situation.

There’s three judges, and they’re sitting,
it feels like a full story above you.

They’re not that much higher.

They’re probably like six, seven feet,

but they’re really high compared
to where you are, and they’re

looking down at you, and
it is incredibly intimidating.

But once I got past, once I
realized like, I wasn’t really

gonna get in trouble, the
experience became very entertaining.

I really enjoyed it.

So I probably looked
displeased at the beginning, but

then later on, I was like,
“Mm, this is quite neat.

” This is an experience I hoped to never
have again, but it’s worth having once.

So she, while being displeased,
while being questioned,

grabs the tea, so of course it’s
Japanese, so they give her some tea,

and she throws the tea into
the face of the police officer.

Now if this was an action movie,
that would have been piping hot tea.

I think the cops have maybe
experienced this before,

because they do not serve anything
more than what they call lukewarm tea.

So he just got a refreshing
tea wash over his face.

It’s very hot right now in
Japan, and probably just took a

towel and wiped down, that
actually felt better afterwards.

So I’m wondering how
many times did scalding tea

get thrown in someone’s face before
the police were like, “You know what?

“We’re just gonna serve
lukewarm tea from now on.

” After that, that’s basically
a salt of a police officer.

She can get pulled up on
obstruction of official duties.

When they were talking to her
about like maybe it was a mistake,

maybe you hit it by accident, like
they’re trying to give her a way out.

She turned around
and said, “No mistake.

” And then thus taking
away any suspicion

of assault, suspicion
of obstruction of duties.

So the police officer suffered no
burns and except for the emotional one.

A bare safety poster was
deemed too cute by the city.

So there’s actually been a lot of bare
news, and I haven’t been doing much of it

because it’s bare as attacking
people, and there’s really

not much to say about that
that I could be flipping about.

And most of the things I wanna talk about,

I do wanna sort of make jokes
or be flipping about it at least.

It’s, this is a light news show.

You’re not coming here
for your hard news, I hope.

It is historically accurate.

That is the one thing I’ll be able to say.

I do speak facts.

You need a PSA.

You’re working in an
office and you’re like,

“We gotta start warring people
above bears, “be careful about bears.

” You also wanna
save some money.

So you go into the office and you’re
like, “Hey, that nerdy guy over there,

“he likes to draw, he
likes the anime and stuff.

“Let’s get him to make it.

“We won’t have to pay an artist.

” At least they
didn’t go with AI.

I don’t know, I’m kinda down.

I wasn’t part of the AI revolution,
but I didn’t really have a problem with it.

I thought of the idea
of AI supplementing stuff

would be valuable, but
now they wanna use it

instead of anything else that
has any sort of heart and soul.

Yeah, kinda not a big fan of AI anymore.

So they got a real
person to draw this poster.

This dude sits down and he
busts out some awesome posters.

They’re Japanese, so they’re cute as hell.

The bears in the posters are super cute.

They took this poster out to people
and showed it to them and they said like,

“What do you think
of this bear poster?

” And one person said, “It’s
done by an employee, it’s well done,

“because the pictures
are very well done.

” Then another person said, “The fact
that the picture is cute doesn’t matter,

“the bear warning is
the part that matters.

” So here is the
actual question.

Is if you put beware of bears,
they will eat your face on a poster.

And then you put a picture of a cute bear.

Does that take away from the message?

Or does the cute bear mean
you look at the poster and

then you see the message
and you sort of like take it in?

What is the value and the balance of each?

‘Cause you want it to be attention grabbing

and if you wanna grab people’s
attention in Japan, you do something cute.

If you wanna get a message across,
you do it with a cute thing, okay.

So where are we now?

Is it cute enough that
people will look at it?

What is it so cute that it
detracts from the message?

Is the question that’s
actually gone out there?

Another person said it doesn’t
feel dangerous, just cute.

Maybe using a cute image
to highlight the danger is okay.

So a lot of people are actually
saying like the poster itself is okay.

Some people then offered
suggestions, adding fangs.

So take the cute picture
of a bear, adds some

fangs to it and that’s
gonna make it better.

And I bet the fangs would be cute too.

A keto governor, which is where
all this happening, said it’s too cute.

If anything, the eyes do seem a bit too
cute so specifically focused on the eyes.

They’re gonna make considerations
for the next time they make a poster.

They’ve already printed
35,000 copies of these posters.

They’ve already been sent out.

