Tag: Japan

Dangerous Doctors

(upbeat music) So it is 2025.

We have a new year, a new song.

Thank you to Jesse, Jayce Thomas
who made that new theme song for me.

This is an original theme song.

This is something that
I’ve wanted for a while.

I’ve gone to a couple of, so
there’s a whole epic story behind it.

I think I did it in a
C-McB where I did a thing

for work and I got a guy
to make a rap song for me.

I’ll Fiverr and then I wanted, oh, I
want a new theme song for C-McB.

Because I don’t want to find out that
that music is being used somewhere else.

Because it’s not really
than my song for my show.

So I had one for C-McB and
then for another whole year,

I was like, I kind of need
a song for an engineer’s

Japan, an engineer’s
Japan needs its own song.

I was gonna go on Fiverr
but then I realized like,

if I’m gonna give money
to someone I don’t know,

I should first give money
to someone I do know.

Jesse, Jesse Thomas, he’s done albums.

You can find out Spotify.

He’s done music for video games.

And now he’s done a theme
song for an engineer’s Japan.

Thank you, Jesse, for this amazing
new theme song for an engineer’s Japan.

Chef’s Kiss.

For those of you
listening to the only audio

version that sound
was the chef’s kiss me.

Don’t need to explain it.

I think you know what a chef’s kiss is.

Let’s get to the news.

(upbeat music)

So a new theme song, new transition beat.

Very happy about that as well.

This is an update to
C-McB episode 109 murder

in Japan three, how
to raise a murderer.

So I was thinking because I’ve
done this, I did an experiment.

I did some very serious,
dark, true crime murder

stories on C-McB
experiment to do I say it well.

Can I tell the story well?

Can I be sensitive enough to it?

And ’cause I mean, the whole
C-McB and engineer’s Japan vibe

is me talking and it’s often
very light and very flippant.

These are heavy topics.

I don’t want to treat them too casually.

But at the same time, I do
want to make them entertaining.

So I did three episodes of C-McB

just doing murder stories in
Japan, feeling at how I do it.

So I actually think that
last one I might release

this week as a bonus
and engineer’s Japan.

But if you want to know what’s going on,

C-McB is essentially where
I’m going to be experimenting

with different formats and
different things and different ideas.

Just random stuff.

And then the engineer’s Japan has a format,

but I think now I’ve gotten
comfortable with the idea

of how to present a
very serious murder story.

When the engineer’s Japan started,

I had to rule no murder ’cause
I can’t really make fun of it.

But there’s an update to the story.

So later this week, I will
release the full episode

from C-McB explaining the
whole case as it is up to now.

This is the story of a woman
who tracked down a guy,

brought him to a love
hotel and decapitated him.

And now the mother and father are
being arrested for aiding this crime.

The father has bled not guilty in his
role in his daughter’s beheading of a man.

So full episode C-McB episode 109.

But when you listen to
that episode, you’ll have a full

understanding of how
complicit he is in this crime.

He bought the saw, the saw
that was used in the beheading.

He bought the suitcase
that the body was put in.

He drove her to the place
to help stalk the victim.

So the murderer and the victim
knew each other in this case.

But she was hunting for him.

She was looking for him.

She’s like, let’s go to this club.

Let’s go to this place.

I know he hangs out here.

The father was the one driving her around.

He drove her from the crime scene home.

He also helped by simulating the murder.

So she tied him up, BDSM style.

She covered his eyes with
a blindfold and stuff like that.

And then she practiced the
action of slitting his throat.

She practiced the action of stabbing him.

She would say, how does this feel like?

How do you feel now?

She did her research by
watching horror movies.

So she watched something in a horror movie

and then she wanted
to try it out real life.

Sort of a dry run with her father.

Her father was complicit in this.

He helped her practice.

He helped her essentially train for this.

He helped her get to and from the crime.

He is about as complicit as someone gets.

He’s claiming he’s not guilty because
he didn’t actually know what was going on.

So I’ll be interested to see
why he did not do anything

directly connected to the
actual physical action in the crime.

He did everything leading up to it.

And he did everything helping cover it up.

So I’m really interested
to see, where does the

Japanese court system
land on this kind of story?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The Prime Minister, Prime Minister Ishiba.

He is apparently a heavy smoker.

I didn’t know any of this.

I don’t look into the prime ministers.

I don’t actually take a great deal
of interest in the prime ministers.

Much like the Japanese populace at large,
he’s finding being prime minister difficult

because he doesn’t have
time to take breaks to smoke.

So he admits that he only
gets several cigarettes a day.

He actually didn’t admit this.

I guess it was sort of his assistance.

And the people who work
with him, they’re saying

like, this dude was like
a couple packs a day.

He’s down to only a few cigarettes a day.

In a weird way, actually good for you.

But I’m sure that’s
because of the added stress

of being prime minister means
you don’t get these breaks

and those breaks might
be what he needs to survive.

He told Parliament
he will need a little time

to quit smoking, which
I found very interesting

because he’s saying to the
government that I essentially

promised to you the
government that I will quit smoking.

But is that something that
the prime minister has to do?

I remember Obama was a
smoker and he had to hide it

from everybody and it was
like a really shameful thing.

I was like, but as long
as he’s just smoking,

which is perfectly illegal,
what is the actual problem?

I guess they want to see the president
as someone who doesn’t do anything bad,

which of course we all
know was very unrealistic.

Once the prime minister of
Japan said that if he had to choose

between drinking and smoking,
he would definitely quit drinking.

So between drinking and
smoking, he would choose

smoking every time because
he loves smoking so much.

His wife is a non-smoker, so
in the prime minister’s house,

there is no smoking and in every government
building, smoking has been banned.

So this is a guy who has
to, during his prime ministerial

duties, find a corner
where he’s allowed to smoke

and then take a quick puff
and then head back to work

and he’s finding that really difficult
and is really causing a strain on him.

And I actually think
if that’s your biggest

problem being prime
minister isn’t that hard.

So a guy woke up and he’s
like, “I want to have a good day.

” So I’m going to hang out on my balcony,
which I actually think is really nice.

Japanese balconies don’t get used enough.

Japanese balconies tend to be
used primarily for hanging laundry,

which is too bad because I
have a balcony outside my house.

And if we put some table
on the chairs out there,

it’d be very nice to spend
sort of spring autumn evenings.

This guy had sort of a similar feeling
to mine only that I would go out there,

or maybe have a
cocktail, maybe drink

something, maybe just
read, maybe have some tea.

Who knows?

I’m just going to relax.

That’s what it’s all about.

This guy decided to add a little more
stress into his and other people’s lives.

He might be claiming that
this was to reduce his stress.

That is a pretty common defense
for negative actions in Japan.

But he decided that
the best thing he could

do was to hang out his
second story balcony.

And then when someone
walked by, throw a knife at him.

The knife landed four to five meters in
front of the man, who he threw the knife at.

So the victim, so
nothing actually happened.

But the victim stood there.

Basically, you’re walking down the street

and then a knife comes
flying from a building in lands.

Four to five meters in
front of you, so first of all,

we’re all very lucky that this guy
was not like a movie ninja kind of thing

where he’s throwing and
actually hitting anything.

He threw it, missed
about his belly as good.

He was technically anticipating,

’cause you know when you’re
trying to shoot something,

you don’t shoot at them, you shoot in
front of them so where they’re going to be.

He overcompensated and threw too far.

So that you’re walking
down the street one day.

And then just a knife
sort of clangs in front

of you about four
meters in front of you.

What do you do?

Well, you look up and you see the balcony

where the guy’s standing,
probably looking back at you.

And I just think of the awkward
moment where you sort of lock eyes.

And he’s like, the question, the unsaid
question “Did you just throw a knife at me?

” And that guy’s eyes are saying,
“Yeah, I just threw a knife at you.

” Kind of sorry I missed.

I don’t know how I feel right now.

And so the man pulls out his cell phone
very slowly and dials the police and says,

“Hey, I have just been a
victim of attempted murder,

“very clumsy, very lame, attempted murder,
“but attempted murder just the same.

” So the police show
up and arrest this guy.

He hasn’t said why he has done this yet.

I’m going to go ahead and bet
that he didn’t have a reason.

He just gave in to his darker instincts.

He just let those intrusive
thoughts sort of come

through and through
the knife without thinking.

(upbeat music)

Japan has 2,820 homeless people.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare
has done a survey, which is interim.

So my first feeling was 2,820 homeless
people in the entire country of Japan.

They didn’t actually survey Ishikawa

because they had suffered
from the earthquakes and stuff.

So they were like, we can’t honestly
don’t, we don’t know if these are people

who don’t have homes or their homes
have been destroyed and something.

So it didn’t really, it
wasn’t really applicable.

But overall, Japan has about
less than 3,000 homeless people,

which seems like a
very little small number,

but this sure is, let me get on my little
soapbox and be a pundit for a minute.

You know, this is like
social welfare, health care.

All these things are taken
care of people with, honestly,

maybe not a lot of
money, have found a way to

survive and not be
homeless at the same time.

That’s actually a very good thing.

It sort of like speaks
to these social programs.

Anyways, the Ministry of
Health and Welfare did a survey.

40% of the 2,820 homeless people surveyed

said they were satisfied with
their current living conditions.

Part of the survey was
where these people are staying.

So 25.2% live in city parks.

So they’re city parks, they set
up a tent or something like that.

They do a little sort of thing, village.

I should have looked at this one
more carefully from my language.

25.2% live in city parks.

So they usually set up tents
or coverings in city parks.

And they’re almost in a little community.

23.8% live along the side of roads.

So I’m not, I’m assuming not in
ditches, but maybe under bridges

and stuff like that where they
have a certain amount of cover.

22.6% prick them.

22.6% live along rivers.

So very similar to living alongside roads.

Maybe they live close to
bridges or under bridges

to get some cover and then
set up some kind of shelter.

6.2% live around train stations.

Which has got to be a lot
harder because you’re not really

allowed to to loiter or stay
around train stations at night.

So that might be where the
police sort of push you along.

You have to move along.

That’s why that number is a lot lower.

But basically city parks
and along major thoroughfares

are where almost all the
homeless people in Japan live.

34.4% of the homeless
people in Japan are 70 or older.

So these are people who
have hit retirement age

for whatever reason do
not have a home to live in.

But 40% of those people are saying they’re
satisfied with their living conditions.

Like the tent I live
in under this bridge

along this river, I’m
actually fine with that.

Which was a little shocking
because you think about it.

But then also you’re living your life.

There’s been a couple
of video games and stuff

where they do like
talk to homeless people.

I guess that’s not real.

They’re just talking about
like the freedom they have.

They’re outside the system.

Yeah, I don’t know
what to think about that.

That’s actually the biggest
issue because I’m looking at this

from someone who has never
actually interacted with these people.

So my opinions of what’s
going on there is based on media

and that’s an unreliable
source of information.

So I shouldn’t make any judgments.

This is a good way to think about
things for the rest of your life.

Is should I make this judgment or not?

No, I don’t actually have
any accurate information.

The rest of the information, we got 2,575.

So that is almost all of them are men.

172 are women and 73 of
them were gender indeterminate.

Primarily because they were
wearing like winter coverings,

like so much clothes that there was, it
wasn’t obvious to tell what their gender was.

It’s not that they wouldn’t reveal it.

It’s just the, I guess the
person didn’t want to ask,

are you a man or a woman
or how do you identify?

Well, Saka had the
most homeless people at

856 Tokyo with second,
which is a big surprise

because there’s a massive amount of
the population of Japan lives in Tokyo.

So you would think a
massive amount of the

population of homeless
people also live in Tokyo.

That’s not the case.

They only have 624.

17.5% said they wanted to
find a job and get an apartment.

And 12% said they wanted
to find an apartment

and use welfare and then
find some kind of light work

to sustain themselves for
the rest of their life in Japan.

It was interesting that
40% of the homeless people

in Japan surveyed, which
was apparently a majority

of the homeless people in Japan were still
satisfied with their living conditions.

I would love to know
why they were satisfied.

Like what was it about their life?

This story is broken my brain.

I would like to talk to some of the
people and find out why how their life is.

‘Cause maybe that’s the bit I’m actually
missing is maybe they’re living okay.

Maybe they have minimal
means or minimal desires.

And that’s why it’s okay.

Whereas I don’t live that life.

I have to have a PlayStation.

(upbeat music)

A 58 year old doctor.

We have a couple of doctor stories.

A 58 year old doctor.

It seems in these late 50s is when
the doctors really lose their shit.

A 58 year old doctor
missed a call for a flight.

So you wanted to get a
flight from one city to another.

It was called like please board now.

He missed it.

He walks up to the front.

He says it was never called,
which is a very doctor thing to say.

Like not I missed the call.

Is there any way he can get on board
or get on the next flight or something?

He claims he was never called.

So he goes to the front desk where
he was supposed to catch his flight.

He starts berating the
person working there.

So the ground staff that’s
actually working there.

Of course has no control over
whether or not he heard it or showed up.

You know it was called ’cause it’s probably
an automated system for part of it.

And then it’s like, hey,
last call, get on the airplane.

He slaps the staff twice
completely unhinged.

Like why you think slapping
someone a service person

is going to be in any way
beneficial to your situation.

He probably said like
get me on another plane.

They’re like, we can’t do that right now.

(whooshing)

Didn’t get exactly what
I wanted right away.

I’m a 58 year old man.

Do what I say or you get slapped.

He was, therefore, immediately arrested.

(upbeat music)

A 59 year old doctor.

So this is my point.

So I always talk about
like every now and then

the themes come through,
the themes come through.

It’s not intentional on my part.

Like I start looking for 50 year
old doctor slapping people’s stories.

It’s just like suddenly in
my feed of news stories

that I collect, there are multiple
doctors and the word slap come up.

