Diamonding my Banana

(upbeat music)

So I didn’t have an episode last week.

It took last week off.

Life just sort of happened.

It was nothing of a particular, it
was just a bunch of little things.

And then I realized I’m just not
organized enough to put on an episode.

So today’s episode
might be a little longer.

A lot of people in the past
have told me that the 20, 30

minute mark is actually to the
sweet spot for a news podcast.

Because they get a bunch of news stories.

It’s the length of their commute,

their train ride, or their
drive into work or something.

So it seems like a lot of people
listen to this stuff on the train.

This one’s gonna be longer
’cause it’s got eight stories.

I usually cap out around six.

Just a restaurant, closed for two days,

after 33 customers became
ill due to food poisoning.

That’s pretty bad.

Five of the seven employees
tested positive for notovirus.

Now, I’ve heard notovirus.

I thought it was a flu.

So maybe it is a flu.

And they got their flu
particles all over the food.

And that made all the people sick.

But I feel like they wouldn’t
call it food poisoning then.

So maybe it’s notovirus and food poisoning

like salmonella or
ill-prepared food or something.

Clearly there’s a cleanliness issue here.

That I think maybe is the
underscore of either point

like whether it was
notovirus or food poisoning.

This is a dirty, dirty place
and you do not wanna eat there.

That would be my feeling.

If I’ve heard that a restaurant had 33
people get sick, I might not go there to eat.

I’m just being really honest.

So they shut down for three days.

And the government’s like scrub your stuff.

Clean everything, get these dirty, dirty
employees out and let them get better.

And then you can reopen.

They reopen three days later.

23 people get sick from
food poisoning immediately.

11 had notovirus.

So I should have, this is
one of those things where

I was like, I meant to
look up what notovirus is.

Clearly it’s something
that’s spread through touch.

The staff who were sick
before either they got better

and pass it on to
other staff or just they

didn’t get better and
came back and kept working.

I would actually put money on.

This is not in the story.

I would put money on
the people who had the

notovirus were the
ones actually cleaning.

So they would clean something,
touch it immediately afterwards.

And there you have your
new blossom of notovirus.

So when they reopened the restaurant, it
was just there germinating, waiting to go.

And oh my God, please be
careful when you go to eat.

(upbeat music)

First in Japan, the birth
rate is a constant new story

because it’s a thing that needs to be
fixed because they don’t know how to fix.

And there’s now been
some really weird stuff

that I’ve experienced
in my own personal life.

But we’ll get the story out first.

Burst in 2024, 729,880.

That is down 37%, the 37%,
that is down 37,643 from 2023.

So that’s a 5% drop in
one year, that’s really bad.

We’re looking at less than 700,000
babies in 2025 if this trend continues.

So there might be something that happens.

Maybe I get out and they’re in the world.

And I have, oh God, I was in a pharmacy.

And they had a drink for men to
become vigorous called diamond banana.

I really wanted to buy it.

Just to see primarily what it tastes like.

I wasn’t planning on having
any sexual escapades that day.

So I was a little torn ’cause
A, it was stupid expensive.

It was like 3,000 yen, it was like 25, $30.

B, I’m assuming it’s just a placebo,
but if it works, would I just be

turgid for the entire day
with no release schedule?

That’s maybe the issue I was running into.

I did look at the ingredients list.

It had soup on, which is soft shell turtle.

It had cobra extract.

And I don’t know if that’s the
venom or the blood of the cobra.

It had scorpion.

It had skeleton.

So I’m assuming seal bones ground up

and put in it or maybe some
shark or something like that.

And I was like, I bet those are all like

traditional Chinese remedies
for the male issue at hand.

But I bet it’s also a placebo.

So my thinking, what
these actually drinks are.

So this I actually think Ninja Ninja Japan

might be expanding its
product line into a drink.

And you put in a whole bunch
of just stuff that sounds manly.

Like when you say it has cobra venom in it

or cobra extract or shark fin muscle
bone, you’re like, oh, man, that’s manly.

And you put that in my body.

And I get more manly as a result.

This is a placebo.

But you want the placebo
to have an indicator at work.

So I was actually betting like these things

have a ton of caffeine
or a ton of nicotine.

So you drink it and then 10 minutes
later, you’re like, oh, I feel good.

I feel ready to go.

And then you’re like,
that drink is working.

It is diamond in my banana.

And now I am diamond banana.

And then that placebo
effect is exacerbated by that.

So it’s just like increased tenfold
because you do feel something.

And you’re like, this is working.

Now mentally, I think it is working.

Therefore, it works.

And I think that might be the
secret to these energy drinks.

And I have read a placebo study.

And it said the more expensive
the pain killer, the better it works.

But it doesn’t– like it could
have the exact same stuff in it.

It could just be like 600
milligrams of acetaminophen.

Cost like the no name brand
is going to be like 1,000 yen.

Let’s say that.

And then the acetaminophen,
buffering, dx, extra

fast, powerful, you
know, that’s 2,000 yen.

It works twice as fast.

The exact same contents doesn’t matter

because your brain’s like if it costs
more money, then it must be more effective.

And it does work that way because
that’s how placebo is working.

People talk about like, oh,
it’s just a placebo effect.

I’m like, if it works,
like if I feel less pain

faster, I’m willing to
pay the extra money.

Like, I don’t care if it’s real or placebo.

If diamond banana works because it’s
all in my head, because maybe that’s it.

Maybe the problem I’m having is in my head,

like when Spider-Man
couldn’t shoot his webs.

Maybe I just need to believe– and
this is the catalyst that makes me believe.

Now, it would be expensive
to drink that on a regular basis,

but I’m at a age where
that’s not a problem anymore.

I am totally off the baby
train, just what I should be on.

Ishiva, the current Prime
Minister, he made comments.

That was a wicked tangent.

His comments was, there
are less opportunities

for women to meet and get
married, which I actually agree with.

This is one of the few times
I’ve agreed with prime ministers

on the baby issue, because
usually they’re saying,

can we find a government mandated
solution to the baby issue and the answers?

No.

Because you can’t
make people do this stuff.

You need them to want to do it.

The way they want to do it is
if they have free time to meet

and fall in love and form a relationship,
they need to have enough money to live.

Those are the two fundamentals
for people making babies.

I’m not going to get into
any of the other subtleties.

You need to have enough money to survive.

You need enough time to actually
make and take care of a baby.

So you need a massive shift in
just the work culture in Japan.

Then went on to say, the
government shouldn’t interfere

with people’s values,
which again, I agree with.

The government shouldn’t be
telling people how to live their lives.

So that’s a good attitude.

But then he said, can the government
create opportunities to meet?

