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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Podcast Name de wa nai

(upbeat music)

Japan’s having a lot
of issues with tourists,

and it’s over tourism, but at
the same time, the problem is

Japan really wants people to come
to Japan and spend their money.

The weak yen is actually making it

so that people can
come here and spend a lot

more money, which is
good for the economy.

They are finding, though, that again,

these cultural issues
tend to crop up regularly,

and so now cities are
starting to make some changes.

Shibuya, probably famous
for being a party place.

They banned drinking at Halloween,
so you weren’t allowed to drink in public.

A lot of people, when they
come to Japan, most places

they come from, you’re
not allowed to drink in public.

I’m Canadian.

You’re not allowed to just walk
down the street and drink alcohol.

In Japan, that is technically legal.

That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable,

like it doesn’t mean you
should be doing it all the time.

I have found when I first came, and
when other foreigners first come to Japan,

they’re like, “It’s legal,
therefore it’s acceptable,

“therefore I can
do it all the time.

” So they have like a drink
on the train, they have a drink

on the walk home, they’re
having drinking constantly outside.

It is fun and exciting.

Japanese people tend to have
limits, like, “Okay, we’re going

to have a picnic, “we’ll have
some drinks with our picnic.

“We’re taking the shinkansen.

“It’s appropriate to drink
a beer on the shinkansen.

“That’s kind of like
a tradition almost.

” So you run into,
yes, it is legal to drink

in public, but is it
socially acceptable?

And the foreign people come here and they’re
basing their decisions on what is legal,

not necessarily what
is socially acceptable.

Not massive problems until,
of course, it gets out of hand.

Shibuya drinking in public,
it’s gotten way out of hand.

2019, they did a small-scale
version on Halloween,

because the previous year
there was basically a riot.

They, I think, pushed over a car, set
a car on fire, don’t remember exactly,

but they damaged property, they
smashed some windows and stuff.

It just went way too far.

This wasn’t foreigners, though.

Like foreigners were certainly included,
but this was 90% Japanese people.

So at first, it was just Halloween.

Then it was Halloween and New Year’s.

And now they’ve decided it’s not going
to be just Halloween and New Year’s.

It’s going to be all year round.

They’re making a larger
punishment area, so basically all of

Shibuya, it sounds like you will
not be allowed to drink in public.

So what happens?

Japan has a very interesting
way of dealing with laws.

There’s no official punishment for getting
caught drinking in public in Shibuya,

because you haven’t
changed the national law.

It’s just been prohibited locally.

So if a police officer approaches you

and you have like a can of
beer and drinking the can of beer,

he’s going to ask you to have the beer and
he’s going to pour it out in the street.

This is actually what happened.

I remember this, I was a teenager,

and if we went downtown
in Ottawa for Canada today,

you could see a stream of alcohol, like
combined alcohol, just running down the road.

‘Cause the cops would
basically walk around, find people,

usually underage people or
teenagers and stuff, drinking, they

would take the drinks, they
would just pour it out of the street.

They didn’t issue fines,
no one got arrested.

They’re just like, look,
you’re not allowed to do that.

Losing the alcohol you brought with
you was probably punishment enough.

It’s not even all day, it’s
technically only in night.

So it’s between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Which means if you really
want to push the limits

of what’s acceptable with
this rule, you could go and

have lunch drinks in Shibuya
and get wrecked in public.

I don’t know if that’s what you want to do.

If you want to be one of those people,

so now I’m expecting
honestly a live streamer to go

and get super drunk
in the middle of Shibuya

in the middle of the day
and then when the police

approach I’m going to
ask him, what’s going on?

He says like this is legal,
you can’t stop me, ha ha.

I’ve found the loophole and
then they’re going to get you

for a public disturbance
or obstruction of business.

I mean, they just go for the
classic obstruction of business.

But what they’re actually
doing by not making

a punishment, they’re testing out
like how effective this is going to be.

Do we need to make punishments?

Because if this works, people,
you just walk up and be like,

hey, you know how to
drink, please give me a drink,

I’ll pour it out in the
street, thanks on your way.

If that’s enough, they’re
not going to make it anymore.

But if it isn’t, then
they’ll start doing fines.

Then they’ll start doing jail time.

Then they’ll start increasing
punishments over time.

And that’s how Japan
tries to find a balance

between the rules
they’re making and reality.

So they’re hoping that they
don’t have to do anything.

They’re hoping that, okay,
here’s a rule, follow the rule.

No one gets in trouble,
nothing happens, that’s great.

But realistically speaking, people are
going to immediately try to push the limits.

As we’re going to hear in
our gubernatorial election

section later on, which is just people
trying to push the limits across the board.

Welcome to the quiz.

Yes, I need to get some no-pass.

My concern is I know that you
have paid attention to the news.

So you may have read that
this is actually something

I haven’t thought
about is I have to, like,

check that my participants have not pre-read
the news that I’m going to talk about.

But there was a thing called
the Ninja certification exam.

Have you heard about that?

Has it a Ninja new certification?

No, completely unrelated.

I am planning on suing.

No, I haven’t heard of the
Ninja certification exam.

And just to put your
mind at ease, I often read

the headline and don’t
actually read the details.

I waited on the podcast.

Honestly, that’s even better, because
then we can talk about the details.

So there’s a thing it’s called
the Ninja certification exam.

It’s a written test.

There are three levels that
cover history and ninjitsu.

So I’m assuming the history of
ninjitsu is not just history in general.

And then ninjitsu, which I
don’t know, like how to disappear

in a cloud of smoke, I’m not
actually sure what that entails.

I haven’t been allowed
to take the exam yet.

The question is, what could
you do to earn extra points

at the lowest level,
the lowest level ninjas

or want to be ninjas could do
something to earn extra points?

There are three options, OK?

A, hit a target with a shoot again.

A B, cosplays a ninja.

Or C, cast a spell using kuji kiri, which
is those Naruto hand gesture things.

Do you know what I mean?

No.

Oh, like the– Yeah,
yeah, exactly that.

You were just doing rings,
but it’s usually like pointy

fingers and then curl
your fingers in a monkey.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of
that stuff, a lot of that stuff.

So you could hit a
target with a shoot again,

you could cosplays a ninja, or you
could cast a spell to get extra points.

What do you think they did to give the
lowest level potential ninjas extra points?

You can ask questions, we can have a chat.

Yeah, what kind of spells
are we talking about?

Well, it’s like a joke spell.

So it’s you cast a spell on
the examiner for extra points.

So it’s, again, even like
cosplay and even hitting a target

with a shoot again,
they’re all kind of jokes.

Right, OK.

And this– is this ninja school– is
it just for– is that a two-ish thing?

Like a wee– My belief, because
the article was a little weird,

because it said they
had the exam, but didn’t

actually technically
say what the exam for.

But I know in like Iga,
there’s the ninja village.

And they have tour guides
who dress up as ninja.

I went to visit it.

And they have like the female ninja,

whereas a bright pink uniform,
which I was like, that’s not hiding at all.

But they have like a ninja show.

And then Iga Castle has
like a ninja house they’ve

built that shows like the
hidden passages and stuff.

So there are tourist opportunities.

And I know some towns that
like claim to have the origins

of ninja or the area, they’ll
have like shows and tourist bits.

So I think that’s what it was for, because
you have to be able to explain stuff.

Right, OK.

So it’s training to be
sort of a tour guide.

My initial sort of thought was
it would be hitting the target.

Hitting the target would shoot again.

That was my initial thought.

Because I thought I’ve been to Iga as well.

And they dragged me in another
gadget out of the audience.

Like, oh, these, you know, these
gadgets won’t be scared of taking part.

And I had to throw a thing at a thing.

Yeah.

So did you hit it?

No, no, way more important.

Forget the quiz.

How did you do it?

Oh, good.

Because at Iga Castle, I went there too.

I took my mom and you got
three shots with the shooting can.

If you hit the bullseye, you got a t-shirt.

So it was actually surprisingly hard.

I got the t-shirt.

It was a medium.

But I didn’t complain.

I was happy to win a free t-shirt.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I did it.

And I stuck in the thing in the target.

That’s pretty good.

The guy said that was so goy.

Sorry, I should not mean I could
potentially be the training ninja.

Well, you could take the test at least.

The written test.

Of course, it’s a written test.

It being Japan, there’s
always a written test.

There’s always a written test.

Yeah.

Cosplay is an ninja.

Cos, that’s just that’s just
putting on a ninja costume.

Yes, it’s a super Japanese
thing to do, though.

So it is, but is that worth extra points?

It seems like he’s just giving
someone three points at that for that.

There’s no actual skill or
anything involved, is there?

I personally think
that’s the lamest option.

So I’m going to, I’m going
to, no, it’s definitely not that.

Cos it’s just, cos you
would have to show you

they’ll have to wear an ninja
costume to be in the ninja school.

You already went.

So, yeah, you’re getting
three points just to turn up.

It’s just going to be the hand
gesture or the target thing.

This is some heavy
thinking we got going on.

Yes.

Straticizing.

So I was dragged down
the crowd and got to do it.

And there’s no, no lower
level than ninja than me.

Yes.

And the book… I hope it’s not
insulting that I agree that quickly, man.

I’m wearing black.

Yeah.

But the hand gesture
thing does take a bit

of coordination and thoughts and
studying to learn how to do the hand moves.

I, as a joke, tried to learn
some of the hand moves.

There are 81 hand symbols
and nine primary ones.

So if you learn the nine primary
ones, there’s combinations.

And just as a joke, I tried to learn
one or two, so I could do it to kids.

And I honestly couldn’t do it.

My fingers are not nimble enough.

So that sounds like
it’s higher level than…

I felt like that was actually kind of hard.

Which makes me think back
to my gut reaction of the target.

But then again, Japan is a safety country.

Are they going to let
basic trainees do that?

I’m going to start hucking stuff around.

I’m going to go with
my initial gut reaction,

while I’ve hit in the target
with a shooting camp.

Where is this?

Right.

You are incorrect.

It is B.

It is the lamest one.

If you cosplay doesn’t ninja, you got
extra points on your ninja written exam.

So there’s all these potential
tour guides sat in a thing, in

a classroom somewhere, taking
a written exam dressed as ninjas.

Yeah.

I mean, if they put the effort in, it would
be weird to me if you were going to go for

that exam to not put
that effort in, though.

But it was also only the low level ones.

I guess there’s an
expectation that the

higher level ones are
doing, because there

are three levels,
which I would like an ex.

This is the problem with some
of this news, is there’s only so

much explanation that goes
into these sort of fluff stories.

But if you pass the exam, you get
a scroll and the title, “Cocan Ninja.

” Nice.

So you get to call yourself “Cocan
Ninja” for the rest of your life, I assume.

Surely.

Well, unless they have
the test on a different

day, or it’s not in
the actual ninja, ninja,

ninja series stuff area, it’s
in that kind of office building.

There was a picture, and
it looked like a classroom.

Right.

So I bet it’s just like
a tourist office, and

they have like a conference room, and
they throw them in the conference room.

That would be my guess.

There is an extra point, though,
so you can try to make up for it.

How many participants, middle of that?

How many participants do you
believe participated in the ninja exam?

It would include all three levels.

Are all three levels all written?

What they were talking
about is the answer is yes.

It was an exam.

There were three levels
of the written exam.

Thank you.

How many, so how many sought the test?

How many, so all one big group, how many
people do you think were in that group?

I’m going to say 47.

47.

How did you came to that note?

How did you come to that number?

Well, I think it’s Japan-wide.

It is Japan-wide.

Twoism is booming, so
there’s probably a need

for people dressed as ninjas,
plastic ninja stars around.

Yep.

I agree with all that.

So there’s probably already quite a lot of
ninjas who are already trained, and I know

that a company that
I used to work for

usually brought in around
100 teachers a year.

Mm-hmm.

So I’m going to say
half of half of that about.

That’s what that was my thinking.

It is 124.

Ah, I thought a lot
of ninjas had a whole

clan of ninjas, but they
might not hold past though.

That is true.

We don’t get the failure rate.

I was trying to look
up for any sort of

results, but once they’ve written
their piece, they can move on.

So I didn’t get how
many actual ninjas passed

the exam, because we have
no idea if it’s a hard exam or not.

When they say history, it
would be pretty easy to fail the

history part if you didn’t
take history very seriously.

And then in Jitsu part, who
knows what they’re asking on that?

Yeah.

And, yeah, Kenji might
have turned up and he

might have forgotten his ninja
costume, and he didn’t eat it.

Yeah, he didn’t get those extra points.

He was always two points shy,
and then he didn’t wear his costume.

You know, if you’re
going to be a ninja,

you’re going to need to get over the
shyness of wearing a ninja outfit, I think.

Well, once you’re a real ninja,
no one will ever see you again.

That’s true.

I figured the high
level for extra points,

you have to turn in your exam
without anyone seeing you.

Haha, yeah.

It just appears.

I don’t want you to come from.

Yeah, yeah.

You’ve got to manage to
get to back home through

an elaborate underground tunnel
system without anyone knowing?

Without anyone knowing.

Yeah.

I was like, I wonder if
other countries have

like like there’s a
like the Italy has like

a little Roman region air school,
because all those places need.

They need people to dress up.

Yeah.

Because Canada has
Edmonton, Edmonton has

this like rodeo festivals, one
of the biggest things in Canada.

So they got to have people
dressed up as cowboys.

Now, in that area,
people dress up as

cowboys anyways, but I’m
assuming there’s no actual exam.

Japan to me is a
very like, let’s make a

paper exam for it,
because I think in Calgary

stampede, which is
what this festival is

called, they’re getting
actual people who

work with cows, like
they’re actual cowboys.

