(upbeat music)
There is a mangano museum
in Kyoto, and it’s very famous.
And so a lot of famous
mangano artists go there.
They display their talent, their arts,
and the museum has them sign the wall.
This has sort of become a tradition.
So they sign the wall,
probably they draw a picture.
This is a very sort of mangano thing to do.
You’re a mangano artist,
you’re gonna drink, you’re not just
gonna sign your name, you
put a little picture up there.
A French guy shows up and he does,
perhaps the most French
thing you could possibly do.
He shows up, and he walks up to the
wall, and he signs his name on the wall.
And then he walks out.
Now this is in a cafe.
So ironically when the staff were like,
“Hey, not only did he
basically graffiti our wall,”
because all the famous names, the
museum asked the artist to sign the wall.
So it was part of this like, if
you’ve come, you’ve done a show,
you’ve put on something,
you’ve talked to
people, or whatever
you’ve done for the museum.
Please sign the wall as a thank you,
and it will sit there for all of eternity.
This French dude walks up and he
just starts signing it, and he walks out.
They didn’t just say like he graffiti
the wall, when they called the police.
‘Cause they call the police
because he has just vandalized.
If you don’t have
permission, it’s vandalism.
So he’s vandalized this wall.
He’s, they probably have
to try to erase his name
or get his name off without
damaging the other signatures.
So there’s actually a whole other sort of
process that’s gonna have to call on there.
Part of the complaint was that
he didn’t buy any food or drinks.
So he went to the cafe.
He didn’t buy a coffee or
cake or whatever they sell.
And he just walked up to the wall,
signed his name, and then started to leave.
And I was like, yeah, that is super French.
He’s like, ah, I’m going to sign my name.
They want the famous people
to sign their name on the wall.
I will find sign my name on the wall.
This is very nice.
Yeah, it’s very good.
And then he walks out thinking,
oh, everyone is very happy
now, then he gets arrested.
Like, oh, what is happening?
The police go, what did you do?
And he goes, I signed my autograph.
That is an actual quote.
I signed my autograph.
I had a black, felt tip pen.
And of course he’s been arrested.
He says he’s visited Japan many times.
That doesn’t make you a famous artist.
I’m probably, he’s visited that museum
or something of that multiple times.
That doesn’t make you a famous artist.
None of the things he’s done as an artist
because he claims to be an
artist has got him into a position
where they actually would
ask him to sign the wall.
So this was vandalism, graffiti,
unwelcome, and very French.
To just be so presumptuous to think like,
of course they want my name that I’m
a famous artist that no one’s heard of.
I also enjoyed in the article
they didn’t publish his name.
So if he was an artist at all, he
didn’t receive any sort of fame
from this article or
this action that he did.
(upbeat music)
Since we’re talking about being presumptive,
NHK is a big news service in Japan.
They do all the news.
It’s like national broadcasting.
They do it in multiple languages.
So they contract out
news stories that are going
to be read on the
radio in other languages.
So like Korean Chinese stuff like this.
The NHK news broadcaster
doing a Chinese language broadcast
did a story about the Senkaku Islands.
The Senkaku Islands are a series
of disputed, small disputed islands.
China claims them for their own.
Japan claims them from their own.
That’s where sort of the impasse occurs.
In the Chinese version
of the story, the Chinese
announcer just went ahead
and claimed those for China.
So, and if he’s essentially,
officially speaking on a behalf of NHK,
which does often speak on
behalf of the government of Japan,
as a representative saying,
but we of course, although I don’t
know what the exact word, they
didn’t give me the exact phrase.
But he just said, these
islands are of course,
as we all know, part
of China, not Japan.
I guess he saw an opportunity to
just sort of solve this dispute in one go.
Like if I say it on behalf of
the Japanese government
and it’s official, because I am speaking as
weird sort of seven degrees of separation
on behalf of the Japanese
government by delivering news,
and then everyone believes
it, then it will just become true.
So in a weird way, he was just
trying to solve the issue, I guess.