And I actually think, you
know, that’s not a terrible thing.

They’ve had like
government-sponsored dating parties.

I don’t know how successful they were.

They never sounded to
be particularly successful.

They had one where they
were like ladies from the city.

You could come meet like basically farmers.

That might be a good thing.

Again, I don’t know
how successful that was.

I don’t know how attractive it is going
from Tokyo living in the countryside.

But what he’s basically
suggesting we bring back Omiyai.

Now, when you say arranged marriage,

you think like Game of Thrones,
I’m going to take my daughter.

And then I will choose a
guy and they’ll get married.

They’ll have no saying it.

Omiyai is not quite the same.

It’s arranged marriage, but
through like a marriage broker.

So like, let’s say I want to get married.

I go to this person.

They have like a catalog.

And we go through the
catalog and we have attributes.

And we have a discussion.

Then we meet.

And then we decide if we like each other.

Now, we both know
we’re looking for marriage.

That’s the whole point
of the Omiyai system.

So at least that’s all on the table.

I actually know a couple of people I’ve
met whose parents met through Omiyai.

And they actually say they’re really happy.

And this was a really good way to meet.

So there’s clearly, I don’t
know, cultural elements

or opinions or things
like that will come into it.

But it does seem that overall
a good Omiyai is very good.

I’m assuming, again, we
don’t have stats on it.

But Ishiba thinks this
might be the one one way

to step forward is like,
look, people aren’t meeting.

Here’s an organized way
to get people to meet.

Maybe we should be encouraging
that as opposed to Tinder,

which I think maybe people’s
attitudes on Tinder might be different.

The marriage rates is lower
among temporary workers.

So either we need to raise rates for those
workers or just let them quit their jobs.

Make a situation where someone gets
paid enough that they can quit their jobs.

But in a slight amount of good news,

this is the second year in a
row that marriages have gone up.

It’s gone 2.2% up since last year.

That is attributed primarily to COVID.

So people weren’t out and
meeting and being able to do stuff.

So they weren’t hanging out.

They weren’t getting married.

Or they were like, let’s defer our marriage

until after the pandemic
has kind of finished.

We had a new group of
people join our company.

And one of them actually
brought up the breeding visa now.

We were in a professional environment.

So they didn’t say that.

Yeah, they went like, yeah, and now they
got those visas for young, single people.

And I was like, oh, that’s not a thing.

So this is internet information.

It’s really interesting because the idea

that they’re going to bring in young people
to hook up and breed and make babies.

And then I assume, since
they’re not really like staying,

they would just be
abandoning those children.

So they become like state
sponsored children or something.

Like that plan doesn’t
sound very thought out.

It’s also the exact opposite of
what Japanese people would want.

Japanese people don’t want a ton of foreigners
coming over and making foreign babies.

Because they will always
hold on to that core idea

that these are not pure,
true Japanese babies.

Like I, as a foreign person,
have talked to a class of students.

And they’ve been like, oh,
yeah, we don’t want that.

And I was like, you realize
you’re saying to me, a foreigner,

who’s come to Japan and had two kids in
Japan that this is not the solution you want.

Like that is not the way it should go.

But they’re thinking of
just Japan not being Japan

anymore, which is not
really the way countries work.

But you’re also not going
to change anybody’s mind.

That said, in April 2023, an oral
abortion pill was approved in Japan.

Now, this is very new.

And you can think
2025, they’re now just

getting plan B, which
is basically what this is.

It was, this is the difference now.

They actually had it before,
but now it’s over the counter.

You don’t need to go to a, I guess you’d

do a prescription or a
pharmacist or something.

This was just talking
about, it’s been introduced.

It’s easier to get.

And now you can use
it, Japan, when I arrived

in 2001, had essentially
this abortion cabal.

And it’s a very weird thing to think about.

But there was an abortion industry,

and they charged huge
amounts of money for abortions.

So they didn’t want
safer, faster things brought

in, because they would
lose all the money.

So these abortion
doctors were telling the

government that abortion
pills were not safe,

so that they wouldn’t come
in and cut into their profits.

And then it was, you can
get the abortion pill, but

you have to go visit the
doctor so he gets his cut.

Then it was kind of okay,

’cause then the doctor was
still making some money off this.

Now this is taking it a notch.

It’s making it more accessible.

So I’m assuming you just have to go to
the pharmacy and talk to a pharmacist.

The last year it was used
1,440 times, as opposed to the

120,000 abortions that were
performed in Japan last year.

It’s good up to nine weeks,
and it’s safer than surgeries.

This is one of the big problems
is, if you have multiple surgeries,

it might actually impact
your ability to have a baby

down the line, whereas this
is a much safer alternative.

Last year, abortions rose
for the first time in 22 years.

I don’t know what that says about
the culture or country or anything.

You’ll have to interpret that
information your own way.

(upbeat music)

A Japanese company is
selling optical lattice clocks.

They are, what are they?

That’s actually the interest.

I only found this story interesting,
’cause I really like watches and stuff,

and I found that all the young people who
come to Japan now, they don’t have watches.

And it makes perfect sense.

You have a phone, the phone
tells you the time, it’s your alarm.

It does everything you needed to do.

Why would you buy a watch?

Watch is now, would just
be a fashion accessory.

But I grew up thinking watches
were cool, so I like watches.

You can actually see one
on my desk just over there.

I found it interesting that they’re making
this incredibly expensive accurate clock.

This will be accurate.

It will lose less than one
second over 10 billion years.

Which, actually my immediate thought
was like how long do the parts last?

Like the parts aren’t
gonna last 10 billion years.

So I don’t think that’s true.

I think something in the
machine is going to give after the

first million years and then it’s
gonna lose accuracy and time.

I guess you would be able
to maintain it or something.

It looks like a mini fridge.

And it is 109 centimeters tall.

They, their plan is to sell 10 units
over three years at 500 million yen a unit.

So they want to make $3.3 million off this.

And it’s like what is the purpose

of a mini fridge that tells
time to that level of accuracy?

Well, this is designed for
monitoring the movement

of the Earth’s crust
and like volcanic activity.

So we’re talking like you
set up this clock somewhere.

I guess you check where
your tectonic plate is.

And then you can see how long, how far
it shifts over a certain amount of time.

And then you can extrapolate where
that tectonic plate is actually going.

It seems like this is measuring
time on a cosmic scale kind of thing.

Like we’re not gonna be
around to see the results

of these experiments
or whatever, but they are

or someone else is whoever inherits
the clock that costs five million yen.

I won’t be getting one because I
actually do prefer just a wristwatch.

(upbeat music)

Mr.
Pan has a lot of like collectible culture.

