(upbeat music)
So you’re on the train in Japan.
When you see a man with
knives, what do you do?
You call the police.
That actually is not the
most unreasonable response.
I think people need to understand
that in Japan, carrying a knife is illegal.
Just straight up.
If there was a story, and it’s
the one that bugs me the most,
’cause there was a tourist,
and he went in to get to it,
like these little police
stations called Koma,
went into a coma, and
he talks to the cops,
he’s like, “I’m trying
to find this place.”
Basically, he’s just
trying to get directions.
And the police, given directions,
they talk to him and they
chat and they have him and they
go, “Hey, do you have a knife?”
And he goes, “Yeah.”
And he’s carrying a Swiss army knife,
little Swiss army knife, and
they arrest him right there.
And something people forget is
when they come from their country
to another country, the laws of
their country don’t come with them.
Actually, a lot of people
seem to be confused about the
rules in another country,
’cause they don’t look into it.
They just assume that my rights
and my freedoms are the same.
So, search and seizure rules.
You probably don’t know what
they are in different countries.
What’s legal to carry?
The reasons for it, you
probably don’t know it.
Japan has very strict
weapon cultures, not just guns.
Gun control, very high.
Anything that could be a weapon.
We had last couple of years
crossbows were made illegal.
Airsoft guns are tightly controlled.
The, in here we have
a guy carrying a knife.
And it’s just, where I
just lost that sentence.
We have a carrying a knife is illegal.
Unless you have a reason
for carrying the knife.
So, you see a man on the train in
Japan, he’s carrying multiple knives.
It makes sense to call the police.
Now, was he brandishing the knife?
Was he doing anything with it?
This is actually interesting
because I’ve ended up finding,
when I do an engine news Japan story, I
try to do like proper research to a degree.
I try to find multiple articles about the
same story so I can see what is consistent.
So that’s probably true.
I’m not gonna say factual.
And I can see if there’s
any inconsistencies.
One story said he had basically a knife
case, like one of those things you put,
you slide the knife into slots
and you roll it up and tie it up.
And one said he had
knives wrapped in a towel.
And the ends were poking out.
And one story said he
was brandishing a knife.
So somewhere in there is the truth.
These are supposed to be reporters.
I’m an engine news Japan.
I’m a guy who does this on his day
off with his dog sleeping on the bed.
For fun.
This is a hobby, it’s entertainment.
And I put more work into making
sure my stories are factually accurate.
Then major news sources.
You may have seen a
tweet or an Instagram post
I’ve put up recently on the
top 25 news in Japan list.
The first thing that gets
me is how specific that list is.
It’s not like, it did say the
little, “Oh, let me pull it up.”
So it’s the 25 best Japan news podcast.
Very specific category,
if we’re being honest.
The best Japan news podcast from
thousands of podcasts on the web.
Now that actually is a misnomer because
yes, there are thousands of podcasts,
but there are not thousands
of Japan news podcasts.
Ranked by traffic, social
media followers and freshness.
The engine news Japan.
That is okay traffic
for a podcast for sure.
And it’s absolutely fresh.
I mean, you’re tasting
it smelling it right now.
It’s fresh.
Social media followers, not so much.
That is, I admittedly might be as weakness.
You’ll see on the screen,
it Japan news podcasts.
Number one, deep dive from the Japan times.
Japan times is a national
newspaper in Japan.
And their little tagline is looking
beneath the surface of Japan.
We hear from Japan
times journalists and guests
about current events
and trends in Japan.
Number two, little podcast
called the engine news Japan.
All the news from Japan, there is no ninja.
Little, I guess, self-congratulatory
little, boop, boop, boop.
I don’t know what the
criteria was for that, really.
I bet an engine news
Japan is just the most
consistent Japanese news
podcast release schedule
because it is basically every
week I get one of these out.
So back to our knife man story.
So you call the police, you see guy,
oh, this is a happy end of the rules.
So you’re allowed to carry a knife.