And I’m like, oh, well, I’m
going to stick those together

and see if there’s like a trend
over the next couple of weeks.

59 year old doctor was on the train.

So he’s standing on the train and there’s a
man seated around him who was coughing.

So he dealt with it.

And of course, you know,
doctors take the Hippocratic oath.

I will do no harm.

He wants to deal with it.

He’s thought like back to
like all my bedside manner

and I became a doctor because
I care so deeply for humanity.

He took that and through
all that out the window

and said, if you
cough again, I’ll kill you.

And to just put it like an exclamation
point on that, he pulled out an ice pick.

The man he was threatening.

So he said like if you cough one more time,

I’ll kill you and point
it a nice pick at him.

The man he was threatening through sitting
down was a member of the Japanese military

at self defense force who then
in that in quotes detained him.

So I’m assuming just grabbed the ice pick

and then threw him to the ground,
held him until the police arrived

and then said, this dude just pulled
an ice pick out, threatened to kill me.

Please deal with that.

The man, the doctor.

So they get highly
educated person who has, you

know, we tend to esteem
doctors as being smart.

But the more I see about
the way doctors behave,

at least in Japan, I think a lot of
them, they might be good doctors.

So that doesn’t mean they actually
understand the rest of the world.

The God complex maybe
comes into play here like, I can do

whatever I want, but you
can’t go threaten military dudes

and then expect to just like
walk away with no problems.

No claim that he was
hurt, but he was detained.

So again, this is an athletic person
who’s in the military versus a doctor

who probably walks around and
tells people to do stuff all the time.

Police arrived, he was arrested.

He admits to taking out the
ice pick, but to nothing else.

So he’s saying, yes, I was on the train.

No, I did not tell the
man to stop coughing.

No, did I did not threaten to murder him.

I just took out my ice pick
to admire it for a little while.

As you do, when you’re
on the train, you’re bored.

You have time.

You take out your ice pick, you admire
the sharp edge, the long sort of shaft.

You sort of stroke a little bit.

This is what people do on the train.

That was about to get way worse.

I’ll just stop right there.

So I think he’s actually
undermined his own argument

by the very fact that he admitted
that, hey, he has been carrying

an ice pick with him, because
who carries an ice pick with him?

Doctors certainly not.

If he had a syringe or
a scalpel in his pocket,

while that would still be
a little weird and shaky

and like, he could say, oh,
yes, I had this scalpel at work.

I put a cover on it or
something, and I just put it

into my pocket and then
forgot it was in my pocket.

Still probably not
believable, but far more likely

than I’m a doctor at a
hospital or I’m a doctor at home,

and I put an ice pick in my
pocket just to hang out and be cool.

And then I got in the train and while I
was on the train, I was just like bored.

So I was like, hmm, let’s take a look
at the ice pick that I’m carrying with me.

Obviously, he did threaten this guy.

He did threaten him with the ice pick.

I think if you don’t say anything, let’s
take away the verbal threat of murder.

If you and I were standing
on a train and I took out

the ice pick and I just
like held it or pointed

out you, that is
inherently threatening.

So I think his, even his counter
argument that he didn’t say anything,

still the underlying feeling
there is guy was coughing.

You were clearly annoyed.

You took out a nice pick.

There is an unspoken threat, and
that is what he should be arrested for

because it’s exactly the
same as saying it out loud.

(upbeat music)

54 year old man.

How were 50 year old?

I’m 52.

And I’m like, again, I’ve said this before.

We went through a whole
summer of 50 plus year

old man doing the
weirdest sexual crimes ever.

Now it’s 50 year old
man just being unhinged.

Like that’s the, we seem
to have shifted from, it’s a

sex thing to just like, I’m
an angry, violent old man.

This guy wasn’t angry
or violent, but he still was

expressing those tendencies
is how I feel about it.

54 year old man had a hobby.

That’s a good thing for a 50 year old man.

You’re only a few more
years before you go bananas.

I’m looking forward to saying it.

Also true.

I mean, this is, this is now my concern.

I’m now conscious of my behavior.

Is my behavior going
to just like click off I go?

Now I’m like, is it a weird sex crime?

I’m assuming I would lean towards violence.

Having practiced judo my whole life.

Violence would be my more natural tendency.

I’m wondering when and
where it’s gonna happen.

The train is a hide stress situation.

It’s always when you’re in your worst mood.

You get on the train, but it’s
also like when you’re happy.

So you are on the train for your peaks
and troughs, your valleys, not troughs.

But like you know what I mean?

Like if you’re in your worst
moment, you probably still have

to get on the train and go home
and then someone annoys you.

I can see that happening.

But I so far my hobby is in
sitting this room and make content,

and which is the movie reviews
and podcasts and stuff like that.

It’s very hard for me to
hurt someone else from here.

And I think that might be the key to me not
getting arrested between now and sort of,

these guys all seem to be,
it seems to be in their 50s.

So it seems like past
60, it happens a lot less.

So if I can get through
the next eight to 10 years

in this room, basically never leaving,
I think I’m not gonna get arrested.

But let’s get on to our 54 year old man.

He has a hobby.

I have a hobby and that takes up my timing.

It means I don’t get into
trouble with other things.

This guy chose the wrong hobby.

I think that’s what we’re
really gonna learn from this.

My hobby is make content
people don’t like the content.

Maybe people do like the content.

That’s fine.

No one gets hurt either way.

He likes building things he
likes working with his hands.

Very admirable.

I think it’s really cool when
someone can build something

from scratch and he’s decided,
“Well, I’m technically skilled.

“I know how to make things.

“I’m going to make weapons
that are illegal in Japan.

” And that’s the first problem.

He was arrested because
he had a fully functional pen

that shot a gun that was
lethal to a human being.

So it had enough capacity or
power that you could shoot the

pen at a person and it would
most likely kill that person.

The police got an anonymous tip.

And as I said in our last episode, if
you’re gonna do illegal weird bad things,

you have to keep the
people around you happy.

So you can’t be off putting
in weird and unpleasant

if you’re going to commit
crimes or do bad things.

Because the anonymous tips are the ones

that are getting these
people in trouble lately.

These anonymous tips to
government lines or the police and

stuff are the ones that are
getting these guys arrested.

So this guy, I don’t know.

He had been making
these things for a while.

We will see in a minute because
of the volume of stuff he had.

No one said anything.

So he must have pissed
someone off at some point.

And that person
decided to call the police

anonymous tip and then
they show up at his house.

And they’re like, “Hey,
do you have a gun pen?

” He’s like, “Sure I do.

” And he holds it up
and shows it to him.

I don’t know if that’s how it happened.

They didn’t actually
say how he was arrested.

He actually had a YouTube channel where
he was showing off the things he’d made.

Like the anti-tank gun he built himself.

No, it’s a bit of his exaggeration.

It is a replica of a World
War II anti-tank gun.

It has a big shield and a big cannon.

It actually has wheels and it’s like
connects to, has like a trailer hitch.

So it connects to a truck or
something else to get it around.

It looks exactly like a miniature
version of an anti-tank thing,

but when I say miniature, I
mean like a one to four scale.

So it would go up to
like my shins or my hip.

That’s what it’s very hard to see
’cause I’m just watching on video.

But he was using an indoor and
he was shooting Rubik’s Cube.

So it was essentially a really
big, powerful, compressed air gun.

But if you put something sharp in there,

you have a gun that could kill a human
being, which is, again, illegal in Japan.

So he had his YouTube channel
where he’s showing this off,

shooting a stack of Rubik’s Cubes, which
doesn’t seem very threatening until again,

you take those extra steps to what could
he do if he modified this even further.

The police come in search of his house.

They find his workshop
where he has 90 other firearms.

Now, most of these look like guns,
but I’m assuming they’re actually air guns

’cause he said 16 of these weapons
violate the firearm control law.

So he’s probably got things that look
like real guns that are not real guns.

They’re like air guns or they
make noise or something like that.

He’s got other things he’s
made himself or he’s taken the

air guns and modified them
so they shoot actual stuff.

Maybe not just pellets
or something like that.

But because he was
making these things himself,

he’s also in violation of the
weapon manufacturing law.

  • Oh, one, don’t do crime.

Rule two, don’t talk about
our failure self doing a crime.

Rule three, don’t post about
said crimes on the internet.

Fully agree with.

Your dude did break all three.

The problem is these guys do this.

They think, ah, wouldn’t it be cool for
everyone to see the gun I made at home?

I’m gonna film it and put it on
YouTube and be really popular.

And then someone’s gonna say, it
actually could have been someone

who didn’t know him, who
wasn’t annoyed with him.

We just saw, here’s a Japanese
dude making a cannon at home.

I think this is wrong and called a police.

But again, don’t film it.

When we went through the hole, it
was like all the harassment streamers

and they were filming themselves
and then they all got arrested.

That was always like, dude, if you weren’t,

like if you’re harassing people, that’s
bad, but filming it and putting it online,

that’s just guaranteed
you’re gonna get arrested.

But because he was building these,

he’s also in violation of the
weapon manufacturing law,

which I’m actually betting is more
serious than just having like, possessing,

is bad, manufacturing is worse.

This is like trafficking drugs is bad,
producing and trafficking drugs is worse.

When he was arrested,
he said, I should have

thrown it away if I had
known this would happen.

Which I guess all I can say is correct.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

Lost my Beer Money

(upbeat music) Yoshi Zawaj Yo.

It was a famous Japanese guy.

I’ll be really honest.

I don’t know who he is.

I had to look him up.

Just because I don’t keep
track of famous people generally.

So he was in common ride
or Gintama, bleach, kingdom.

A lot of movies, dramas,
but the real money in

Japanese media, if you
are famous, is in advertising.

So you can get on TV.

You won’t make that much more.

You can get movies, you
won’t make that much money.

They don’t put as much money into
TV and movies as they do in advertising.

You can watch shows and the ads just have
a higher quality editing video quality.

It’s just everything about it’s just better
than the actual show you’re watching.

And it’s not an unusual experience.

You get used to it pretty quick.

One of the things people notice when
they come is there’s a lot of panel shows

where it’s people sit down and there’s
a topic and they talk about the topic

and then they have a
conversation and there’s a comedian

and they say funny stuff and
there’s these famous people

and they say maybe just serious
stuff or maybe they’re funny who knows.

Why are there so many of those shows?

Well, they’re very cheap to produce.

You can sit down with that group of people,

film for two hours, change
their clothes, film for

two hours, change their
clothes, film for two hours.

That’s like six episodes in one day.

You could do the same thing
over the course of a week

and film an entire season of
people just doing chat shows.

That is why those shows are popular.

The other very popular show that foreigners

when they come to Japan are very
shocked by is the amount of eating on TV.

The irony for any sensible
media consumer is the

knowledge very quickly that
they can’t say the foods bad.

So if you are on a Japanese
TV show, you’re gonna go into

a ramen restaurant with
someone else, probably comedian.

I sit down and you’re gonna order
the ramen, especially and you’re like,

“Oh, this is the most
amazing ramen I’ve ever seen.

” “Oh, it smells so
good than you idiot.

” “Ah, this is the best.

” And they freak
out every single time.

It’s not a problem, it’s just
as a foreigner, as a Westerner.

It gets very boring and
very repetitive, very quickly.

So I stopped watching a lot of Japanese TV

because I don’t need to see
someone eat ramen and say it’s good.

I would like to see someone
eat some ramen and go,

“This is fine, this is
mediocre, this is not very good.

” That’s not what
the show is doing.

It’s really just a filmed chat
show in a different environment.

So that’s kind of Japanese media.

So if you wanna make money
in Japanese media, pop culture,

whatever, you have to
do ads, beer, ads, car ads,

insurance ads, whatever,
ads are where the money is.

So this guy, Yoshizawa Ryo, he got drunk.

Yeah, it happens, people get drunk.

I get drunk on occasion.

I’m very much a day drinker now.

Like, I don’t drink at night.

And I realize I enjoy drinking
in early day, not morning.

It’s a bit risky, I think.

I tend to be a lunch
drinker and then in the

afternoon, if I can feel
like a headache coming out,

I was like, “Oh, I’ll
just drink some water.

” And then I don’t wake
up with hangovers anymore.

And I realized this is a
much more sensible decision,

which is the kind of thing
you do when you’re old.

Make sensible decisions
even for your drinking periods.

But you should try it.

Like, next thing you’re
like, “I’m gonna get ripped.

” Get ripped in the
mid early afternoon.

Eat lunch and get ripped while
eating lunch and then do your thing.

And then as you start to come down, you
be like, “I’m just gonna drink some water.

” And you’re not pounding water
to try to get rid of the headache.

And then you get to a nice sleep.

I guess I shouldn’t be
recommending day drink.

You shouldn’t be
recommending drinking in

general, but at the same
time, you’re gonna drink.

It was this guy, obviously, did
not have the same self-control I do,

or that I have just recommended
from an interview with Japan.

On December 30th, he went into the
wrong apartment and the dorm was unlocked.

It’s funny that a lot of people
started to come to his defense.

Like, well, the door was unlocked.

How is he to know that
it was not his apartment?

He just like was he drunk?

He went into an apartment.

He laid down and go, “Slee,
we shouldn’t punish him for that.

” I’m like, “Mm.

” The fact that the
door was unlocked

is not made that this was
now an accessible apartment.

Does not mean it was okay to just
go in and like make yourself at home.

If I leave my door unlocked and you come
into my house, there’s a beaten happening.

I don’t know if it’s gonna be you or me,

but I’m gonna do my best
to make sure it’s on you.

I have been told that perhaps I
leave the door open on purpose

and the hopes that someone
will intrude into my house

so I get to fight them so that I can test
my skills and that may or may not be true.

I actually think I just
don’t think about it

because I don’t mind if we have to
go there at some point in the future.