I did judo in Canada, I
came here and I wanted

to do some tests here
to get a higher level.

There’s a paper test in Japan.

There’s no paper testing, Canada, you go
out and you do fights and you do like this

like presentation thing
of showing how to do

something really, really
well, and then they grade you.

In Japan, you do those two things and you
sit for a paper test, which is all Japanese

and really hard old kunji, which
I couldn’t read, so I gave up.

What’s this?

There’s always a test.

It’s always a paper
test, it’s such a Japanese

thing to do, taking a sport
and making a paper test.

I’ve had students in
the past, they wanted

to be tour guides, take
like a world heritage

site test, yeah, but
you’re going to be talking

about in Japan, why do you need to learn
about the Taj Mahal, maybe they can do

comparisons, they go,
here’s our castle, it’s like

the Taj Mahal of Japan,
which is what they

would do in Japan, they’d always
be comparing it to something else.

Look at this Edo
wall, it’s just like the

great wall of China,
it’s a really good wall.

All right, well thank you
for your participation,

your participation in the
test, we’ll count that up.

I actually have to start keeping track of
success and failure rate of this, but yeah,

thank you for your help, no
problem, thank you, all right.

Being about tourists, he made
you castle, fairly famous castle.

Last year had 1.48 million visitors, so
that’s a lot of people, and they make a lot

of money, because all those people
pay money to go see the castle.

450,000 of those people
were foreign tourists,

now I didn’t take time
to do the statistics,

and it was like a million
Japanese people and

half a million foreigners, that’s
going to do very rough math.

The current entry fee to the
castle is 1,000 yen for everybody.

The mayor is suggesting
that foreigners only

pay 3,000 yen for
entry, and a lot of people

are saying, why would you
charge foreigners more?

This is one of the
issues that’s going on

restaurant, some
restaurants are deciding to

charge foreign people
more, we did a story

previously where if you
were a foreign person, there

was a foreign menu
with a foreign price, and

then a local menu with a local price, and
it’s divisive, because is it acceptable to

force someone who isn’t Japanese to
pay more money for the exact same service?

The mayor’s justifying
this suggestion by

saying he’s comparing
it to the Louvre or spots

in Egypt, so the Louvre
apparently, if you’re

local, it’s free, and if you’re
foreign, you have to pay.

I don’t know about
Egypt, but I’m assuming,

again, foreigners have
to pay a certain amount

of money to go see
things in Egypt, whereas

maybe locals pay a Louvre fee, similar
to what he suggested for his major castle.

He’s also justifying
it by saying they need

money for maintenance, but there is a concern
that it may turn off foreigners, so if

foreigners find out they
pay more money for this

attraction where locals pay
the same amount of money,

well then I’m not going
to go to that attraction.

It’ll actually take away potentially half
a million visitors a year, so is it worth

increasing their price
for less people to show

up, and maybe less
making less money overall.

It’s very hard to tell.

It will be interesting to see, A, do they
go through with it, because they’re just in

the discussion phase
now, or B, do other

places start taking on
this model where then

any tourist who comes
to Japan suddenly is

paying more for everything, as opposed to
paying the same price everyone else pays.

And then I’m in the Union situation
where I’m a resident of Japan.

What do they do with me?

Because I’m a white guy,
do I have to pay more?

Because I live in Japan, I live in Japan
for a long time, do I pay the Japanese fee?

How do you know the difference?

I do have a residential card.

So I have a identification that says I live
in Japan, I live in Japan for a long time.

That probably would
be enough to get me to

the local rate, but I could see myself
getting annoyed that they even suggested.

Even though again, quite
obviously, I am not Japanese.

We’re going to talk about bears.

Bears have actually cropped
up a lot in stories recently.

Bears versus Japan.

There was a town.

It’s a small town and they have
basically a Hokkaido in all these places.

They have like hunters associations.

These are the people
who legally own firearms.

They can go out and
hunt animals and that would

include bears that have
encroached on society.

So you got bears coming
into towns, you need

someone to scare away or worst
case scenario, actually kill the bear.

These are the guys you got to call.

You got to pay these guys.

Now hunting a bear,
fighting a bear essentially

is dangerous and this
town and the hunting

association closely related to that
town could not come to an agreement.

They wanted to give
them 3000 yen danger pay.

So they’re like, “Hey, we want you
to go face this very angry, hungry bear.

” I’ll give you 30 bucks.

It’s one of those
things, it’s like as dare

you’re like, “Well,
that’s not enough money.

” Like if I get mauled by the bear, 3000
yen isn’t going to do that much for me.

It’s not really worth it.

So now they’re in the weird situation where
they are not going to protect the town.

Now I guess you call
the cops, but the cops

again, they have
very small pistols and

they’re not equipped
to really take on a bear.

So that means the
bear now in this town has

free rein in a different
city in Fukui, a bear

entered a house and the woman called
the cops and she crawled out of window.

So the bear, it sounds like
came in through the front door.

Maybe the front door wasn’t
locked or the front door was left open.

It is getting close to summertime.

It’s hot.

Maybe trying to get some
air flow through whatever.

I have no idea why or how
the bear got in the house.

The woman calls the cops and
then she, she haulsed it out of window.

Pretty good move on her part.

I don’t know if she did a flip.

I don’t know why I suddenly thought that.

It’d be cool to flip
out the window as you

run away, but it’d be
even cooler to backflip.

So the cops then surround the house.

They’re on standby outside the house.

That was it.

There was no follow up.

They don’t say how long they’re on standby.

They don’t say anything happens.

So if we take this
story at face value, those

cops are still standing
outside that house.

And I guess that bear just
owns that house now, be weird.

We see our houses as safe places.

That’s kind of the whole point of a house.

Then once a bear is
come into your house and

he’s lived in your
house for maybe as long

as you have because he’s
apparently not left the house.

What happens then?

Do you feel safe in your house anymore?

Do you get like, I’m going
to lock the doors all the time?

That kind of thing?

Who knows?

Yeah, I don’t know how I’d feel.

I don’t deep sleep.

When I was a little
kid, my dad made me a

bedroom in the basement,
which was really cool.

He liked to build stuff.

I like to be slitter
apart from the family

because I was a
rebellious, weird little kid.

I was like nine years old.

But that meant my bed was sitting
under one of those little basement windows.

If you were going to
break into a house, you’d

generally go in through one of
those little basement windows.

There was one night I was in
bed and a man stepped on my head.

He came in through the window,
came down, stepped on my head.

I screamed or freaked out and he ran away.

Very technically nothing
happened, but also someone

broke into the house
and stepped on my head.

Since then, fairly
traumatic experience, I

think that’s fair to
say, I do not deep sleep.

Any sound that happens
during the night, I

will wake up and this
is like 40 years later.

And that’s it.

It’s just the rest of my life.

I’m assuming till I die, I will
be an incredibly light sleeper.

I will never know what it is to deep
sleep ever again because of that.

So I’m wondering if this woman maybe has a
similar situation with her bear experience,

or if maybe now she
just knows she’s going to

lock all the doors, how
do you be more careful?

It’s a bear.

So you’re walking along the coast.

You’re with your family.

It’s really nice.

And then your young child, your
son, slips and falls into the water.

Now it’s a six foot drop into the
water off this like coastal walkway.

That’s already a rough fall
for a kid, but he’s in the ocean.

The ocean is going pretty hard.

A 26 year old, Filipino man, just immediately
jumps in after and he saves the kid.

So they get some nets
and stuff down so they

can help him climb up
and they help the kid

climb up first and
then the man climbs up.

He saved his kid’s life.

That’s pretty awesome.

The parents wanted his
name to say thank you.

It’s very traditional like if
someone finds your wallet or

does something for you, you
send them a thank you present.

So like if you find something and turn into
the police and then the person shows up and

they get it back, they’ll
send you a thank you.

I found a wallet turned it into the cops.

I ended up getting a cake the next
week just showed up in my house.

So this is a normal
Japanese thing to want to

say thank you in some
way, usually by sending

some, you know, it’s not cheap, but
it’s not nothing, it’s a little present.

The Filipino man said,
and this is a phrase

that he probably learned
from anime, this being

a non native Japanese
speaker, there’s already an

assumption that he’s
using this sentence because

he’s either watched
a ton of old samurai

movies or he’s really
into anime where they

say this kind of thing
translated into English.

This means I’m not important
enough for people to know my name.

So when you win the
big fight, when you save

the town, when you protect
people and they go like, who are you?

This is the phrase
you use in these sort of

old movies and in your
anime and in your manga.

I can’t say it cool,
I got to actually get

an example of an anime
character saying it so

I can copy that because
I’m sure my inflections

wrong and my spacing
of the words is wrong.

But I’ll say it one more
time, super slow so

that you can get it and
you can practice this.

No, no, no, no, no, day, why, night, okay?

So you can take that,
take some time, practice

it, coerce it to yourself,
maybe find some

examples of it on the
internet and awesome.

You can now say this
really cool thing, but

you have to do something
cool first, you can’t

just walk around
saying that, you have to

actually do something cool, this might be
the problem for most people saying doing

something cool and then
saying something cool.

Also it kind of means like study your anime
because everyone on the internet who heard

that he said this
after doing this really

cool thing was like, dude,
this is the coolest guy ever.

He’s using the lines,
he’s using the lines

properly, I, he’s representing the
humble hero, which is really cool.

I have only said two cool lines in
my life and it was totally by accident.

And so I once gave my
judo suit, both related

to judo, of course,
I once gave my judo

suit to my wife because
she was going to wash

it that night and she
said, oh my god, so

much blood and I looked at her
and said, don’t worry, it’s not mine.

That was awesome.

And again, because I didn’t intend it
to be cool, it turned out super cool.

And then once I was
doing like a meeting

with some people who
just come to Japan, and

of course judo comes up because
it’s like, what are your hobbies?

What do you do?

I do judo tatata.

Everyone goes, have you ever broken a bone?

And I looked and I said, do you
mean mine or someone else’s?

Ah, that was awesome again.

For me, it was legitimate inquiry.

Have I ever broken
one of my own bones or

have I in judo, which does have like arm
locks and stuff broken someone else’s bone?

But because again, it
was unintentionally cool.

I didn’t try to be cool.

It was actually way cooler that way.

Scandal.

No, this is the least scandalous
scandal I’ve seen in so long.

Some top Japanese skateboarders
took part in underage drinking.

I, 14, 15, 16 was a very,
very serious skateboarder.

It is basically at
that point in life, I

thought, the job I’m
going to have for the rest

of my life is going to be
professional skateboarder.

I was trying to figure out
if I could move to California.

I made a little video of myself
skateboarding that I could send to Dogtown.

No, I wasn’t that good.

Like I was, okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I was very, very good
for a complete amateur,

but I was nowhere
near professional quality.

And I think by the time
you’re 15, 16 in the skateboard

world, you either have it or
you don’t and I did not have it.

I was good.

I was always going to be okay, but I
was never going to be professional.

This was during an Olympic
qualification trip to China.

And in Japan, the drinking age is
20, in China, the drinking age is 18.

So if they’re all 18 or 19, in China,
it’s perfectly legal for them to drink.

So I think this is what happened.

They didn’t give everyone’s
age because they said group.

I think they were all 18, 19,
20 year olds, skateboarders.

I guess this is it, skateboarders are
going to drink if you let them drink.

They were in a different country
where it’s legal for them to drink.

They’re like, hey, let’s
go out and legally drink.

So they went out and they legally
drank and they had a good time.

And Japan has got
this weird idea of holding

people to Japanese laws and
rules even when they leave Japan.

They have said that
if you go to a place like

Canada where marijuana
is illegal and you

smoke marijuana or take a brownie
or cookie word of it, they deliver it in.

And then you come back to
Japan, you’ve committed a crime.

They say if you go
overseas and you create

unsensored pornography,
you’ve broken a law in Japan.

And so this is it.

They have this weird idea.

And I don’t actually know
how you would prosecute this.

That might be why
these guys are just getting

trouble because they are representatives
of Japan in another country.

So they’re probably partially
funded by the government.

I don’t know how well that goes because
if you’re going for an Olympic qualifier,

you probably have
taken money from the

government, which does
mean the government does

have a little say in
how you behave or sees

you sort of like an
ambassador to your country.

You have to behave
better that kind of thing.

One of the skateboarders
themselves were

reprimanded the coach was,
which I think is pretty fair.

He didn’t get fired.

He didn’t get in trouble in any real way.

They’re like, dude, you got
to control your skateboarders.

You’re probably looking at them going like
these are like 19 year old adults overseas.

They’re taking care of themselves.

I don’t know really what you want me to do.

So I think reprimanding
the coach, having

him say like you should have
kept these guys inside and stuff.

I think that’s fair.

As long as he doesn’t get into any actual
trouble because again, no law was the way

he was presented when I saw it in Japanese
news was like a crime has been committed.

Like they’ve broken the law, which they
actually very technically had not done.

And you know, technically
right is the best kind of right.

I cannot hear the voices out there.

When I was a skateboarder
and I was 14, 15

years old, did I ever
under age drink, never.

It’s actually funny.

I talked to Canadians, I’m like, how old
are you when you had your first drink?

It seems like 13, 14 is really normal.

I had one beer.

I don’t like beer.

I don’t do acquired tastes.

I had one beer when I was like 15 years
old or 14 years old and I didn’t like it.

And I was like, nope, never had beer again.

So that’s actually probably a good thing.

If I had it later, I might have liked
it and then be a beer drinker now.

And it was, we’re on
to the gubernatorial

election news and this
is actually quite a lot.

And aid to the current
Tokyo governor, Yudical

Koike, claims that
she faked her degree.

How do you become the
governor of a prefecture?

And they don’t know if you’ve
actually got a degree or not.