Of course, the NHK got upset and like sort
of complained to the outsourcing company.
The Japanese government
got upset because they’re like,
“Hey, you can’t just go ahead
and start saying that these
islands are owned by China
when they’re still in dispute.
” And of course, the Japanese
government thinks these are ours.
But weirdly, there also
might be another secondary
claim here by Mexico, because
the Japanese Coast Guard
was going by these islands and
they sort of patrol these islands.
It was going by these
islands and they see a guy
in one of the islands, he’s
like trying to flag him down.
He’s like, “Hey, this is very classic
stranded on a desert island kind of stuff.
They actually see a guy waving his arms back
and forth trying to get their attention.
” They’re like, “Oh, well, actually
there’s a bunch of rocks or something.
We can’t get there.
” So they have to bring
a helicopter in an airlift
this guy off the Senkoku
Islands, this Mexican guy.
They think that this guy was trying
to leave Japan but avoid immigration.
So he didn’t want people to know
he was leaving Japan or he didn’t
want people to know where he was going.
There is something
very suspicious about this
whole thing, like everything
has been going on.
The belief at the moment
is that he was trying
to leave Japan and
get to Taiwan by canoe.
Now, I was going to try
to calculate how far it
would take to paddle from
Japan to Taiwan in a canoe,
like the average speed
of a canoe and stuff.
And then I was like, “Well, that’s
the kind of thing that I’m interested.
” I don’t know if people are
actually interested in that stuff.
Like, do people actually want
to know that kind of stuff?
So I didn’t do that.
I also was trying to organize
like five things this morning.
We’ve just had our vacation and that
takes a while to get back in the groove.
That’s actually maybe the first problem
of doing a podcast every
week is when you take a week
or two weeks off, getting
back into it’s actually quite hard.
What am I talking about?
I’m just basically just
claiming that this is not
as good as it could be
because I didn’t do the work
that I wanted to do,
but I was too lazy to do.
I’m not just sitting
here calling myself lazy.
This is sort of a pre-apology for
the quality of the podcast today.
This guy’s been arrested.
He left, he didn’t actually
tell us what kind of visa either.
There’s a bunch of information that’s
lacking from the story, which I would like.
What kind of visa was he on?
So is leaving the country like a big deal.
If he’s on a tourist visa and he leaves,
and that’s bad because
governments very much want to know
where you are at all
times, but at the same time,
I don’t know, why did
he want to get out of
Japan and get to Taiwan
without anybody knowing?
Why did he think a canoe was a good idea?
That’s actually an interesting question
because if I was
going to try to get from
Japan at the time, I
want to vote, not a canoe.
How much food do they have with them?
So this always goes
back to the other research
that I didn’t do. How long would it
take you to paddle from Japan to Taiwan?
How much food would you need?
Was he going to fish on the way there?
So many questions.
That’s really what it comes down to.
So, so, so many questions
about what this guy thought
and how he thought he
was going to work out.
Because if you said Peter, you
can canoe from Japan to Taiwan.
I don’t think you can.
I think he’d get pulled out to sea.
I think there’d be a storm where we’re
like, have a typhoon coming right now.
If he was out there during
then, he’d be in law trouble.
He didn’t get past the
Senkoku Islands, which is,
you know, northwards of
Japan going towards Taiwan.
But also didn’t even come close.
This guy’s got bad planning.
I think that’s just maybe the thing.
He’s not going to take
over the Senkoku Islands
because he’s obviously
worse at planning than I am.
But I was smart enough to
know not getting a canoe today.
A man has formed, what can
only be called, the smallest union?
A Yamato transport company.
This is a just delivery service.
It’s like DHL or one of any
of the ones you would know.
They partner with Amazon in Japan.
They just deliver stuff.
You get like three or four different
companies that just deliver stuff in Japan.
There’s black cat, Yamato or the
two that come to mine right away.
He’s a warehouse worker.
And he went on strike on August
19th because of working conditions.
I didn’t even really think that
you could go on strike by yourself.
That’s an interesting concept.
Like I am going to form a singular
union and go on strike alone.