One of my first experience
of this was my son

when he was little wanted to go to
like all the stations on a certain route.

And then you would get off on the station,

you had a piece of
paper, like a little booklet.

And then you could get
a stamp at that station

and he could prove you
had done the whole route.

And if you did the whole route,
you got a special stamp at the end.

This is not an uncommon thing.

Manhole covers in Japan in
certain cities are quite artistic.

So like they have, I
remember they’ve done some

anime ones and they’ve
got a lot of attention.

They’ve done some like
ones for the city or the style.

So they have a lot of
stylized manhole covers.

These people would go and
take pictures of, no problem.

These got so popular that
they started making trading cards

with pictures of the manhole cover or
maybe just the manhole covers art on them.

And then you can basically get
them from different municipalities.

So you would go to a town
and I guess go to the city hall

and say I would like a
manhole cover card, please.

I don’t know, the story that I was
reading didn’t tell you how to get them.

That actually was a bit I
was very interested about.

But you’re gonna have to go to
the town, find the place, get the card.

The card is free.

But because it’s a
collectible, there are a limited

amount of different cards or
maybe some are harder to get.

The government saying
we want to promote local

attractions and awareness
of sewer infrastructure.

And I was like, okay, the first part I get,

we want to like, oh, this is
where this one piece cartoon

where the artist was born
or this is where it’s based

or something like that,
that makes perfect sense.

But are you really raising
awareness of sewer infrastructure?

I think they just care
about the cards and the

pretty pictures and stuff
of the castle and whatnot.

I don’t think people are
looking at the card going,

man, the intricate maze that
sits beneath me when I poop.

That is a thing of wonder that
I should appreciate more often.

Although I just did it now.

So I guess it did kind of work.

It’s supposed to be one person.

So like I show up at the
city hall downtown, let’s

say in my town and I say,
can I have the sewer card?

And they’re like, hey, yeah, thanks, buddy.

Here’s your sewer card.

Now I’m not supposed to
be able to get another one.

I would collect them all, to be honest.

I wouldn’t.

I just wouldn’t be
willing to put the effort in.

That’s really the issue.

It’s not that I’m opposed
to collecting stuff.

I just have no interest in
going to a place to get them.

I bet if I went with
you, like if we went

together, if I went with
friends, I would enjoy it.

But just by myself, no, I’ve never
been that into collecting, I guess.

But they found that some
people are disguising themselves

so they can get multiple copies of a
single card and then sell them online.

So then I go outside into
my car, take off my hat,

shave my beard, go back
in, hey, I’m a new guy.

Can I have the card?

I get another card.

Then I put on a different jacket,
a wig or something like that.

And I come in, I try to
get multiple cards that way.

We do, of course, then have how
much these cards are worth online.

The Osaka Castle Manhole
Cover Card is worth 6,100 years.

There is a 10 card set for Mount Fuji.

So I would bet you have
to go around Mount Fuji,

go to different places
you can collect 10 cards.

That set of 10 cards is 88,000 yen online.

The Okazaki Castle is
selling for 100,000 yen.

That’s like 700 bucks with the
current exchange as it is right now.

For a single card with Okazaki Castle.

So they didn’t explain why
the Okazaki Castle’s card is

so much rarer, so much more
expensive than anything else.

Well, this is, Jay’s point is
actually perfect accurate.

You are, this is robbery, this
is scandalous because these

are supposed to be free for
people who put in the effort.

They just don’t want to have people sit at
home and just order them off the internet

and get them because then you didn’t
go to the place, you didn’t do the thing.

You didn’t see the town that
you’re supposed to be promoting.

This is scalping and scalping
has become a real issue.

Everything that is collectible is
getting scalped and then these now,

municipal governments are
like, what do we do about it?

Well, the excessive reselling
is going to end the campaign.

So the governments are now so angry
that they’re selling this stuff online.

I don’t know if they’re angry that they’re
selling online or they’re selling online

and they’re not getting
a cut of the action.

But anyways, I actually think
this is a little arch-ultruist.

They’re like saying, oh,
we’re trying to give this out

for free and then people are
taking them, making a profit.

That’s not really right
in the right spirit of it.

We’re going to shut down the campaigns.

But then I thought, oh, what’s actually
going to happen is that’s going to increase

the value because now
you can’t get them anymore.

So if you have that Okazaki Castle card
that is worth 100,000 yen, when they end the

campaigns altogether,
I bet that doubles are

triples in price and now
I might go scalps stuff.

Ah, there’s been a lot
of streamer stories lately.

The streamer story
that actually I was a little

aware of doesn’t really
apply to Japan anymore

is that Johnny Somali
is on trial in Korea.

So he came to Japan,
did a lot of dumb stuff here.

He got arrested, held
him for like a month or

something, then they
let him go and I think

basically he’s not allowed
back in the country.

His visa’s been marked or
his passport has been marked.

Other people and then he went to Israel and
then he went to Korea and now he’s caused

so much trouble in Korea that they’re
actually talking about prison times.

So he’s been charged and found
guilty on two or three charges.

They’re doing one or two more,
but these are all cumulative.

So now he’s essentially a repeat offender
and they’re looking for real jail time.

I’m very interested
in how that plays out,

just unfortunately does
not fit into the format

of Ninja News, Japan
and what we do here.

But there are other
streamers and other streamers

have been like, hey, Johnny Somali
built up an audience by being an asshole.

I can be an asshole, I might
even be really good asshole.

There’s a guy, Ice Poseidon and Action
Man, they have been going around Japan.

They’re not doing the same
degree of offensive stuff there.

Like there was one
where they were purposely

smoking cigarettes
on a non-smoking car.

They are right now going
around some islands so they’re

going on the ferry and they
were denied entry of the ferry.

Now their sort of way of doing
stuff is they just almost like Trump.

They just immediately start
denying any of the stuff that you’ve

actually seen them do because
they’re streaming everything.

So they’ll go somewhere, behave badly, get
called out for it and go, I didn’t do that.

That wasn’t me.

And that’s if that was some
sort of convincing argument.

This Coast Guard guy wasn’t having it.

See, he spoke English and
that’s already already the first one.

So they go, they’re going
to get on a second ferry.

So they’ve already
caused problems on the

first ferry probably and
filmed it and streamed to live.

And the Coast Guard
guy comes out and he says,

unfortunately, even
though you’ve already

bought this ferry ticket,
you cannot get on the ferry

today because the ferry
owner has decided and refused.

So that’s it.

This is like the guy who owns the
ferry, he doesn’t want you on his boat.

So you’re not getting on his boat.

They turn around and go, why?