So they’re not gonna be taking them back.

They’re gonna be using this time.

But they are saying we’ve
gotten some feedback.

We’ve heard the feedback.

We might have to take this feedback
into consideration as we go forward.

The Tokyo election continues to go forward.

And the Tokyo election continues
to have a lot of weird issues.

So there were 59 people
joined to become mayor of Tokyo.

And the problem is most of
those people were not serious.

So we had last week we
had the girl who was porn star

who just basically got nude on
her poster and put her poster up.

We had someone who wanted
to promote their social media.

There was a lady who was a
kick boxer and she basically

her platform was, “I’m
a really good kick boxer.

” We have the guy who
supported the porn star

who decided that since we
can’t put up dirty posters,

he said we’re going to
legalize marijuana in Japan.

We had a guy since then who just
wanted to promote how cute his dog was.

So he took pictures of
his dog, he put them up.

We had another girl
who just wanted to put

pictures of herself up
because she was lonely.

We had a woman, some of these
people then took the next step.

If you were part of the NHK party.

So the porn star, this guy
dressed up like the Joker

and this other lady, we’re
all joined the NHK party.

The NHK party is a not serious party.

So they’re the ones like
we want a D sensor porn.

We want to make drugs legal.

We want to do all this stuff.

The people don’t normally talk about.

So normally I put this up in the
corner so you can see it while I’m talking

because what they’re saying doesn’t matter
or it’s a news thing so it’s in Japanese.

But I thought it would be valuable if
you saw the actual thing and had to listen

to the thing I had to listen to, which
is, I mean outright painful at times.

(sighs)

(speaking in foreign language)

What happened there
for the people who are just

listening to the audio
version is a woman sat down

and started taking off her top and
she had like a tube top underneath.

But because there’s a big
sign with her name in front

of it, it kind of looks like
she doesn’t have a shirt on.

And she said, I’m not just cute,
I’m also sexy, don’t you think.

And that is essentially the
platform she’s presenting

is not, I want to be the
mayor, I want to do something.

I actually have anything to
say at all, it’s just I’m cute.

And then the irony
being, because she’s doing

that on TV, I then
become hyper-judgmental.

I’m like, nah, you’re not that cute.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Trouble in Paradise

It’s the first case in Japan.

I didn’t take the time to actually check if
this has been prosecuted anywhere else.

This is something I maybe have to add into
my research phase is when we talk about the

first case of something
in Japan, that doesn’t

mean it’s the first
case of that same thing

in the world, but new laws, new prosecutions
are always very interesting to me.

At least have arrested
a woman for riding an

electric suitcase on the
sidewalk without a license.

I think that’s one of
those things where you’re

going to go ahead and
do you need a license

to ride an electric suitcase
if you don’t know what that is.

It’s a suitcase that’s electric.

It’s a suitcase with a small
motor in it that powers the wheels.

In Japan, they get really strict about
things that are vehicles that you can ride.

We’ve done the stories about people
getting in trouble for bicycle laws.

We’ve done stories about
people riding scooters,

electric scooters, and
getting arrested for that.

And do you need a license for it?

It’s a bit of a gray
zone because licensing

doesn’t include electric
suitcases, but then

the counter argument is
does a suitcase need a license?

Obviously in this case,
the police think it does.

The police have arrested this person
for violating the Road Traffic Act.

Even though they were
riding on the sidewalk,

so if you ride your
bicycle on the sidewalk,

if you ride your scooter
on the sidewalk, the

road laws still apply
to you and you might

actually be getting
in trouble for riding on

the sidewalk when very technically
you should be riding on the road.

I don’t think this is one of those
things that’s actually written down.

That might actually be the main problem.

The maximum speed.

This was a nice point of issue
because like, is it dangerous?

Are you going to hurt somebody?

The maximum speed of
the electric suitcases was

10 kilometers an hour or
about 10 kilometers an hour.

I’m actually betting
with the wheels that

small on a sidewalk,
you couldn’t go that fast

because I bet every time you hit a crack in
the sidewalk, you stop or have to lift it

up.

I used the skateboard
and the small wheels meant

like any tiny divot you
hit were problematic,

but I think the actual
problem is that this

electric suitcases does not
meet Japanese safety stands.

So this was a tourist who
came from overseas and

was riding on their suitcase and this
suitcase was not considered safe in Japan.