So now there’s this
big thing out there like

this is someone who worked for
her who claims she faked her degree.

The claim is that she did not
graduate from the University of Cairo.

Koike and response said
she’s unhappy at the allegation.

She says she will continue to list
herself as a graduate of Cairo University.

Now, I looked at that sentence.

I’ve done a lot of political
stories on the Engineers Japan.

I look very carefully
at what they’re actually

saying because that’s
the more interesting thing.

How they say it.

What they’re saying is the important part.

In this case, she has
not denied the allegation.

She said I will continue to list myself
as a graduate of the University of Cairo.

That doesn’t mean she actually got her
degree or could prove she has her degree

from the University of Cairo, which is
a very interesting, very small distinction.

Another interesting thing
she’s done lately is on x.com.

She started posting
short videos of her

explaining her policies,
but it’s not actually her.

It’s actually an AI
version of her moving her

mouth and face and then speaking her
policies within AI version of her voice.

And that is an interesting
thing because now

these videos of her
explaining things can

be generated by her staff and put on
the internet like she’s talking to you.

And a lot of people, again,
this is very mixed feelings.

AI is a big issue right now
generating a lot of mixed feelings.

Should she be doing it personally?

Is this good enough?

Is AI a threat?

And she’s saying, look, we have
these technologies at our hand.

We should use technologies
that are available to us.

I’m using this technology to
get my policies out into the world.

And then of course,
the first set of comments

under her videos are,
did you have AI generate

your degree from the
University of Cairo?

Which is awesome.

In Tokyo, it’s gotten very specific
and this is primarily about poster.

So in Japan, most of
your election knowledge,

most of my an actual
election knowledge

comes from the American system, which
is all blasting ads and news and stuff.

America dominates the news
cycle even in other countries.

So a lot of what I
understand of politics is

influenced by heavily
by the American system.

The Canadian system honestly
very similar, but way more low key.

There’s a lot of TV advertising stuff.

Japan has very strict rules.

You can’t really do the same thing.

There’s a couple of weeks
where you can get out

on top of a truck and then speak into
a microphone and shout it out that way.

You can’t just plaster
posters or ads everywhere.

There is actually a set like
big board and then you as

someone running in the race
can put your poster on that board.

It’s very weird the first time you see it
and 99% of these posters are nondescript.

It’s some very Japanese
looking businessman,

thumbs up in the camera and just
looking forward with a very awkward smile.

Sometimes they’ve got some
kind of like hook and like I used to

play soccer so he’s holding a
soccer ball, something like that.

So they’re trying to
put as much personality

as they can into a very
awkward photo shoot.

This system has been hijacked in Tokyo.

56 people have entered
and they can put up posters.

They’re mostly politicians, but 19 of
the 56 places are from the NHK party.

Now this is not the actual NHK party.

They used to be called the anti NHK party
because they hated NHK and the fact that

you had to pay fees to this
national broadcasting company.

They’ve become a party
that’s essentially trolling

politics, trying to get
messages out there

that are not big issues or overly popular,
but they’re still actually a lot of ways

kind of important because
there are things people

are either embarrassed
or too shy to talk about.

So the first one that I really
enjoyed was a female kick boxer.

She took up half the slots.

So if you have like 60 spaces for posters,
30 of those were the same posters she paid

for, and it’s just her
saying like, I’m a kick

boxer, not even like I
want to be governor.

I’m a kick boxer and I’m a
really good kick boxer and

you should follow me on
Instagram and watch me kickbox.

Another candidate
got a warning from the

police for making a
poster that is of an almost

nude woman posing in what
they called a very sexy pose.

Their platform is talking
about censorship in Japan.

This is the same group.

I did this story
previously, but I can’t

remember how long ago,
where they talked about

how if Japan would open
up its censorship laws

and not use pixelization
in their pornography

that Japan could make a lot more
money with the pornography that they have.

We have done stories
where it’s like the

ranking of pornography
has come out from Pornhub

and it’s always like Japan or
Japanese is really high in the ranking.

So this guy is saying
we should capitalize on

this love for this thing
our country does make

and we are holding it back
by being too conservative.

He’s teamed up with
actress Sakurai Miyu, a

very specific kind of
actress if we’re going

to be clear and they
wanted to end nudity

censorship laws and
promote freedom of expression.

Because she was basically
naked, I think they had

little flowers over the bits
that need to be censored.

The police came and said you
have to take the posters down.

So then this guy who had decided like I’m
going to promote this porn star and put up

these posters and make my issue censorship,
he’s like I’m going to pivot since I’m not

allowed to put those
posters up, I’m going

to pivot to making
cannabis legal in Shibuya.

So marijuana cannabis is illegal in Japan.

It’s actually still very seriously.

They don’t they don’t like
classified drugs in order.

It’s just drugs bad.

So heroin and marijuana are in the
same group as far as drugs are concerned.

So if you smuggle in heroin and you smuggle
in marijuana, same punishment across the

board, which a lot
of people are like ah,

that you know other
countries they like grade

it like marijuana is
not as bad as heroin in

Japan that’s considered
like a slippery slope.

So they’re just like no
drugs bad if it’s a bad drug.

You did a bad thing.

You get the exact same sentence.

So he’s pivoted his platform to try to make
posters he also puts on face paint like the

Joker and stuff that actually in
itself makes me take it less seriously.

If you wanted to do
this seriously he should

just wear a suit and
look as normal as possible

and they start very seriously talking about
censorship laws and don’t even get like

salacious on the posters
and I bet you’d get

a lot of support because
one of the hardest

things to do is it
takes something that is

essentially embarrassing
like I look at pornography

and I want to de-sensor pornography
again he’s thinking of the economy.

I’m actually kind of on
board with this as a concept.

If there is an economic
gain for the country

by doing this thing it
might be worth doing.

Sure regulate the industry.

I actually have no problem with that.

I think safety is very important but because
he like dresses up and puts on a face

paint and tries to look
at the Joker and stuff

it immediately goes well
why would I take you seriously.

So he’s actually undermining his own
potential of actually getting one of these you

might be considered a
side issue into the forefront.

Of course there’s commentary.

The news did interviews
with people on the

street and one man says
it does not communicate

their policies at all
and I was like well no

it does because the
kick box or her policy

is I really like kickboxing and kickboxing
is cool and you should follow me online.

It’s a pretty clear policy it doesn’t apply
to Japan in any real way unless you want

to make kickboxing
like a national thing

that everyone has to
do which would be crazy.

And then the censorship one
with the almost naked lady on it.

I mean the policy is pretty clear
we would like to stop censoring this.

There were a lot of
complaints that they were

putting up like basically a naked lady on
a poster where kids go by which again I’m

actually on board with
that which is another

reason to do it in a
more serious vein where

people actually might take a moment and
actually listen to what you’re talking about.

And the policy is I like
kickboxing and I like sexy ladies.

Thank you.

you you.

you.

you you you you you

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

She’ll be drinking in public
has gotten away and I’ll have.

Does mean the
government does mean the

government does mean
the government does have it.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Dueling Mt Fuji

(upbeat music)

  • It’s a copyright law.

Last week I talked about frivolous case.

What I saw is a frivolous
case, I’m not a judge.

So maybe it does have
merit, but I don’t think it did.

Because it was a lady who took images

and put them on the internet
and she’d altered them a bit.

I don’t think, they were claiming it caused
distress, which I don’t think is real.

Mainly it was personally
used to run onto the internet.

Now this case this week is a bit different.

This week there was a
flyer for a mayor mayoral

candidate which sort
of changes the context.

So like I’m an individual
and I’m a fan of a thing

and I do some stuff and
I put it on the internet.

That could be copyright infringement,

but at my point was if they
don’t go after everybody,

then they shouldn’t be going
after just the singular person.

A mayor using promotional materials

is a different setting, it’s a different
set of criteria for the work they’re doing.

‘Cause this is public, this is about
trying to get elected to office no less.

There have been multiple singers who’ve
asked politicians to not use their music.

So like I’m a very liberal
artist and Trump uses my music.

I ask Trump to stop using my music because
my values don’t align with your values.

I’m sure it’s happened
for Democrats as well.

It’s just that’s kind of thing.

They’re trying to pick theme
songs, those theme songs.

The artists might have a say as
to whether or not they actually

agree with the person
using their theme song.

The poster that was made was
five men in basketball uniforms.

Now what they did was they
took the poster as basically

slam dunk and they tick the faces off and
they put on the faces of some politicians

and then they kind of
softened up their bodies

so they looked a little more
like physically appropriate.

They didn’t really look
like basketball players.

It’s imagine you took
some slam dunk characters

and made them out of
wax and then put them

in a hot room so they
sort of melted a bit.

That’s what the poster
actually ended up looking like.

But the uniforms, the
positioning and whatnot,

was a very iconic poster from slam
dunk and they did the same thing.

This I actually think is a very good idea.

It’s very cool, but of course, being a
politician, you have to get permission first.

You have to contact the artist,
you have to contact the company.

We can we do this?
We are changing the thing,

but of course there is a lot
of overlap between the two.

Is this acceptable to you?

Maybe we have to throw
you some money, something.

I actually bet if they’d asked the
company would have been okay

with it, even if they had
to throw them just like,

you know, let’s pretend you
actually bought the rights.

Also, mayors seem like they’re
supposed to uphold the law.

So they’re in this position
where they have to make laws.

They should actually be upholding
those laws that they make.

This poster went out, they got in trouble

and they did, of course,
the most reasonable thing,

took full responsibility,
apologized for it,

took down the poster
and then changed it up.

No, of course they didn’t.

They tried to leave the poster
up and blame a young member

of their staff saying that they
did it and we didn’t know about this.

And it totally wasn’t
our fault, even though,

of course they had to approve
the poster before it went out.

(upbeat music)

Found this story very interesting
because I didn’t know this was the thing.

I didn’t know this law that
they’re talking about was the thing.

There were five teen boys.

They were all about 17, 18 years old.

They were all arrested and
they were arrested for doing.

I didn’t think doing was a thing.

Like I know, actually until very
recently, doing was like in laws.

There are laws because
doing used to be a thing.

And it used to be legal.

And then they’re like,
well, we can’t have people

going around shooting each
other with pistols anymore.

So we have to make it illegal.

So if you look up like
the last time there was

a duel it was actually
surprisingly recent.

There are states in America where if you,

two parties do agree to fight and
they agree to sort of rules, you can fight.

I believe Washington stays
actually allows you to duel

as long as you don’t use
weapons or something like that.

But in Japan, again, having
all the samurai culture

and people whipping out
swords and cutting each other

in half and stuff, dueling
was off the books as soon as

they got into this sort of
more modern, peaceful era.

dueling is illegal in Japan under 1889 law.

So since 1889, you are not
allowed to duel in Japan anymore.

All members of a gang who
were fighting over a helmet,

which was decorated with a phrase,
beat Nagasaki prefectural police.

That’s not a phrase
that rolls off the tongue.

It looks quite cool.

It’s a white helmet with gold stripe in
the middle and it has some stars on it.

And it actually says
in Kanji, in Chinese

characters, beat
Nagasaki prefectural police.

And they both groups wanted this helmet.

And it actually seemed
to be one against four.

They said all of them
were in gang’s plural,

but it sounds like four members
of a gang met one member

of a different gang and
they fought over this helmet.

They fought in a multi-story parking lot,

which is very highlander and
there could be only one, I guess.

You’re not allowed to cut
off anyone’s head in Japan.

There’s lots of places
where you’re not allowed

to cut off anybody’s head, but
Japan’s very serious about it.

They do have the firearm and sword laws.

So having swords, very
much equates to cutting off

people’s heads, they’re
very against that in Japan.

The multi-story parking lot is also
clearly the traditional dueling location.

Police were alerted when
someone called and reported.

There’s a man who ran away after
a fight wearing only his underwear.

So it seems like four against one.

So it seems like they fought.

They were fighting over this helmet.

The four guys beat up
the one guy, of course.

They took off his clothes
and then he ran away,

which is again, it’s very
teenage attitude towards a fight.

I don’t know, I feel about this because
don’t duel in the street, don’t duel.

I’m actually okay with that.

The reason this fell under the duel laws
is because they’d arranged it in advance.

They’re like, we want the
helmet, I want the helmet.

Meet me here at this time and we’ll fight.

That is arranging a duel.

That’s why it fell under this law.

I think if you just met and
didn’t arrange it in advance

that you were going to
fight, it would have been fine.

But the thing is, it’s also really unfair.

Four guys show up against one.

That’s not, you know,
that’s not how you do a duel.

So I think those four guys
should get more troubled

than the one guy, if they’re actually
gonna fall under the dueling laws.

What they should have
done, again, here we get into

the Denise used pen,
giving advice to criminals.

I practice judo.

I go to judo two, three times a week.

Like I do it very regularly.

I fight people all the time.

I am, in essence, able
to challenge someone to a

fight, go to the judo
place, we have insurance,

we’ve all signed forms and
stuff, and then we could fight.

They need to do it at a dojo and it doesn’t
fall under the dueling rules anymore.

It falls under practice of a martial
art, which you’re perfectly allowed to do,

proves that these kids
are just not as smart as me.

(clock ticking)

So welcome to the quiz.

  • Yeah.
  • Okay, good response.

So let me give you the background,
a little bit of story, and then the quiz.

So the mayor of a town was diagnosed with
cancer, and he starts recuperating at home.

Now he’s missed some of the
current meetings and sessions

and stuff, and an assembly
member said one of the following.

So there are four choices.

Okay.

  • Okay.
  • A, if only he had got cancer at a more convenient time, B.
  • Oh, that’s messed up.
  • The mayor is a cancer on this session.