Like as if this is an
unreasonable thing, he

says, because they
acknowledge you have already

done a lot of troublesome
activities in Japan.

So basically, we’ve seen the
way you’re behaving in Japan.

We’ve seen the stuff you’re doing.

We don’t want that nonsense on our boat.

So you’re not allowed on our boat.

The group then denies
they’ve done anything wrong.

So of course, even
though they’ve live

streamed, and these
guys obviously have picked

up on the live stream
somehow, like maybe

someone has said, hey,
these guys are traveling

on your ferries, maybe
check this internet stuff out,

the record of them
behaving like dickheads online.

They’ve seen it because the guy said,
like, we’ve seen that you’ve done this.

We don’t want any part of it.

The Coast Guard, so they say,
oh, we haven’t done anything.

He says, many people have watched.

So he’s like, it’s not like you’re being
convincing by saying we didn’t do it.

You’ve broadcasted it on the internet.

So people have seen you do it.

So this denial means nothing.

Then one of them goes, he got lied to.

It’s fake.

I’m going to start with
this whole fake news thing.

He’s really infected the language.

I think I’ve never heard the
word fake as much as I do now.

And then says, wouldn’t we be
in jail if we did something wrong?

Now, there’s doing something wrong
and then there’s committing a crime.

Now, they might brush up against each other,
but there’s not always the same thing.

You’re not going to get arrested and put
in jail for smoking in a non-smoking car.

You’re going to get told not to do it.

Maybe you’ll get kicked off the
ferry or the train or whatever.

But the Coast Guard dude’s not buying
it and he just doesn’t let them board.

He’s not having the argument.

And I think that’s
always the thing is the

streamers want you to
have the arguments so they

can use their sort of circular logic to get
you stuck in a loop where hopefully they’ll

just be like, eventually
he’ll give up where

this guy’s just like, look, I said, no,
I don’t care what you have to say.

I’ve seen you do it.

The answer’s no, you’re done.

The interpreter then tries to talk to
them and get them to let them on board.

Because again, this
interpreter, he might not

be one of the news
and streamers, which is

how they’re referred to in Japanese,
but he is getting paid by them.

So he wants them to keep going and making
their content so he can keep getting paid.

He tries to talk to
the Coast Guard guy in

Japanese and then he
comes back and he says, they

said because of things on YouTube and
whatnot, we’re not going to win this battle.

So they’re like,
because we’ve seen what

you’re doing, because
we’ve seen clips of how

you’re behaving in Japan,
you’re not allowed on

our ferry and you’re
not going to win because

it’s again, the company, the management
company can decide to refuse to serve you.

I’m think what we’re seeing now is a
shift in the culture in Japan towards these

news and see Johnnie
Somalis is the one who

set it off, like you’re always
people who doing dick moves.

I don’t know.

One of the Paul’s Jake
Paul Logan Paul, he

went to that, that
forest and found the dead

body and thought it
was a really good idea to

stand next to it and film and make
like light heart of jokes and stuff.

He was just being a dick.

Johnnie Somalis, I’m
actually betting saw

that and saw like I can do
that and took it to the next level.

These guys aren’t behaving that badly, but
they are trying to hit that sort of peak

of just getting as much
trouble as they can

without getting arrested, which actually
might be where his argument came from.

If we were really doing a bad thing, we
would have been arrested by now, right?

When that’s not actually the case, like
you can misbehave and not get arrested.

So they’re trying to
push the borders, but

then Japan is a culture
is now just being like,

no, we don’t want this
in culture in our country.

We don’t want this associated with us.

We don’t want people to
come here and do this thing.

And I think that might be the next step is
either just people start acting back, like

you behave badly and then people, the
citizenry at large to start like pushing back.

And then like this
Coast Guard guys is like,

no, you’re not allowed
to travel with us

anymore and it’ll make
harder for them to move

around or this being Japan, I
actually bet they legislate it.

I bet they do like a
nuisance live streaming

act of some sort where
it now becomes illegal

to stream with showing
other people’s faces

in the background, it’s
going to be something

superstitious, it’s not going to be
like, you’re not allowed to live stream.

It’s like you’re not
allowed to live stream

and you have to get permission
from everyone to actually do it.

Japan needs to just do
what Korea did to Somali.

I agree.

I actually wish they’d put him in prison.

I wish he had gotten actual jail talk.

Just beat their ass whenever you see them.

Open season.

You’re talking about the people in Japan.

There was that like the Korean
version of the Navy seal who

like went up and decked them
and then they started calling.

The best part was they started calling the
Korean internet netizens, started calling

Johnny Somali a golden golem, which is like
someone, you kill that enemy in a game and

you drop a lot of loot
because they were

like, if you beat up
Johnny Somali, all these

people are going to
donate money to you.

So that guy got arrested for
punching Johnny Somali in the face.

The day, the next
day, like people on the

internet put him up into like five star
hotel and paid for all his food and stuff.

So I think the world is pushing back, so
it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

These guys have all pulled
it down a little bit because

I think they don’t want
to lose access to Japan.

Japan is one of these
like four nerdy people.

Japan is one of those
like dream destinations

and they know if they can come
back to Japan and film stuff here.

It’s always going to
get an audience whereas

if they get kicked
out of the country and

they can’t come back in, they’re
going to lose that sort of avenue.

Japanese couple visited
the Great Wall of China.

It’s very nice thing to do.

Go to China and visit the Great Wall.

I actually would like to go there.

I haven’t been there yet.

So that’s something I
would actually like to do.

They decided the best memory of this situation
would be for the man to pull down his

pants and his female
companion to take a picture

of his buttocks, generally
referred to as the moon.

Man, Japan could just
pull the, we don’t need

to tell you why we
arrested you for a while.

They held Johnny Somali for the 20 whatever
days and you’re not Japan’s rule is that

you can hold someone for
24 days before they’re charged.

So basically, I don’t
know if weekends can’t.

So that might just be a full
month and they did that to him.

So they held him.

Korea’s got a very interesting
thing where he’s not allowed

to leave the country but
he’s also not allowed to work.

So he has to like
basically burn through any

savings he has and then become
poor as the trials drag on and on and on.

So they’re actually just
like burning his money in

a weird way as he has
to just sit in the country.

Because I read multiple
stories, some said

record the picture, some said
take a picture, some said video.

So I’m not sure if they did a
video of the guys butt or if they

just took a picture of the guys
butt and I never saw a picture.

So I don’t know how
good this guy’s butt is.

So maybe he has a great
butt, maybe it was worth

like the same level as
the Great Wall of China.