So that’s one of
those things where it’s

like, okay, last week I
talked about how Japan

has these weird rules
where if you go to another

country because it
was some skateboarders

and they went to another
country where it was

legal for them to drink
and they were drinking

and then the coach got
in trouble because like

you shouldn’t be letting
them drink because

it’s not legal in Japan and
they’re like, but we’re not in Japan.

So you can see this like circular
argument goes around for a bit.

In this case, I think
it’s a bit more clear cut.

You bring something from
another country to Japan.

It has to meet Japanese safety standards
or you shouldn’t be allowed to use it.

So I think that might
be the core issue, but

because electric suitcases don’t have laws
written for them, they’re like, oh, well,

what are we going to
like dingham on so we

can get this thing off
the road so it’s safe.

The tourist, the woman, denies the charge.

So she’s just saying like, no, I
did not violate the road traffic act.

She does not consider
electric suitcase a vehicle.

Now, I thought that
was a very interesting

defense because the
logic she’s using is like,

I don’t think this is
a vehicle, therefore

I should not be punished
under vehicle laws.

Except that’s not how laws work.

Like if I don’t consider
something theft,

doesn’t mean the police are
not going to arrest me for it.

It doesn’t mean I’m not
going to get prosecuted for it.

If I walk into a store
and I pick up a Playstation

and I just start
walking out of the store

and they go like, hey, you’re stealing,
I go, well, I don’t consider this theft.

That’s not going to be a
very solid defense, I think.

I think.

I mean, I haven’t tried it yet.

Maybe a more adventurous listener out there
might want to go out and give it a shot.

I don’t think this is going to
hold up in court is what I’m saying.

I don’t consider it
a vehicle, therefore I

should not get in
trouble for riding a vehicle.

I feel like there’s, there’s
another joke to me made there.

It’s a really dumb thing to get in
trouble for riding an electric vehicle.

But yeah, if you’re going
to bring stuff to another

country, you got to abide
by those countries rules.

This is actually a conversation I’ve
had with Americans who come to Japan.

They seem to think the American laws
follow them as they understand them.

And again, just like me, I
don’t claim to be a law expert.

Most of the laws I’ve
learned about America, for

sure, have come from
television and television

is not exactly 100% accurate
and everything it presents to you.

So, it’s not the best source of your
legal information is maybe what I’m saying.

But we, I did have a
conversation with an

American talking about
Miranda rights and they

seem to be confused as to why they don’t
read you your Miranda rights in Japan.

And I had to explain they don’t
have Miranda rights in Japan.

He’s like, well, no, you
have to have Miranda rights.

I’m like, yes, in America, you
have to have Miranda rights.

In Japan, they legally can hold
you for 20 some days for no reason.

And he was like, well, no, that’s legal.

I’m like, in America, that
might be illegal in Japan.

That’s fine.

So, there are people
who travel and they

seem to think the laws from
back home travel with them.

This woman might have thought, ah,
my electric suitcase is safe in China.

So therefore, it’s safe everywhere else in
the world that those rules travel with me.

But in Japan, maybe
much higher safety standard

laws for tiny electric
suitcase engines.

I think they’re just not allowed at all.

I actually haven’t seen any.

I’m sure they’re around.

I don’t know how they’re classified.

So that’s actually maybe the
issue is the classification issue.

Are they a vehicle?

Is it luggage?

Is it a toy?

Once that settled, the
decision could actually

be made as to whether or
not she’s committed to crime.

But they’re saying you’re
writing this on the sidewalk.

It’s on the sidewalk.

Therefore, it falls under the traffic act.

I think she might be a little screwed.

The Japanese Olympic outfits.

All these countries
now, the Olympics are

coming up there,
demonstrating their displaying.

They’re like, here are
our new Olympic outfits.

And they always, I don’t know, it’s
a little like polo Ralph Lauren for me.

Hey, these are athletes, and
I want to look kind of sporty.

They always come out
with a jacket suit thing.

And I’m always like, okay, it looks fine.

But it’s got to be in
your country’s colors.

Japan is luckily just
has red and white, so it’s

pretty simple, solid,
color scheme to work with.

They’ve also done their training outfits.

And their outfits are
going to have a new

technology that will
block infrared cameras.

And this is because of a
problem that’s occurring in Japan.

It’s carried over to the
Olympics and there might

be a variety of creepy
people at the Olympics.

You’re never going to
get away from the creepy

guys, you’re never
going to get away from

the creepy guys.