C, I want to pray that he dies
soon, or D, I hope he gets well.

(laughing)

So back, do you wanna hear it again?

(mumbling)

Okay, so we have four options, A,

if only he had gotten cancer
at a more convenient time.

B, the mayor is a cancer on this session.

C, I want to pray that he dies
soon, or D, I hope he gets well.

  • One of those is not like the others.
  • Yeah.

Okay, so I have questions.

  • We can talk about it, yes, yeah.

This is not like a hard quiz thing.

This is, we can talk about it a little bit.

So this might be a bit of telling about me.

What’s it a man or a woman who
made this hopefully nice remark?

  • It was, the mayor was a man,
    and the assembly member was a man.

So both were men.

And there was some tension that the
mayor was trying to run stuff from home.

So he was at home
recuperating, but he’s like, you can

still have meetings, all
send instructions and stuff.

So I think that’s maybe where
the frustration came from,

is they weren’t letting
someone take over the

role in the intermediate
time, in the interim.

  • Okay, okay, okay, oh, God.
  • Merska, how long has
    this person been mayor?
  • Oh, I don’t know that.

It’s been a while, he’s old, and apparently
he’s been like reelected multiple times.

But I mean, all the politicians we
talk about, they’re all in their 70s.

This is actually, again,
I’ve said a billion times.

I want a moratorium on old politicians.

And I think government
decides the age of retirement

and politicians have to retire at that
age, would make a prison medicine.

They make the rule, they have to
follow, the rule would make a lot of sense.

  • So much good sense there.
  • It would work on,
    this is the whole problem

America’s having is you
got these guys in their 70s

and 80s now, running for
president, and it’s like, dude, why?

Why are they even allowed?

  • Because I have a
    vision, I will leave a legacy.

You know, I know things that can
shape the world because I’m old, as shit.

  • But they should mentor the
    person who’s going to take over.
  • They might do it wrong then.
  • Okay.
  • Just like, I actually
    think what you’re actually

saying is I’m greedy
and I don’t want to let go.

  • Yeah, same thing.
  • Yeah.
  • Yeah, my legacy.

Okay, you got to pick ABCD.

  • Oh, okay, so I’m just going to go
    ahead and I’m re-checked, D, D, D is D.
  • D is D, right.
  • Yeah, the D is the way,
    obviously, the joke answer.

Of course, he said something horrible,
otherwise it wouldn’t be a new story.

  • Yeah.

All right, one more time, A.

  • There’s a cancer on this, okay.
  • Okay, so I think a
    cancer work can be time.

The mayor’s cancer this session.

I wrote them down.

  • Oh, good.
  • Wow.
  • So the mayor’s a cancer on this session,

that’s hard to spin that number of
positive lights when we reject that one.

  • Okay, so you’ve rejected B.
  • Yes.
  • And A sounds too reasonable.

Nope, I want to pray that
he dies soon, I feel sick.

  • 100% correct on the first try.

That is amazing.

I think I actually didn’t, I
haven’t been keeping track

of if people have been getting
them right or not, but I think

you might be the first, you
just got it right on the first go.

  • Hey, you know, I’ll just, you have to
    know how messy people can be in that.
  • All right, so there’s a second part.
  • Did he double down when
    the leader of the session

asked if he wanted to
correct his statement?

  • Of course he double down, he’s
    like, I said, I said, I said, I’m missing.
  • Okay, what do you think he said?

What do you think he said?

So you got to think of his phrase, heology
too, I want to pray that he dies soon.

  • Well, he probably tried to rephrase
    it by saying that what I meant was,

I hope that he gets to leave from his cancer
soon, – Oh no, that’s not doubling down,

that is trying to reframe
it, he doubles down.

  • Oh.
  • Like he’s like, not only did
    I say what I said, I meant it.
  • All right, well.
  • What do you think he said?

What do you think he said the second time?

So the leader of the session is like,
dude, you’ve way crossed the line,

I’m going to give you
an opportunity to retract

or say something, again, like you
just did, try to reframe it a little bit

so that you’re not going to get in trouble
because you’re going to get in trouble

if you stand by this, and
he’s like, you know what?

I said what I said, and here we go.

  • I hope it spreads
    the rest out of the way.
  • Don’t tell, he says, I don’t tell
    lies, why is he clinging to his position?

So he’s one of the, he was frustrated

because the guy is trying
to run the city government

from home, you know, saying
like, why is he doing that?

It would be better if he just died.

Then the next day,
there was a bigger meeting

and he did apologize
because I’m betting someone

and his group was like,
dude, what are you doing?

Wishing the mayor was dead.

  • Right, like someone just played back
    his words, like, did you really mean that?
  • I guess short.
  • I didn’t get the
    retraction or anything yet,

so I’m waiting for there to
be maybe another session

where he actually
formally has to apologize.

I’m assuming he’s going
to retract his statement

so it never existed,
which is of course,

my favorite political
move, that didn’t happen.

  • He’s not the retraction self from office.
  • He’s gotta go, I mean, you can’t wish
    somebody dead and then double down on it.
  • They don’t do that here though.

They just like, I retract my statement
or you misunderstood what I meant.

‘Cause the last one we
did, she like claimed that,

like, can you call yourself a woman if
you don’t have a baby and she was like,

oh, I meant like women
birthed me into my job.

It’s like, that is not
what those words mean.

  • That is not what you said.
  • That is not even close to what you said.
  • Oh, I love that.
  • Oh, I love that.

Oh, God.

  • I mean, I wish people had died
    before, but you know, I wish they weren’t.
  • Quietly to yourself.

I mean, I think everyone
has wished someone dead,

at some point, but part of your
brain’s going, I don’t really mean it.

I’m not going to say it out loud.

And if you set it out loud, it was in anger

and you’re like, okay, look, I didn’t
actually mean that I was just angry.

  • You know, I’ve actually, I’ve never,

so I’ve followed myself,
I’ve said it to myself, I’ve

never been so upset with
anyone that I wish that on them.

Even like, you know,
some people are like, you

know, it’s my life, I
don’t, I can’t say that.

I don’t like it, it just, that disturbs me.

  • I don’t think I’ve said it, but
    I’ve said really hard stuff before.

Like, I have a mouth.

So, you’ve talked to me before.

So, I may have said
something like, but not meant it.

So if they said, do you want
to change your statement

and be like, okay, I don’t really
want him to die, I’m just very angry.

I can see that for sure, but this dude,

this dude’s like, yeah,
why is he still doing his job?

This is, I hope he dies.

A record 3,568 people were
stranded on mountains in 2023.

So they keep track of this.

So, Mount Fuji has come in the news lately

because they’re going to start charging
people if you want to climb out Mount Fuji.

It’s like one of the most
classic touristy things to do,

Japanese, I think every
Japanese person does

it at some point in
their life, they walk up.

There’s one where you
started like three, four

o’clock in the morning
and you walk six hours up

and then you get to see
the sunrise at Mount Fuji.

I have never walked up Mount Fuji.

I’ve lived in Japan for 20 years.

I’ve never gone up Mount
Fuji and people ask me, why?

And it’s ’cause Mount Fuji,
the mountain looks amazing.

The view from Mount Fuji is a bunch of towns
and cities, which is not very exciting.

And if it’s cloud cover,
you don’t see anything.

So, for me, the appeal of
being on top of the mountain

is maybe if I could see
other mountains and vistas

and stuff, but looking at a bunch
of city, man, not very exciting.

So, I would rather go
to the area and look at

the mountain itself
than actually climb up it.

That is the logic I use.

I, therefore, will never
get stranded on a mountain.

This is the highest, so 3,568
people is the highest number

since they started keeping
track of this stat back in 1961.

So pre-pandemic, not this many
people got stranded on mountains

during the pandemic, of course, people
weren’t traveling, so that didn’t happen.

But they started keeping track in 1961.

We’ve had a huge tourism
boom over the last year.

It’s actually caused a lot of
trouble over the last three,

four weeks of stories, have
been tourist behaving badly.

People trying to stop
tourists from crossing the line

of what’s considered
proper decorum in Japan.

It’s pretty reasonable.

Like it’s pretty sensible stuff.

People in Japan don’t follow
Japanese rules because they’re

not Japanese and they end
up offending locals and stuff.

But of course, how
many foreigners got stuck?

145.

So 3,400 or so of the 3,500
people got stuck with Japanese.

So at least they can’t turn around and say,

this is all foreigners getting
stuck on the mountains,

and we have to pay taxes
to pull them down and stuff.

It is 99% Japanese people.

That is 1.4 times more than
the last peak, which was in 2019.

790 of the people were in their 70s,

and people over 60s
accounted for more than half.

So it actually seems like
older people are thinking,

oh, I love the idea of going up a
mountain, hiking up a mountain,

and they go up and then they’re just like,
I can’t make it back and they get stranded.

They have to have someone come
up and get them and carry them down.

I’m weirdly glad that it’s
Japanese people and not foreigners.

We’ve had so many bad news
stories about foreigners lately

that I’m actually worried
that this can be too much,

and it’ll actually get, again, tarnished
the image of foreigners in Japan.

But now it’s just old
people, in Japan, go and

go mountains, not being
able to get back down.

That makes perfect sense.

Since we’re talking a little stats,

I do love my stats, and in
New Japan loves its stats.

In 2023, there were a record 80,400
and 4 complaints about social media scams.

We do talk a lot about scams.

There’s a lot of scams in Japan.

There’s not as much violence
and stuff, but people everywhere,

every country, are always
trying to steal your money.

That’s something you should be aware of.

Peace loving Japan,
they still want your money,

and they’re willing
to lie to you to get it.

So this number, 80,000,
is up 20,000 from 2022.

We don’t get the 2024 numbers, of course,

until the year is finished, and then
they have to calculate it in one month.

This is mostly from people 50 plus.

So there are older people spending
time on the internet using social media.

There are not as aware of… Well,
maybe they’re just more trusting.

They think someone’s
saying something to me.

I’m going to believe what they say.

I’m going to trust them, and
they get involved in the scam.

And that’s a bit annoying.

I would think maybe, yeah, is
there some like maybe internet

awareness course that could
be offered to older people?

Like, how do you recognize the scam?

Basically, if it’s too good
to be true, it’s a scam.

I did get scammed
out of a little bit of

cryptocurrency one, so
I’m not above this issue.

I think I’ve talked about that scam
in a different podcast, but it is…

It sucks, because you’re embarrassed
so you don’t want to tell anybody.

So I go out of my way to
talk about it so that people

understand, look, they
lied to you and believe them.

That’s not actually a terrible thing.

So, what you need to do is actually
make yourself and other people more aware.

So I hopefully use my experience,
let other people know what happened,

so that you can actually
be aware of possible scams.

There’s a lot of subscriptions,
service complaints.

So, in 2022, there were
20,000, so this is like you…

You subscribe to something,
and then you decide

you don’t want the
subscription service anymore.

And it’s really hard to
quit the subscription.

They like try to like lock you in.

A lot of gyms are famous for this.

You join a gym, and
then you try to quit the

gym, and they won’t
give your money back,

and then they roll it over,
roll it over, roll it over.

This is up 20,000 to 90,001
subscription service complaints.

The biggest scams in
social media in Japan

right now are foreign
exchange market trading.

So, this is very similar to the one
where they stole my cryptocurrency,

where I put my cryptocurrency
into a plan, and then I got my returns,

so I put more cryptocurrency
into the plan, and

then suddenly I couldn’t
pull it out and again.

So, by giving me
that first return, I was

now very confident
that this was not a scam.

So, the first time, of
course, I did a little test.

I put in a little bit of
money I wasn’t worried

about losing because it wasn’t that
much, and then it actually worked.

So, I’m like, “Okay,
this is a real service,”

and then when it
was a bigger number,

still, again, didn’t ruin
my life for anything.

I don’t have enough money to actually give
enough money to anyone to ruin my life.

Then suddenly, “Oh, there’s
been an error in the system.

We can’t withdraw your money.

You have to do this.

You have to do this.

” And they kept starting saying,
“You’ve got to top up your funds.

You’ve got to do
this to get it to reset.

” And then it was
very clearly a scam.

Luckily, I didn’t do all those
things to lose even more money,

which, of course, since you
become desperate, is very possible.

So, you put your money
into the foreign exchange

market trading, and then
you can’t withdraw the money.

Luxury bags off fake websites.

So, this either could be a
fake bag or a fake website

where they don’t send you anything
at all after you send them some money.

Couldn’t cancel subscriptions?

The kind of subscriptions
they’re talking about?

Cosmetics.

So, you pay for skin cream,
and it comes every month.

And then you say, “Well, I
have enough skin and cream,

or the skin cream isn’t
doing what they promised.

It didn’t make me look younger
or healthier or more awesome.

” So, I want to cancel the
skin cream, and then you can’t.

You can’t find a way to cancel it.

There’s no unsubscribe button.

You can’t cancel anything.

They just keep charging your
credit card again and again.

Or health food.

So, it’s actually interesting to me.

These things that are essentially
maybe praying upon insecurities.

I want to be healthier.

I want to be younger.

I want to look better.

Those are the places
where they start scams.

I guess there are just a lot of
subscription services for those.

Overall, it went from 33,000 to
900,000 spam email complaints.

Suspicious phone calls, mostly
real estate and construction.

There were 8.8 trillion yen in
damage to consumers in 2023.

So, we do need safety courses or
information or PSA’s to go out there.

An engineer’s Japan is
absolutely trying to do its part.

Don’t get scammed.

If you have a really weird suspicious
thing going on, send me a message.

I will tell you if it’s
real or not because,

again, I’ve had the experience
and it is one of those things.

If it’s too good to be true, it’s
probably too good to be true.

