It’s the first case in Japan.
I didn’t take the time to actually check if
this has been prosecuted anywhere else.
This is something I maybe have to add into
my research phase is when we talk about the
first case of something
in Japan, that doesn’t
mean it’s the first
case of that same thing
in the world, but new laws, new prosecutions
are always very interesting to me.
At least have arrested
a woman for riding an
electric suitcase on the
sidewalk without a license.
I think that’s one of
those things where you’re
going to go ahead and
do you need a license
to ride an electric suitcase
if you don’t know what that is.
It’s a suitcase that’s electric.
It’s a suitcase with a small
motor in it that powers the wheels.
In Japan, they get really strict about
things that are vehicles that you can ride.
We’ve done the stories about people
getting in trouble for bicycle laws.
We’ve done stories about
people riding scooters,
electric scooters, and
getting arrested for that.
And do you need a license for it?
It’s a bit of a gray
zone because licensing
doesn’t include electric
suitcases, but then
the counter argument is
does a suitcase need a license?
Obviously in this case,
the police think it does.
The police have arrested this person
for violating the Road Traffic Act.
Even though they were
riding on the sidewalk,
so if you ride your
bicycle on the sidewalk,
if you ride your scooter
on the sidewalk, the
road laws still apply
to you and you might
actually be getting
in trouble for riding on
the sidewalk when very technically
you should be riding on the road.
I don’t think this is one of those
things that’s actually written down.
That might actually be the main problem.
The maximum speed.
This was a nice point of issue
because like, is it dangerous?
Are you going to hurt somebody?
The maximum speed of
the electric suitcases was
10 kilometers an hour or
about 10 kilometers an hour.
I’m actually betting
with the wheels that
small on a sidewalk,
you couldn’t go that fast
because I bet every time you hit a crack in
the sidewalk, you stop or have to lift it
up.
I used the skateboard
and the small wheels meant
like any tiny divot you
hit were problematic,
but I think the actual
problem is that this
electric suitcases does not
meet Japanese safety stands.
So this was a tourist who
came from overseas and
was riding on their suitcase and this
suitcase was not considered safe in Japan.
So that’s one of
those things where it’s
like, okay, last week I
talked about how Japan
has these weird rules
where if you go to another
country because it
was some skateboarders
and they went to another
country where it was
legal for them to drink
and they were drinking
and then the coach got
in trouble because like
you shouldn’t be letting
them drink because
it’s not legal in Japan and
they’re like, but we’re not in Japan.
So you can see this like circular
argument goes around for a bit.
In this case, I think
it’s a bit more clear cut.
You bring something from
another country to Japan.
It has to meet Japanese safety standards
or you shouldn’t be allowed to use it.
So I think that might
be the core issue, but
because electric suitcases don’t have laws
written for them, they’re like, oh, well,
what are we going to
like dingham on so we
can get this thing off
the road so it’s safe.
The tourist, the woman, denies the charge.
So she’s just saying like, no, I
did not violate the road traffic act.
She does not consider
electric suitcase a vehicle.
Now, I thought that
was a very interesting
defense because the
logic she’s using is like,
I don’t think this is
a vehicle, therefore
I should not be punished
under vehicle laws.
Except that’s not how laws work.
Like if I don’t consider
something theft,
doesn’t mean the police are
not going to arrest me for it.
It doesn’t mean I’m not
going to get prosecuted for it.
If I walk into a store
and I pick up a Playstation
and I just start
walking out of the store
and they go like, hey, you’re stealing,
I go, well, I don’t consider this theft.
That’s not going to be a
very solid defense, I think.
I think.
I mean, I haven’t tried it yet.
Maybe a more adventurous listener out there
might want to go out and give it a shot.
I don’t think this is going to
hold up in court is what I’m saying.
I don’t consider it
a vehicle, therefore I
should not get in
trouble for riding a vehicle.
I feel like there’s, there’s
another joke to me made there.
It’s a really dumb thing to get in
trouble for riding an electric vehicle.