I don’t know what this
conversation just happened.

Riosi Zawa gets drunk, goes into
the wrong apartment, gets in trouble.

Fair.

He loses his advertising deal with Asahi.

The makers of Asahi, he’s super dry.

I think he had a special drink he was doing
with them, like a certain drink campaign.

Who cares?

It’s just all shit beer.

Beer companies make beer
and then they make light

beer and then they
make beer adjacent drinks.

That’s the big push right now
for beer companies is things

that are not beer that could take
the beer space that used to be.

They’re not gonna be successful.

Beer has an image that goes with it.

I’m not a big beer fan, but
that’s, again, I’m not judging

people who do drink beer,
although I absolutely do judge them.

They are looking for the thing.

So this was supposed
to be one of the methods

is they get this guy,
he’s a fairly popular actor.

I don’t know what their base, they were
demographic they were trying to appeal to.

I also don’t care.

You can’t have your
beer ironically associated

with someone who gets in
trouble while they’re drunk.

I think that’s the
whole irony of this story,

is that this alcoholic beverage
is being represented by

clearly a fan of alcohol, by
clearly a user of their product.

Now, I actually generally, if I know
someone who advertises something

as an actual user of that product,
their opinion would go a little further.

If they came up and they
were advertising a phone

or a car or something and
I knew they had that phone,

I knew they had that car be like,
well, they believe in that product.

And introduced a pen,
doesn’t really do any

advertising, ’cause I don’t
have that moral dilemma,

but I’m pretty sure I would
sell out almost instantly.

My morals are very shaky when
it comes to the need for money.

And I think that’s actually
true of most people.

So if, but I actually,
this is not an opportunity

that’s gonna come
my way anytime soon.

But if I actually was
gonna advertise something,

I’d wanna use it
and if I didn’t like it,

I think the tone of the
ad might get that through.

So that would be something.

I consider the people listening
to News, Japan to be like,

they have a more subtle
understanding of media consumption.

And they would get the message that
I really use this product versus I don’t.

Like I think someone
goes, I really use this.

That’s actually like, do you?

Or are you just saying that?

Because you really don’t use it,
but you need people to believe you do.

Anyways, irrelevant.

So he’s lost his beer money.

I don’t know if this has gone so
far he’s gonna lose his other money.

We have another guy, one of the
guys from SMAP, just gotten trouble.

It turns out he paid 90 million
yen to a woman to solve troubles.

No one’s gone so far as to
say what the troubles are.

I’m sure that’s gonna
come out in the next week.

So that’ll probably be
in next week’s episode.

But it’s one of those
things where people are like,

okay, this guy’s losing
all his shows is that okay.

And it’s like, well, the fact that he,

perhaps, again, we don’t
know what actually happened,

but it’s bad enough that
he felt it was acceptable

to pay 90 million yen
to keep this woman quiet.

Is it okay for someone
who’s famous just to do

bad things and then pay
money and then stay on TV?

And this is a real moral quandary
because the companies he’s famous,

a lot of people around
him are getting paid.

Do those people deserve to lose their job?

No, they can get other jobs for whatever.

This guy has enough money.

If he’s been sensible with his money,
he has way more than 90 million yen.

That’s nothing to him.

There is a question
coming as to how much

this guy loses and
therefore deserves to lose.

It’ll be one of the
conversations sort of Japanese

entertainment news over
the next couple of weeks.

I know he’s going to be removed from shows.

The question is, is he going
to be removed from shows

for a couple of weeks, a
month, years or forever?

That’s actually the way it goes.

There was this story.

Are you getting a lot of
reminiscing of old Japanese stories?

Becky was very famous.

She was on every TV show for a little while

and then she just disappeared
and I didn’t know why.

And it turns out that she
had been having an affair

with a very famous
guitarist who was married.

So she was the mistress.

The guy, so this is two
people, did the exact same thing.

He cheated on his wife.

You could even say that Becky was
more innocent because she wasn’t married

and you could maybe pretend
she knew, she knew he was married.

But she was the other woman.

She lost everything.

She lost all of her shows.

She lost all of her contracts.

She couldn’t do anything anymore.

She was just gone that week.

The guitarist, gone for
about two, three weeks

and then came back
as if nothing happened.

And that was one of those things that sort
of tells you a lot about Japanese culture

and society and the patriarchy and all that
stuff is still alive and well and going.

I think it is changing, but
it’s a very slow process.

I think if she was punished that much,
she should have been punished that much.

I just think the punishment should have
been equally distributed and it wasn’t.

And that was, even again, with
my own personal biases, I was unfair.

I never liked her so I don’t miss her.

Asi had to put out a
statement and they said,

“The Yoshizawa Ryo
incident isn’t a fact

as an alcohol company
of which we can approve.

” If this guy who’s representing
our alcoholic product

is going to get drunk and then
walking to other people’s houses

and then something sooner
or later something worse

is gonna happen, we can’t
have that reflecting back on us

so we’re gonna cut ties with him,
which is a very understandable position.

I do still part of my brain goes,
but I know he was an avid user.

(upbeat music)

There’s a new lot.

We’ve spent this year, 2024.

The last part of 2024
talking about host clubs a lot.

There were rules changes,
other laws that were

crackdowns, there were
things, a lot of people,

a lot of stories about people
getting involved with hosts.

Dee Dee Cha, the whole deal.

She made millions of the
yen off ripping off people

and scamming and stuff
and she gave it all to a host

so she didn’t even make
any money off that in the end.

Okay, so this is a huge
problem in Japan and there’s

been under, in the CD
underbelly of Japan as a culture.

Well, now it’s starting
to catch up with them

because what happens is
the host gets you into debt.

And they say, if you wanna get out of debt,

you have to do this like
essentially adult services.

If you wanna get out of
debt, we’re gonna make

a movie, we’re gonna
sell you to other people.

They’re basically doing
their best to get these

women into debt so they
can then abuse them more.

So now there’s a new
law targeting specifically

host and host as
clubs, host clubs mainly.

Businesses suspected of engaging in romance
trade could be shut down completely.

Romance trade is now the term
that they’re going to be using

for I get into, I’m a host and
we start to form a relationship

or professional one as
the host and the customer.

And then I trick you
into falling in love with me

and I try to exploit you with dangling
the idea that you could be my girlfriend

or we could have a relationship
or something like that.

That is now going to be
classified as a scam or a crime.

It hasn’t actually been classified yet,

but it could get the entire
establishment shut down.

So it means all the
other host lose their jobs.

All the management, they lose their jobs.

They get shut down for that.

A criminal penalty will be attached to
this for coercing customers into sex.

This doesn’t mean sex with the host.

It will be into like any sort of sex work.

So this could be pornography.

This could be selling them to people.

Anything like that, any
sort of sex work will be at

least six months in prison
and one million yen fine.

Now that actually doesn’t sound like much,

but again, this is supposed
to be the first step

in a deterrent and it should
stop it from happening.

But then they’re also
talking about shutting down

the establishment a whole
bunch of people will lose their jobs.

This might make them more cautious,

or at least give the police more
ammunition to go after them.

A 55 year old civil servant was fired.

That’s not an unusual story.

What did he do?

Well, let me tell you.

He left his shift to go to
the gym and like that’s bad.

You shouldn’t leave your working
hours, you shift your job to go to the gym.

I think we can all agree with that.

I mean, you go on your lunch break.

It’s your breaks.

You’re not really at work anymore.

So obviously he was
leaving during work hours.

An anonymous call was made
that this was happening regularly.

So they had found out
he kind of did it once.

There was a phone call.

The anonymous call is
coming up fairly regularly.

Let’s not often, but it happens at
regular intervals where we get these like,

this person was reported
by an anonymous phone

call and then the
company or in this case,

the government did an investigation
and found out some awful thing.

Like it’s always been like, the last
one I remember was this teacher

was working at a soap club or
this employee in the government

has a second job that
is a little bit suspect.

So they get an anonymous phone call,
which made me realize a long time ago.

Like if you’re going to work
one job and they do something

else that would inhibit that
first job, so any sort of sex work

or any sort of ripping
people off or anything,

you have to keep the people
around you really happy.

You can’t piss them off because
they’re going to rat you out

because they have this anonymous
system where they can call in

and just get you in
trouble, get you reported.

You have to keep everyone around you happy
somehow to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Because to me, the anonymous
phone call actually means

one of his coworkers who
either has to pick up his slack

and then it gets pissed
off and gets the guy fired.

Or one of his coworkers like
need something or need some help

in this guy just like disappears
for a couple hours a day.

Then he doesn’t, then
he has to do more work.

He’s burdened by that.

You have to make sure that
guy stays happy somehow.

Or he notices you’re screwing off and then
he doesn’t really care for a long time.

So he doesn’t report you,
but then you piss him off,

you say something rude or
you’re condescending or something.

Then he reports you that is
always going to screw you over.

So if you’re going to, this is maybe my,
I need advice to criminal jingle, I think.

This is not really crime, but my,

the Ninja New Japan advice segment,
maybe I need to create something for that.

If you’re going to do
anything, even a little suspect,

you have to be very polite, very kind
and very helpful to the people around you.

And that might be
counterintuitive to the whole fact

that you’re scamming or committing
a crime or doing something untoward.

But it’s important because that anonymous
phone call could be your downfall.

As it was in this case
for this 55 year old men

and a 55 year old dude getting
fired from the government,

it’d be very hard for
him to get another job

because he’s got another
decade before retirement

age and he’s like
pension and stuff kicks in.

So he’s got to find other work,
which is going to be very difficult.

The investigation went back to 2021 to 2024

and they found he went 633
times to the gym in 800 days.

So my first image is like,
this guy must be huge.

Like he must be like, he
gets up, goes to the gym,

goes to work, goes to the gym, goes to work,
goes home, goes to the gym, goes to bed.

Like his whole life is the gym.

He must be super jack, 55 year old dude,

must be in great shape or
maybe he’s like a marathon

runner, he’s on the treadmill,
going, no, he spent a majority

of that time soaking in
the bath or stretching.

So they have on the
sands, they have bath tubs.

He went, he would stretch,
he would get in the bath

and that’s how he would
spend his hour at the gym.

So he wasn’t even working out in
my concept of version or working out.

I know stretching can
be considered a workout.

Yoga is very good for
you, that kind of thing.

He wasn’t even doing that.

He was maybe doing a
little of that 10, 15 minutes

then getting in the bath for the rest
of the time, then going back to work.

I’m sure at work he was a very relaxed man
or because he wasn’t in the bath relaxing,

he was actually really pissy at work, which
is how the anonymous phone call happened.

They calculated this
was 633 times in 800 days.

So that’s giving you a sense
he was going almost every day

to the gym and not to work
out to just sit in the bath.

So he wanted to sit in the
bath in the gym every day.

He said because he had numbness in
his arm and it really helped with his arm.

I bet you could get a
doctor’s note of some

sort to get some sort of
accommodation for that.

If it was true, I don’t know if it’s true.

I don’t want to make
aspiration cast aspersions

towards this man because
I don’t know enough.

I only got the information
from the article.

But they calculated to
658 hours and 36 minutes.

So he was going about an
hour every time he was going.

He’s gotten fired, it’s not like a crime.

So he’s not going to
get charged with anything

but the company could
sue him for the lost wages.

So he has to pay back 1.8
million yen for the hours he was

being paid while at the
gym soaking in a bath.

His statement at the end was, I overdid it.

I regret it talking again
about doing too much.

A 21 year old woman was arrested for
making 670 calls to the fire department.

Now the last few times we’ve
had this, it was the person was

lonely or wanted to talk or
didn’t feel anything or was bored.

They tended to be older people.

So older people, they got this
time, they don’t know what to do.

So they start calling emergency services
to get attention or something like that.

This woman, she had a different reason.

She would call up and say, you’re noisy.

If you come again, I’ll kill you.

I’ll crush the ambulance.

I don’t know how big or strong
this 21 year old Japanese woman was

I’m going to go ahead and bet
she couldn’t crush an ambulance.

Sometimes she would make silent calls.

She would just call up and
just stay silent on the phone.

But this inhibits the
ability for other people

to actually make phone
calls to the fire station

or emergency services to get
the help they might actually meet.

So she’s obstructing business.

She sometimes made up to 50 calls a day.

It’s not hard.

They can trace phone calls.

So I mean, it’s not a hard thing to do.

I actually thought like when
the calls became an a nuisance,

like when she started calling, I
was like, how the fire department

guy should have gone, OK,
tell us where your house is

and we’ll make sure to turn
off the siren when we go by.

And then if she goes, oh, that’s good.

She’ll tell you her address.

And then you actually know where she is.

So you can just call the police.

It is awful that they had to
wait till it got to like 670 calls

before they actually could
get something actually done.

I’m wondering if that’s
because her calls were

too short or they
weren’t able to trace it.

I don’t know enough
about actually tracing calls.

So that’s actually maybe the first issue.

But it sounds like it’s actually
slightly harder than it is on the TV.

Final story for today.

I’m actually doing this a little early
because today’s a national holiday.

And I have to work tomorrow to
make and I’ll make that day up later.

But that later won’t be Tuesday.

So I won’t get an episode
in Engineers Japan out.

And I know you are desperate
for your Japanese news.

And just to hear my voice
for the few people who I know

listen to this when they
go to sleep, you know, I’m

trying to keep an even
tone and not get too excited.

But just so you get that sound in your
ears when you go to bed, my appreciate you.

This is an update.

We had this story.

I actually may have done
this on a Seamick B though.

So I actually have to check which episode.

If you want to go back and
get the all the details, I’m pretty

sure it was a Seamick B.
This was a very serious story.

There was a group of girls who beat
up and abused and bullied another girl.

And then they got to the point
where they got her on a bridge

and they pushed her off
the bridge and killed her.