And if there’s a subscription service,
make sure you’re able to unsubscribe.

You know what I did, actually.

I had a credit card
that was going to expire

and I subscribed to
all these things that

I wanted and then I knew they were
going to be difficult to unsubscribe to.

And then when my credit card renewed,
I just didn’t renew the information.

And that’s it.

I got out of it.

So it would be great
if the credit card

companies would create
like a one-year credit card.

So it works.

And then you can
roll it over, but it’ll be a

new credit card, not the
old one just continued.

And that way, if you put all the subscriptions
and stuff on that, then you can just

quit a whole bunch of stuff by having your
credit card expire and not renewing it.

Okay, this is the last story of the day.

A Japanese pianist
was arrested for, I should

have done a quiz on this one,
stealing cabin attendants aprons.

So when he was on
the airplane, he has the

cabin attendants, the
stewardess is the stuff.

And they wear aprons
when they’re cooking or

making stuff in the
back and maybe I assume

they take them off and hang them up
because they have to be in their uniform.

He had a thing for him,
had a thing for uniforms.

That’s actually a pretty
big fetish in Japan.

He went into the back
and he stole one of those.

He apparently got caught and got arrested.

He said, “While being
arrested, collecting women’s

uniforms is my hobby, I
smelled it and wore it myself.

” And we get, “I don’t
really do the underwear

theft stories anymore
because there’s nothing

interesting that underwear thieves
do that adds anything to the story.

I would do volume and
stuff for a while, but

basically we’ve heard
the underwear theft

story enough times that new iterations
of it aren’t in that interesting.

” But they never say
what they do with it.

They’ll say something vague like, “I use it
to satisfy my sexual desires or something.”

In this case, he’s very specific.

“I smelled it and I wore it myself.”

So he took the stewardess’s apron and put
it on and you wore it around the house and

then he tried to smell, I assume,
the person who had worn it before.

While they were away
from the galley area, he

went back to the galley
installer from there.

Police went to several locations, so
again, he’s a pianist, he travels around.

These found nurses uniforms and
aprons at his home and other places.

So he hadn’t just done this for
stewardai, he had done this for nurses.

He had gone to
hospitals or I guess maybe

even like clinics and
stuff, they would have it.

He went to these places
and stole the uniform,

I guess, packed it in a bag and just
got out of there as quick as he could.

I do understand a lot of fetishes.

I may not have them, I may not
share them, but I understand them.

But then there’s this whole category
of fetishes that I just don’t understand.

And I wonder how they come about.

We did this, we just touched on this, when
university we touched on this in psych 101

that I did and I really
enjoyed psychology

because we got to talk about this
stuff, but how do you develop a fetish?

Is it already inherent or is it developed
over time because it may experience?

And that is, this guy is a pianist, he’s
actually fairly well renowned, he travels

around, he goes to, he’s international,
so he’s playing piano, he’s making money.

He’s living the dream
of a lot of musicians,

he’s getting paid to
play piano and he messed

it up because he just
could not resist his fetish.

If you would like to join
the Ninja News Japan

Quiz, send an email to
chunkmybeefchest@gmail.com.

I love having other people on the podcast
and having them join the quiz, it is very

difficult to set up with
time zones, but if you

would like to participate
in one of the quizzes,

send me a message, and I’ll do
my best to try to arrange that.

A Big Nothing Burger

You have donated
multiple times and I think

at this point you now
own 51% of this podcast.

So if Malcolm, you would like to
give me any orders or anything.

I do believe that now
we are in a position

where you are my boss and all I can
really do is thank you for your generosity.

So if you have any
orders or a direction you

would like the podcast to take,
please feel free to send me a message.

Thank you so much for watching.

We talked about Ironhead,
a Chinese streamer,

and he went to a place
called Yaskuni Shrine,

a very controversial shrine because it is
where essentially work criminals have been

entombed or at least their
spirit is supposed to rise there.

It’s dedicated to the
people who died in wars

in some ways that’s
just people who were

drafted and had to go
to war and had no choice.

In other instances it was people who
were maybe a little more aggressive.

These are the nicest way to put it.

Countries like China
and South Korea, they

have severe issues
with the idea of honoring

people who invaded and did
terrible things in their country.

It’s a very complicated issue.

As an article came out
and it said, “Ironhead

has no intention to
turn himself in,” which

is an interesting title because
did anyone think he was going to?

A guy who comes to
another country to pee on

a shrine, a religious
building, did they think

that was the type of
person who is suddenly

going to have some
sort of conscience in that

I maybe have done the wrong thing, should
go back and make some sort of retribution?

I did not even consider
the fact as a concept

that he would come back
and actually turn himself in.

There are some quotes, though, and
the quotes from him are pretty good.

The reason is simple.

I don’t want Japan
to discharge nuclear

contaminated water, and
that is my ultimate goal.

I do have some
criticisms of his style of

protest because this is
actually my problem with

protesting often in
general, is that it doesn’t

seem to be like it’s
actually going to be

effective towards getting the results.

You are unhappy that
Japan had the Fukushima

power plant issues,
the meltdown, and they

are releasing irradiated
water into the ocean.

That is something to be upset about.

You don’t like it.

I understand that.

You want them to stop.

I don’t think going
around and peeing on

things is going to convince anyone
that what they’re doing should change.

I don’t think that’s the way it’s going
to actually affect or impact change.

I don’t think anyone in Japan is going to
rise up in support because if you actually

wanted change within Japan, you would need
to get the Japanese people on your side to

agree with you to then
affect or impact change.

Pying on things is
not going to have the

effect on the Japanese sensibilities
that you might be expecting to.

I think his expectation
was he’s going to

go back to China and
everyone would be like,

dude, you peed on that
thing that was awesome

and he didn’t really
expect anything to change.

I think this is like a false front.

He wanted to be
something to be upset about.

He found something to
be upset about so that

he could go and have an
excuse to pee on Yasakuni Shrine.

You should be the ones to reflect first.

Turning myself in is out of the question.

Again, like I said, I actually
thought that from the beginning.

I never thought it was a question.

I actually in this one instance, at least
share the same mentality as Ironhead.

He did not think about turning himself in.

He was never thinking
about turning himself in.

He wasn’t even
considering it until probably

someone else asked him so that he could say
no so that they could write this article.

Not a surprise.

He has not been questioned
by public security in China.

So he went back to China.

There’s no extradition treaty, obviously.

The relationship between China
and Japan isn’t good enough for that.

He got a certain amount
of fame online for this act.

The police saw it.

And you know what?

He went to another country
that we don’t particularly like.

And he peed on a thing
we really, really don’t like.

We’re not particularly upset about that.

So not a big surprise that
nothing came of that story.

So this whole story that I saw reposted
multiple times is a massive nothing burger.

So this is something I do a lot is I do a
story and then I hit the transition sound.

And then I think of one more thought.

I don’t know if I
should do the one more

thought and then move
on to the next story or

then then I should just
eliminate the transition sound.

The transition sound is supposed to be just
like a like, okay, we’ve ended that story.

We’ve started the next story.

A woman edited images of
characters from a popular

smartphone game and then
posted those images online.

This did not sound like anything to me.

Maybe this whole episode is
me talking about nothing burgers.

I mean, I have taken
images from video games

and characters and
stuff and edited them

trying to bake a joke probably
and then posted them online.

It is such a common occurrence.

I didn’t think there would
be an issue of it for it.

She was angry about the
treatment of her favorite characters.

She has a favorite character in this
game and apparently they’ve done her dirty.

So she decided to get, I don’t know,
revenge to demonstrate her displeasure.

Much like the protest from the previous
story, she decided to protest the treatment

of this character in
this game that she likes.

The smartphone game
is called Ensemble Stars.

What she did was she took characters.

She had an insect to the character six
times and she posted them on X three times.

I’m assuming, you know, groups of two.

So she took two
pictures, added bugs to the

pictures, posted that
online, did it again and again.

Again, I’m still at the point
where I’m like, who cares?

She’s taken some
images of characters and

put bugs on them because
she’s unhappy of the

treatment of her favorite
character, who actually cares?

The company claimed copyright infringement.

They claimed copyright
for obstructing the

operation of the app
by editing the character

to cause discomfort and fear and greatly
damaged the image of our company’s content,

which sounds like a
massive amount of bullshit.

So basically she took
characters, added them

posted online, like
millions, I bet there’s

like tons of fan things out
there that are lavacious.

I mean, that is just what
happens with characters in Japan.

And they’re like unhappy about
it, so they had her arrested.

And I was like, I can’t,
what I’m interested

about with this story
specifically is will

this act, will a judge
actually take this seriously?

That’s the bit I’m actually most interested
in because I personally, if I was a judge,

I’d be like, so she took some images, she
put bugs on them and posted them online.

I don’t think that would
have caused the lull

of discomfort and fear
that you’re claiming.

I don’t think it inhibited your operations.

I don’t think the closest you get
is a form of copyright infringement.

But if they let other
instances go, so like

there are other people
who have like dumb stuff

to their characters and
posted online and you didn’t say

anything, I would say that’s a
precedent that you’re okay with it.

So it is no longer a case.

It’s very short, like
the intro to the story

is really just this set up,
which is every story anyways.

And then I give you three
options and we can talk about it.

Like again, like this isn’t
like a, there’s no prizes.

Okay, so you’re in the forest right now.

I am in the forest right now, yeah.

How far away are you from civilization
and still volunteering to do a quiz?

Ah, probably about ten minutes away.

Okay, so like if you
fell down, the last

thing you would hear,
it wouldn’t just be my

talking about some
purview 50 year old man.

No, that’d be pretty dramatic though,
but like, no, I’m like, I’m on the tail end

of a walk with my dog,
where I usually just listen

to things, and I get in my
car and I drive back home.

So I’m in the woods,
there’s some birds, but

I’m not that far away from
people, I just have to people.

You.

Yeah.

So where’s part of the wood?

Are you coming here in other part?

Yeah.

No, that is, well, I live
in Japan, so there’s

people everywhere you
cannot get away from

people that have the nerve
to be there all the time.

All the time.

Okay, so we have a
deputy manager in his

50s, and a discriminatory
comments to two of

his foreign subordinates,
so these are two

foreign workers working
in a Japanese place.

The manager has made
basically racist comments.

Okay, yeah, it’s, so really it’s guessing
which one of these do you think he said?

Okay, okay, hey, I’m
playing myself in the mind.

Yeah, get yourself in
the minds of a 50 year

old Japanese man who
doesn’t like foreigners,

who yet is still found himself
in charge, employing foreigners.

Okay, hey, I have a
prejudice against foreigners,

bid on the news, be foreigners
are lazy and commit crimes.

If there were no
foreigners in Japan, it would

be peaceful, okay, we’re see foreigners
smell and don’t speak Japanese properly.

I mean, I like A is
good because I like my

racism direct, and you
know, like the Japanese

people will tell you things like,
oh, you’ve gained weight, Peter.

That is actually, to
me, the most frustrating

thing about being in
Japan, because I will

get self-conscious about gaining weight and
then they immediately walk up and go, hey,

you’re fat or fat when
you were before, you gained

weight and I’m just like,
yeah, it’s bugging me.

Thank you for making your worst.

That was your holiday,
you must have eaten a lot.

You sure looked
after it, yeah, okay, so I

can see the on the
news racism, but it doesn’t

feel like the way that I would be
used to being told by Japanese people.

I’m going to go with B, B.

B foreigners are lazy
and commit crimes and

there are, if there were no foreigners
in Japan, it would be peaceful.

Correct.

There has been a
widespread bias amongst the

right wing in Japan that it’s only
foreigners that commit crimes.

There was a guy who tried to say that
Japanese people don’t have the gene that lends

you towards criminality,
which is not a thing.

I feel like I’ve
absorbed some of these

articles to happen, maybe that’s
what’s biasing my answer here.

Yeah, so like everyone who’s coming on
to the quiz has listened to an engineer’s

Japan, and so they’ve
heard it, but I actually

think the skill I’m bringing to it is I’m
making all very realistic sounding answers.

You definitely have
because I feel like maybe

I’ve heard some
variation of all of them.

Yeah, okay, so the answer
you are incorrect, I’m sorry.

The answer was, hey, I have
a prejudice against foreigners.

He just straight up came
out and said, you know

what, you guys, everyone who’s
not Japanese, don’t like them.

Okay, so there’s a second
part, a mini second part to this.

This is a government agency, so he
was punished, but he was not fired.

What do you think his punishment was?

There’s no options.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Can I ask what’s this agency in charge of?

I didn’t write it down, I
actually don’t remember.

Okay.

I maybe they didn’t
say, they actually might

not have said because
they don’t want like

pushback from the public and like
people being shitty towards them.

So it actually maybe I did, it’s
not that I didn’t write it down.

Maybe they didn’t say, they just said,
government employee, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Okay, so applying
what I know of Japan, it

basically implies fire anybody
and less is pretty egregious.

You have to like, people to get fired.

I remember the old Konami story, where
they made like developers into janitors.

Yes.

Just get them to quit.

Yes.

It would be fair enough
of what he said to

foreigners to actually
do too much about it.

So I actually think
one of the problems is

they would be like, hey,
he was just telling the truth.

Like there was nothing
bad about what he did

because he was just
telling you how he felt

and should he not be
allowed to express his feelings?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

I can either see him
being one not allowed to

manage foreigners or being given more
foreigners to manage to increase his activity.

Okay.

So I’ll give you this hint.

It’s neither of those, but he also
wasn’t removed from his position.

So he’s still in charge of the foreigners.

He was in charge of before.

So he didn’t lose his job with
him made, didn’t lose his job.

Did he have to go to a foreigner
or sent to the Ebony court?

No, they don’t do that here.