But yeah, if you’re going
to bring stuff to another
country, you got to abide
by those countries rules.
This is actually a conversation I’ve
had with Americans who come to Japan.
They seem to think the American laws
follow them as they understand them.
And again, just like me, I
don’t claim to be a law expert.
Most of the laws I’ve
learned about America, for
sure, have come from
television and television
is not exactly 100% accurate
and everything it presents to you.
So, it’s not the best source of your
legal information is maybe what I’m saying.
But we, I did have a
conversation with an
American talking about
Miranda rights and they
seem to be confused as to why they don’t
read you your Miranda rights in Japan.
And I had to explain they don’t
have Miranda rights in Japan.
He’s like, well, no, you
have to have Miranda rights.
I’m like, yes, in America, you
have to have Miranda rights.
In Japan, they legally can hold
you for 20 some days for no reason.
And he was like, well, no, that’s legal.
I’m like, in America, that
might be illegal in Japan.
That’s fine.
So, there are people
who travel and they
seem to think the laws from
back home travel with them.
This woman might have thought, ah,
my electric suitcase is safe in China.
So therefore, it’s safe everywhere else in
the world that those rules travel with me.
But in Japan, maybe
much higher safety standard
laws for tiny electric
suitcase engines.
I think they’re just not allowed at all.
I actually haven’t seen any.
I’m sure they’re around.
I don’t know how they’re classified.
So that’s actually maybe the
issue is the classification issue.
Are they a vehicle?
Is it luggage?
Is it a toy?
Once that settled, the
decision could actually
be made as to whether or
not she’s committed to crime.
But they’re saying you’re
writing this on the sidewalk.
It’s on the sidewalk.
Therefore, it falls under the traffic act.
I think she might be a little screwed.
The Japanese Olympic outfits.
All these countries
now, the Olympics are
coming up there,
demonstrating their displaying.
They’re like, here are
our new Olympic outfits.
And they always, I don’t know, it’s
a little like polo Ralph Lauren for me.
Hey, these are athletes, and
I want to look kind of sporty.
They always come out
with a jacket suit thing.
And I’m always like, okay, it looks fine.
But it’s got to be in
your country’s colors.
Japan is luckily just
has red and white, so it’s
pretty simple, solid,
color scheme to work with.
They’ve also done their training outfits.
And their outfits are
going to have a new
technology that will
block infrared cameras.
And this is because of a
problem that’s occurring in Japan.
It’s carried over to the
Olympics and there might
be a variety of creepy
people at the Olympics.
You’re never going to
get away from the creepy
guys, you’re never
going to get away from
the creepy guys.
That’s just sort of a fact of life.
So the new material absorbs
infrared light similar to stealth aircraft.
So why are they going
to such lengths using
stealth aircraft technology
woven into these athletes uniforms?
Well, it’s because what they found is there
are these creepy dudes and they get these
telephoto lenses with
infrared technology
and there’s also
smartphones that can do it.
When I actually read
this article because as
I do the articles, I was
trying to get two or three.
One of them actually said
what phone has this capability?
And I was like, you
are literally advertising
the creepy technology
to the creepy guys.
So I actually, I didn’t
write it down, but I
was like mentally
going like, well, I’m not
going to promote the
ability to, but no one
of this is an engineering
experience creepy.
They’ve all learned
the lessons from this
via other people who’ve
made these mistakes,
although we do have a very naive young man
coming up at the end, essentially with the
infrared technology because of the
heat of the body, they can act as x-rays.
So what was happening
in track and field
meets primarily was as the
athletes were being athletic.
These guys would take pictures
and they’d find that it could
x-ray through their clothes and
they could see their underwear.
It didn’t really seem to do
much else or if the clothes
were a little loose, you could
see the shape of the body.
So these guys were
taking these pictures,
posting them on the internet and putting
very sexualized captions underneath.
In 2020, the athletes complained.
So the last Olympics,
the athletes actually
complained to the Olympic
committee after finding
picks of themselves online with sexual
comments underneath and sexual captions.
This is primarily come from the
volleyball and track and field team.