You’re not allowed to
carry a knife in Japan.
You’re allowed to carry a
knife if you have a reason.
So let’s say I’m going fishing
and I am carrying with me a knife
for de-boning fish or scaling
fish or something to do with fishing.
The police would say, hey,
why do you have that knife?
Well, I’m going fishing and I’m going
to do some fish stuff with my fish knife.
There would be all right on your way.
I have a machete, be pretty rare in Japan.
They say, why do you have the machete?
Well, I’m a intense
gardener, extreme gardening.
That’s my job and I’m going to the
jungles of Japan and I’m going to machete.
Now that also would be
acceptable under Japanese law.
So I can’t just carry around a knife.
So this tourist who probably just
carried around a Swiss army knife
all the time, primarily, probably not
for the knife, but more for the screw.
The screwdriver was always
the thing I ended up using
the most or picking my
nails, that kind of thing.
That is not acceptable because
there’s no reason for you to carry a knife.
So this guy on the train, I
almost said there were it.
I got to keep the tension high.
So he sees the tension
that you have to build
so that people stay
for the whole podcast.
That end of the dirty story is
I always put them at the end.
At the next station, someone,
someone sees this guy, he’s got knives.
It calls the police, police rush
the train in the next station.
He’s a chef.
Now, he says he had adjusted the knife.
So maybe he has one
of those against sleeves
where all the knives
are in it and you roll it up.
Maybe they were wrapped in
towels in the ends or poking out.
So he was trying to make sure it was safe.
He was not brandishing,
according to this story that
seems the most reasonable,
he was not brandishing it.
He was probably making an
adjustment, probably for other
passenger safety because he
knew he was carrying knives.
But this stopped one of
the major lines in Tokyo,
which affects hundreds
of thousands of people.
So I don’t know.
It’s not unreasonable for the
person to have called the police.
The guy was not threatening anyone, though.
I’m going to assume I’m going to,
because if he isn’t actually a chef,
I think if he wasn’t a
chef, they would have said.
If he’s actually a chef, he’s
carrying his knives, carrying for work.
He’s being responsible.
And there’s no reason to
call the police on him, but
then we have all the crimes
in Japan or knife crimes.
I don’t know.
It’s a really tough situation because
I don’t know who’s in the wrong.
Maybe if you’re a chef
carrying your knives,
put the knives wrapped
up into a backpack.
or something else, just because you
can avoid this and not freak people out.
When making threats in any country, in any
scenario, it is important to be accurate.
There’s a man who felt it was completely
appropriate for him to make threats.
And so he’s unhappy about
the situation with Russia and the
aggressive nature of the
Russian Federation at the moment.
So he sent some emails and he
said, “I’ll put all workers through hell.”
Don’t really know what that means.
So all the workers in Russia, how are
you going to put them all through hell?
Why are you talking about
the workers specifically?
It seems like the government
is what you should be targeting.
He said, “Please kill the president.
Who are you sending that to?
Sending that to Russia?
Just please kill the president of Russia.”
I think he actually means Putin.
Russia has a president and Putin,
who is sort of the actual leader.
So I think this man maybe
doesn’t have it all together.
Let’s make Squzkiji a sea
of blood without any contact.
So let’s, as in you, people of Russia and
me, some a 50 year old man from Japan,
let’s go to these
disputed islands and fight.
I don’t know.
Now the problem was he thought he
was sending these to the Russian embassy,
but instead he sent the emails to the
Asahi Shimbun, which is a newspaper.
So he was inadvertently
threatening to make the
lives of every worker in
the Asahi Shimbun, hell.
He was threatening for them to kill
the president of the newspaper, the Asahi
Shimbun and he was saying, “Hey guys,
who are from the same country as me?
Let’s go to these disputed
islands and make a sea of blood.
So let’s kill everyone else together.
I’m not sure.”
He did say, “Okay, their
articles did not match my beliefs.”