Like if you’re going
to go to the Great Wall

of China, you’re
going to take a picture

and you’d be like, my man’s butt is
as good as the Great Wall of China.

I think both of them in the
same picture, chef’s kiss.

I think that’s what it should be.

Unfortunately, there was a cop
nearby and they were immediately

arrested for public indecency
and disturbing the peace.

They were held for two weeks.

This actually shows like my, so I do
again, all my information comes from media.

So I have very
significant biases that are

incorrect because like
my belief in the violence

in America comes from
American media, my

understanding of America as
a country comes from media.

They talk about
violence and I know the

reality is media makes
it seem like violence is

going up where the reality
is violence is going down.

We just had some people I
talked to some Americans.

I talked to I’ve just met
and they were saying

where they’re from
and once from Alabama

and I was like the only thing I know about
Alabama as a state is racism because all

my information about
Alabama comes from

movies and the only time
someone makes a movie

about Alabama is when they
want to tell a racist story.

Now I’m betting it’s
not as racist as I think

it is, but there’s still
a lot of racism there.

I’m not making those
movies, but you can see

like there’s a fine
balance between reality

and opinion and I have
to be aware of my biases.

My bias about China
in this instance would

be they’re just going to give
you the maximum sentence.

So in this case they didn’t, they’re like,
okay, you’re a young couple, you’re being

dumb, you mooned on
the Great Wall of China,

they held them for two
weeks and like probably

pressure them a lot but
they didn’t end up charging

when they’re like, please go
back to Japan and they did.

They claimed they were just doing it
as a prank and I do tend to believe that.

I think if you were
going to do like an

anti-Chinese protest or
a sentiment or something

like that, you wouldn’t just
moon on the Great Wall of China.

That seems like a very
in the moment thought.

It doesn’t seem like they sat
down or like, let’s really teach

China a lesson and show my
butt on the Great Wall of China.

So I actually believe this because yeah,
it doesn’t seem like a political statement.

Of course, China’s
anger Chinese citizens

anger towards Japan and that sort of
resentment that goes back and forth.

They were like, they should come
back and have to apologize publicly.

They should be arrested.

They should find, I mean it’s the internet.

So of course it went
off the rails really

quick about how much
punishment they deserve.

I think being held for
two weeks would be scary

enough that you would,
that’s enough punishment.

That’s basically all I want to say.

Mooning in the wrong
place, getting held

for two weeks and
then getting released, I’m

thinking that’s actually
more than enough.

Director of a nursery
school, so this is

someone who is dedicated
their life to taking care of children.

You know the fact that I’m
doing this story last and I’ve

changed sort of the tone of
my voice means it’s extra gross.

But also you can tell by the flippancy of
my voice that it’s not, you know, that bad.

This director of the
nursery school wanted to

scare the children into
doing what he wanted.

So that’s already like,
ah, not the nurturing

techniques I would employ if I
was a director of a nursery school.

I think I’m going to say
that was some confidence.

If I was director of
a nursery school, I

don’t think I would use fear as a
tool to get these kids to do what I said.

I would maybe, I mean you want
to have that in your, in your pocket.

I can scare the kids
what I need to, but overall

the methodology should be positive
reinforcement, encouragement.

Like, hey, let’s try to work together.

Let’s try to be better people.

The nursery school, my kids went to,
actually my son, I remember picking him up.

It was connected to a
Buddhist temple and so

they did some meditation
and stuff and they

were trying to get
these kids to be like,

they weren’t pushing
them into the religion.

They were like, hey,
maybe sitting and calming

down and thinking for
a minute’s good for you.

So let’s try that.

And they tried it.

They didn’t force it on the kids.

Like if the kids like
got rest of the stuff,

they’re like, okay, you’re clearly
not in the enlightened mood today.

Let’s just remove you and so
the other kids can give it a shot.

It was cool.

If I’m being really honest,
because they didn’t

push a religious
aspect on it in any real

way, they talked about
it, but they were never

like, you need to join or
you need to pay money.

There were a lot of like cool
things like that that happened.

This guy’s philosophy
obviously is very different.

Now, my thought was, if I
was, okay, let’s say I’ve gotten

to this point where I’m
like, I need to scare the kids.

I think my size, I’m a big six foot
200 pound guy, I might use that.

I might use a really loud voice, scare the
kids with how angry I can get, not actually

do anything, probably
not even be as angry

as I’m presenting, but put on a
bit of a show to scare the kids.

If you’re going to go
way off the rails, dress

up and come in and
scare the kids and dress

like a devil or a zombie or
something, really freak them out.

I think that’s way
too much, but the

psychological harm there
might be minimized by the

fact that it’s not really
no one actually gets hurt.

This guy decided, and I wish
I’d organized a quiz for this week.

I’ve been very disorganized.

That’s why I didn’t do
an episode last week.

I’m having a not rough time,
but it’s just a lot of stuff going on.

He decided to scare
the kid by peeing in his

water bottle, filling the boy’s
water bottle with urine, okay.

So let’s be really honest.

That’s not scary.

It’s just gross.

Like the kid, if they
get the water bottle,

doesn’t know there’s
pee in the water bottle.

If they drink it, they
go, this is disgusting.

I would hope they don’t think it’s pee.

They just like, this is gross.

I’m not going to drink this unless you peed
into the water bottle and then just looked

at them and went, hey, I just peed
into water bottle isn’t that scary.

So this guy’s methods
of discipline and

control don’t seem to mesh
with what his actual goal was.

So I think he’s not
trying to scare the kids.

I think he’s not trying to do
the thing he’s saying doing.

I think he’s just free who likes to pee
and stuff and be really means little kids.

He was arrested.

It’s difficult.

What do you arrest him for?

He was arrested for
destruction of property

because now the bottle
is considered unusable.

Of course, that story
got out and he lost his job.

He lost a lot more than just whatever the
fine would be for destruction of property.

But he, thankfully, he will not be
working in childcare anytime soon.

[MUSIC]

Lost Dream Jobs

Okay, so we got almost the end of the Gassi saga.

So I keep saying I don’t want to talk about

Gassi anymore, but then something happens

that makes it vaguely interesting.

This time it’s pretty interesting.

And so the only final part will be if he

ever ends up back in Japan and actually has

like an interaction with the police.

So Gassi has been expelled from the government.

This is the first time this has happened in the last 72 years.

There were 236 votes cast, 235 people voted to get rid of Gassi.

The only holdout was a fellow party member,

which is pretty sad when you got like one

person who’s like standing up for you.

Then as soon as Gassi was expelled, the police went and started like putting

out warrants for his arrest.

The accusation is that he has swindled people

out of money claiming he could introduce

people to BTS.