Like you would actually
call that taking a day off.
If it’s only one person,
it’s not a strike, is it?
I don’t know.
It’s just an interesting concept
because he is officially on strike
because what he did is
he joined the general union.
Japan has this like weird
conglomeration union of other unions.
And he basically joined that
and said, I’m going on strike.
I want you to help and
represent me and support me.
And they did.
And he said because
of the working condition.
Now the working conditions in this
warehouse do seem to be horrendous.
So I actually right now am
full sympathy for this man.
I think he is right and going on strike
by himself in the smallest union possible.
The average temperature in the
warehouse was plus 40 degrees every day.
And he said, that puts
me in physical danger.
And it’s like heat stroke.
You collapse and you know, basically, yeah,
you cannot be just going
around in a sauna all day.
I don’t know how big this warehouse is.
But it’s just basically a big
greenhouse cooking in the sauna all day.
Japan, this summer, has
been exceptionally hot.
Also a humid.
It’s actually the heat
alone, isn’t that bad?
But the humidity, there was a tangent.
I was walking home from
the train to my house.
And it’s about 15 minute walk.
And it felt like I was
walking through moisture.
That’s how humid it was.
Which meant by the time I got home,
I was completely drenched in sweat.
And I had to just
immediately take a shower.
Essentially, if you walk
anywhere at the moment in
Japan, you have to take
a shower right afterwards.
But of course, you can’t just
take a shower every place you go.
We have a typhoon.
We’re supposed to come yesterday, supposed
to come today, supposed to come tomorrow.
Now it’s being predicted on a
Friday because the path is changing.
Often after typhoons, the
weather is a little less humid.
So that’s what I’m hoping for.
But I’m honestly not counting on it.
He was taking headache medicine.
And he went to the doctor.
And the doctor said, you have
severe signs of heat stroke.
You are clearly in actual physical danger.
This man’s in his 50s.
That’s not to say that a man
in his 50s can’t handle the heat.
But he used to be a delivery driver.
He’s now working in the warehouse.
And he’s like, you guys
are trying to kill me.
He’s asked for air condition
clothing and management reviews.
So in Japan, you’ll actually
see a lot of outside workers
where these jackets
and they’re very puffying,
they have like a little
fan in the back corner.
And what they’re actually doing
is circulating cool air in the jacket.
So it looks hot.
Like if you’re on the outside
and you see this jacket,
this big puffy jacket, it
looks like a puffy, down jacket.
And it’s big, and it’s puffed up
because the air’s blowing around.
But it’s actually blowing around
cool air and it’s keeping you cool.
He said, give me one of those.
Management, of course, said, no.
He said it was 40 degrees plus every day.
He took pictures of the thermostat.
And the claim for
management was that the
thermostat was broken
and it was 36 degrees.
Honestly, still way too hot.
If you’re doing physical work in a
warehouse, 36 degrees is too hot.
You need some air conditioners on in there.
So then he went on strike.
He actually had support from
the national union type thing.
Now the office is installing fans,
spot coolers, and water stations.
And I think they’re also gonna
put out like salted candies
to help replenish his
electrolytes and salt or whatever.
The single man, smallest union,
is successful to a degree.
I think, of course, we
would prefer air conditioning
so that the whole warehouse
is just cooler overall
and doesn’t have to deal with
all these spot fans and stuff.
But compared to nothing,
this is a big step forward.
Especially when it seems
like management was trying
to do nothing at all and
just tell them to tough it out.
Back in 2019, I actually
don’t know if I did this story.
I now forget when an
engine used to pass started.
It has to be more than five years ago.
So it has to have been
on during that period.
I was certainly podcasting that time.
I don’t know when the
engine used to pass started.
I know how many episodes I have, but of
course it’s not like I do 52 episodes a year.
So I can’t just do the math.
I can do approximations
because of the weeks off and stuff.
Basically, I think I get 50, about
50 episodes a year, probably less.
Anyways, we’re in the 300s now.
So yeah, it has to be.