And I thought I emailed the Russian
embassy, but instead I sent emails to the
Asahi Shimbun. So basically they
were writing articles about Russia.
He was saying, “The
Russian beliefs, I do
not agree with, so I
started sending emails,
probably clicked a link on
the article and started sending
emails to the Asahi Shimbun,
it’s retin making various threats.
It is obstruction of business.”
That’s clear.
I mean, that’s almost a given.
And I mean, think about it or be careful.
I don’t know. If you’re going to go
through the effort of threatening people,
at least making sure you’re
threatening the right people.
Russia is as an international
politics as a high school drama.
Russia used to Mark the end of
World War II as a day of military glory.
Okay, so basically we have
Remembrance Day, we have several days.
Each country has so to
their own version where
they remember the
horrors of World War II.
Japan has recently, like many
countries, sanctioned Russia.
And Russia seems to have taken that poorly.
So the lower house and Russian
parliament, I think it’s parliament.
Anyway, the lower house and Russian
government has voted to rename
the Day of Military Glory
to Day of Victory over
militaristic Japan in
the end of World War II.
That is some high school shit right there.
So we’ve invaded Ukraine.
A lot of Western countries don’t like it.
Japan doesn’t like it.
We’re somehow particularly
pissed that Japan has
taken the stance on this.
So we’re going to change the
day that World War II ended, our
celebration of that, and make
it specifically about Japan.
Oh yeah. Well, you don’t like
that we’re invading Ukraine?
Well, we’re going to
take the Day of Military
Glory and change it to
the Day of Victory over
militaristic Japan in
the end of World War II.
Technically speaking,
World War II is not ended.
This is something I’ve brought up before.
It’s interesting. It’s a little side fact.
There are disputed islands
at the North part of Japan.
And those islands are disputed between
Russia and Japan at the end of World War II.
Since they have not
come to a resolution,
they have not signed
an official peace treaty.
They’ve just kind of stopped fighting.
So because that peace
treaty has not been signed,
World War II very
technically is still ongoing.
No one’s going to say that seriously, but
until a peace treaty is signed in those,
that those islands are
resolved, like who actually owns
those islands, as long as
those claims are standing,
World War II is still happening.
So you’re cheating on
your partner. Your side
piece, they’re into it.
So they give you a hickey.
You go home. I got a
big hickey on my neck. My
partner is going to
find out I’ve been having
an affair. So what do
I do? There’s only one
solution I can think
of. Okay, realistically,
I had a girlfriend and I
gave her a hickey the
day before she had a
job interview and she was
losing her mind. So I went
online and looked, what
you’re supposed to do,
I don’t know if this was,
is take a cold spoon
and push it against the
hickey and that’ll
help it. So basically put
ice on it will help it heal
faster. She put makeup
on it, probably the
most reasonable solution
for being honest. This
person came up with
the non-reasonable
solution, which is great,
because that’s how it
becomes an engineer’s Japan
story. The number two
news on Japan podcast.
After people who are paid
to do this, so I mean, all right,
she calls the police. She calls 110
and she reports a sexual assault.
She says, it’s 6.30 am the
intercom in her apartment
or house rang. She opened the door and a
man came in, took off her top, touched her
inappropriately, gave
her a hickey and left.
Now, if I am reporting
a sexual assault, more
happens. A guy is not
going to grab you, touch your
boobies, give you a
hickey and leave. So that’s
where actually the first
drop of suspicion would
come into it. That is a
very strange sexual assault.
If you were walking
down the street and a guy
grabs you, there’s
other people rounding and
runs away, that makes
sense. He’s got you in his
your apartment. It’s private.
No one’s going to walk in on you, probably.
I don’t know. So the
police were obviously
suspicious, or they were
just taking her seriously.
Actually, pretty fair,
they probably just took her
at a word. She says she
was sexually assaulted.
Let’s go try to find the
guy. They find out she
wasn’t at home at 6.30.