So he’s running this kind of like weird, fame adjacent scam saying if you

give me X-Money Yen, I will introduce you to BTS.

On Thursday last week, police secured an arrest warrant for intimidating and

defaming celebrities.

So in a weird way, he was actually right.

He said, “I don’t want to come back to Japan because the police are going to

arrest me.”

We found out that if you are a member of the government and the government

is in session,

you actually can’t be arrested, which

I’m finding to be a very weird, weird rule.

Because government members… Check just

as if I call them bathrooms or washrooms.

I call them bathrooms.

I don’t know why, but yeah, I call them bathrooms.

In Japan, this is totally going to be off topic from the podcast.

In Japan, the toilets and the bathroom are separate rooms.

So in the West, when I had apartments and stuff, you would have like a

bathtub and a sink in a toilet all in one room.

I think that’s really, really normal.

That’s your bathroom.

In Japan, you have an actual room for just the bath and it’s got a shower

and the best part is you can spray water everywhere.

The whole room is the shower room.

Then in a separate room to that is a sink.

So that’s where you brush your teeth and stuff.

Then there’s a separate room that’s just a toilet.

In Japan, it makes way more sense to say toilet than bathroom because they

would actually different places in the house.

That’s a very valuable question though.

Do you call bathrooms washrooms?

I’ve said washrooms.

I think you say washrooms when you’re trying to be like more polite maybe.

So we found out that if you’re in the government, you cannot be arrested.

So as soon as the session was finished, as soon as the diet session was

finished, Gassy was going to get arrested.

So he was actually right.

And this was the most interesting bit to me is that he was right about what

he was saying.

They have confiscated his passport,

but they haven’t actually confiscated it.

They just nullified it because they didn’t take it away from it because they

didn’t see him.

And then they put him on the international wanted list.

So this got what I thought was going to be a weird little story about a guy

who was being

a politician from Dubai and is that going to work

out or not to now that he’s now an international.

criminal.

So when they see like when you watch a movie and they do interpool and they

have a list

and they have pictures of all the like

most wanted in the world, Gassy might be on

that now for realsies.

So he’s believed to have threatened three people and conducted one instance

of obstruction of business, which is Ninja News Japan’s favorite crime.

As we know, the party went from the anti-NHK

party to the politician girl’s 48 party.

They had a press conference with some of the

new members they were putting forward and

they’re all relatively attractive women.

So this is obvious their new platform and it makes it a little harder to

take them seriously as politicians.

The anti-NHK party was already a bit.

But now it’s like, oh, we’re just going to

put girls forward and see if you’ll just vote

for girls.

And since this is a real political party and with real reporters, the

reporter has asked

a couple like fairly not like hard-hitting

questions, but asking about taxes.

The lady politician they put forward goes, oh, that’s a tough question.

I’ll pass.

Getting sort of the level of quality of the politician they’re putting up.

I mean, it has nothing to do with gender.

It’s just they’re trying to use gender to get seats.

It’s dumb.

I mean, let’s face it, this whole party now is just one of the dumbest

things I think I’ve seen in Japan.

And yet weirdly, because they’re putting up a bunch of girls, it’s probably

going to work.

In 2022, so last year, 3.997 billion yen was turned into the police

lost and found in Tokyo.

Not all at once.

This is the entirety of the year.

So it could have been like 10,000 yen at the time.

3.997 billion yen, again, you do the quick math.

It’s like $4 million.

We’re actually lost and turned into the police.

So people in Japan, this is actually saying like, if you are going to drop

your wallet or

going to drop money anywhere in the world, Japan’s a pretty good place to do

it because they’re not just going to leave it there.

They’re going to pick it up and they’re

going to take us as a cops and turn it into

the cops.

We’ll try to get it back to you.

On that point, police managed to return 2.95 billion yen.

So let’s say it was $4 million, they managed to return about $3 million.

So there’s still a million dollars that essentially went missing because of

lost items.

The unclaimed money, so after the year, they hold it for an X amount of time

and then they just like, well, it’s our money now.

That claims money gets turned into the metropolitan government.

So if you lose your money in Japan, in Tokyo specifically, I guess, in this

case, and someone turns it in and

you don’t claim it, they don’t get it back.

The person who found the money doesn’t get to keep the money.

The money goes to the metropolitan government which is kind of a shaft.

I think I should get the money.

If I found the money and I’m a good person,

I turned it in and gave me the money.

I’m okay with that.

There were 3.43 million lost items turned in last year.

And that is up 21% for 2021.

Now, of course, last year we were in the throes of COVID.

It actually, the numbers have gone way down last yesterday.

They had 2,600 cases of COVID in Japan, the country.

And that is great because I used to be just one or two cities would have

that many easily.

So it’s not finished, but it has gone

way, way down, which I’m very happy about.

So this actually demonstrates the 21% increase of lost items and people

turning them into the

police means there are more people just doing stuff because you have to be

out of your house.

If you’re in your house all the time, you’re not really losing stuff and if

you do lose something in your house, it’s not getting turned into the cops.

So that’s neat because basically COVID meant there was less things lost and

less things turned into the police.

From 2015 to 2019, it was about 4 million items a year.

So Ron Track, weirdly, for pre-pandemic numbers of lost items in Tokyo for

the year, which is a good thing.

Oh, so they do this every year.

They do a survey of what kids want to be when they grow up.

And it’s always a bit shocking because of the attitude of children.

It’s always really weird because it’s Japan

and different countries because you ask a

kid where they want to be.

What did I want to be when I was a kid?

I wanted to be like space ranger.

I actually for years and years and years want to be a truck driver.

I really like trucks.

I think cowboy and cop were in there for a while.

They do this in Japan.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Boys uniformly want to be company employees.

Now last time I did this, which was last year I was making fun of because it

was like, hey little boy, what do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be a businessman.

A businessman.

I want to be a businessman.

It’s a really weird thing to want to be because again, little kid’s concept

of businessman is not very realistic.

But junior high school and high school girls

also just wanted to be company employees.

Between elementary and middle school girls, they wanted to be manga artists,

which is pretty cool.

It’s artistic.

Scholar entered the top 10 for boys who were in high school in junior high

school and girls in high school.

I honestly don’t really know what a scholar is.

I guess that’s just like a lifetime student.

What is a scholar?

Because I think you have to be more specific.

But together young, their kids in high school and stuff, they might not

really know what scholars are.

I don’t.

I’m 50.

I have no clue what a scholar would be.

And that’s not really a job, is it?

I guess professor at university is, which is scholarly.

I’m not sure.

The comments on the Internet were interesting because some were lamenting

the lack of aspirations.