This case was being investigated.

Now it’s a murder.

It’s a homicide.

But it wasn’t being
investigated by the homicide

department, which
is already suspicious.

And it turns out the cop
investigating the murder was

involved with one of
the girls involved in this

group who was doing the
bullying and the murder.

The girl, she’s already on trial.

This police officer has lost his job.

This is just a really short update
as to what happened to him.

He was having a relationship
with the suspect in a murder

investigation and the case was
investigated by not the homicide

department, which is
already to me like he’s pulling

strings to try to get her
out of the investigation.

So she doesn’t give, he’s
essentially trying to cover up a murder.

The cops that parted
with her, so basically she

worked at a bar and all
these cops went to this bar.

They’re saying she was
actually a confidential informant.

She was like a CI.

She was giving them information.

And this cop who was working
with her got too close to her.

And I was like, that sounds like a bunch
of cops trying to cover for another cop.

But he was found out
because one of the cops

in this group actually
reported his behavior.

So there were some
good cops out there being

like, dude, I think this
guy’s going too far.

And then when the murder investigation
comes up, it’s like holy crap.

Now you’ve gone way too far.

I need to report this.

The police officer was
married with children.

So that just adds another
layer of Iq to this whole story.

They’re saying she was a CI.

They got too close.

They were working together.

And then he sort of, but
the fact that a lot of these

police were involved in making
sure this didn’t get to the

right department to the
homicide department that this

wasn’t investigated properly
shows that there is sort of a

level of corruption that was
going on in the department, which

I actually think that would be
the next step of investigation

because all those other cops are
going to be like, take a step back

and be like, well, now that he’s been
caught, we had nothing to do with it.

And they’re all just saying,
oh, she was a CI and stuff.

I don’t believe any of that.

I believe they were covering
for that guy they work with.

The thing is he hasn’t been
prosecuted for anything.

So there’s no, it has he committed a crime.

That’s actually the
question that I’m left with.

So he’s been fired.

He’s no longer a police officer.

But he was part of a cover up.

Maybe he interfered with an investigation.

Absolutely.

But is that provable?

So that becomes a whole
other set of questions.

Again, we don’t have
the information for this.

But it does seem like
this cop interfered with an

investigation has a crime
occurred or has he just

made some bad choices
ended up losing his job?

We don’t know.

It would have been better if you went to
the gym and just spent his time in the back.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Touchless Podcast

(upbeat music)

November 1st, Dog Bay.

International Dog Day?

I don’t know.

It’s Dog Day in Japan.

I didn’t do my research.

I didn’t do my research on this because
Dog Day would be one of those days

that I do not consider
a significant in any way.

This is coming from
someone who has forgotten

their own birthday more
than was in their life.

So days don’t mean much to me.

I like special days.

They’re not special,
just every day is special.

Every day with you.

Anyways, November 1st is
Dog Day to celebrate this.

A small town decided we’re
going to make a dog, Mayor.

So a golden retriever
was made mayor for a day.

A five-year-old public relations dog.

A five-year-old public to really, mmm, mmm.

This is why I could never do actual news.

I couldn’t actually get
through it without stumbling.

A five-year-old public, a
five-year-old public relations dog.

A five-year-old public relations dog.

For a conside guide dogs
was made mayor of Kenayoka.

There was an awards ceremony.

They took the dog
around sort of the city hall.

They took some pictures.

But what they did not take
into account was the air-bud rule

because if it’s not in the
rule books, then it can be done.

We’ve learned this from
the entire air-budiverse

where we have the air-bud
series itself, where he plays

basketball, football, several
other sports that I don’t recall.

There is an extended universe of
movies where it’s like air-bud puppies.

So we know that it can be done because
we have seen it done by dogs many times.

This dog then declared
himself mayor in perpetuity

so that no one could ever
take the position after him.

This dog then seceded that city from Japan

and it is now an independent
nation ruled by dogs.

The new prime minister in Japan is Shiba.

He is getting some flak.

He hasn’t really done anything yet.

He hasn’t had a chance to
really mess up anything politically,

but he now is being
scrutinized and watched.

And that in itself is kind of a problem

because what’s happening now is people
are noticing he has really bad manners.

He’s a very rude man and he’s very crass.

Not in any sort of the way he speaks or
anything vocalized, but just his general.

Okay, the first one, every
Japanese politician’s an old dude.

Fine, they’re old.

It means they fall asleep though.

And they fell asleep
while they were discussing

whether or not he would
become prime minister.

He seems to have fallen asleep.

He said in that instance, he was
because of cold medicine he’d taken.

It made him very sleepy.

Then he went to the Apex
summit and instead of standing

to greet other world leaders,
he just sat in his chair.

The world leaders came over to him.

He, we shook their hand, but he didn’t stand
up which would be considered be polite.

These are other world leaders.

These are other very important people.

He was sitting there with like,

he’s the important guy
everyone has to come over to him.

He was doing this something very
similar who was watching a dance.

Now these are performances.

It might not be your thing.

Like I get that.

He was sitting with his arm
cross looking very displeased

looking very bored at this like dance
performance for, you know, world leaders.

Where you do have to fake interest.

You have to feign pretend that you actually
care about the thing you’re watching.

These cultural events.

Like I would be exhausted by that part.

The actual politics part
maybe I could handle,

but they’re like, hey, go smile
and shake hands and put on a show.

That would be the bit that
would be exhausting for me.

So I think I understand
where this guy’s coming from.

The problem is, as prime
minister it is part of your job,

you have to pretend to be
interested in the cultural event,

the dance, whatever you’re seeing,
whatever’s being presented to you,

just to show sort of
your thankful for the effort

that’s gone into it
more than anything else.

The last one though is probably
the most unforgivable one.

He took an onigiri for the listeners
who don’t know, is a rice ball.

They’re usually triangular
shaped, but it’s called a rice ball.

I am a six foot man
with a fairly large mouth.

And for me, a rice ball is three bites.

Now those are pretty big bites, but it’s
not with like difficulty that I’m eating.

Now bite it to swallow, bite to
swallow, bite to swallow, bite to swallow.

That would be a whole onigiri.

Mr. Ishiba, he undid
the plastic from an onigiri

and then shove the
whole thing in his mouth.

And then so his lips
protruded as he tried to hold

the whole onigiri in his
mouth, as he was chewing,

making enough space in
the inner part of his mouth

to then sort of pull in
the rice from the front part

of his face, making him look like he was
a camel chewing or something like that.

And a lot of people found it really gross.

Probably because it is.

So I think the interesting part going forward
is, is our new Prime Minister in Japan

going to make good political decisions
that overshadow his craft nature

or is his craft nature going to
overshadow his political decisions?

Yes, Kuni Shrine was graffitied.

I think we actually
reported this last time.

They were looking for
a young man who did it.

They’ve put out an arrest warrant.

So this is pretty serious
’cause they’re now

actively looking for the
guy, but it’s pretty clear

that he’s actually
already left the country.

So I think the reasoning
for this is that they put out

the arrest warrant so that
he can’t come back to Japan

because if you enter
Japan on your passport,

you’ll get flagged as
having an active arrest

warrant and then they’ll
arrest you right there.

So really, I don’t think they’re looking
for him the way the article sort of implies.

I think what’s actually
happening is like he’s gone,

we’ll just make sure he doesn’t come back,
then we don’t have that problem anymore.

It was kind of similar with
the Johnny Somali thing

where they arrested him, they held
him, they got him out of the country.

It’s now a travel ban, he’s
not allowed back in the country.

So they don’t actually
have to deal with him

and his problems that
come with him ever again.

The reason that I found this
interesting is I learned two things.

One, they referred to the
youth as in his tens, not teens.

So that would imply he’s
either 10, 11, or 12 years old.

He’d come to Japan
on a trip with his mother.

His mother would take
him out of the country.

So there’s a big question of
whether the mother actually knows

that her child went and
did this graffiti on this.

Again, very politically
controversial, internationally

site, but it is still
a religious site.

So is it acceptable to vandalize that?

Is it an acceptable way to
express your political views?

I actually think this
might just be a copycat.

I think he saw the internet stuff that
the guy who came before, Iron Dong,

and he wrote toilet on it
and he wrote some stuff on it.

And then he escaped.

I think this kid probably
saw the same things like,

I’m gonna do that ’cause
that guy’s on the internet,

he’s cool and therefore
again, being in his tens,

he thinks I should do
the cool thing as well.

So I actually think this is more of a
copycat crime than a crime in itself.

I don’t know if that lowers
or increases the damage done.

There’s an interesting thing.

Like, if I’m doing a copycat, is it like
a lower level of responsibility or more?

Like, I’ve seen it, I’ve seen the
results so I know exactly what I’m doing,

or is it I’m being influenced by someone
negative and that has changed how I behave.

Do I take more or less
responsibility for the action?

You would be an
interesting topic to examine.

What he wrote was toilet, which is
again, why I think this is a copycat.

Writing the same word as
the person previous to you

shows that you knew what
the previous person wrote

which shows that you were
sort of invested in this story.

But also wrote SB.

This is the other bit I found that
was interesting, so something I learned.

In Chinese internet slang, SB means stupid.

So he wrote toilet and stupid, very much
like a 10, 11, 12 year old thing to write.

This is damaging property,
disrespecting a place of worship.

He posted pictures of himself with
the already graffitied wall behind him,

thus making him more
clearly culpable for the

actions, making him
more apparently guilty.

But it is already known
he’s left your pants.

So I think really the
arrest warrant was put out

just so that this kid
and his family probably

wouldn’t be allowed back
in Japan in the future.

A 56 year old woman was arrested
for stealing 74 million yen in cash

from her 84 year old
boyfriend’s second house.

There are so many things going
on in that just initial sentence.

That’s the initial statement
as to what’s actually happening.

56 and 84, it’d be interesting to
see if that look a real relationship.

But I think if you’re
stealing from your boyfriend

and you’re not with your
boyfriend because you love him,

I think you’re with your
boyfriend because he has money.

If he has 74 million
yen in cash in his second

house, that’s a due
to has a lot of money.

I think it was last week I kind of
broke down a little bit because I’m poor.

Compared to some of
the numbers we talk about

and these people are
just wasting money.

It was like an investment
scheme thing and I’m like,

if she had just given
me some of that money,

my life would be changed
forever versus she’s

just throwing that
money away on a scam.

I do have another thing,
it’s the classic of why

are Japanese people still
keeping cash in the house.

Like you don’t get
any interest in the bank,

but at least it’s the money’s
there and it’s insured.

You’re not gonna really lose the money.

There’s something going on there
that I would like to understand better.

Why are they so averse
to keeping cash in the bank?

Why do they keep so
much cash in their houses?

‘Cause your house burns down,
you don’t get that money back.

That money’s, I don’t
think it’s insured properly.

I don’t know if you’d be able
to prove that you had that much

cash in your house if there
was an incident in your house.

She broke into the house at least twice,

but it sounds like it was
1231 day and 1pm the next day.

So breaking in in the afternoon, I makes it
sound like she had a key, but she didn’t.

She actually had to break a window.

So she was actually full on
breaking into his second house.

A security camera outside
of the house got her on,

breaking into the house
so they know it was her.

When she was arrested, she
said, I stole some money, but

I didn’t steal that much,
which would be very interesting.

‘Cause what if this gentleman knows
his girlfriend is stealing from him?

So he sets it up so that he can catch her.

And then when he catches her and he says,

she stole way, way more money than she
actually stole to kind of screw her back.

‘Cause she might actually have to
pay back that money in the future.

It would certainly increase
the punishment she would get

if it was 74 million yen
versus 1 million yen.

The man found a broken window and told
police, she knew where the money was kept.

After the robbery, she
bought a house with cash.

So I think that shows just how
much money she actually stole.

So she says, I stole money,
but I didn’t steal 74 million yen,

but she stole enough
money that she was perfectly

comfortable going and
buying a house in cash.

I don’t know how much a
house goes for in Japan.

I actually have a house, but
I’ve had a mortgage for so long.

I forget what our initial payment was
and I forget how much we’re paying overall.

To be honest, I pay my
monthly mortgage payment.

I got about six more years on that.

And then I actually own a
house, again, 74 million yen,

a total change in my
whole lifestyle right there.

But it’s enough money to
go and purchase a house

and I assume have extra
money left over in cash.

4,472 people nationwide were arrested

for what is called dark
or black part-time jobs.

These are internet forums where you
go on and you basically apply for a job,

but the job is gonna be
doing something illegal.

It’s gonna be some sort of fraud,

it’s gonna be theft, it’s gonna be some
kind of crime, you’re gonna be involved in.

The idea is very interesting,

because Japan in the
past has been plagued by

organized crime, the acoustic
syndicates and whatnot.

But organized crime means it’s organized,

which means it’s easy to figure a lot of
stuff out, like you connect people together.

And then they have individual
crimes where I committed

a crime by myself and
therefore I’m getting punished

and there’s no one else we
really have to worry about.

These are disconnected
people coming together

to commit a crime and
then disconnecting again,

which means over three or four
crimes, I might have involvement in one,

someone else has
involvement with one or two,

but we’re not actually
connected in any real

way, so it’s very hard
to put us all together.

It actually makes investigating a
lot of these crimes more difficult.

Each person is assigned
a role for each crime,

there is no connection and
no solid MO for the crimes,

which again makes it more
difficult for police to trace.

We do have a breakdown of the
crimes that occurred last year.

1,515 were money fraud bank transfers.

That’s probably saggy, it’s
probably when they call you up

and say, oh my God, I’m in
trouble, please send me money

and then you try to get an
older person who like panics,

thinking like one of their
children or grandchildren

is in trouble and they send
money without thinking about it.

That’s a very common crime in Japan.