I want to chalk it up to research.
I did look at some videos and
track and field came up and it
wasn’t like any sort of perverted
thing that I was looking at.
It was just some track and field stuff.
The YouTube algorithm
immediately started sending me to
overtly sexualized versions
of track and field things.
Like it wasn’t people
doing track and field.
It was track and field
athletes walking, pulling
their shorts out of their butt,
stretching and stuff like that.
And I was like, okay,
the algorithm isn’t helping.
That might be just because there are
so many creepy people on the internet.
The internet is very much
figured out that I’m a dude.
So as soon as I
look at anything, it
immediately tries to
like, can I connect this to
a sexual version of this and
try to get me interested in that?
It’s one of the reasons I have
multiple YouTube channels and I
have decided to make each
YouTube channel algorithm work for me.
So what I actually realized
just now is I need to make
a algorithm that brings
me the creepy news for this.
So like when I do
research or try to find
videos or news articles
and things, and it’s
going to have a creepy element, I
could keep that to one algorithm.
So the algorithm that I
actually want about me,
like my actual interests,
is separate from that.
Because I have one of my channels.
I’ve only looked at
movie trailers and so in
the algorithm now just
constantly is pulling movie trailer.
So I don’t have to search for them anymore.
I was like, I should be
manipulating the algorithm more.
But now actually,
yeah, I should also try to
protect myself by having
a separate algorithm
for this slightly creepy news so that
maybe it doesn’t reflect so badly on me.
Cops and Shimane are
now officially allowed to
wear sunglasses and
drink liquids while on duty.
So interesting sort
of structure of what
happens is it’s not like
they weren’t allowed
to wear sunglasses
before and it’s not like
they weren’t allowed
to get drinks before, but
it was looked down upon so
a lot of police wouldn’t do it.
The sunglasses, we can
separate these into two issues.
The sunglasses issue,
very much like tattoos
and Japan, sunglasses as an
image is connected to criminality.
So if you have tattoos
in Japan, they think you’ve
committed a crime or been
to jail or something like that.
That’s a pretty
well-established thing from Japan.
A lot of young people are now
growing up with tattoos as common.
That opinion is slightly changing.
Sunglasses are similar.
So any sort of yakuza
movie you want or any
sort of yakuza thing or
anything with criminals
in it, the criminals will
probably wear sunglasses.
When they make posters and the poster
has a criminal on it, there’s two versions.
There’s the old-fashioned
one, which is going
to have him like constructing
a mask out of a handkerchief.
And then there’s the modern one,
which is him wearing sunglasses.
So in Japanese culture, sunglasses are just
directly connected to criminal behavior.
Sunglasses, there’s a
very other weird thing.
This is a society
thing or a cultural thing.
They think you can only wear
sunglasses in the summertime.
So I actually wear
sunglasses in the winter,
because when they’re
snow and it’s very bright,
the sun actually hits
the snow and then
comes up in your eyes, this is
a thing called snow blindness.
So it’s actually a really good idea
to wear sunglasses in the winter.
I would wear them in the
winter on my way walking to
the station or my way into
work or something like that.
Coworkers would always go,
“Why are you wearing sunglasses?
” It’s cold outside.
And I’m like, sunglasses
aren’t designed or
their function is not to protect you
or to keep you cool in the summertime.
They are to protect
your eyes from brightness,
which is outside right
now because we have
a sun and snow, which is actually
making the brightness worse.
And you can see that
they were kind of shaking
their heads at me like,
weird, dumb, foreign
guy wearing his
sunglasses in the wintertime
and I was like, “Okay,
I mean just go blind.
I don’t care.
It’s none of my business.
” But I’ve actually had
that experience directly.
The drinks, now there
was a couple of stories.
We did it.
They made me six months ago.
The idea was that if you
wanted to go get a drink, you had
to go to the cobon, which is
the little sort of area office.
You had to sit down, you had
to change your clothes, go buy
drinks and then come back
and change back in your uniform.