Because it’s like, when I was young, I wanted to be a rock star.

I wanted to be the number one.

I wanted to go to the Olympics.

I wanted to be the best dude in the world at something.

And they’re saying these Japanese

kids, they don’t have those kind of dreams.

They have, I want to find a good solid company and hunker down and be a

company employee for 40 years.

And then I want to retire and have no drama in my life.

And it’s not exciting and it’s not interesting.

But then a whole bunch of other people were saying, like, is it better to

have a dream that’s unattainable versus a dream that you could actually get?

So like, my real dream when I was younger was to be a writer.

I wanted to write novels.

I wanted to write books.

I wanted to do, you know, I wanted to

be like a cliche, pretentious artist type.

I wanted to write.

And I’ve always, I actually now, over the last decade or so, I actually have

done a lot of writing.

I’ve done writing.

I’ve written articles and stuff.

I did games, journalism, I did stuff like that.

Last year, I did Montana LDablo, which was a choose your own adventure,

which is something that had been in the back

of my head for years and years and years.

So I have achieved that goal, but not, of course, the way, the way you think

of it as a kid is I’m going to write books

and becoming internationally famous.

And like, people are going to want to get with me because I’m so smart and

artistic and famous.

But that’s not actually the reality.

A working writer though, I would be happy with that job.

So this is realistically a very attainable job.

So is that a bad thing?

Like you could grow up.

Oh, wait, wait, the whole point is I failed.

I never became the famous writer that I wanted to be.

The last episode of “Seeming Be,” I actually

talked about some of my exploits into trying.

to become a writer and the sheer volume of rejection you have to go through

to not succeed in the end is pretty hard.

Yeah, a lot of other people on the Internet when they were commenting on

this article, what

they were saying was like, isn’t it better to have a dream you could

actually achieve and then achieve your dream?

Because you get that sort of sense of accomplishment, like you’ve done the

thing you set out to do,

isn’t that better than saying, I want to

be a rock star and I can’t because there’s

so few people actually end up succeeding in their desires to be famous.

So I’m a little torn because I think young people should be aspirational.

But having an element of reality in there, so maybe I want to be a musician,

but you need if you understand what a working

musician is, like you make jingles for

commercials, you

do background music for videos and stuff, understanding the reality of it

means you could

get a job doing something you like, but realistically, I think would be

pretty appealing.

Because I did games journalism and it actually was, it had really good

points and really

bad points, but I was doing, I was playing video games and I was writing

which are two things I love to do.

I would be very happy to do that for the rest of my life.

And yeah, I’m not going to be like super famous

or international or anything, but it would

be a low key constant satisfaction, which I

think is what people sort of don’t think about.

It’s like, do I want to be super, super successful or nothing or would I

like to be happy, maybe to a lesser degree forever?

So Prime Minister Kishito, we’ve talked about birth rates in Japan.

The last year they had less than 800,000 babies.

It is the lowest number of babies born in

the country in years and years and years.

I think since World War II, since they actually started keeping track.

So this is a really big problem.

Because the population of the country, it just keeps diminishing.

So you have old people dying, you have not

enough babies being born to replace them.

That’s actually bad for the economy, it’s bad for the country, it just means

your culture may disappear.

So slowly Japanese people are going extinct.

And then you’ve got foreigners like me coming in and making half babies.

Oh my God, that’s not cool.

So Kishito sat down, he said, we have a plan.

We’re going to make a plan for increasing the birth rate.

And it’s going to be assistance to employers who encourage male staff to

take child care leave.

Last year, 14% of the people who were eligible to take child care leave

actually took it.

So most men in Japan traditionally don’t

take any time off when they have a baby.

But they’re thinking, we make them or help them take more time off.

They’ll be more likely to have a baby to share that sort of burden.

More support for freelancers and self-employed workers.

So yeah, if I am self-employed and I have to take off six months to a year

to have a baby

and raise the baby for the first year, I’m

not working that entire period which makes

I have zero income for that time.

Very going to inhibit my desire to have a baby.

What I wrote in my notes and my kind of point from the beginning has been

this doesn’t help you get people making babies.

This supports people who have babies.

So what are they actually going to do to get people to actually have babies

in the first place?

Because really the problem is people, modern people, and modern society do

not find the idea of having children appealing.

Because I don’t make enough money.

I can’t support myself.

I can’t support a family.

So it’s better for me to remain single.

And this has been going around for a long time.

So what they need to do, when I’ve said this a bunch of times, I’m actually

thinking of like not talking about this as much now.

What they need to do is actually change the entire culture of Japan so that

work is not at the forefront of everyone’s lives.

And that is going to be, I think, an impossibility.

And it’s the one thing they refuse to talk about.

Because men and women need time to spend

time with each other, to date, to go out, to

form a relationship so that they can then

get involved enough to actually want to have

a baby in the first place.

And all these financial systems and stuff.

These are great after you’ve had the baby.

But you have to put people in a position where they want to get together to

have a baby in the first place.

And that is the one thing they don’t want to talk about.

Because that would mean we don’t work 12 hour days anymore.

We don’t dedicate our entire lives to the

company like Japan has since World War II.

We change contract types so that people get

more free time and deep prioritizes work,

which is 100% against the current Japanese philosophy of life and existence.

Tattoos.

So I have a couple of tattoos.

I have one on my shoulder, one on my back, but they’re very small.

And that means that I cannot go to a public pool.

I cannot go to a public onsen with my tattoos exposed.

So I just wear one of those swimming jackets, rash guard things.

And they’re covered so no one says anything.

It’s fine.

Because you can actually tell there’s

the guys walking around with rash guard on.

Like I probably has tattoo.

So a survey was done should tattoos be allowed in hot Springs.

So again, if I go into a hot spring, if it’s public, I’m actually not

allowed to go in with a tattoo on my shoulder because everyone can see it.

It basically changes by age.

So younger people are more accepting.

Older people are just 100% against it.

But 43.9% say that tattoos should be 100% banned.

If you have a tattoo, you shouldn’t be

allowed to bathe in an onsen in a hot spring.

33.7% say it should be handled case by case.

So I’m a foreigner.

I have tattoos.

And they’re very small.

That clearly shows that I am not a Yakuza, which is what this is all about.

This is all about the Yakuza showing their gang affiliation.

And I’m clearly not affiliated, certainly not with a Japanese gang.

And my tattoos are not like the full body one.

So they don’t have the same sort of impact or feeling.

And I think as soon as people see that I’m a foreigner, they’ll think, “Oh,

it’s just a fashion thing for foreigners.”

So they’re saying like, “Yeah, so if I come in and I have a tattoo, it

should be okay.”