I don’t think there would
be one because who’d run it?

The other old racist
man would be like, you

know, we all know that foreign people
are bad, but we have to pretend we don’t.

Like that would be the
version of a sensitivity training.

Totally, like what
you said is wrong, but

it’s not actually, we
kind of agree with you,

but we had to have this meeting anyway.

Yeah.

I don’t know, aren’t that my feeling
is he didn’t get punished at all?

Oh, he did, though.

He got a three month, 10% pay cut.

Are you?

Wow.

That’s actually pretty severe.

It, it isn’t, I mean, because
he’s going back to the next day.

So he’s just been told you’re not going
to get 10% of your pay for three months.

And then he goes back the next day into
the same room with the same foreign guys.

Unless they got him
clearly blame them for it.

For it.

Yeah.

It’s, yeah, it’s your fault I
got caught saying something.

Yeah.

You probably ratted
me out and you are a

foreigner, so it’s correct
for me not to like you.

Yes, this is why, oh, this is
why I don’t like foreigners,

because they do stuff like lose
me 10% of my pay for three months.

Okay, I’m not doing
very well on this place.

Well, it’s all just open
to open for the future.

There’s a new addition to the
swords and firearms bill in Japan.

So Japan has a thing called
the sword and fireman’s act.

And that is controlling weapons.

So at first, it’s interesting because
we don’t only think of gun control.

We don’t think of sword
control, but there are

still lots of swords
in Japan as a country.

There are still people who
make swords professionally.

Swords are commonly available.

And so they have the
sword and firearms act,

which is weapon control
because a couple of

years ago, it was
crossbows were added into it.

So it’s actually illegal
to own my crossbow.

You have to get a license for that now.

They have added to that encouraging
illegal gun ownership control.

So it’s not just having a gun
or selling a gun or making a gun.

They’re saying if you
encourage people to have

a legal weapon, that
also going to be punished.

And what they’re
actually aiming for, this

is the interesting bit, what they’re actually
aiming for because it’s like if I walk

around the street and go, hey,
you should get an illegal gun.

Hey, you should get an illegal gun.

That technically would fall under this.

I would get in trouble for that.

What they want to do
is put a ban on things

that explain how to
make guns or encouraging

others to sell guns or telling
people how to do things with guns.

And they’re targeting YouTube videos and
things like that because two years ago, the

Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe,
was killed with a homemade shotgun.

So this guy went online.

He learned how to make the gun online.

He learned how to make
the gun powder online.

He built it all and then he went and he
found the Prime Minister and he shot him.

The former Prime Minister and he shot him.

So they’re like, if you
can learn this stuff

online and it leads you to gun ownership,
we should also punish the people who are

encouraging people to
create illegal weapons.

So they’ve made it again.

Japanese laws are very weird.

They’re always very broad.

So encouraging is a very open
to interpret interpretation term.

If you are encouraging
people to have own or make

an illegal weapon, you
will also be punished.

The punishment could be one year
in prison and up to 300,000 yen fine.

You have probably heard of Bandai Namco.

They make Gundam models.

So those plastic models that people
put together, very exciting piece of work.

I actually think they’re look really cool.

I don’t have the patience to make them.

They come in.

They have like specialty
ones and giant boxes,

but like anything, scarcity
makes them valuable.

And scarcity making
something valuable means

that scalpers are
going to try to buy them

all and then resell them
on the black market.

They released mighty strike
freedom Gundam gun plot.

So I’m going to have
to find an image of that.

I don’t follow Gundam enough to know
what mighty strike freedom Gundam is.

I’m assuming he’s a big robot.

The galper saw an
opportunity and they bought

a whole bunch of these
and then Bandai Namco

saw an opportunity and
they released a whole

bunch more essentially undercutting
the value in the black market.

So these people, these
scalpers, they bought

a whole bunch of them
and then the company

released a whole bunch more so
that everyone else could buy them.

So there’s no need for them to buy them
on the black market from these scalpers.

So these scalpers can’t overcharge you.

They can’t.

Well, they’ve lost
a bunch of potential

money because there’s
the money they invested

into actually buying
the Gundam and then the

money, the potential profits they
lost by not being able to resell them.

An upset scalper took
to the internet and he

wrote a little treaty
and it goes like this.

I’m going to read the whole thing to you
because it’s really entertaining to read.

From mighty strike
freedom, which we oppose

increasing available
stock of, is there really

a need to sell them
at convenience stores.

So sometimes even
convenience stores in Japan

are different from convenience
stores in other places.

They sell kind of everything.

Like you can get like home stuff you need.

You can get food.

You can get meals.

You can get ingredients from meals.

You need something.

There’s actually a
very good chance you’re

going to get it at a
Japanese convenience store.

They also sell toys and sometimes
they sell specialty items like this.

It was such a devastating event that
we had to begin an emergency meeting.

So this is a meeting of scalpers, an
emergency meeting despite attending a seminar.

So there’s some sort
of seminar with talking

about how to scalp better or
more efficiently or work together.

Like we had to stop that and have an
emergency meeting about mighty strike freedom.

Now that the meeting is over, I’m
pissed and I might use some foul language.

At first, the cost was 2,970 yen and
they expected profit price was 6,800 yen.

So they’re saying that you
want to buy one of these things.

It costs 3,000 yen and they were
planning to sell it for 6 to 7,000 yen.

So they were going to make
about 3 to 4,000 yen profit.

After the release of the product was
confirmed, many members of my reselling seminar

class worked together with some
even managing to obtain over 20 boxes.

So that’s 20 times
3,000 yen is what the

investment they put into these, hoping
to sell them and get twice that back.

Our members have quite a good
amount of available stock in total.

This is what happened
with the PlayStation 5.

You couldn’t buy a PlayStation 5
because all the scalper started to buy it.

In Japan, what they
did is they set up

lotteries, a store would
get so many, you had to

enter a lottery, you
could enter again and

again and again and then you would win
lottery and get your PlayStation or not.

Now they’re available, but back when it was
scarce, they were trying to stop scammers

or scalpers so you could only buy one
at a time and you had to enter a lottery.

It became quite a bit of work.

We planned out a scalping tour
to Odaiba on the date of release.

So the day this thing was coming out, they
were like, we’re going to as a group, go to

this stores and buy them all and
even managed to beat the lottery.

So again, that’s the
lottery I just mentioned.

And some members were even planning trips
around the expected profit from scalping.

So they’re saying these
guys plan to buy so

many and then sell them
and make so much money.

They plan to trip
based on that potential

profit from the selling,
reselling these toys.

When you think about
how we paid expensive

participation in
transportation costs, increasing

stock just as destroy
resellers is too much, isn’t it?

So they’re saying like
we had to pay travel

expenses, we had to, you
know, maybe stay overnight.

So we had to play hotel, we had to
travel, we had to do all these things.

It cost me money to prepare
to steal from other people, don’t

you think it’s unfair that I
didn’t get to steal from anyone?

There are people from the countryside
who booked hotels just to come to Odaiba.

Imagine Gumpla being something that
anyone can buy whenever they want.

I actually would imagine that to be honest.

I don’t see why there is scarcity.

Even sold in convenience stores.

Do you think the children will
value Gumpla when it happens?

So he’s trying to
say like if it becomes

readily available, then
people won’t value it

as much, but that’s the problem because the
only way he makes money off it is if people

value it and that becomes because
the, the created scarcity of the product.

You want it, but you can’t buy it.

There’s low stock and
that’s why it is enticing.

So he’s saying that
scalpers make products

more attractive and
more exciting for people

to buy to, it’ll make it be
better for the company.

Even us setting the
high price isn’t just

because we want to make more
money, although of course it is.

It’s set so that kids
can’t buy it with their

pocket money and
that parents can instead

buy, instead buy it for
them, leading to a parent

child communication, helping quash
parental neglect and making children smile.

This is where it became suspicious as if to
not, this was might have just been satire.

Because your kids have to
ask the parents for money.

The parents have to
talk to their kids and that’s

going to stop them
neglecting their children.

Doesn’t sound like
even something someone

who was angry about
losing profits would say.

That’s why we were forced to
sell the gun plot at such a high price.

We were doing this for a noble
cause is what they were trying to say.

There are also some
resellers whose career

didn’t work out or were forced
out due to power harassment.

So they’re talking
about like they had a

job and they were
having trouble at work and

then this reselling became their new job so
they could escape this negative situation.

Despite betting on a
chance to turn things around

as a reseller, are you really going
to even waste that investment?

How the heck should they survive?

The end is a bit grandiose, which
is why the end seems suspiciously

like this might not be a
sincere call to justify reselling.

But it is interesting the way the
companies in Japan have handled reselling.

Like I said, the PlayStation, they ran
lottery almost every store had a lottery.

You couldn’t just walk
into a store and buy it.

You had to register, you had to like enter
the lottery regularly and then you got one.

I got one and then my wife
and I got one at the same time.

So I actually bought one and I
was able to get one for my friend.

I didn’t resell it.

I sold it to him for the exact price.

Not anymore.

Nothing less because I wanted
him to actually have his PlayStation.

It’s interesting what Ben and I
Namco have done in this situation.

They know people are going to buy this.

They know they’re
going to try to resell it.

They’re like, let’s say we’re
going to sell a thousand units.

What we’ll do is release 100 and after the
scalpers buy those 100, we’ll release the

other 900 and then we’ll undercut
the value but those guys have bought it.

They can’t really bring
it back in exchange

for the same price or
they could bring it back

and get their money
back but then someone

else could buy it
without having to spend

that extra money that
a scalper would expect.

That was an interesting tactic.

I don’t know if they
did it on purpose but it

does seem like this one instance
was calculated to undercut scalpers.

So this treaty that was
posted on the internet,

if it’s serious, it’s
quite funny because

of the sort of grandiose nature of
we’re trying to mend families by scalping.

But also if it’s not,
it’s actually pointing

out sort of the irony
of what do these people

think they’re actually
doing when they’re just

trying to take more
money away from relatively

normal people who are just
trying to indulge in their hobby.

Normally I saved the last
story for creepy old men

and there’s not any creepy
old men in the stories.

I didn’t do anything this week but we
have Mae Zawa, he’s a Japanese billionaire.

This guy in 2021, he
was the first person

to trap, the first Japanese person to
travel to the international space station.

He did that on his own money.

He just like, ah, I’m
going to buy a ticket on a

spaceship and go to the
international space station.

He canceled his planned
trip to orbit the moon.

He said it was somehow unfeasible.

So this guy has so much money.

He’s taking his free
time and like, I’m going

to go to the international
space station.

I have so much money.

I’m going to go
around the moon, which

probably I don’t think
anyone’s actually ever done yet.

He was participating
in the Ferrari challenge

Japan, which is a, you own a Ferrari,
you can join this is basically a race.

And he was in a bit of a crash.

None of it was life threatening and
when I heard about it, I felt nothing.

And this is kind of the
same thing that happened

to those billionaires who
went in the submarine

and in the submarine, they went and
of course it imploded and everyone died.

There was a kid on there and
everyone sort of feels something

for the, he was really relatively
innocent in this process.

But I heard this really, really famous
rich guy had crashed his car now.

I didn’t know if he was dead or
not, but I was like, I don’t care.

And I don’t care because he’s a billionaire
and he can spend his time going to the

international space
station and he could

spend his time in his
Ferrari racing around a

race track and then have a crash
and it’s still not negatively impact him.

And I think I realized
it’s because let’s make

a list of things I couldn’t afford to
do that are involved in this story.

I wish you go, I’m trying to figure,
should we go big as the smallest?

Okay, yeah, things I couldn’t
afford will go big as the smallest.

I couldn’t afford to pay
for a trip to orbit them.

I couldn’t afford a trip to go to
the international space station.

I couldn’t even afford
one of those trips

where you just leave
the atmosphere and float

for two minutes and then return
to the atmosphere of the earth.

I can’t afford a Ferrari.

I can’t afford to take my
Ferrari and put it in a car race.

I can’t afford to take my
regular car and put it into a race.

I can’t afford to take
the trip to Miyagi,

the place where the
race happens, so I could

actually even watch the rich
people race their expensive cars.

That’s how poor I am compared to this guy.

What he’s doing on
a weekend for fun, I

couldn’t even afford to do without
negatively impacting my general lifestyle.

And then this is one
of those things where

people are now starting
to turn on billionaires

because he got hurt
crashing his expensive

car in a race that was
completely frivolous.

Well, I’m sorry.

I don’t really give a fuck.

But it was national,
it was really big news

because rich guy
crashes his rich thing into

another maybe rich guy’s car and
didn’t have any life threatening injuries.

He’s going to take
time off from work and

then recover completely
and then have people

like do awesome
rehabilitation, so he’ll be fine.

Whereas I hurt my knee
five years ago and you

know, I did my best
but it’s still not 100%.

Mizama, I’m sorry man,
I feel nothing for you

and a deep down inside,
I kind of hope it hurt.

[Music]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Mood Harassment

(upbeat music)

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

All right, anyways, the
big black barrier that we

talked about last week and
maybe even the week before.

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

The holes, suspiciously, are at eye level.

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

Just not this soon.

So they underestimated the sheer resilience

of tourists coming
to ruin their little plan.

A barrier, I didn’t actually think

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

My assumption actually
was people were gonna hold

their hands above the
barrier to take the picture.

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

but I actually would have
assumed it was gonna happen.

So what do they need to do?

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

Now there’s a plan to repair the barrier

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

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

respect for other things,
because if these are the kind

of people who are
willing to poke holes in a

barrier to take the
picture that they want,

they’re also the kind
of people who would be

willing to ignore a sign
to not touch the barrier.

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

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

” They are talking about
putting up a new screen.