Anyways, I remember this story.
I don’t remember if I did it
on the engine used to pass.
That doesn’t matter.
Back in 2019, there was a speech
by then Prime Minister Abbot.
He’s giving a speech in this lady.
It’s like, I’m gonna heckle.
You start shouting stuff out at him.
And the police take her and remove her
from this for heckling the Prime Minister.
Then the police
followed her around for an
hour, which is sort of
a form of intimidation.
Anyone following around for an hour.
That does have an impact.
So she said, by stopping
me from heckling the Prime
Minister, you’ve inhibited
my freedom of speech.
And Japan, they call it
freedom of expression,
but it’s the freedom of speech
is sort of the standard phrase.
And by following me around,
that is psychological intimidation,
which is the police
you’re not supposed to do.
So she sued the
government, got rejected like
five times, kept going
up, up a notch, up a notch.
She gets to the Japanese
version of the Supreme Court.
Five judges, five judges unanimously
agree that the police overstepped,
this had a psychological
impact leading to depression.
This leads to psychological
pressure and inhibiting
freedom of expression and
they’re giving her 550,000, yeah.
That’s half a million, yeah.
Again, Japan, the litigation.
So again, because
we’re doing it in the end.
Half a million, yeah, it sounds like a lot.
It’s not that much money.
Like it’s not certainly enough
money to change your life.
Any victory in a Japanese
court is a moral victory.
They don’t do payouts like North America.
They don’t do like emotional damages don’t
tend to be part of a settlement in Japan.
So if I try to sue my company
for let’s say unpaid wages
of $10,000 and then $20
million for the harassment
I experienced, I will
probably get $10,000.
I’ll get the material payment,
but the psychological
aspect often is not
taken into account.
Now, they’re saying this case you get some
extra money because that’s intimidation.
It’s not because of your depression.
It’s not because of the psychological
impact the police had on you.
It’s that they shouldn’t have been trying
to intimidate you in the first place.
So that is what she’s getting paid for.
You don’t get those massive
payouts like they do in other countries.
I’m thinking, of course, of America.
We don’t hear about court
cases from a lot of other countries.
So if you want to sue
someone in Japan, Japan’s,
you’re not, you shouldn’t
be doing it for the money.
You should be doing it for moral reasons.
And the fact that she went
up through like four, five, six
levels of court meant that this
wasn’t really about the five hundred.
She spent more than 500,000 yen in her
life just getting to this point anyways.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Neepal paper has sued a dio paper.
So we have the paper wars going on.
I actually kind of enjoyed this.
For infringement on some of their patents.
Now, what kind of patents do they have?
This is all about toilet paper.
And somehow, when you
have patents in toilet paper–
because my thought is, how many
patents can you hold on toilet paper?
I guess this is really the
story is going to tell us.
Because my thought is,
toilet paper, single ply, two ply,
three ply, I guess if
we’re going to go crazy
and go four ply, you
could have it like textured.
You could have pictures on it.
But I mean, all those patents
have to be done by now,
because I’ve seen, like, if
I’m starting my toilet paper
company, my paper company,
do I need to worry about that?
I guess you do.
I guess everything has a patent.
This doesn’t quite work
out for Neepal paper.
They’re very pissed
at the end of the story.
The patent is for the toilet paper
that is three times longer than normal.
So you would have a
normal roll of toilet paper.
I’m putting my hand up
the screen saying, miss pink.
This is an audio podcast.
So you have a– you can close your eyes.
Close your eyes with me for a second.
Close your eyes.
And just imagine you’ve
got back from the store.
And you want that rich,
deep, felt touch of toilet paper,
fresh from the plastic
bag that it comes in.
So you tear it open,
and you gently pull forth.
And it’s a little stiff.
It’s a little hard at first,
because they vacuum
packed of the toilet,
but it’s the sixth roll.
Of course, you can buy
at least six rolls, right?
And then you pull it
out, and you pull it out.
That sort of moment
of release, that release,
of that one roll of toilet paper in your
hand, just imagine that in your mind.