There’s footage of her
coming home quite casually after 7 o’clock
in the morning. I also have a thing about
very early morning
crime. I think once you get
after 4am, no one’s
really at their best. So
if I was going to commit
crime, any crime, it
would be in the, like
around the 1am period,
maybe 2. I’m not
functional at 4 or 5, 6 in the
morning, which is when
you’d have to get up and
get ready to do these
crimes that happened at
6.30 in the morning. The
police looked at security
footage. The woman was
not home. They found footage
of her coming home.
That is when they started
talking to her more
seriously and she admitted
that she had not been
sexually assaulted. She was
just trying to hide the
fact that she was having a
fair and explained the
hickey that was on her neck.
She could have just stuck
a vacuum on when her
boyfriend came home and
been like, “Hey, look what I
did. Ha ha ha ha.” There
you go. I’m just a weird
quirky lady doing weird
quirky things giving
myself hickey’s. I think
I actually just found
a better solution like
as making a stupid joke,
I think it’s more reasonable
than calling the police.
Nintendo is a big company.
They have an annual
shareholder meeting where
they talk about business
stuff with business people
who have shares. These
are not gamers. These
are business people and
all they care about is numbers go up. It’s
going to be the theme for the next C-McB.
You should look out
for that later this week.
C-McB podcast is my
other podcast where I
talk about not news
from Japan, but honestly,
I think this episode is going to be
talking about news. If you like the
Ninja Japan news and
commentary, which is the
color commentary and
editorializing is what you
come from. You might
actually enjoy this other
episode. I would say, give
C-McB a try this week.
So these are not gamers.
They’re business people
who want to do business
stuff and make business
decisions and make
money and numbers go to
the, well, if I’m looking
at it, it goes to the
right and up. So right
and up. But if I’m looking
away, if I’m standing
like to the audience,
it would be to the left
still up up is the important
part. Unless you turn
it around and that’s bad.
A Splatoon fam, there
was a part of this article
I legit did not
understand. He didn’t have
enough money to buy shares.
He got money and bought
a switch for 40,000 yen
sold it immediately for
25,000 yen and somehow
that got him into the
shareholder meeting.
I was very confused.
as to what that actually
meant. Did he buy a single
share for 25,000 yen? I
shouldn’t have done that.
I should have looked
up the price of a share of
Nintendo. It sounds like
that’s what he did. But if
he had the 40,000 yen, he
could have bought a single
share with the 40,000 yen
and not bought the switch.
Very confused as to what
was going on there. He’s
a Splatoon fan. He
hijacks the meeting because
you’re allowed to ask
questions to the president
stuff. So he’s speaking
to the president of
Nintendo. And what does
he do? He starts complaining
that the male characters
who are I believe called
Inklings about the male
characters treatments
compared to the female
characters treatment in the
game. Like the males
are not treated as well as
the females. The focus
of advertising and stuff
is all on the female
characters, not the male
characters. The male
characters deserve equal time
compared to the females. The Nintendo
president literally scolds him, says,
he says, you have one
minute, you know, make your
point or ask your question.
He’s supposed to be
asking questions. But
he’s not actually asking a
question. He’s just making
complaints. Apparently he
has printouts and like
things to show like charts
and whatnot. He scolds
him for wasting time
because he didn’t really
have a question. His
basic statement was
stop favoring the female
characters in Splatoon.
And then there are a whole
bunch of comments about
this is why you don’t let
gamers into business
stuff. And then they’re all
like, I wouldn’t even
want to work with this guy.
But in a way, this is
the kind of person you’re
taking money from. This
is the kind of person you
should listen to because
if you maybe do what he
says, you’ll make more
money and then number goes
right and up. So maybe
think about that. It
would be weird to be
a fan of his franchise,
have a really passionate
and start making statements.
And then the president
of that company turns
around and says, dude,
do you actually have a point
or a question or do you
have actually have a question?
And you don’t, you have
a point that no one in
that room cares about.
And this is sort of the,
maybe the point where they’re
like saying, read the room.