Or just trying to get people
to send you money again,

last week we were talking
about money fraud, scams

and crime investments,
fraud and things like that.

There’s a lot of money
transfer fraud going on there.

1,284 was just straight up fraud,

so that might be coming to
your house and lying to you,

but other ways of committing
fraud, not just directly

connected to transferring
money through the bank.

427 were arrested
for drugs, 398 for theft.

So there’s actually, kind
of look at these numbers

and as of course 1,400,
500, that’s a lot of people,

but then I look at other
countries and how many crimes

you can be like, that’s
actually not that many people.

Then we get into the
smaller, more interesting ones.

89 are arrests for immigration
law, so I don’t know if that

is like importing people or
helping people get around laws.

It’s very unclear.

I’m actually betting that’s
just over staying your visa.

Now that I think about it, that’s
probably the most common one in Japan.

76 were arrested for adult entertainment.

57 were arrested for extortion.

49 were arrested for gambling.

So gambling is very,
very legislated in Japan.

Casino is essentially illegal,
but they’re trying to find

ways around it or only do
it in certain places and stuff.

They see the possibility of having casinos,

but they’re very worried
about organized crime moving in,

but now if you have this
disorganized crime moving in,

that actually might end
being a bigger problem.

Because the police are
stuck in this situation

where what you do if
you have organized crime,

you arrest someone and you try to
work your way up the ladder making arrests.

In this, you can’t do that,
you can arrest someone.

He doesn’t know anyone up the ladder.

There is no ladder to work up.

So it’s causing police a lot of problems
and it seems like a growing issue in Japan.

They actually have
disorganized organized gangs

who move around and
then connect with each other

and then disconnect and
then go to another city and

then connect with other
people through these job sites.

That’s how they’re organizing
their criminal practices.

We actually talked about this,
but it didn’t have a name yet.

Or at least I didn’t know the name.

I’m sure it had a name already, but
it was called touchless harassment.

We talked about the guy.

It was an older man, 48-year-old man who
stood really close to a high school girl.

I think it was on a trainer
of bus and he sniffed her hair.

Now he’s invoking the, I didn’t
touch you as a, am I bugging you?

I didn’t touch you rule,
which is a universal, I think.

But clearly he’s causing
distress to another human.

That in itself is possibly a crime,
but therefore very difficult to define.

He didn’t touch anyone, he
didn’t actually do anything.

You could say I was
on a really crowded train.

I didn’t have a choice, I was just
breathing and I happened to smell her hair.

Maybe I took a deep sniff
because it smelled good.

Have I committed harassment?

Well, that’s again, we get into a difficult
issue of was it intentional or not.

There was an anonymous tip.

So someone else, not the high school girl,
actually called the police and said like,

this guy is on the train, he’s
on the bus, he sniffing girls hair.

It’s really gross, please tell him to stop.

The police stop him and give him a warning.

And I think for the same
sort of reasoning I’m using,

like we don’t actually
have anything we can prove.

He hasn’t touched anyone,
he hasn’t actually done

anything that we can
actually like call him out on.

But if we warn him and
he does it again, then it’s

intentional, then it’s
something we can arrest him for.

So they gave him a warning.

He was a repeat offender and he was
arrested and given a 400,000 yen fine.

When he was arrested, he said the smell
excites me more than physical contact.

He didn’t think it was a crime.

The problem there is that he
was issued a warning by the police.

So once the police come to you and say like,
hey, here’s something we’ve seen you do

or we know you are doing,
we want you to stop that

because it is a crime
if you continue to do it.

And then you do it again,
then you do know it’s a crime.

So that’s just a straight up
bullshit that he’s saying there.

But what are touchless harassment crimes?

So this is good to have some definitions.

This was the part that I
actually kind of was excited about.

Not in the same way he was.

It includes blowing on the
victim on their neck and ears.

I don’t like that they specified.

I think if you blow on a victim anywhere,

like if you had your hand out
and I just went on your hand,

I think that’s just as bad is
blowing on your neck or ears.

But I think maybe just neck
or ears are being specific

about what would be the most
common things that happen.

Sniffing the hair, as
we’ve seen, is now illegal.

Staring at someone too intently
could be considered harassment.

Sending inappropriate images via air drop.

So we’re on the train and I have a phone.

I’m sure Android has a similar system.

You do an air drop.

It’s a personal image of a phallic nature.

That is harassment.

I think that’s absolutely fair.

Whispering obscene
words into someone’s ear.

But that again, saying it’s obscene.

I think if I was just up close to
your ear and just whispering stuff,

even if it wasn’t necessarily obscene,
I would still call that harassment.

If I was like, hey, you
look really good today.

I think you look with, you know, you
have very lovely braid in your hair today.

Something like that, it’s
not necessarily obscene.

I think my voice is.

But the words themselves are not obscene.

So there’s no reason
to take that off the table.

It’s just as bad as blowing in the rear.

If blowing in your ear could
be considered a harassment,

then whispering in someone’s
ear, when they don’t want you to,

I think that should also be
harassment, regardless of what they say.

They did a survey of university students

and one in five women say they
have experienced touchless harassment.

But in most cases, because
there’s nothing they can really

prove because it’s touchless,
they don’t bother to report it.

So this is one of those crimes.

It’s probably very, very common,
but actually no one knows about it

because it doesn’t get
reported because they just

kind of suck it up and
move on, which is terrible.

The authorities recommend, if
something like this starts happening to you

that you start taking video, which is
very interesting ’cause a lot of places

are like, you can’t take
video, but this is probably

happening on the train,
which is a public place.

But there is a rule in Japan, you’re
not really allowed to video people

without their consent, but if he’s
committing a crime, you’re allowed to video.

So the authorities are
granting you the ability

to video someone who is in the process
of committing harassment towards you.

I think that’s a good thing
for women out there to know.

If you come to Japan and you
experience something like this,

the authorities have said
it is acceptable for you

to video that person so that you can
catch them later and get them in trouble.

In Hong Kong, police made 35 arrests
in an international prostitution ring,

which is very interesting
’cause you have Japan,

Singapore, and Macau all work
together to try to catch these prostitutes

who are going internationally
from country to country,

servicing fans, and I
say fans specifically,

because a lot of them were actual
AV stars, porn stars from Japan.

So these women, they get into the porn,
they stand, they gain a little popularity

and they can actually make
more money going overseas, going

to where fans are, and
prosecuting themselves to fans.

In 2018, a 19 year old,
Medu, began her porn

career in 2019, and she
won Best New AV Actress.

This prostitution ring
mainly focused on Japanese

AV stars and making
them available to fans.

It cost 150,000 Hong Kong dollars for
one session with one of these porn stars.

That is 3 million yen,
which with 3 million

yen, right now at the
exchange rate is $20,000.

That is $20,000 for one evening

with a former Japanese porn
star to satisfy your desires.

And then we get back into the money thing.

It’s not having like, I
don’t want to have sex with

a porn star, but man, I
would love to have $20,000.

I could just throw away.

It does bring up a very
interesting question

of how much would you pay
to have sex with that person?

So a famous one, let’s just not
worry about porn stars or whatever,

but to have sex with the
person of your dreams,

how much money would
you be willing to put forward

to do that would be a very interesting
question, ’cause I don’t have a lot of money.

And I don’t think I would
value a sexual event that much

that I’ll actually spend
that much money on it.

The group used telegram to communicate,
and last year they may have made,

so they haven’t confirmed
this, 400 million yen.

Ayaka Nishimura was also arrested.

She actually disappeared
from the AV scene back in 2022.

So she was a porn star, she
was a porn star until 2022.

She just stopped suddenly,
and then she seems to have

gotten involved in this
international prostitution ring.

(rhythmic music)

So since people are willing
to spend so much money,

now I wanna know, would
anyone spend any money there?

No, no one wants to spend any money to
have sex with somebody who posts a podcast.

And that’s just a given.

There is a company in France that ranks

a romantic and sexual
happiness in different countries.

So Japan is on this list.

They did 31 countries were surveyed.

They did an online survey of
24,269, nice people from 31 countries.

It’s weird it’s not number, ’cause
it’s supposed to be about partners.

So it should be an even
number, I just noticed that now.

Maybe one is broken up since then.

Ah, maybe they were
dating, and they only

interviewed one of the
partners, not the other one.

But that seems like a fair,
you should get both sides.

Japan ranked lowest in all 31 countries
surveyed, and basically everything.

It measures, are you satisfied with your
love life, your romance, your sex life?

Do you feel loved and are
you satisfied with your partner?

So when it came to sex, this was the one,
of course, I was the most interested in.

Are you satisfied with your sex life?

India and Mexico had
the highest ranking in 76%.

That are two cultures
would enjoy spicy food.

So I think I see something there.

That maybe introduced a
little more spice into my food.

Maybe introduced a little
more spice into my life.

Japan ranked at 37%.

Are you satisfied with
your partner or spouse?

Japan has moved up one place and
is now second last over South Korea.

South Koreans are now the least satisfied
with their partners in their love lives.

And yet Japan is producing
the most sought after porn

starts, but the people are willing to
spend $20,000 to spend an evening with.

A man broke into a woman’s apartment
40 times, looking for her underwear.

I don’t like the way they phrase
that because he found her underwear.

It sounded, when I read the article’s title,
it sounded like he was breaking in again

and looking for her
underwear and couldn’t find it.

She was hiding it somewhere
where it was like some kind

of really difficult to open
chest of drawers or something.

But he just broke in 40 times
and he would look at her underwear.

He didn’t actually steal it.

So maybe that’s what it is.

Looked at her underwear is maybe
the phrase they actually wanted to use.

A 55 year old man broke into his
subordinates home, a woman in her 30s.

What had happened is at work
he took the key from her bag.

He made a copy back in July
and then since July has gone

into her apartment 40 times
to look at her underwear.

He took photos of her underwear and he
installed many cameras around her home.

He was caught taking
videos that a game center,

which would imply that he was
taking images of younger people.

And then when the
police searched his phone,

they found the underwear
videos and pictures on his phone.

He admitted I did go into
her apartment because I liked

looking at her underwear but I
never planned to steal anything.

I had feelings for her.

But my man, if you had feelings
for her, you shouldn’t have

been stepping out to take
voyeuristic videos of other people.

So the fact that you’re in a game center,

taking these videos of
other people in the world

is that you don’t really
have feelings for her.

You’re not a loyal man.

You’re not dedicated to one cause.

You’re just out there throwing it around.

So I don’t even believe this loyalty
aspect you’re throwing out there.

I don’t think you have feelings for her.

I think you just have feelings for yourself

and those are the ones
you’re trying to satisfy.

And so that should be added
as an extra crime to the police.

Not only is he a creep
taking pictures of underwear,

not only is he a creep
taking obscure photos

wherever he was doing
in the game center, he is

also not loyal and that
should be a crime in itself.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

(gentle music)

Weak Association Podcast

I did a joke at the
end of the last episode,

and it was a story
about a supporter for

a political politician who
wore very, very short skirts.

What I said was I
wasn’t doing that story

just as an exploitative
tactic so that I could

use the picture of a girl’s butt as the
thumbnail for the podcast on YouTube.

And YouTube is not
where this channel thrives.

This is a podcast
first, so almost all the

listeners are on the
podcast, but there is a

YouTube channel, Chuck
Muppy of Chest, YouTube

channel, where you
can see the video of this.

And generally, I know we get
less than 10 views on YouTube.

It’s weird to get 800
to 1000 downloads on

the internet for a podcast and then
put it on YouTube and get like four.

But also not a problem
because, again, that’s

not my focus since I’m
recording it live on Twitch.

I have the video, I might as
well throw the video on YouTube.

It doesn’t hurt me at all, it just
also doesn’t seem to benefit me at all.

With the butt as the thumbnail, the last
episode, I’ll do the last three episodes.

Previous Ninja News Japan got 17
views, the one following that got 17 views.

The last seeming be
got seven views, bottom

butt cheeks, podcast,
Ninja News Japan, 162.

So you can do the
math on the increase in

traffic by just putting
an ass in your thumbnail.

If you want to, now am
I going to do it again?

Probably not.

I don’t, I’m not against
being exploitative

and putting like a chick
with boobies or a butt

on each thumbnail, but also if it’s
not relevant, I’m not going to do it.

So like if it’s in one of the
stories, I would put it up there.

If it was a picture
that I already had or

something like that, but I’m not
going to go out of my way to do it.

So I, there’s a certain
honesty that comes with the

Ninja News Japan podcast
that seem to be podcast.

I’m not exploitative unless I’m
making fun of being exploitative.

So that is an interesting moral
conundrum I’ve set up for myself.

That’s not what we’re talking about
today, I just thought it was interesting.

I could multiply
my traffic by 10 by

sticking an ass in a
thumbnail, which I guess I knew.

I mean, I’m a victim of it.

I see butts and I click on things.

I’m a man and that’s, that’s who I am.

I’m a man.

I’m about to break into salt.

Godzilla.

Learn to cheat.

Learn to cheat.

I know how to cheat.

I’m just not going to do it.

That’s, that’s what it comes down to.

I’m not going to do it.

Uh, Ninja News Japan
actually has a fundamental

level of integrity
that a lot of other

news sources don’t, which I find
really weird because I don’t have to.

I’m not beholden to
anything or anybody

because this is just a
podcast I make a month.

I literally could make up the news
and nothing would actually happen to me.

Then do it.

Lose the integrity.

Uh, maybe we’ll see.

I just have, I could just have like instead
of pictures of news stories, have pictures

of just girls here constantly
throughout throughout the whole podcast.

No relation to whatever I’m talking
about, just like a stimuli in the corner.

All right.

But we’re going to talk about today.

It’s Godzilla first.

We have about five stories.

Godzilla, Toho applied
for a 3D IP trademark.