But if a Yakuza comes in and he’s got the

full body thing, that should not be okay.

22.5% say hot Springs need to change with the times.

Which I think is actually pretty sensible.

And you know, most of the 22.4% who said that were really young people who

are probably getting tattoos themselves.

Well, this was actually, I don’t know if other people would care about this.

You can see, if you watch the video, if you watch the YouTube video, you can

see in the background I have a chin up bar.

I haven’t been using it lately because I hurt my shoulder in judo.

But it is something I’ve always, as an exercise, I’ve always enjoyed it.

And I’ve always enjoyed it because if I’m

ever hanging off a cliff, I want to be able

to pull myself up physically so that I can climb up the cliff.

So at the end of an action movie when someone’s hanging, you know, if you’re

not physically strong enough to pull yourself up, that’s when you die.

Whereas I want to be the guy who like pulls

himself up really impressively in one go.

So I’ve always enjoyed chin ups.

This guy named Kenta Adachi, he works for the Japanese Coast Guard.

He’s 35 years old.

He has taken the world record for dead hang.

So it’s like you get on the chin up bar, you hang with both hands, you just

hang there for as long as possible.

Previously, a Norwegian guy did it for 16 minutes and three seconds.

I think I maxed out once at five minutes.

So maybe with training, I could actually get it, but I’m a big dude.

So it might be harder for me.

I’m not sure.

That was back in 2020.

So Adachi came in and he’s like, I’m going to kill this record.

Oh my god, did he kill it?

Not only did he beat 16 minutes, he did one hour and 20 minutes and 41

seconds.

So he took it, took the 16, beat it by four minutes and then put another

hour on top of that, which to me seems inconceivable.

But this guy is also holding the world record for the most consecutive chin

ups, which is 651.

So he now has two world records.

I mean, very related, obviously his upper body strength is off the charts.

Either that or he’s incredibly light.

I don’t know which is, which is probably both.

He’s probably a very svelte man, but with massive shoulders and chest.

But good on him.

I mean, he didn’t just beat that record.

He absolutely destroyed it.

And I will, after this podcast, go and try

to see how long I can do a dead hang for.

I mean, there’s so much shoulder.

I’m assuming it’s only going to be like eight seconds.

A woman thinks that her boyfriend is cheating on her.

I did enjoy the word thinks.

Not there was any proof.

She just suspected her boyfriend was cheating on her.

So she calls her friend, a guy friend.

And then the guy friend comes over with two

other guy friends and they call the girl’s

boyfriend to the girl’s apartment and he shows up.

And then they threaten him with a knife.

They punch him in the face.

They handcuff him.

They say, let’s go to the bank and get some money out.

And then they take his keys and they take his Lamborghini.

That’s a lot.

Like, there’s accusations and there’s confrontational behavior.

But we think you’re cheating on our friend.

We’re going to beat you up and take all your stuff.

I think there’s only reason I found this interesting is because that’s not

going to fix it.

Like, okay, you guys need to break up.

That’s one thing.

But we’re going to steal all your stuff and

now I’m going to go to prison for years.

That is a disproportionate response to the issue at hand.

And I think maybe that’s why I found that one is interesting it is.

Also they took a guy’s Lamborghini.

There’s no way Lamborghini is a standout.

There’s no way you’re going to be driving

that around and the cops don’t figure out.

It’s the stolen Lamborghini.

Okay, and this is the last ones for all the creepy dudes who have this like,

a lot of weeb sensibilities about Japan.

Japan’s changing and all you weeb dudes may not be as welcome as you think

you are anymore.

Japan is raising the age of consent from 13 to 16 and recognizing coercion

without violence.

So since 1907, the age of consent in Japan has been 13 years old.

And it’s never in the last 20 years I’ve been in Japan.

It’s not actually been accepted like if I talk to a 13-14 year old and they

agree to do it, it’s still not okay.

So everyone kind of socially knew this wasn’t cool.

But I do remember a few sort of weird nerdy

dudes online using this as a justification

for coming and trying to hit on basically kids.

But then of course they’re the kind of people who never actually leave their

basements.

So they never actually come to Japan.

They just use it as a justification for their own perverted desires.

Baby is going to be defined by more than just violence.

So previously, if a man raped a woman and

the woman didn’t fight back, it wasn’t rape.

And it’s really disturbing.

So basically if I drugged a girl or I got a girl really, really drunk and I

got in a position

where she didn’t fight back physically,

then a court would not call that rape.

They would say that she knew she was drinking.

I could maybe say that I didn’t know there were drugs and she was accepting.

There were a lot of excuses that could come up.

And that has been now been taking into account.

So coercion without violence is now included under sort of the rape clause.

I think they might actually be changing, you know, the word rape in Japanese

is being redefined.

So violence is not the sort of defining factor of what a rape is.

So if you use alcohol drugs or power.

So if I’m in your boss and you feel like

you have to do it or if I’m in like, I’m.

really rich, dude, any sort of position where it’s like power harassment,

that is now going

to be classified as rape in Japan, which is actually a really good thing.

They’ve also started looking at other stuff like circulating images online.

So revenge porn or taking up skirt photos,

which is a really common problem in Japan.

That used to be you get in trouble, but you didn’t go to jail because it

wasn’t technically illegal.

It’s sort of like taking pictures in public,

but then there’s privacy issues in Japan.

It’s very big on privacy.

So I’m surprised this one went for as long as it did.

If I take pictures, that’s illegal, but if I circulate them online, that’s

double illegal.

So I get two illegal things in one go.

And that’s actually one of the things they’re trying to really, really crack

down on is these guys who are creepy and stuff, sharing them is maybe worse.

And at first, I was worried about Ninja News Japan because I need to get all

these news stories so I can do the content.

But now if there are more arrests, it means more creepy, weird stories will

actually come out.

Because right now, there’s a whole bunch of people they get in trouble, they

get caught by the police, but it’s not technically illegal.

So we don’t hear all the details, so we don’t actually get the story.

So now, I think we’re going to have more crimes come to the forefront, which

means more content for Ninja News Japan.

So at least for a little while, I think we’re going to be getting a lot more

really creepy dude news.

But let’s face it, if you come to listen to Ninja News Japan, that’s

probably what you’re coming to listen for.

You creepy, creepy weirdo.

[MUSIC].

NNJ 47: Hot Pot AI – bad decisions

The news of the week is a 3 year old power harassment case, excessive touting (which is a thing, I just learned), a study on if young people are knocking boots, and the standard, Yakuza and Disney are both bastard organizations. 

Also, the laws of robotics. 

The offending video mentioned in the podcast, which is seriously hard to watch.