That’s just sort of a fact of life.

So the new material absorbs
infrared light similar to stealth aircraft.

So why are they going
to such lengths using

stealth aircraft technology
woven into these athletes uniforms?

Well, it’s because what they found is there
are these creepy dudes and they get these

telephoto lenses with
infrared technology

and there’s also
smartphones that can do it.

When I actually read
this article because as

I do the articles, I was
trying to get two or three.

One of them actually said
what phone has this capability?

And I was like, you
are literally advertising

the creepy technology
to the creepy guys.

So I actually, I didn’t
write it down, but I

was like mentally
going like, well, I’m not

going to promote the
ability to, but no one

of this is an engineering
experience creepy.

They’ve all learned
the lessons from this

via other people who’ve
made these mistakes,

although we do have a very naive young man
coming up at the end, essentially with the

infrared technology because of the
heat of the body, they can act as x-rays.

So what was happening
in track and field

meets primarily was as the
athletes were being athletic.

These guys would take pictures
and they’d find that it could

x-ray through their clothes and
they could see their underwear.

It didn’t really seem to do
much else or if the clothes

were a little loose, you could
see the shape of the body.

So these guys were
taking these pictures,

posting them on the internet and putting
very sexualized captions underneath.

In 2020, the athletes complained.

So the last Olympics,
the athletes actually

complained to the Olympic
committee after finding

picks of themselves online with sexual
comments underneath and sexual captions.

This is primarily come from the
volleyball and track and field team.

I want to chalk it up to research.

I did look at some videos and
track and field came up and it

wasn’t like any sort of perverted
thing that I was looking at.

It was just some track and field stuff.

The YouTube algorithm
immediately started sending me to

overtly sexualized versions
of track and field things.

Like it wasn’t people
doing track and field.

It was track and field
athletes walking, pulling

their shorts out of their butt,
stretching and stuff like that.

And I was like, okay,
the algorithm isn’t helping.

That might be just because there are
so many creepy people on the internet.

The internet is very much
figured out that I’m a dude.

So as soon as I
look at anything, it

immediately tries to
like, can I connect this to

a sexual version of this and
try to get me interested in that?

It’s one of the reasons I have
multiple YouTube channels and I

have decided to make each
YouTube channel algorithm work for me.

So what I actually realized
just now is I need to make

a algorithm that brings
me the creepy news for this.

So like when I do
research or try to find

videos or news articles
and things, and it’s

going to have a creepy element, I
could keep that to one algorithm.

So the algorithm that I
actually want about me,

like my actual interests,
is separate from that.

Because I have one of my channels.

I’ve only looked at
movie trailers and so in

the algorithm now just
constantly is pulling movie trailer.

So I don’t have to search for them anymore.

I was like, I should be
manipulating the algorithm more.

But now actually,
yeah, I should also try to

protect myself by having
a separate algorithm

for this slightly creepy news so that
maybe it doesn’t reflect so badly on me.

Cops and Shimane are
now officially allowed to

wear sunglasses and
drink liquids while on duty.

So interesting sort
of structure of what

happens is it’s not like
they weren’t allowed

to wear sunglasses
before and it’s not like

they weren’t allowed
to get drinks before, but

it was looked down upon so
a lot of police wouldn’t do it.

The sunglasses, we can
separate these into two issues.

The sunglasses issue,
very much like tattoos

and Japan, sunglasses as an
image is connected to criminality.

So if you have tattoos
in Japan, they think you’ve

committed a crime or been
to jail or something like that.

That’s a pretty
well-established thing from Japan.

A lot of young people are now
growing up with tattoos as common.

That opinion is slightly changing.

Sunglasses are similar.

So any sort of yakuza
movie you want or any

sort of yakuza thing or
anything with criminals

in it, the criminals will
probably wear sunglasses.

When they make posters and the poster
has a criminal on it, there’s two versions.

There’s the old-fashioned
one, which is going

to have him like constructing
a mask out of a handkerchief.

And then there’s the modern one,
which is him wearing sunglasses.

So in Japanese culture, sunglasses are just
directly connected to criminal behavior.

Sunglasses, there’s a
very other weird thing.

This is a society
thing or a cultural thing.

They think you can only wear
sunglasses in the summertime.

So I actually wear
sunglasses in the winter,

because when they’re
snow and it’s very bright,

the sun actually hits
the snow and then

comes up in your eyes, this is
a thing called snow blindness.