So they would have the
Godzilla shape is probably

already trademarked as a
symbol or something like that.

The name Godzilla is trademarked.

They have a 3D version that
they wanted to trademark that.

The patent office said, no,
you can’t trademark that.

And their statement was it is merely a form
resembling dinosaurs or imaginary creatures

and go fuck yourself patent
office in Japan because

Godzilla is not merely
resembling a dinosaur.

Godzilla is a unique entity.

I mean, if you put a shape up and it was
a dinosaur, I would go, that’s a dinosaur.

If you put a shape
up that was Godzilla, I

could tell you not
only that it was Godzilla

that which era, which,
you know, decade it

came from because each Godzilla is
a different shape throughout the years.

The original Godzilla,
something people don’t realize.

Godzilla grew over each decade and he grew
because as the skyline of a city grew up.

So you have like Tokyo
in 1950s, 1960s, tallest

buildings, let’s say 10 stories,
15 stories, something like that.

Godzilla had to tower over that.

So the tallest building kind of
hits his chest, maybe his shoulders.

Then in the 60s and 70s,
the tallest buildings got taller.

So Godzilla in that era also got taller
because Godzilla is not a designated height.

Godzilla is taller than the
tallest tower in the city.

So that’s probably something
no one really thought about.

But if you’re a big
Godzilla fan, you know that.

You know that Godzilla’s size
isn’t determined by his actual size.

It’s determined that he is bigger
than the city he is in at all times.

So he has to tower over everything.

That’s Godzilla.

But then there’s the
years he’s grown like sort

of big spines and he
shoots lasers and stuff.

I would recognize a
Godzilla silhouette, no

problem, a 3D Godzilla shape, 100% I
would nail Godzilla 100% of the time.

Fuck you dinosaurs.

Fuck you patent office.

The Japan IP Association,
they agree with me.

They didn’t turn
out to say fuck you, a

higher court didn’t turn out
to say fuck you patent office.

Although if they had hired me for that
moment, I would have absolutely done it.

I literally would have paid them.

I would give you 10,000 yen for me to put
on a suit, come to your office, come to the

meeting where they
have the people, the

lawyers or whatever
from the patent office and

the people from the higher court and then
just go, you know, we’ve examined the case,

we’ve looked at all sides of
this and Peter and then I just

go fuck you and then they just
go back to being serious again.

I would have paid for that.

I would pay to be that guy.

Japan IP, higher court
said that the shape is

widely recognized by consumers, this
guy, and was overwhelmingly recognizable.

So the Japan IP office
granted the IP and

now the 3D shape of
Godzilla is trademarked.

So actually now I’m thinking
I can’t use it anymore.

So if it wasn’t
trademarked, I could actually

make a 3D Godzilla
shape and then use it.

I think I just fuck myself.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Since we’re talking Godzilla,
I’m not going to switch stories.

It’s a new story, but
it’s still about Godzilla.

This was on Sora News 24 the
other day and it was very interesting.

The current PM,
Shida, Shiba, I just don’t

know his name, God damn it,
let me just get his name right.

I don’t want to say the wrong
name, he was accused of falling asleep.

The current Japan PM, so we
had the guy who stepped down and

Shiba took his place and then
he called for a snap election.

It actually looked like he
wasn’t going to get reelected.

So this was a mistake.

He got reelected, just squeaks through.

It during the conversation
where they’re like

trying to decide who the new
prime minister is going to be it.

Apparently he fell asleep
or it looked like he fell asleep

and then they’re trying
to say it was cold medicine.

I think it might be
because he’s an old man.

There are old man problems that need to
be taken care of when it comes to politics.

I have generally demonstrated my bias
against old men in politics at this point.

I don’t think we need old
men in politics anymore.

I think we need to go younger.

I think when you get
to your 60s, you’re done.

You’re out of politics, you’re finished.

You can ride the wave, give speeches,
whatever, collect your money that way.

I think you’re done with politics.

Back in 2016, Ishiba saw
Shin Godzilla, and Shin

Godzilla is a very
interesting movie because

it is about 90%
administrative activities.

There is very little
Godzilla in this movie

and about halfway through I’m
like am I just watching admin?

Am I watching different
administrative bodies do

their jobs because that’s
weird and interesting

but it’s also not much of a Godzilla film
and the idea is they have to deal with the

various real life problems of a
giant monster attacking the city.

There are legal issues and Ishiba said it
doesn’t make sense that the Prime Minister

in Shin Godzilla used
the SDF to attack Godzilla

based on a military thing because
of the constitution in Japan.

He’s saying what that Prime
Minister did was technically

illegal and it’s not how
it should have been done.

In 2016, Ishiba stated
I couldn’t understand

why the SDF were
deployed against Godzilla.

Godzilla is more like a natural disaster
than an attack by a foreign power.

So the SDF can be deployed
against a foreign power.

There are three
conditions that it must

fulfill for it to be constitutionally
legal to use the SDF.

Number one, it has to be a
military attack on the country.

So Godzilla is not
a military, he’s not

attacking the country
with the behest of taking

it over, a military
attack would try to

diminish the power or undercut
the society or whatever.

That’s not really Godzilla’s intent.

So the intent of Godzilla isn’t the
same as the intent of a foreign military.

His is more like the intent of a typhoon
or tidal wave or something like that.

It’s a natural disaster, so it actually
doesn’t fulfill that first criteria.

Number two, there are no other
means to eliminate the threat.

So of course you have to do
politics first, you have to do diplomacy.

You don’t just like roll
out the tanks and start

shooting stuff, you got
to have a conversation.

Now you can’t have a
conversation with Godzilla.

So technically, you
cannot do diplomacy, but

you can’t stop with Godzilla and say like
maybe we should have a conversation about

this, maybe there’s
something else we can do,

maybe we can offer you some
money, maybe we could, you know.

Godzilla often has
attracted to the big cities

because of the energy,
the old movies would have it.

He was actually attracted to
electricity and it sort of charged him up.

So he was coming in and smashing stuff and
basically absorbing all the electricity.

So maybe we could set
up like a hydroelectric

dam near the edge of
this, the country and

you can just like go charge off that
and we could do that for you, Mr. Godzilla.

He’s not going to have that conversation.

So number two actually means
you could roll out the SDF.

Number three, the use
of force must be minimal.

That’s interesting.

Everything out the tanks
and stuff and shooting.

So, so what is a minimal
resistance to Godzilla

is a very difficult thing
because everything

they throw out, every
movie has them throwing

like tanks shooting at
it constantly, missiles

hitting it, airplanes,
helicopters coming

shooting up, does all that stuff
and Godzilla just kind of walks away.

So they have to always come up
with some sort of other thing to do.

So it’s really number
one that holds the

SDF back from attacking
Godzilla that way or

defending against Godzilla
because it is defending against it.

They’re not really attacking it.

They don’t go after them.

There are other movies later on where
they do, but that’s a separate issue.

We’re not going into that.

Some of the American
ones, the Godzilla

versus King Kong, they
go down after them and

I think, you know, that actually
says something about America.

So the question Ishiba
was actually proposing

was how do you stop Godzilla legally and
maintain the integrity of the constitution?

It’s a very interesting question.

This is the kind of thing I really enjoy
getting into because you have this fanciful

situation, but the
reality of it, which is a

lot of what Shin
Godzilla dealt with, which

is why I was so
confused, like, why are we

going from administrative body to
administrative body and seeing what they do?

And I realized, like,
oh, they’re trying to

show what the reality
of dealing with a Godzilla

like in modern society
would actually be

like, it’s actually a
very interesting movie.

I don’t think they should
call it a monster movie.

I think they should have
called it something else.

So Shin Godzilla, Shin means new.

New Godzilla.

It should have been like the government
versus Godzilla or something like that.

I don’t, I should have come up with
something more pithy before I started this.

I wasn’t going to be
able to do it in a minute.

The police and the SDF can be used to
react to a threat with proportional power.

So constitutionally, it doesn’t actually
matter that it’s a military attack because

Godzilla is so large
and so powerful and they

are allowed to respond with a
proportionate amount of power.

They are therefore
allowed to respond to

Godzilla with the tanks and the airplanes
and the stuff and shoot missiles at it.

But it would have
to be approved by the

cabinet or the government
or something first.

The prime minister is in a unique situation
where he has to make that judgment call and

call out the SDF, call
out the military, call

out the police or call
out whatever he calls out.

He’s going to be responsible
for the results in the aftermath.

So let’s say once they
take care of Godzilla,

then they start
looking at the legality

of this situation and
realize it was illegal,

then the prime minister
has to step down.

That’s actually in Shin
Godzilla, one of the

issues is the prime
minister isn’t 100% sure

he should take responsibility
for what they’re about to do.

And he actually, I don’t
know, I saw a couple

of years ago, I think
he actually steps down

to someone else takes
over and they do it.

And they’re like, well, if I take control
for a day and get fired, it doesn’t really

make a big difference.

Someone wins and got
like a, they don’t have

freedom of information
act like they do in America,

but someone went and got the
actual documents pertaining to this.

And legal documents actually agree.

The use of tools to
stop it is acceptable,

tools being whatever
you need to stop it, which

means tanks, missiles,
airplanes, helicopters,

all that other stuff, then becomes
the tools so you have to redefine them.

That’s actually what’s happening.

You’re not using
weapons, you’re using those

weapons as tools to deter Godzilla to
push Godzilla back to try to stop Godzilla.

So if you ever wonder
about the legality of

what’s happening in a
Godzilla movie, you can

now know the constitutional
rights Godzilla has

as an entity entering
the country, not being

a member of another nation
means it is not a military attack.

There’s no passports involved.

There’s nothing like that.

This is a natural disaster and it is
being dealt with as a natural disaster.

And the reaction of
the military and whatnot

is should be proportional
to what the threat

Godzilla proposes, offers,
propose a fuck I don’t know.

It should be proportional to
the threat that Godzilla poses.

Got it in the end.

Japan has a group called
the Japan week men.

The name itself is already self deprecating
and I don’t know how serious it is.

I have heard about their
activities in the past.

They have a couple of joke
groups that do kind of serious things.

They have like anti
basically Valentine’s

Day saying like it’s
rude to singles and all

us lonely men who don’t have girlfriends
who shouldn’t have Valentine’s Day.

So they wanted to ban Valentine’s Day.

The week men association
is a little different.

They’re trying to bring
awareness to men’s

issues, but but I think
the thing is calling

yourself the week men
association already undercuts

your message because
it’s already feels like a joke.

It doesn’t feel very serious, even
though they might talk about serious stuff.

They wanted to raise awareness of the
men’s issue that men can be victims too.

So they have women only cars in Japan.

No one disagrees with
women only cars except

of very small group of assholes who want
to get into those cars and abuse women.

So they have a lot of sexual
assault, sexual abuse happens on train.

So you get very crowded
trains and then people

touch other people and then they run off
the train before you can catch them to give

a safe space for women, they
created women’s only cars.

Everyone basically
seems to be okay with it.

I’ve had a couple of people like trying to
make arguments but in my mind I’m like the

only reason you’re
making an argument against

a women’s only car is
because you’re gross

or awful or hate women
or something like that.

So you’re kind of
outing yourself by do this.

The week men’s association
isn’t against women’s cars.

In fact, they’re saying that women’s cars
should be available as often as needed.

So these are not like anti women men.

And again, the message becomes
confused because the name is a joke.

But what they wanted
to do is say, but men can

get touched or abused
or sexually assaulted

on the train just like
women and they’re not

saying we should have
men only cars because

that leads to another
weird problem because men

I have to assume are
99% of the perpetrators

of this kind of the Chicon behavior
where they touch you on the train.

So if you’re putting just men with other
men and those are the where the Chicon are

and they want to touch other men,
you actually have them solve the problem.

The problem is of course
trying to catch them

or educate them or do
something to actually stop them.

I was shocked when I learned that trains
in Japan didn’t have cameras in them.

I just thought every
train for years and years

and years would have had cameras
and tons of the most of them don’t.

Cameras are being introduced to trains now.

It seems very late in the game to me.

But raising awareness is fair, like men
can be victims of sexual assault as well.

So they wanted to
make a men’s only train

car event and then have it
go from one place to another.

The problem is the
name and the association.

So as soon as you say men’s only car with
the weak men’s association, all the train

companies like yeah I don’t
know if I want to do that.

And so they ended up
coming to a deal with a

train company in Osaka
and the train company

said look you can’t
say the train line name.

You can’t mention our names like
JR East or whatever it would be.

You can’t use us in
your advertising material

and you can’t tell them
where it’s going to be.

It would already make it very difficult.

They’re like we agreed
to all of that because

we’ll tell people where to
meet it will be in the train area.

Then we’ll all get on the train go.

And this was not a men’s only
event even though they’re calling

the men’s only train because
they’re trying to raise awareness.

Anyone who supported
the idea of awareness

of men’s issues was
welcome on the train car.

So the men’s only train
car wasn’t men’s only

women could get on
as well as long as they

supported the message
that they were talking about.

Something that actually again you wouldn’t
be able to check until it was too late.

You get some like women who maybe
don’t fully support this as an issue.

They get on and start
making a protest or something.

Now you’ve got a whole other set of issues.

Well it was planned
for November 19th for

International Men’s Day didn’t actually
know that was the thing if I’m being honest.

It was suddenly canceled on
November 5th no reason given.

The rail operator was already cautious and
they said we can’t have no men only signs

like just like a
sign on the train or

something that says
men only you can’t do that.

So the no reason given
is actually the issue.

So they had this idea.

They wanted to raise awareness.

They’ve canceled it and
they gave no reason for it.

And that actually
again the weak men’s

association of like of
course they didn’t give

a reason because they just
gave up because they’re weak men.

I was going to do a quiz Tom
friend of mine and a fan sent in.