So that screen costs 1.3 million yet.

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

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

They didn’t get too much into the details.

They are talking about a different color.

They are thinking about
changing the color from black

’cause maybe the black
is a bit too intimidating.

It’s a bit not very aesthetic.

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

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

A green.

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

So my first thought was for the animators.

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

And then you can
superimpose an anime version

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

And now you’re in the dream anime.

You’ve imagined all your whole life.

And that’s pretty awesome.

I mean, let’s be straight up.

That’s pretty cool.

Then, of course, people
are going to get more

creative than that and
do weird and gross stuff.

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

Man was arrested for stealing
cyanide from a university laboratory.

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

But this is like a lab.

They do lots of stuff.

So they’re going to have lots of chemicals.

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

Universities, not a big
surprise, they keep track

of how much lethal chemicals
they have very closely.

He took 25 grams.

So they noticed 25 grams
of cyanide was missing

and then started tracing
it back to him right away.

He took the cyanide
because he wanted to kill

his father who was
nagging him to get a job.

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

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

You’ve got to get a job.

And he got really annoyed by that.

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

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

Take that home and kill my father.

No one will know.

No one will ever figure it out.

It’s the perfect plan.

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

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

So be careful.

So you go to a famous Japanese restaurant.

Japan is famous for its food.

So the good restaurants
are really good in the food.

The food’s famous.

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

And Japan does have good food.

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

You want to go to a ramen restaurant.

Ramen’s very famous in Japan as well.

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

Imagine you’re sitting
eating this delicious ramen

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

You’ve gone in.

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

Wow.

You start eating it.

And then smoke starts to fill the room.

What do you do?

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

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

had of eating this very
specific kind of ramen?

No.

You keep eating.

There were no instructions
from the staff to actually leave.

There were about 15
customers in the ramen

restaurant when smoke
started filling the room.

No one said any.

Only when the flames got higher– this

was what the article
said– only when the

flames got higher where
people told to leave.

Apparently, staff started to panic.

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

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

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

we don’t want to ruin
their dining experience.

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

dying for what I assume
is a minimum wage drop.

Maybe it’s a high-end restaurant.

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

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

You’re not getting paid that much.

Certainly not enough to risk your life.

So what happens?

You’re like, I’m getting out of here.

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

The flames did get high
enough to touch the ceiling.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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

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

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

including how they talked
and sort of their gestures.

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

So how do you think
the principal dealt with it?

And you have three options.

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

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

These are middle school kids.

Middle is our elementary school.

Yeah, they’re not old.

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

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

He might be.

I told you how one of the teachers dealt

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

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

Yeah, I’d love to.

I’m going to go ahead.

They had a school council
meeting, and all the kids

wanted to know why the
girls were only allowed to have

a hair above their shoulder
or hair below their shoulder.

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

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

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

And they brought it up
at the council meeting.

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

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

Yeah, I’m assuming, yeah.

He was like, it is 60s.

Awesome.

You know, he loves having rules challenged.

He teaches.

It’s best one.

Because almost all the
engineers Japan stories

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

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

And then though you
know, those teachers are

just fat all of the
crap of pieces of shit.

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

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

and they can’t physically
do anything anymore.

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

You could try and spread
your knowledge without shouting.

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

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

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

But yeah, they bugged me.

I just stand on the side.

Yeah.

Anyway, yeah, so after
she presented this question

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

Yeah.

He just turned to the whole school.

The whole school, yeah?

The whole school.

It’s like, can you believe
the stupid question

that the stupid little
girl just asked me?

Can you believe what a stupid question?

And then my daughter
just stood there like, what?

This just happened.

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

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

Because the answer is, there is no reason.

It’s an arbitrary rule.

Yeah, I don’t know.

It’s the way it’s been.

It’s like the challenge it.

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

basically overturned over
the last couple of years.

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

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

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

So they have to have
bad legs through winter.

Yeah.

Which I think is really old.

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

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

They all just get pants.

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

Yeah, absolutely ridiculous.

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

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

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

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

The coldest place in Japan.

Jesus, what?

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

Yeah, right.

I don’t know what’s going on there.

Because yeah, I do remember coming to Japan

and seeing the school
skirts and just nothing.

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

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

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

Yeah, you’re Canadian.

Yeah, no, it’s, it’s not even cold.

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

Okay, so you have firsthand
experience almost of authoritative

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

That might be the title of the episode.

Okay, so how did this man deal with it?

Three choices.

A, okay.

He hit the student.

B, he made a speech
and copied the students.

So he made a speech
and imitated the student.

So he basically did it back.

Imitating himself.

Yeah.

No, no, no, he imitated the student

and like started doing
the students gestures

and stuff, basically
making fun of the student.

Oh, go down, okay.

Or C, he demanded an apology.

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

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

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

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

Oh, what order would you do it in?

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

If I was going to do all three of those,

I think it would be because
you get the joke out

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

And then be like, now you.

I’m the G and then hit them.

(laughing)

Oh, you actually though it
makes a demand an apology

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

That would actually make sense to me.

All right, I’m going to go with B.

B made this speech and
copied the student is incorrect.

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

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

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

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

You may not be able to finish high school.

The boy during this time was
apologizing profusely and crying.

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

We may end up having
to settle out of court.

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

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

where this could get
thrown out because they’re

just like, dude, you’re
being unreasonable.

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

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

So he, he did some cool shit afterwards.

So the kid won the election.

So he removed, he took
down the election results,

remade them and took
that kid’s name out.

So he just like messed up the election.

And then he was ordered
to stay home by the

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

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

I don’t know.

Like, I guess you just live this life.

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

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

argue with and you get
into this mind from move.

Anything I do is okay.

I think this is the thing
I hit most regularly now

is these guys have
lived this life and got

to a point where
anything I do is reasonable

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

I had a conversation
with the Japanese women

about what she thinks of
the worst neighbors to have.

She said, retired police
officers and retired teachers.

Yeah, retired police officers are bored

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

Yeah, they want to create drama.

Yeah, just do it around their neighborhood.

Yeah.

And then I retired teachers
make sense because again,

they’ve lived this
life where they’re the

authority and everyone
should listen to them.

Yeah.

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

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

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

there’s a point where
you may be going into

a school and you see
the principal and stuff.

And for a moment,
you do feel the principal.

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

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

But there is a moment.

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

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

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

So I read a lot of Japanese news.

That’s how this podcast came to be.

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

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

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

And it’s called mood harassment.

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

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

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

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

They are saying that
if you create a negative

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

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

your mood, that is a
form of mood harassment.

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

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

If I have a grumpy looking face,

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

And that is a form of mood harassment.

Unintentional siding is a
form of power harassment.

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

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

That is a form of power harassment.

They also pointed out lip
smacking and face making.

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

That sort of disc sound.

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

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

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

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

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

People tend to be
unhappy or as they get older.

I don’t know.

The problem with this,
so like sexual harassment,

you know you’re
doing something sexual.

Maybe you even know you’re crossing a line.

Power harassment, you
know you’re being aggressive

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

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

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

thing on this, like
how do you define it?

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

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

I’m now harassing my
coworkers and they consume me

or they consume the
company or something like that,

that seems problematic
and I think personally,

maybe this one is
going a little too far.

A YouTuber was arrested.

So we did a couple of stories.

It was Johnny Smolley doing stuff in Japan.

He ended up getting arrested.

And I don’t know if he
was actually deported

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

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

steal food from hotels,
breakfast and stuff like that.

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

And that seems to have moved
on to either other countries

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

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

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

went to countries where
they are essentially more strict

and more harsh in their
punishments than Japan.

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

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

Realistically though, you
can only go so far in any

country before something’s
going to happen to you.

This YouTuber was Japanese.

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

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

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

Now emulating those foreign
people who did get famous

and get a certain amount
of money for doing the stuff

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

but the foreign YouTubers
are a better story.

This is a forcible obstruction of business.

I’m going to ding that one.

Car alarm, sorry going off.

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

He was drunk.

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

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

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

That’s forcible obstruction of business.

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

A man had a restraining
order placed upon him

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

(laughs)

What, he shot, he took a shot.

He just didn’t know when to give up.

She’d rejected his
attempts at communication.

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

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

He showed up at her work.

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

So A, I didn’t know she worked there.

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

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

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

It was seen primarily he was texting her

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

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

Then he went to the workplace
after the restraining order.

He shows up at her workplace.

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

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

Or I thought if she saw
me, she might change

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

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

She’s not gonna refuse this.

Ah, I think we come on.

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

The excuses are always really.

This is basically where
the quizzes are coming are.

How do these people talk to the police?

Because there’s almost
like a set of answers

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

So, oh, man, I think it’s C.

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

Yeah, he’s really.

Yes, he said.

So persistent.

Yeah, he was doing that.

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

Well, what’s the correct answer?

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

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

a restraining order so
you know she works there.

You know you’re not supposed to go in.

He’s like, but I had other business.

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

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

Yeah, like if people could be there,

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

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

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

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

Like I buy stuff here, yeah.

This is just the closest one in my area.

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

Yeah, I most vanilla answer of those ones.

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

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

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

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

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

And then we see how close you can get.

Maybe a hint system almost.

A hint system.

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

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

A Chinese YouTuber came to Japan.

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

The local born native live
streamer getting in trouble

and now the international
live streamer getting in trouble.

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

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

That is problematic for Chinese people.

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

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

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

” The Chinese government,
the Chinese people,

one of the places that
was invaded by Japan,

things like this is something
maybe you should not do.

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

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

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

I think if I was a politician,

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

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

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

And they’re trying to build relations.

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

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

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

and he said this
was in protest of the

Fukushima water treatment
of the water release.

So the Fukushima power
plant had a meltdown.

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

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

And it will dissipate enough, hopefully,

that it doesn’t actually
negatively impact anything,

but they still can get
rid of the irradiated water.

China has been against this.

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

Their alternative was to
shoot it into the atmosphere,

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

that seems just as bad
if not somehow worse.

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

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

I don’t know.

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

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

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

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

He filmed himself doing this.

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

because there is actually
footage of security footage

of him doing this, but
the way he got caught

is he posted it on the
Chinese version of Instagram,

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

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

That video was taken
down and shared outside of

China, so actually it
got captured elsewhere.

So he gives a little speech
and he says that this

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

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

So he climbs onto a
pillar and begins to urinate,

and then spray paints
the word toilet on the pillar.

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

so he’s probably not
on the country anymore.

But if he comes back, he could be caught.

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

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

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

Like if you want to protest stuff,

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

You need to have some
sort of something in place.

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

I don’t think they’re
particularly effective.

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

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

But at the same time,
since it started getting

traction in China, it
means it got really popular,

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

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

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

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

from making the country
or the government look bad.

Like you can lose your
social status and stuff.

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

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

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

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

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Things Getting Sadder

(upbeat music)

So, is your population getting too old?

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

So, it is actually very possible.

You’re living in a country that is graying.

Population is skewing
to the older generation.

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

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

You just redefine what old is.

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

So, the retirement age.

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

And then, we got less old people.

And those people can keep working.

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

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

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

And of course, this
is specifically designed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

reskilling is taking
someone who doesn’t know

how to computers and teaching
them how to use computers.

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

Like, I tried to stay up on technology.

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

certainly like there are
apps where, you know, people

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I don’t wanna be reskilled.

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

The government is predicting
a 1% economic growth

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

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

They do talk about
Social Security and stuff,

which, you know, the
only way to keep Social

Security robust is to
have people pay into it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Cause what they’re
actually talking about is,

if you’re 65 and you start
getting Social Security

and they redefine old,
then you might lose it for

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

And as a prospect, that makes me very sad,

which makes perfect
sense for our next story.

Global Happiness Report 2024.

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

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

Man, Japan is on a downward trend.

A lot of countries are.

So this isn’t just picking on Japan.

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

This is a lot of countries
are on a downward

trend, but it has dropped
13 points from 2011.

So the worldwide survey,
this was interesting.

This survey only surveyed
2000 respondents in Japan.

So the entirety of the
Japanese collective happiness

index is based on the
feelings of 2000 people.

There are millions of people in Japan.

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

and used that to represent
all foreigners in Japan.

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

Sampling 2,000 people from the country

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

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

I don’t think this is a good survey.

It may not be representative.

Unless, of course, the
other millions and millions

of people in Japan are just
too depressed to answer.

In which case, this is
really, really accurate.

57% said they were very
happy or rather happy.

There were four categories.

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

The happiest country in the world.

Oh, I should have done a quiz.

I gotta work my quizzes in advance.

Bit busy this week.

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

This would be the quiz question.

So I’m gonna pause.

Please lock in your answer now.

Oh, Ignat’s is in the chats.

Let’s do it.

Ignat’s.

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

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

It’s one of those scannability places.

It’s one of those scannability places.

I don’t know what scannability means.

Scandinavian, it makes way more sense.

You are on the right track.

Please name a Scandinavian country.

There is a second place
that is very not Scandinavian,

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

that, but please name
a Scandinavian country.

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

You are correct.

Norway or Sweden?

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

It’s a good guess.

I didn’t get the whole list.

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

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

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

83% in Mexico.

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

cartel stuff and murders
and people dying and stuff.

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

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

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

So that’s pretty good.

Japan was 28th on the list.

The lowest two were South
Korean hungry and hungry.

They tied for 48%.

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

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

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

And that’s gotta say something.

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

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

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

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

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

entertainment podcast
in the world other than

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

Although I do rip on politicians a lot.

I bet no politician would
actually wanna listen to this

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

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

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

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

What kind of questions
they actually ask you.

But looking at the
results, not enough people,

but weirdly accurate
for what I would assume

are the countries with
the worst work-life balance.

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

I do enjoy my surveys
and my numbers and stuff.