You can see it.
Imagine that being three times bigger.
That’s what they’re talking about.
I don’t see how you could patent.
My toilet paper is three times
longer than other people’s toilet paper.
The patent there would be application.
Here’s toilet paper.
It’s normally like x amount of meters long.
This one times three.
Like that’s it.
I don’t see how you have to patent that.
I guess I’m trying to protect
that we’ve made long toilet
paper if anyone else
makes long toilet paper.
They got to pay us money.
That’s kind of what this is about.
The patents are for paper that is
2.5 to 4.4 times longer than normal.
So I guess if I made one that was 4.5 times
longer, the patent doesn’t apply anymore.
Or maybe I’ve just had
an idea and I could apply
for a patent for a five
times longer toilet paper.
Their claim is that the depth and
area of the dense in the uneven surface
are within the range
specified by the patent.
So I guess this has to do with the
structural integrity of the paper itself.
That when you make it
longer, you have to do things
to make sure it doesn’t
like collapse in on itself,
create a black hole and suck
everything in the universe with it.
Dial countered with, nuh-uh, different.
And the judge went with
dial and they said, yes.
The things you’re claiming,
the range of pattern,
the structural integrity, that
doesn’t actually mean anything.
And so now, Neep on paper
is saying they will appeal.
They’re unhappy with this.
They think they are
infringing their patent.
So they’re going to appeal.
The paper wars are on my friend.
And it’s coming for all of us.
There is a company called Orient Industry.
Now, I know Orient as a watch company.
This is different.
I don’t want to mix up
my two Orient companies.
Orient the watch company.
I quite love the Orient watches.
I have a solar-powered one.
It’s called the Neo 90s Panda.
It’s a very nice watch.
That’s about $200.
Reasonably priced.
That’s one of the reasons I like Orient.
They have very nice watches.
Reasonably priced solar power
means you never change the battery.
We’re not talking about
that company at all.
We’re talking about Orient Industry, which
has been making love dolls since 1977.
So the founder, way back in
1977, said love dolls are gross.
They’re these blow-up dolls.
They don’t feel good.
They’re made of vinyl or whatever plastic.
And they don’t feel anything.
So he’s like, we’re going
to make a high quality once.
It’s going to be made a silicon.
Silicon in the ’70s, essentially
a new space-age material.
And the price of one of
his love dolls in the late ’70s
would have been equivalent to the
five-month salary for the average person.
So these were incredibly expensive things.
But everyone’s like, well, this is crazy.
You can’t sell a love doll to people
and it’s going to cost half a year salary.
But it was successful because
people were looking for quality.
And they didn’t sell it in a creepy way.
They sold it as, look, you have widowers.
They need companionship.
They’re lonely.
You have people who are socially awkward.
This will help this will
give them an outlet.
They had counseling services.
They had people who were not
judgmental, so they could talk about this.
And basically, they
approached it as not creepy.
Because even those
doll makers, the blow-up
dolls, that was always
kind of like a creepy joke.
It always showed up in movies.
It’s like, haha, you’ll
have sex with this thing.
He was trying to say,
like, there are people
in the world who
need this kind of thing.
And I want to make the best thing possible.
So a very unique philosophy,
which is pretty nice.
You’ve actually probably seen them.
They have this sort of
uncanny– the very modern
ones have this uncanny,
valley realism to them.
Because they don’t move
and they’re just sitting there.
But they have, like,
essentially a skeletal structure
and then the silicon skin and it’s soft and
it’s compliant, and then it’s positioned.
It’s like, you can articulate
the arms and stuff.
Like, they have put a ton of
research, a ton of resources into this.
The founder is in his 70s.
I think it’s close to his 80s now.
He says he’s going to
retire at the end of this year.
He’s going to retire in
his year for health reasons.
And because he’s going
to retire, he’s shutting down
the company, which I
was like, the company’s
making a sound like
this is a good thing.
I was thinking, like, ah, a bunch of
people are going to lose their jobs.
And I was wondering,
like, is it because it’s
very difficult to helm
a love doll company?