So it’s actually a really good idea
to wear sunglasses in the winter.

I would wear them in the
winter on my way walking to

the station or my way into
work or something like that.

Coworkers would always go,
“Why are you wearing sunglasses?

” It’s cold outside.

And I’m like, sunglasses
aren’t designed or

their function is not to protect you
or to keep you cool in the summertime.

They are to protect
your eyes from brightness,

which is outside right
now because we have

a sun and snow, which is actually
making the brightness worse.

And you can see that
they were kind of shaking

their heads at me like,
weird, dumb, foreign

guy wearing his
sunglasses in the wintertime

and I was like, “Okay,
I mean just go blind.

I don’t care.

It’s none of my business.

” But I’ve actually had
that experience directly.

The drinks, now there
was a couple of stories.

We did it.

They made me six months ago.

The idea was that if you
wanted to go get a drink, you had

to go to the cobon, which is
the little sort of area office.

You had to sit down, you had
to change your clothes, go buy

drinks and then come back
and change back in your uniform.

They didn’t want officers in uniform going
to convene the stores because they didn’t

want it to look like the officers
were just slacking off or hanging out.

You had to look like you were a
good civil servant doing your job.

There was a picture.

I think it was some American or Canadian
cops and they were out in the summertime.

They both have sunglasses
on and they both got

big things to Starbucks and they’re
standing talking to some people.

And this was a big thing in
Japan like, “Is this acceptable?

Is this allowed?

Why are they able to do this?

” People and it’s summertime
and they have to be able to see.

And it’s summertime
and they need to hydrate.

So then being able
to drink water or juice

or something else like
maybe a sports drink,

that’s really important so they
don’t get heat stroke and stuff.

Sunglasses, so they
can see, these are

actually pretty basic
things in other countries

in Japan because
of these associations.

It was frowned upon.

What the police did
in Shimane is they

actually wrote it into
the rules that they are

allowed to wear sunglasses and
they are allowed to go buy drinks.

Should anyone actually
complain that someone’s

wearing sunglasses or buying drinks, they
can now actually say it’s actually in the

rule book that this is
acceptable or as before

it wasn’t and so it was frowned
upon so a lot of cops didn’t do it.

So this is a shift in
culture being supported

by the police to make them
hopefully more effective.

So like, yeah, they’re
not dehydrated and they

can see, those are
two really big elements

of being a good cop, I
assume, I have no idea.

They are introducing new Japanese
bank notes, I believe it’s tomorrow.

This is July 2nd when this episode is being
released, July 3rd, I think is the day the

new Japanese or it’s the
7th, anyway, it’s very soon as

this week, new Japanese
paper money is being released.

They are going to release a new 1000 yen
note, a new 5000 yen note and a new 10,000

yen note which is basically all the
money, paper money you use in Japan.

They used to have a
2000 yen note, it didn’t last

very long, it actually
caused a lot of problems.

An example of a
problem, this is causing,

there’s a ramen shop,
no, a lot of ramen shops,

you don’t actually go
up and order, you don’t

sit down at a table,
you go to a machine

and you put your money in the machine and
then you get a ticket and you sit down and

just give your ticket and then they
don’t actually interact with you very much.

For a lot of people,
that’s actually part

of the appeal of the
ramen experience, let’s say.

New money means that these
machines will not accept the new money.

So we had this with the 500 yen coin was
updated and so it’s a different way, it’s

a different material, it’s a different size
which means if you put it in a machine,

the machine won’t accept
it, it’ll just spit it out again.

With the money, it’s
the same thing, so these

like ramen shop owners
were the first ones to complain.

This is not just
exclusively ramen shop, that

was the first story, the first
example and it’s a really good example.

His business relies
on this machine that

takes money so that he doesn’t have to
spend his time taking money from people, it

actually takes the
place of a cash register.

So that means he has
to replace that machine

and he’s complaining
that will the government

subsidize him replacing
the machine because it

can cost a lot of money
to replace machines.

If you have a chain of
ramen shops, you have

to replace the machine in
every one of those shops.

If you have any other
service that just takes

machines, I’m trying
to think of ones I use.

When I go to the Judo
Club, I go to a sports

center, I have to put
money in the machine now,

I pay 200 yen, so I
usually try to bring 200

yen, but it accepts bills, that
machine has to be replaced.