I think he actually
wrote the quiz and then

I meet it was like I’m
throw that out because

I’m an asshole no but because I looked he
actually started writing about the thing he

was interested in which was
the bit that caught my attention.

So I’m going to drop a picture
and discord for you to see.

This is there was a
Vietnamese bar that was illegal.

So I don’t know if they were doing anything
sexual but when they say illegal foreigner

bar because it’s
usually Filipina bars and

stuff and it’s usually
like there’s a vaguely

sexual feeling going on but this
might have just been an unlicensed bar.

And so in the picture
you will see the police

grabbed some items
to show like is like when

you make your 500
kilo cocaine bust you like

show off and they do
this they do this in Japan

as well but to a
lesser degree and you’ll

notice some of the items
that they’ve collected.

Some bottles of wine
and champagne and stuff

but if you some some
darts which I guess

could technically be illegal it
looks like a menu and an iPad.

And then there is a connect for some playing
cards okay but I wanted to focus on the

connect for okay
because let’s say you and I

are policemen we are
now we have just completed

our bust of the Vietnamese
bar and we’re going

to be like we’re building our display and
we have a connect for do we play a game do

we set it up or do we
take it the way it was

left and just put it up like so you and I
are like okay we’re setting we’re actually

we might even not
even be the cops I don’t

know if it’s like a
separate job to set up the

diorama that is the
the like display of our

arrest yeah I’m standing
there with a connect for

do you think it was
completed in advance do you

think it was something
the cops put together

what would you do so
you have a connect for that

you’re going to stick
on your diorama to show

that you’ve just completed
a criminal investigation

what is your instinct
my instinct is to make

it look like a game was played okay so you
and I understand the rules of connect for

the person who put this
together you will notice

so could you explain
the win state of connect

for just make a line of
thought make a line of

thought horizontally
or vertically so what did

they do in the picture
this is going to be up

on the screen so people
can see it but they just

they threw tiles in like
alternating columns yeah so

they did same colors a
column a four yellow three red

then a weird one where
it’s like two yellow and one

and then it’s four and
four red and one and then

three and three and three
yeah there are two win

states that I can see
yeah I don’t I don’t know

what they were thinking
so so to me yeah so my

image is that what
they did is they took the

connect for it and they
threw it down and they

just put it in as really
quickly to show that it

was a connect for board
I don’t know what the

board is normally laid
out what could it be if

the tiles weren’t there
yeah well no no people

think it is I would like
I don’t think to me I

don’t know of younger
people than us played

connect for in a real
way like I really don’t

I don’t know how popular
connect for was but I

were I played connect
for I’ve played video game

versions of connect for
you and I played connect

for in it takes two yeah
oh no no the other one

a way out wait oh did
we yeah in the hospital we

played connect for and I
got really angry because

I lost and I thought I
was gonna win I am a

gracious loser though
at least I can say that

after the fact well I
can make you know I can

say some stuff but you
know I’m passionate about

connect for it has my
youngest has a connect for

in like a game collection
thing on the tablet

yeah okay so it makes
sense to me that that

most kids would most
people would know a connect

for so if you had an
empty slate thing with

the holes in it I think
I would still recognize

as that as connect for
but I think putting the

tiles in makes it more
visually appealing it’s

clearer what it is but
then I would immediately be

like why can’t just make
rows I have to make it look

like a game I don’t know
why it’s like an authenticity

thing I want people
to know that this was a

real game so I’d have
only one win state that the

fact that there’s two
win states and it’s really

really set me off after a
while the more I thought

about it the more wrong
it seemed and it’s not

even like oh you know
they just put the extra tile

into complete after
this is very obviously not

a game was one yeah but
he won with a straight line

you because if you go
from right to left from the

visual side it’s three
three three yeah so at any

point one of those could
have won yeah and then it’s

almost like I got a box
around the two little

on the left side and
then they just they’re just

throwing like four like
there’s no way to build

that box and not let the
other person win yeah it

it’s oh my god everything
about the game it’s

just baffling see the more
you look at it the more

annoying it gets and
that actually I have less

faith in the police now
because because they didn’t

I’m not saying they
should have stopped and

played a game of connect
four but they should have

made the connect four
that they’re going to put

on display look realistic
and that that lack of

attention to detail
makes me think you’re a

lesser cop than if you
had done that piece of work

or even if it just been
through the tiles in randomly

randomly I would have
been okay with that too

but there’s even tiles left
in the tray at the bottom

yeah so like it’s not
even a finished game even

though they’ve finished
it apparently twice yeah

the only other explanation
I could come up with

is that they played a
different game with the

connect four board thing
so like a drinking game or

something yeah like put
this tile in and ask this

could like almost like a
truth or dare or something

connect four is like
the whole heart of this

case it is because in
the picture they have the

the nice sort of
Vietnamese dresses and they

have the bottles I mean
everything else is fine

I had no problem with it
and then Tom sent this

picture to me and he
goes and then look at the

connect four and that was
it it was that was my week

I kind of have an issue
with the playing cards too

because it doesn’t look
like a full deck it does not

look like a full deck it
looks like they’re missing

cards and they’ve found
them out kind of around

so this is one of the
things I love the most

about these pictures
is someone put a lot of

thought into it but also
didn’t put enough thought

into it because the wine
bottles are fanned out in

an arc and then the
playing cards are fanned out

under that yeah and then
there’s the connect foreign

stuff in the middle
obviously like the center

pieces the connect for
and then the super expensive

bottle behind it clearly
because it has its own

box that’s in books but
what is the thing in front

of the playing cards
and the connect force it

just a flannel oh those
are oh she bought it

those are the wet towels
yeah why would that be

included so this is all
supposed to be evidence

of some sort of you
know guess technically

how serious the crime is like
like what a what a good job we did

I look at all this at
point shit we collected

yeah the wet towels
that are in every single

restaurant in every
single place in Japan don’t

need to be included
in this so I never really

followed through on my
feature of the guy who

sets things out but it
you because it used to be

underwear and they would
there was some you could

tell what kind of
attention they put because

there was one guy and
he put so much work into

it because it was color
coded it was the what

it started at the top left
corner where like white

panties and then it went
down and it got dark in

the bottom right and the
opposite corner wow he

did like he did like a
shade transition throughout

and I was like this
dude had a lot of time

because it was like 500
pairs of underwear that

were stolen or something
and I’ve seen like someone

was stealing shoes and
the guy put the shoes

in like order like this
corner was sort of sports

shoes and the other
corner was like sort of

more work shoes and
stuff oh my god I know the

guy who does it is just
OCD it’s it’s the extreme

but then we get this guy
with the connect 4 yeah

he was on holiday the
OCD guy was on holiday

and so this guy’s like
well I’ll just fan everything

out and I got a whole
bunch of garbage here

that they left in the room and oh there’s a
connect 4 and I’ll just throw the tiles in

maybe that’s what it was
they just had some wine

and shit and they’re like
it’s not really cutting it

what else is it like yeah what else is in
the room we need cops need to do better

police committing crimes
a cop forged power of

attorney and stole 7
million yen from a resident

he’s 70 year old man
so basically this guy had

been a police officer
for a year and realized

like crime pays more
than being a cop and so

at the beginning of this
show I started talking

about how I have
more integrity almost

unintentionally I just
when I talk about stuff being

factual I want it to be accurate so I don’t
do single news sources I always want to get

two or three news sources
before I actually do a

story which I think is
more research than other

places do even though
well because again it’s

the spread of internet
information a story gets

out and then other
people pick it up and just

repeat it and then
sometimes iterate on it I’ve

actually seen that I’ve
seen stories where something

went from story to
bigger to bigger to bigger

something like that
multiple times which actually

Ninja News Japan then
becomes a very interesting

source of news because
I’ll tell you all three

stories because I don’t
actually know which one’s

true I assume the first
one which is usually less

dramatic one and then
the more dramatic versions

get on because one
of the stories I did it

was a taxi driver hitting
a pigeon on purpose

and then by the third
iteration of that story it

was hit a dove and so
they changed the bird to

make it more sympathetic
towards the bird and make

the taxi driver look
even worse yeah integrity

some cops don’t have
integrity the ones who

have been there for a
year and realized I’m not

making that much money
and I can make a lot more

money committing
crimes and now I’ve learned

some interesting way to
commit crimes here’s a very

interesting way to commit
a crime he deals with a

resident who’s 70 years
old he gets his banking

information he brought
the victims bank book

and seal to the post office
they don’t do signatures

in Japan they do seals
so a stamp so that’s

actually one of the
questions of which is better

a seal or a stamp
because if I could maybe

forge your signature if
I could learn how to do

it but I also could
learn how to I could just

steal your stamp and
it’s much easier to use

so you can see sort
of one of the issues of

stamp versus signature
my signature has changed

over time which is one
of the problems so it’s

gotten messier or less
legible so if you compare

my signature now to my
signature 10 15 20 years

ago it’s probably very
different and so a bank

could actually say it’s
not the same signature

a stamp remains the
same but then I could go

into someone else’s
house steal their stamp and

then try to use their
stamp just like this cop

did he brought the victims
bank book and stamp to

this post office he was
wearing his uniform and

then immediately flashed
his badge so of course

everyone in the post
offices like oh he’s a police

officer he is therefore
trustworthy the staff

believed him because
he’s a cop and he then took

out seven million yen from
the man’s bank account

and tried to give himself
power of attorney he

was actually caught
very quickly when a family

member noticed seven
million yen missing from the

man’s bank account so
it’s actually good he had

family members checking on his bank account
so he’s been arrested of course the police

apologize they say we’re
gonna train people to make

sure this doesn’t happen
again the problem with

training police is your
training them and how crimes

are done and then they
might go huh that’s a neat idea

this is the six prefectual
police to be arrested

this year so in that
prefecture six cops have

been arrested so I
actually didn’t look up the

stats we’re getting close
to the end of the year so

we’re gonna get to stat
season which for me is a

very exciting season for
other people not so much

because they don’t some
people love the numbers

heavy episodes that I
do at the end of the year

some people don’t I love
the numbers how many

cops get arrested is
very interesting because in

relation to how many
cops there are more than

anything else because we
talk about bad apples but

how many bad apples are
there is a very interesting

question I think I should
make a segment called

politician saying dumb
stuff because we do

get a lot of politicians
and again the older

japanese men they’ve
gotten used to saying

whatever they want to
say and it causing problems

for them and them not
really knowing how to

handle it so this politician
he was on his youtube

stream so he has a
weekly show he does on

youtube he streams it I
don’t know how much is

how big his audience
is not very interested to

see if he has a bigger
audience than me so if I

can say my audience is
at the low end 600 to 800

people high end a
thousand people so let’s just

do the the middle let’s
say 750 people listen to

this podcast every week
do I get more listeners

than this japanese
politician is very because

this is a small amateur
thing so 700’s a massive

number I’m really happy
with that I would love it

for it to grow but I’m never
going to complain about

a fairly large group
of people listening to

the nonsense that I
spout every week to week

competing against
japanese politicians would be

pretty funny this is the
leader of the conservative

party now that makes
it sound big it’s not the

conservative party in
japan is an incredibly small

party because there are
thousands of parties and

a lot of them are very
small now this party got

2% of the most recent
vote so they basically

got like a seat or maybe
two seats in the house

so they don’t have any
real political power so

that’s an important thing
to keep in mind because

when we talk about
conservative party if you talk

about american politics
or British politics or

Canadian politics those
are basically one of the

two parties this is not
that this is an incredibly

small party the communist
party in japan is a much

bigger more powerful
party than this conservative

party the conservative
party of japan was streaming

on youtube talking about
the declining birth rate

this is a very big issue
in japan I have solved it

multiple times if they
would just start listening

in japan they would
have the answer they’re

looking for but they
don’t that’s all I can say

he’s talking he’s on
youtube he can say whatever

he wants so he does I
do like there’s a caveat

at the beginning before he starts speaking
what he says is there’s a hypothetical idea

which I do not support
now here’s an interesting

thing if you don’t support
it maybe don’t say it

don’t talk about the
things you don’t support

talk about the things
you actually do support

since you’re supposed
to be the leader of a

party want to talk about
what your party would do

to solve this very real
problem for the country

don’t talk about something
that’s hypothetical

and not real and it’s
going to piss people off

or you can do it this
guy does and start talking

so he’s tried to cover
himself by saying he doesn’t

support this he doesn’t
believe this this is

not something we would
actually do but here’s

a hypothetical this is
literally like me going

I’m not racist but and
then say a whole bunch of

racist stuff he’s going
I don’t support this but

here’s a really neat
idea I heard recently so

he said there’s a
hypothetical idea which I do

not support in removing
women’s uterus is when

they turn 30 now I
don’t support that either

because it’s a really
dumb fucking idea and it

doesn’t solve the declining
birth rate issue because

women over 30 are still
very capable of having

babies uh the technologies
improved health is

improved there’s a whole
bunch of things have been

improved so you don’t
need to have a baby when

you’re 20 years old anymore
you don’t have to risk

death by having a baby
when you’re 28 29 30 35

whatever um so that
whole thing that came out of

his mouth in that moment
should have been like

everyone be like oh
yes now there were other

people in the stream and
after you got to his third

or fourth point were
like maybe this is too

much still didn’t stop he
said woman women would

not go to university and
cannot marry after 25

so he’s saying that
women basically can’t go to

university so they have
no work prospects therefore

marriage would be the
more attractive prospect

therefore we could make
a law to make it so they

can’t marry after 25
years old so if you don’t

get married before 25
and start having babies

you don’t get to do
that forever but then also

you don’t have a
university education so you

can’t get a really good
job so your whole life

sucks if you don’t get
married and have babies

before you’re 25
and again that is a lot

because that has no
relationship to reality how’s

it works now we we need
dual incomes to survive

like this is normal people
now if you have kids

you need dual incomes
my kids are now getting to

high school and university
age we are sitting

down working out our
finances to make sure that

our kids will be able
to go to university it is a

huge burden on us as
parents but we want our kids

to have the education
so they can get the job so

they can do what they
want and education takes a

long time if they want
to do further education

they want to do that
they’re going to go into legs

let’s say a master’s or a
PhD that’s going to be 8

10 years of education I
assume I will be supporting

them at least partially
through all that my wife

not having a job we
wouldn’t be able to do that so

our now family our
future has a lower standard

overall because of this
guy’s weird weird idea

from some science fiction
thing you read so after

you said women’s uterus is should be removed
when they turn 30 women shouldn’t go to