Because you are going
to be judged for just being
in charge of this company
that produces a sex thing.
But at the same time, his philosophy was
that there is a need for
this to be taken seriously.
There is a role for this in
society that can help people.
We should do that as much as possible.
I have a weird respect for that.
I may not want one of the products myself,
but I have a weird respect for
his attitude towards those things.
I think that’s fair.
This is like the people who challenged
censorship for pornography in Japan.
It’s a very difficult thing to
do because you’re immediately
judged, like whether you like porn
or not, the censorship is the issue.
And should it be censored or not?
There was one of the
guys in one of the parties,
again, it’s one of the Joe
parties, the anti NHK party.
And he was saying that if we
de-censored Japanese porn,
because it’s so popular in the
world, we would make more money.
It would be a good stream of income.
Looking at it financially, I
actually think it’s a really good idea.
Like my opinion on porn,
positive or negative, is irrelevant.
We’re talking about financial
stability and a product
that the people in the
world will buy internationally.
It’s very hard to argue that
it shouldn’t be de-censored
and therefore sold to the
world as a better product.
I mean, I fully believe in regulations.
I believe in safety.
I believe in all these other things.
You could form small unions.
I mean, we’ve seen that
they’re successful today.
So I don’t, but taking that stance in front
of the government is a difficult thing.
So this guy taking this stance
in the world and then just
shutting down the company,
I’m actually a little disappointed.
I would like to see someone
take over that company and run it.
I’ll do it.
I mean, I’m just going to put it out there.
I might have to shut down the podcast
because I’ve never run a company before,
but honestly, I will adopt the philosophy.
I will try to keep it going.
If you want to, if you want to give
that to me, I will absolutely take it on.
I will take on that responsibility.
Try to think of a joke, but I can’t.
It’s actually a really nice thing.
(upbeat music)
I don’t know if I want
to do this last story.
What are we at?
We’re at 26 minutes.
Oh, yes, and I see the funny part
that I actually, the reason
why I want to do this story.
So a college student at 11, 30
at night walks out onto the street.
He’s completely naked, runs up behind
a woman and then hugs her from behind.
She was just walking down the
street, and of course, he did it.
He got in trouble, he got arrested,
and he said I did it to really stress.
I mean, this is now step by step.
You could just, I could write the story.
I did it.
I did it to relieve stress.
I was stressed out.
In this case, he’s a college kid.
He’s stressed out about exams or something.
The funny part to me,
the reason I actually wrote
this story down is because
he fled on a scooter.
Now I’m going to cut this story.
It’s just funny, the image
of a completely naked
man jumping on a scooter
and then driving away
is actually very funny
to me, but the story isn’t.
There’s not enough, so
I’m just going to cut that.
He was charged with indecent
assault without consent.
And I’m wondering if there is
indecent insult with consent
because once you consent, it’s
not indecent assault anymore, is it?
I guess the police can
prosecute you on behalf
of a victim even if
the victim consented.
I guess I probably would
have someone’s underage.
Yeah, this last story’s a mess.
I think I’m just–
- You can’t catch me.
- Again, I think maybe you
have the same idea as me.
It’s just like the dude hugs a chick, runs.
I imagine him fully leaping
into the air behind the
scooter, landing on the scooter,
and he’s just going, “Boom!
” Like there’s an image
there that’s very funny.
And then he gets arrested,
which means he was
naked on the scooter
when he got arrested.
And the police would just be like, “Hey,
let’s look for a naked guy on scooter.
” – I imagine his dick
flopping wildly in the wind.
- Yeah, let’s hop during.
And then he gets torqu
and starts to lift off.
Yeah, the police are just up.
What are they on the lookout for?
Naked guy on scooter.
Hey, there’s a naked guy on a scooter.
Let’s pull him over.
He would have gotten arrested
for being naked anyways.
Like that in itself was enough.
You were naked in public.
So that’s indecent exposure
or something like that.
So now you’re going
to get arrested for that.
All right, I’m just going to end there.