Or they’re just going to
put a note on it that says

this doesn’t accept the
new thousand yen notes yet.

But there’s going to be a point where every
machine that accepts bills, which is a lot

of machines, the biggest one
that I can think of is drink machines.

Every corner you go to in
Japan has a drink machine.

Every one of those machines
accepts thousand yen notes.

You can put a thousand
yen note into every Coke

machine you see, every
vending machine you see.

Every one of those either
has to be updated or changed.

I don’t know how they read it.

I don’t know if they read
security features or they check

the material or what, but
that’s going to be problematic.

I haven’t heard anything
from Coca-Cola or

any of these big
companies that actually run

all these vending
machines, so I’m wondering

if they just check a
security feature on

the bill, whereas the
ramen shop owner has a

different machine that
checks it a different way.

I don’t know about any of that.

All I know is that these new bills,
introducing new money, always causes problems.

It’s a good thing.

We’re not in England
because the Queen died.

They have to update all the
money, the King Charles is old.

They’re going to have to
update the money pretty soon.

This is not a quiz in the way I’ve done
the other ones, it’s not multiple choice.

I’m going to give you
more of a dilemma and

see if you can, I kind
of want your solution

to the dilemma and then I need you to guess
what the, we can kind of work through what

the other person’s
solution to this dilemma was.

You have a 20 year old
young man and this is 2024,

so understanding the
availability of technology

I think is important to this story, like
we have the internet, we have cell phones.

We have lots of ways to get lots
of different kinds of information.

Yeah, okay.

You’re pretty big, which is a, yeah,
you’re pretty comfortable with that.

Even us as like fathers,
older men, let’s say,

we still can find what
we want on the internet.

We can like, if you need information,
you can get that information.

Yeah, I’m not at the
point of my parents, but

I don’t understand the
technology around me.

Good.

This young man, 20
years old, I would say a

younger person more attuned to technology
and the availability on the internet and

whatnot, his desire was
to see a naked woman.

Oh.

What do you think
he did to achieve this

purpose of seeing a naked
woman on the internet?

I did not say that, it’s
in my immediate solution.

I think your immediate
solution and mine would

be if I want to see a naked woman,
I would find one on the internet.

Yeah, well, like open the
chat with all of my wife’s in it.

Okay.

Yeah, I don’t think he has a wife.

He doesn’t, he doesn’t have
that option available to him.

So I mean, we’ll grant it that that you
do have that option that he does not have.

So he can’t do the same thing.

And this is a Japanese young man.

This is a Japanese, this
is didn’t you use Japan?

He’s not a ninja, but he is Japanese.

He’s certainly not an ninja.

That might even be it.

I have this really,
but just instantly in my

head, I’m like, he went into a
girl’s locker room and tried to hide.

Okay, he went into is correct.

A girl’s is also correct,
but it is not a locker room.

That may have been where you got caught.

Toilet is not a toilet.

Ah, they wouldn’t have to be
naked in the toilet would they?

No, he wants a naked lady.

Yeah.

So where are some place?

I’m a locker room.

Not a locker room.

I believe what happened because
again, the actual story was a tad spartan.

I believe what happened
was in the locker

area, the changing room
area is where someone

may have noticed that
this was not a woman.

So that’s a bunch of little hints in there.

You got to use it.

It’s some detective work.

He was in a locker
room area when someone

noticed that he wasn’t
female, like a changing

room of source was
at a clothing store.

Oh, no, no, you’ve gotten further away.

I think locker room is way more accurate.

Wow.

Why else is there a locker room at the gym
when you need to see you’re getting closer.

So it’s a place.

Yeah, you got to obviously women
women are going to be naked.

I would actually.

Okay, second hit, the
women will be naked

for an extended period
of time in this place.

Having him a better opportunity, they won’t
be naked for an extended period of time.

Yes.

Where are people naked for an
extended period of time in Japan?

Oh, it’s a hot spring.

It’s similar to a hot spring.

Let’s say you’re in the city.

Oh, okay.

So it’s a center.

Yes.

Okay.

So he decided he woke up one morning.

He’s like, I want to see a naked lady.

I’m going to go to
the female side of the

center for listeners who don’t
know what the word center means.

It is a public bath.

It’s like a building.

You’ll have a male side and a female side.

It’s a public bath where you go and
take a bath and you’re with other people.

So you see naked people.

If you are interested in the opposite sex,
you would have to get to the other side.