February 2005, survey was done.

Should we have a female emperor?

87% people said yes.

We should have a female emperor

because as I’ve stated
in other emperor-related

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

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

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

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

“Maybe we don’t need
these ladies anymore.

” I went down to 68% in 2017.

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

“We should take someone
from the former imperial lineage

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

“There is a relationship there though.

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

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

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

They work with the Red Cross.

They do make countries
nice with each other.

They do charity work.

I think that’s great.

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

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

This year, a different
survey was done last month.

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

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

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

A different survey was done last week.

81% of those people
said bring on the ladies,

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

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

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

female, or any other
aspect of their personality.

They are just part of the royal family.

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

Do not overcomplicate this.

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

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

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

raising the age of
retirement from 65 to 70?

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

Because I’m already done.

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

This is like one of those cult movies

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

It’s the day before my pension kicks in,

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

It’s a nightmare.

Those should be horror
movies at this point.

If your country is considering

moving the definition
of elderly from 65 to 70

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

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

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

Is it really worthwhile?

It’s like the whisper.

I do like whispering every now and then.

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

There was that town,
talked about last week.

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

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

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

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

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

What has happened as a result?

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

“but, taxi drivers said
the traffic is better.

“It’s a lot safer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

but you’re just taking
the problem in moving

it to some other town
or place that is similar.

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

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

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

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

If I practice, it’s not bad.

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

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

and stop bothering
locals who are actually

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

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

is that the locals are
saying we have a problem

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

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

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

problematic because all the
influencers would go there.

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

and then take a picture
of them in front of

their anime loss and
in front of Mount Fuji.

Charge ’em for it and
then we have a solution

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

Now all that money
should go into a fund for

me so that I can go
into early retirement.

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

But putting this thing
up costs 1.3 million yen,

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

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

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

There is no simple solution to any problem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

it’s rated hazard
four, which is the super

durable, it says it
could inhibit a bullet.

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

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

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

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

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

I’m hyper focused on the
solution that I immediately

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

because the measurements
are exactly to the judo suit,

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

and change of underwear
and change of pants,

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

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

and maybe more casual
and more comfortable clothes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I was hyper fixated on a single solution

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

that is a very common
chunk of beef chest way

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

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

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

a barrier, we’ve solved
this individual problem,

but we’ve actually just
made different problems.

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

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

are going, all you’ve
done is move those

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

Do I have a solution for it?

No, tear down melt Fuji.

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

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

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

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

I actually have kind of shied
away from dirty teachers

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

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

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

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

so they would keep
the public out of the trial.

Now why do you think they did that?

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

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

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

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

They have done this
eight times for eight trials.

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

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

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

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

The school board even paid travel expenses

for the staff to get
to the trial to take the

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

which means the tax money in
Yokohama that goes to education

is going to pay to keep
the public from seeing

the trial of the teacher
who abused a student.

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

The board of education,
when this was brought

to their attention,
said that this was done

at the request of the victims
to protect their reputation.

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

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

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

I think that might be more accurate.

They then vehemently
denied, they admitted it

was excessive and they
apologized for doing it.

They did not say they’re going to stop.

So that is an interesting thing.

The school board has
decided to make sure the

public does not have
access to public trials

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

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

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

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

This isn’t as bad.

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

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

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

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

So his neighbor’s parking
maybe in their parking lot

or going over the middle
line or something like that.

It’s a very get off my lawn scenario.

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

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

I got to drive way.

Get out my drive way.

You can’t park over a rubber.

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

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

from old to elderly is a
significant accent change.

His wife stopped him.

He said, look, honey, your drunk,

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

Let’s maintain some neighborly relations.

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

He’s like, no.

And he, he hit her with a banana peel.

Now here’s the problem.

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

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

Or did he actually slap
her with a banana peel?

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

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

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

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

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

Did he do it for a hand or backhand?

Did he bit slap her with a banana peel?

Because now what I want
to do more than anything else

is getting to a gentle
argument with someone,

a confrontation, and
then backhand them with a

banana peel, which I
think would be really funny.

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

She calls the police.

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

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

Is that a big deal?

And then he gets arrested for it.

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

Couples experience this level of violence.

No, actually they don’t.

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

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

So that is not true.

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

but it seems unreasonable
for her to have called

the police over him hitting
her with a banana peel.

Because the banana peel didn’t hurt.

Because whenever they
have any sort of these assault

or violent statements,
they talk about how long

it takes the victim to
heal from their injuries.

And there’s no mention
of that because getting hit

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

So there’s nothing to recover from.

But there is also the
question of escalation.

So once you hit someone with a banana peel,

the next step is obviously
hitting them with a watermelon.

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

Yep.

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

I watched a video just
the other day of two British

tourists in Thailand just
getting the crap beat out of them

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

I actually don’t know what kind.

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

But there was enough
of an area where they

have security workers
and there’s the ladies.

The bar ladies are trying
to stop the security workers

from beating the crap out
of these two British dudes.

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

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

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

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

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

You can oil you want.

You would get the same
satisfaction of watching two

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

I guarantee.

I did.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, there you go.

I do it.

Everyone, British people
have the same feelings

everyone else about watching
British tourists get beat up.

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

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

And then you would prove
to me that they were bad

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

There is the default is that
British tourists deserve it.

And in Thailand, again, you kind of know.

You kind of know.

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

They deserve it backhand
with a banana peel.

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

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

He’s drunk.

Allegedly.

I can literally guarantee
you this man was drunk.

I don’t need to do any detective work.

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

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

Everyone’s actually been very–

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

I wonder if I would hit him back.

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

I probably wouldn’t.

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

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

I don’t want to go to prison.

I don’t want all these problems.

But I guarantee if one
of those dudes hit one

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

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

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

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

and was moved back to
economy or vice versa.

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

But he was moved.

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

And it says several.

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

And that is a long time.

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

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

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

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

I do have a counter for
obstruction of business.

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

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

If you have listened to
any of the back catalog

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

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

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

That is absolutely one that should go in.

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

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

of business crimes to
come up in the future.

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

I think that’s something
we should actually start.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(gentle music)

We Retract This Podcast

(upbeat music)

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

would be to crash it
into a convenience store

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

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

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

It’s about a thousand dollars.

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

so let me to understand
the things have value.

Forklift in itself has value.

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

So I went to decide to look it up online.

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

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

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

We do know he stole a forklift.

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

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

The high price is $91,000.

And the average price is $62,800.

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

it would have been more
financially viable for him

to resell the forklift as
opposed to smashed into

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

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

So I bet he could have
stolen, sold that forklift

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

Keep in mind though, some of the listings

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

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

So maybe he’s gonna steal the forklift,

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

Sell that forklift.

You can charge extra for that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh my God, put some thought into it.

That’s all I’m saying.

The Tokyo Metro Police have
filed charges against a student

who took an engineering
exam for a university.

Now what did he do?

That’s a very good question you ask.

That’s probably why you’re here.

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

And here’s the thing, okay.

It turns out he had his
smartphone in his pocket.

So he was sending pictures to the internet,

trying to get people to
answer those questions for him.

And then when they sent
the answers to the responses,

he would check the
smartphone in his pocket.

That is partially how he got caught.

There’s actually an interesting thing here.

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

There are actually two
versions of how he got caught.

But I want to actually
get to the main point.

This was an engineering exam.

He had smart glasses on.

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

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

so they had a camera
in it where fully functional

took pictures and sent the
pictures to the internet successfully,

that should be enough to
pass the engineering exam.

I actually think that would
be enough engineering,

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

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

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

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

answer the questions, you
know all that boring stuff.

Or if you can engineer a way to cheat

and that engineering
is well constructed

enough, then you pass
the exam automatically.

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

And it seems like he got
caught using a smartphone,

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

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

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

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

Now, different people
have different skills.

There’s different kinds of intelligence.

This is something I’ve
always proposed and believed.

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

and different people are
smart in different ways.

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

Maybe he’s not.

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

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

So the way he got caught
is that someone responded

to his questions online and
then notified the university.

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

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

So there are two, not
contradictory stories,

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

I think the person who
found the questions online,

and that was answering
the questions and then

realized, this is from
an exam and an exam

that might be happening right
now and contacted the university.

That seems more reasonable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So someone noticing
the camera in his glasses,

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

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

realized this person
was using the internet

to cheat, and then
contacted the university.

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

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

we could do some quizzes,
maybe some fun stuff.

This week, I decided to try to employ that.

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

He’s going to join us in the podcast

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

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

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

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

Quiz, something like that.

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

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

Should I introduce you, does anyone care?

You’re just another voice in the world.

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

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

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

A, foreigners are diluting
the purity of Japan.

B, women are only women if they give birth,

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

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

I’ll try to–

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

I think I’ve actually done enough news

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

  • Equal pay for women
    will damage the economy.

Women are not women unless they give birth.

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

She is old.

That actually I think is why
these statements came out.

It’s always the same thing.

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

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

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

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

It’s just like you have to give birth.

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

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

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

It was one of these
trad wives who’s like

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

It’s so horrible.

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

They say, well, this so ass backwards.

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

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

(laughing)

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

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

He was like, whoa, you can do that.

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

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

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

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

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

I do everything.

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

But okay, you have to make your choice.

A, foreigners are
diluting the purity of

Japan or unless you
wanna ask some questions.

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

equal pay for women
will damage the economy.

  • So B seems the most
    misogynistic view about his coming

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

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

B, she said her statement
didn’t convey the

correct meaning or C,
I retract my statement.

You know that’s my favorite one.

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

It’s still there.

The statement you made still exists.

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

I want 100% to go with
retract because I feel

like they just like, this
might get outbound.

I can say what I want.

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

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

  • I apologize for you
    misinterpreting my words.

(laughs)

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

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

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

Like just talking about a party.

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

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

All she does is take
like business men to task.

She had the president of Pierce Moore,

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

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

They don’t make enough to survive.

Can you reconcile that with me?

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

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

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

Like I talked to this woman.

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

Yeah, you get your pay.

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

I think I’ve found my niche now though,

is coming up with quiz
questions based on the news.

  • Okay, this is here apology.

You guys are idiots.

Oh, attraction.

  • Retraction.

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

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

She retracted it.

  • She retracted her statement.

Both B and C.

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

She A, apologized.

B, said that her
statement didn’t convey the

correct meaning and C,
retracted her statement.

  • So she went, I’m really sorry.

You guys too stupid to
understand my reaction.

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

(laughing)

She said her comment was meant to emphasize

the power of women and
she meant that she was born

into the house of
representatives in a year

2000 by the power of
women voting for her.

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

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

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

And then everyone’s like, what?

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

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

That makes less sense
than your original statement.

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

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

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

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

I accept the possibility
that my words could be

misunderstood and have
decided to retract the statement.

That is one of the most
annoying political statements.

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

It actually just means
I said a shitty thing

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

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

I’m not gonna try to improve myself.

I’m not gonna think about what I did.

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

Please forget the thing I said.

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

So how can we call
ourselves women without giving

birth was meant to
emphasize the power of women?

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

Now I don’t consider
myself particularly adept

at interpreting the
language, I can do it.

I don’t think of the statement she made,

how can we call ourselves
women without giving birth?

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

And I think that might be
where the words she used

could be misunderstood
’cause I think the words

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

She said, she went on to say,

she meant that she was born
into the house of representatives

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

Which is not anywhere
implied in the statement,

how can we call ourselves
women without giving birth?

This is a classic example of a
politician saying something dumb

and then trying to recreate
a narrative around it,

trying to remold that sentence
that everyone understood

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

A bill has been introduced to Parliament.

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

to take away permanent residents
from people who live in Japan

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

This has been a problem in the past

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

I think it’s a problem in every country.

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

Now this is one of the problems.

This was the TikTok ban.

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

It was how could that
legislation be interpreted later

to ban other companies that
are essentially not American.

This goes way back to
my experience as a young

man when they
introduced the Patriot Act.

And it was supposed
to be just for terrorists.

And it’s just gonna be
for catching terrorists.

And then they expanded
the definition of terrorists

they could redefine a
criminal as a terrorist

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

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

And they are saying that the
problem with this legislation

in Japan about permanent
residency is very vague.

Kishida said the plan
would not affect the

vast majority of former
permanent residents.

But it was based on inconclusive data

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

Now this survey was done of 1,825 people

where there are 890,000
permanent residents in Japan.

So they’ve taken a small sample size,

taken that sample size
and extracted a piece of

information then
extrapolated that information

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

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

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

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

How many people would
fail the stringent requirements

of malicious refusal to pay
their taxes or social insurance?

And then another politician piped up with,

and this is a statement
I really enjoyed was,

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

which is a very interesting
way of looking at it.

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

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

These bridge people who are hiding money.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your company actually
pays taxes through your

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

All right, so last story of the day.

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

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

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

why they specifically put
an engaged couple in there.

An engaged couple have
been arrested for posting

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

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

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

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

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

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

The bid I was most interested
in is how much money

can you make, boinking
your partner, filming it,

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

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

So again, they’re keeping it vague.

I want to know which social media sites,

and I want to know what
this couple looked like.

The first thing I did
was go look for a picture

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

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

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

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

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

I work a 40 hour work week.

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

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

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

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

I don’t think people
would actually want to pay

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

secondary reasons I
wanted to see this couple.

I was like, if I could
measure their attractiveness,

if I matched that
attractiveness level,

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

The problem is they were
making unedited videos,

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

They have mosaics is the most common way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sprinkle some hairs on it randomly.

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

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

and again, this is an
audio format primarily.

It seems like it would
make no difference to

you, but maybe if you
paid that extra money

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

Maybe just the knowledge
that I’m reading the news

to you naked would
enhance the experience for

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

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