They didn’t want officers in uniform going
to convene the stores because they didn’t
want it to look like the officers
were just slacking off or hanging out.
You had to look like you were a
good civil servant doing your job.
There was a picture.
I think it was some American or Canadian
cops and they were out in the summertime.
They both have sunglasses
on and they both got
big things to Starbucks and they’re
standing talking to some people.
And this was a big thing in
Japan like, “Is this acceptable?
Is this allowed?
Why are they able to do this?
” People and it’s summertime
and they have to be able to see.
And it’s summertime
and they need to hydrate.
So then being able
to drink water or juice
or something else like
maybe a sports drink,
that’s really important so they
don’t get heat stroke and stuff.
Sunglasses, so they
can see, these are
actually pretty basic
things in other countries
in Japan because
of these associations.
It was frowned upon.
What the police did
in Shimane is they
actually wrote it into
the rules that they are
allowed to wear sunglasses and
they are allowed to go buy drinks.
Should anyone actually
complain that someone’s
wearing sunglasses or buying drinks, they
can now actually say it’s actually in the
rule book that this is
acceptable or as before
it wasn’t and so it was frowned
upon so a lot of cops didn’t do it.
So this is a shift in
culture being supported
by the police to make them
hopefully more effective.
So like, yeah, they’re
not dehydrated and they
can see, those are
two really big elements
of being a good cop, I
assume, I have no idea.
They are introducing new Japanese
bank notes, I believe it’s tomorrow.
This is July 2nd when this episode is being
released, July 3rd, I think is the day the
new Japanese or it’s the
7th, anyway, it’s very soon as
this week, new Japanese
paper money is being released.
They are going to release a new 1000 yen
note, a new 5000 yen note and a new 10,000
yen note which is basically all the
money, paper money you use in Japan.
They used to have a
2000 yen note, it didn’t last
very long, it actually
caused a lot of problems.
An example of a
problem, this is causing,
there’s a ramen shop,
no, a lot of ramen shops,
you don’t actually go
up and order, you don’t
sit down at a table,
you go to a machine
and you put your money in the machine and
then you get a ticket and you sit down and
just give your ticket and then they
don’t actually interact with you very much.
For a lot of people,
that’s actually part
of the appeal of the
ramen experience, let’s say.
New money means that these
machines will not accept the new money.
So we had this with the 500 yen coin was
updated and so it’s a different way, it’s
a different material, it’s a different size
which means if you put it in a machine,
the machine won’t accept
it, it’ll just spit it out again.
With the money, it’s
the same thing, so these
like ramen shop owners
were the first ones to complain.
This is not just
exclusively ramen shop, that
was the first story, the first
example and it’s a really good example.
His business relies
on this machine that
takes money so that he doesn’t have to
spend his time taking money from people, it
actually takes the
place of a cash register.
So that means he has
to replace that machine
and he’s complaining
that will the government
subsidize him replacing
the machine because it
can cost a lot of money
to replace machines.
If you have a chain of
ramen shops, you have
to replace the machine in
every one of those shops.
If you have any other
service that just takes
machines, I’m trying
to think of ones I use.
When I go to the Judo
Club, I go to a sports
center, I have to put
money in the machine now,
I pay 200 yen, so I
usually try to bring 200
yen, but it accepts bills, that
machine has to be replaced.
Or they’re just going to
put a note on it that says
this doesn’t accept the
new thousand yen notes yet.
But there’s going to be a point where every
machine that accepts bills, which is a lot
of machines, the biggest one
that I can think of is drink machines.
Every corner you go to in
Japan has a drink machine.
Every one of those machines
accepts thousand yen notes.
You can put a thousand
yen note into every Coke
machine you see, every
vending machine you see.
Every one of those either
has to be updated or changed.
I don’t know how they read it.
I don’t know if they read
security features or they check
the material or what, but
that’s going to be problematic.
I haven’t heard anything
from Coca-Cola or
any of these big
companies that actually run
all these vending
machines, so I’m wondering
if they just check a
security feature on
the bill, whereas the
ramen shop owner has a
different machine that
checks it a different way.