How did he get to the other side?

He just went through the door.

Oh, no.

No, no.

No, no.

There you go.

He dressed up as a woman.

Yeah.

So the woman’s locker
room, and it was in the

woman’s locker room
where someone went, he’s

wearing a long wig, like a wig with
long hair, but really did like badly.

It seems that way because
he was noticed really quickly.

And we got, I saw a
picture of the guy, he’s

not particularly masculine
or particularly the feminine.

So I was like, if he
put some work in it, he

could have gotten
away with it for a while.

But he was caught not
immediately, but very

quickly someone
realized like this is not a

woman in the in the
changing room for the sento.

So he was, they called the authorities,
they showed up pretty quickly.

He was arrested.

And they said, why did you do this?

He said, I wanted to
see a naked woman and

like a real flesh blood, I guess the internet
just wasn’t doing it for him anymore.

Yeah.

Like he just, he’s just, I don’t want
to encourage this, but don’t do that.

You could, you could go to a show
you could, like there are other ones there.

There are other avenues
to see real live naked

women, if you really want
to, without getting arrested.

There was a dispute between a made
cafe and a curry shop in Akihabara.

This is maybe the most Japanese story I’ve
ever done in the entirety of Ninja News

Japan history.

They did a collaboration.

So you have a made cafe and
they’re going to say like we’re

going to basically loan out
our maids to this curry shop.

And they will do stuff
in the curry shop and like

increase the, the people
go to the curry shop.

We’re going to see the maids
and like, hey, these maids are fun.

Let’s go to the made cafe.

People go to the made cafe, but like, hey,
you can get curry from this curry shop.

You know, win, win, win.

Not necessarily.

There’s always problems
and paradise that the

made cafe is saying that the
dispatch fees have not been paid.

So they are supposed
to pay a certain amount

of money to dispatch a
maid to the curry place.

The cafe claims it is owed 250,000 yet.

Now the reason the conflict here is because
it seems like the made cafes were refusing

to do some of the tasks
that the curry place,

the curry restaurant
was asking them to do.

These include soliciting customers.

So you have to stand outside and say like,
come on in, come have some delicious curry

with the cute maid, preparing
salad and not doing dishes.

So the maids refused
to just solicit customers.

The maids refused to wash the dishes.

The maids refused to prepare the salad.

And the curry place is saying, this
is all part of working in a curry place.

You gotta do all these things if
you actually want to work here.

And the maids are
saying, this wasn’t in the

contract we made when
we did this collaboration.

Therefore we’re not going to do it.

So right now with the information
I have, I’m on the maid side.

If it’s not in the contract, you
shouldn’t be asking them to do it.

They don’t have to do it.

But the curry house is saying
they’re going to sue the maid cafe.

So this is an interesting
thing because if

this is all based on
contractual stuff, it’s

going to be pretty clear cut
when the contract comes out.

But I bet the problem is
the contract isn’t that airtight.

It’s said like work at
or service or help or

assist and it wasn’t
specific in the roles.

So the maid cafe probably told their staffs
one thing and then when they got to the

curry house, they were told a
different thing and now it’s problematic.

This is going to start a war.

This is the only thing.

I want to see a maid war
in the middle of Akiobada.

So man in Hokkaido.

It’s Hokkaido.

It’s a safe place, all our bare stories are
from Hokkaido, but don’t worry about that.

He goes out.

It’s like 6.30.

He goes out.

He doesn’t lock his door.

Small town.

Hokkaido, whatever.

Cool.

It’s peaceful.

Later a woman enters
his house and a neighbor

calls the police
and says like, I think

there’s someone in
my friend’s house or my

neighbor’s house who
isn’t supposed to be here.

Can you go check it out?

Please show up and
they’re like, hey, he’s

supposed to be here
and the lady goes, yeah.

And then the guy comes back.

He’s like, I don’t know this lady,
so please get her out of my house.

She was arrested and when
she was arrested, they asked

her, you know, why did
you go into that guy’s house?

She said, I was told to enter the
house by my spouse by telepathy.

So I did.

I don’t know how you argue that.

The telepathy is one of those weird things
like, if you’re hearing something, is it

because I’m crazy or is it
because I’m actually receiving

a message, you’re going
to believe you’re not crazy.

So you’re actually receiving a message.

So I just really enjoyed that little, that,
that is a defense was a very interesting

thing because we very hard
to prove one way or the other.

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