I don’t know about any of that.
All I know is that these new bills,
introducing new money, always causes problems.
It’s a good thing.
We’re not in England
because the Queen died.
They have to update all the
money, the King Charles is old.
They’re going to have to
update the money pretty soon.
This is not a quiz in the way I’ve done
the other ones, it’s not multiple choice.
I’m going to give you
more of a dilemma and
see if you can, I kind
of want your solution
to the dilemma and then I need you to guess
what the, we can kind of work through what
the other person’s
solution to this dilemma was.
You have a 20 year old
young man and this is 2024,
so understanding the
availability of technology
I think is important to this story, like
we have the internet, we have cell phones.
We have lots of ways to get lots
of different kinds of information.
Yeah, okay.
You’re pretty big, which is a, yeah,
you’re pretty comfortable with that.
Even us as like fathers,
older men, let’s say,
we still can find what
we want on the internet.
We can like, if you need information,
you can get that information.
Yeah, I’m not at the
point of my parents, but
I don’t understand the
technology around me.
Good.
This young man, 20
years old, I would say a
younger person more attuned to technology
and the availability on the internet and
whatnot, his desire was
to see a naked woman.
Oh.
What do you think
he did to achieve this
purpose of seeing a naked
woman on the internet?
I did not say that, it’s
in my immediate solution.
I think your immediate
solution and mine would
be if I want to see a naked woman,
I would find one on the internet.
Yeah, well, like open the
chat with all of my wife’s in it.
Okay.
Yeah, I don’t think he has a wife.
He doesn’t, he doesn’t have
that option available to him.
So I mean, we’ll grant it that that you
do have that option that he does not have.
So he can’t do the same thing.
And this is a Japanese young man.
This is a Japanese, this
is didn’t you use Japan?
He’s not a ninja, but he is Japanese.
He’s certainly not an ninja.
That might even be it.
I have this really,
but just instantly in my
head, I’m like, he went into a
girl’s locker room and tried to hide.
Okay, he went into is correct.
A girl’s is also correct,
but it is not a locker room.
That may have been where you got caught.
Toilet is not a toilet.
Ah, they wouldn’t have to be
naked in the toilet would they?
No, he wants a naked lady.
Yeah.
So where are some place?
I’m a locker room.
Not a locker room.
I believe what happened because
again, the actual story was a tad spartan.
I believe what happened
was in the locker
area, the changing room
area is where someone
may have noticed that
this was not a woman.
So that’s a bunch of little hints in there.
You got to use it.
It’s some detective work.
He was in a locker
room area when someone
noticed that he wasn’t
female, like a changing
room of source was
at a clothing store.
Oh, no, no, you’ve gotten further away.
I think locker room is way more accurate.
Wow.
Why else is there a locker room at the gym
when you need to see you’re getting closer.
So it’s a place.
Yeah, you got to obviously women
women are going to be naked.
I would actually.
Okay, second hit, the
women will be naked
for an extended period
of time in this place.
Having him a better opportunity, they won’t
be naked for an extended period of time.
Yes.
Where are people naked for an
extended period of time in Japan?
Oh, it’s a hot spring.
It’s similar to a hot spring.
Let’s say you’re in the city.
Oh, okay.
So it’s a center.
Yes.
Okay.
So he decided he woke up one morning.
He’s like, I want to see a naked lady.
I’m going to go to
the female side of the
center for listeners who don’t
know what the word center means.
It is a public bath.
It’s like a building.
You’ll have a male side and a female side.
It’s a public bath where you go and
take a bath and you’re with other people.
So you see naked people.
If you are interested in the opposite sex,
you would have to get to the other side.
How did he get to the other side?
He just went through the door.
Oh, no.
No, no.
No, no.
There you go.
He dressed up as a woman.
Yeah.
So the woman’s locker
room, and it was in the
woman’s locker room
where someone went, he’s
wearing a long wig, like a wig with
long hair, but really did like badly.
It seems that way because
he was noticed really quickly.
And we got, I saw a
picture of the guy, he’s
not particularly masculine
or particularly the feminine.
So I was like, if he
put some work in it, he
could have gotten
away with it for a while.
But he was caught not
immediately, but very
quickly someone
realized like this is not a
woman in the in the
changing room for the sento.
So he was, they called the authorities,
they showed up pretty quickly.
He was arrested.
And they said, why did you do this?
He said, I wanted to
see a naked woman and
like a real flesh blood, I guess the internet
just wasn’t doing it for him anymore.
Yeah.
Like he just, he’s just, I don’t want
to encourage this, but don’t do that.
You could, you could go to a show
you could, like there are other ones there.
There are other avenues
to see real live naked
women, if you really want
to, without getting arrested.
There was a dispute between a made
cafe and a curry shop in Akihabara.
This is maybe the most Japanese story I’ve
ever done in the entirety of Ninja News
Japan history.
They did a collaboration.
So you have a made cafe and
they’re going to say like we’re
going to basically loan out
our maids to this curry shop.
And they will do stuff
in the curry shop and like
increase the, the people
go to the curry shop.
We’re going to see the maids
and like, hey, these maids are fun.
Let’s go to the made cafe.
People go to the made cafe, but like, hey,
you can get curry from this curry shop.
You know, win, win, win.
Not necessarily.
There’s always problems
and paradise that the
made cafe is saying that the
dispatch fees have not been paid.
So they are supposed
to pay a certain amount
of money to dispatch a
maid to the curry place.
The cafe claims it is owed 250,000 yet.
Now the reason the conflict here is because
it seems like the made cafes were refusing
to do some of the tasks
that the curry place,
the curry restaurant
was asking them to do.
These include soliciting customers.
So you have to stand outside and say like,
come on in, come have some delicious curry
with the cute maid, preparing
salad and not doing dishes.
So the maids refused
to just solicit customers.
The maids refused to wash the dishes.
The maids refused to prepare the salad.
And the curry place is saying, this
is all part of working in a curry place.
You gotta do all these things if
you actually want to work here.
And the maids are
saying, this wasn’t in the
contract we made when
we did this collaboration.
Therefore we’re not going to do it.
So right now with the information
I have, I’m on the maid side.
If it’s not in the contract, you
shouldn’t be asking them to do it.
They don’t have to do it.
But the curry house is saying
they’re going to sue the maid cafe.
So this is an interesting
thing because if
this is all based on
contractual stuff, it’s
going to be pretty clear cut
when the contract comes out.
But I bet the problem is
the contract isn’t that airtight.
It’s said like work at
or service or help or
assist and it wasn’t
specific in the roles.
So the maid cafe probably told their staffs
one thing and then when they got to the
curry house, they were told a
different thing and now it’s problematic.
This is going to start a war.
This is the only thing.
I want to see a maid war
in the middle of Akiobada.
So man in Hokkaido.
It’s Hokkaido.
It’s a safe place, all our bare stories are
from Hokkaido, but don’t worry about that.
He goes out.
It’s like 6.30.
He goes out.
He doesn’t lock his door.
Small town.
Hokkaido, whatever.
Cool.
It’s peaceful.
Later a woman enters
his house and a neighbor
calls the police
and says like, I think
there’s someone in
my friend’s house or my
neighbor’s house who
isn’t supposed to be here.
Can you go check it out?
Please show up and
they’re like, hey, he’s
supposed to be here
and the lady goes, yeah.
And then the guy comes back.
He’s like, I don’t know this lady,
so please get her out of my house.
She was arrested and when
she was arrested, they asked
her, you know, why did
you go into that guy’s house?
She said, I was told to enter the
house by my spouse by telepathy.
So I did.
I don’t know how you argue that.
The telepathy is one of those weird things
like, if you’re hearing something, is it
because I’m crazy or is it
because I’m actually receiving
a message, you’re going
to believe you’re not crazy.
So you’re actually receiving a message.
So I just really enjoyed that little, that,
that is a defense was a very interesting
thing because we very hard
to prove one way or the other.
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