university and they should
not be allowed to marry

after 25 all to incentivize
them having babies

at an early age so maybe
I assume then have more

babies even though
again a family wouldn’t be

able to survive on a
single income at that point

people got upset so
the other people who are

with them are like isn’t
that too much and he’s

like I don’t know I think
I sound pretty smart

he then the next day
said I will retract the

statements and apologize
as people found them

unpleasant and I think
the thing is he’s unpleasant

because he thought this
was a good idea in the first

place is not the statements
it’s him saying those

unpleasant things
thinking it was a good idea

that’s the problem I don’t
know how many times I’ve

done this on this show
we’re at like episode 333

or something like that
I actually should check

but we’re in the there are three thirties
at this point how many times have I said

retracting a statement
is not a thing you can’t

say something into the
world and then retract

the statement statements
can be taken out of

context but this is
another place where an

engine is Japan tries to
show a certain amount of

integrity by looking at
what is said before and

after so I have full
context of what was actually

said so I know yeah that
person was actually joking

all the people who say
Donald Trump is joking

when he makes like
incendiary statements

he’s not you can look at
what he says before and

when he says after and
realize that’s not a joke

because it’s not funny
this guy saying uh I want

to retract my statement
it doesn’t retract the

statement it doesn’t go
away you still set it you’re

still a gross human being
you shouldn’t say those

things retracting it
and apologizing because

people found it unpleasant
you should have known

that going in he then
went further to go to say

I was explaining the
time limitation on giving

birth in a plain way
which is not what he was

doing because it’s a
function of biology and has

nothing to do with his
very arbitrary time limit

of 25 to 30 if you don’t
support something don’t

support it by not talking about it

gotta stop and watch Dave settle in

three turns four turns
five turns and down okay

good five turns is good good
amount of turns before you settle it.

[SIGHS]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Sleepily Dangerous Podcast

(upbeat music)

  • What was allergies last week, I believe,

has turned into a cold
and I’m just getting over it.

So, if this is your podcast
you listen to before,

you go to sleep, the voice
is gonna be a little lower,

a little less energy, a
little softer because I can’t

get too excited because
then my voice gives out on me.

But we’re almost close
to being healthy again,

which shouldn’t be
as hard as it is, I think.

But first story is an update.

The lady who is throwing
eggs at her neighbor’s house.

She was throwing eggs from
her window to her neighbor’s

window, smashing the eggs
on her neighbor’s house.

They were falling down
on all the gross stuff,

egg yolk and whatever
covering the house.

The eggs would sit out there and rot.

The thing that got me is
she was punishing herself

as much as her neighbor
because she has to smell it too.

She lives right next to the place
she’s creating all this mess and stink.

So, the original story, the neighbor,
who was the victim in this case said like,

I don’t know why this lady’s hook and
eggs in my house, she set up a camera.

She got video of her
sniping out her window, 360

Nova scope, out her
window and hitting the house.

She was doing like a carton
of eggs a day sometimes.

They said up to 80 over a couple of
months, but they know it was way more.

These are just the ones
they like have a record of.

The secondary thing, she’s paying for eggs,

eggs in Japan or not
the cheapest commodity.

If I was going to try to ruin
someone else’s property,

I wouldn’t do it with
something I have to pay for

consistently that I could
eat a high protein source.

I would find something
else that was way cheaper,

way messier and didn’t
negatively impact my life as well.

So, not someone who thinks through
the consequences of their actions.

I think that’s normal of a
lot of criminal enterprises,

but in this particular
case, it shows itself so well.

I really found it in an interesting case.

She has been sentenced to jail.

So, I thought it was going to be a fine,
maybe clean up fees, that kind of stuff.

They haven’t given us the exact
amount of prison time she’s been given.

It’s basically come to a conclusion.

They’re probably still trying
to figure out the details.

Does she have to pay money, clean up fees,

that kind of stuff, still
coming down the line.

But, conclusively, she is going to prison
for an indeterminate amount of time.

A very interesting
thing I would actually like

to know is what people,
so other than myself,

think would be an
appropriate amount of prison

time for how can eggs
eat your neighbor’s house.

Now, it’s not just like once
and then never do it again.

It’s like consistently over
months and months and months,

creating like an ecological
biohazard near her house.

One of the things that never came out was,

why she was doing this,
the victim again said,

I don’t know why she was
throwing eggs in my house.

We never really had
a picture of a close

relationship, but we never
had any sort of conflict.

The lady said that she threw the eggs
because of insults being hurled at her daily.

I’m pretty sure the victim
here, the lady who had

received the egg throwing,
wasn’t insulting her daily.

It actually seems like she was primarily
trying to not interact with her much at all.

Maybe that was the
insult that you didn’t come

and bend the knee to
me when you moved in,

or they’d lived together for
years and years and years.

And this was a very
sudden thing that started.

It seems like she just
had a bit of a mental break.

Probably saw something
that she thought was

insulting and just
interpreted it that way.

And then now considers it a daily
insult that it has not been rectified.

I don’t know, that’s all supposition,
but it pushed her over the edge

and she thought the only solution I have
is to throw eggs at my neighbor’s house

despite the fact that
it’s right next to my

house and I have to
suffer right along with her.

A French artist.

The self-proclaimed artist.

So this is an interesting thing.

The newspaper articles
have been very clear,

so I’ve read three or four
articles with the same story.

They all say self-proclaimed.

So he’s calling himself an artist.

When do you actually
adopt the title of artist?

It’s a very interesting question.

When do I call myself an artist?

And it’s just self-proclaimed when
does someone else call me an artist?

And then it’s sort of a title that sticks.

It’s like Esquire.

You’re not supposed to
give yourself the Esquire

title someone else is
supposed to give it to you.

I guess it would be very easy
for me to call myself a podcaster

because it doesn’t come with
any sort of sense of grandiosity.

It is just something people
do in their rooms alone

when they’re very lonely
and want to talk to people

and they don’t get a chance to
talk to people and they’re very sad.

Anyways, that’s not
actually the relevant part.

This guy, self-proclaimed French artist

was arrested for drawing
facial hair on campaign posters.

So this is an election season.

They have campaign posters up.

They do it in Japan.

It’s very organized.

They have like a big panel.

It’ll have numbers like 16
boxes and then you buy one of

those boxes and you put
your campaign poster up there.

We did have a controversy
in Tokyo a little while

ago where people were
putting up dirty posters.

People were buying it and saying like just
promoting their SNS and things like that.

That’s not really what this story is about

but it shows that like
these have become an

interesting target for
people to pay attention to.

This guy walked up.

It says facial hair.

So I’m assuming mustache,
goatee, maybe a beard, who knows.

I can honestly say I have
walked by and then had the

same urge where I’d be
like, oh, it would be funny.

I could draw some
funny things on that face.

But then I didn’t do it because I had
somewhere to go and I’d be better things to do.

This was destruction of property because
they pay for that poster to be up there.

They own that poster.

They own that space.

You vandalizing it, putting graffiti on it.

That’s destruction of property.

Police check security cameras
after they saw the goatee

or the mustache or whatever was drawn
on the poster and found them very easily.

That’s just what it comes down to.

He’s believed to have
defaced several other posters.

So this isn’t the first charge.

This is probably the
first of several charges

he’s going to get because
now they’re going to

check the other posters,
was he in the area?

Maybe does it match his artistic style?

There would be an interesting
thing to try to nail someone on.

You conclude that their art style is unique

and therefore we can then pin all these
other ones on you even if it’s not true.

And then is he happy that his art is being
recognized or does he end up suffering?

Because I didn’t actually draw those.

He can’t ascribe those to me.

Those are the same level of
art that I am creating when I

do graffiti, facial hair, like
a 12 year old on a poster.

So cycling in Japan.

We’ve had a lot of stories about
like updated road rules in Japan.

There was rules about
those riding suitcases.

And if you want to take them out, I
would say that essentially the airport,

you’re probably not even
supposed to ride them in the airport.

But if you want to ride
them, they have to be licensed.

You have to have a driver’s license.

They have this for anything electric, so
an electric bicycle, an electric scooter.

You’re actually supposed
to be licensed for that.

You have to wear a helmet, it has
to be like, all this has to be legal.

Japan’s just getting tired
of people getting drunk

and smashing stuff and they’ve
decided to get really strict on the rules.

Cyclists on their
smartphones are now looking

at six months in prison
in 100,000 yen fight.

So that six months in
prison for riding your bicycle

while looking at your
smartphone is pretty serious.

But I can honestly say
I’ve seen it happen a lot.

It’s mostly young people that I’ve seen.

That’s not to say that that’s correct.

Again, I live out in the countryside.

It’s generally very, very old people and
very, very young people live around me.

So the very, very young people are giving
me the ones riding on their smartphone.

The older, older people
probably not so much.

But that’s only where I live.

If you’re in Tokyo where
a lot of people commute,

and this actually like
really increased in 2020,

to 2023 when people were
worried about coronavirus

and didn’t want to
take the train so much

anymore, bicycle usage
increased significantly.

People spend time riding their
bicycle, weaving in and out of traffic,

and/or people while looking at
their smartphone, that’s problematic.

They’ve decided to make it a
criminal offense, six months in prison.

If you get drunk and ride your bicycle,

Japan is getting stricter and
stricter about people being drunk

because there’s a lot of
drunk people, a lot of the time.

You can get five years in prison and up to
500,000 yen fine if you cause an accident.

Oh, if you cause an accident, well drunk.

So that’s just if I ride my bicycle drunk,

I can get five years in
prison and a 500 yen fine.

If I am drunk and I cause an accident,
I can get another year on top of that

and 300,000 yen more fine on top
of the five years and 500,000 yen.

This is all because in 2023,
there were 72,000 bicycle accidents

and it’s already risen
higher than that in 2024.

2024 is not finished, but they’ve
already got more than that.

They’re like, this is
something we have to deal with.

We have something we have to take care of.

Hours after this law was passed,
two men both drunk ran into each other.

So both had an accident.

So both of them could be facing five
years in prison and a 500,000 yen fine.

And both of them could actually be facing

the extra one year and the extra 300,000
yen fine because you could technically say,

maybe they both caused the
accident because they were both drunk.

A 38 year old man is at a store.

That’s not that unusual.

And then he gets really, really upset.

And the reason he’s
upset, he starts shouting,

why didn’t you ask if I
needed a plastic bag?

Now, I actually think it’s quite normal
not to ask if people need a plastic bag now

because a lot of stores are actually banning
plastic bags for environmental reasons.

They’re not actually
handing out plastic bags.

If you want a plastic bag,
you have to ask for one.

That’s become the norm in a lot of places.

I don’t expect places to
offer me a bag anymore.

Like when I go to the convenience
store, when I go shopping

for groceries, I don’t
expect them to offer me bags.

If I want one, I have to ask.

This guy clearly has
not changed that mindset.

And he got really upset at the cashier.

Another man, just tries to step
and he’s like, hey, let me intervene.

Let me try to calm the situation down.

First guy gets really upset, pushes the man

and then gets behind him
and puts on a choke hold.

The man will take 10
days to heal from the injury.

So the choke hold.

We don’t know if it was the push or the
choke hold that actually caused the injuries

because let’s say he pushed him down
and he hit his arm or his leg or something.

That could have been an
injury that needs to heal.

10 days, it’s probably
just a really bad bruise.

But a choke hold, you could
actually bruise your esophagus.

It could be quite serious.

The amazing part, and this
shows sort of like the mindset

you have to get into when
talking about these stories.

The guy who did the choking,
who created the kerfuffle

in the beginning, he’s
the one who called

the police, claiming
that the victim hit him.

So he gets upset.

So this is again, the
mindset you have to be in.

He gets upset because
he wasn’t offered a bag.

A guy comes in and says like,
hey, maybe you need to chill out.

He pushes that guy,
hits that guy, knocks that

guy down, gets around,
chokes him from behind,

then calls the police and
says that guy attacked me.

And that’s something
that I think getting into

the mindset of the person
actually reveals a lot.

He feels perfectly justified
in attacking other people

and then blaming them thinking
he’s gonna get away with it.

This is an interesting
thing because I’m interested

to see how much
trouble he actually gets in.

It’s probably gonna
depend whether or not the

victim in this case
presses charges or whatnot.

But it’s kind of that Karen
mindset that’s taken over

the internet where people
like they just go and go and go

and then they call the police, expecting
the police to come back them up.

That seems to have now started in Japan

and I don’t wanna see
hundreds of these videos.

After we’ve gotten past
sort of all the videos of people

like YouTubers and streamers and
stuff, causing trouble to get video clout,

I’m really hoping that the
next step isn’t just people

taking on that whole internet Karen
mode and going crazy in Japan as well.

(phone ringing)

Another 38-year-old man, two 38-year-old
men in two stories, that’s crazy.

He was a salesperson but not a salesperson
for the incident that we’re talking about.

He was pretending to be a
salesperson going house to house.

He visited an older couple and they’re
in their 80s and he gets into their house

because he’s a door-to-door salesman of
some sort or at least he’s pretending to be.

He gets in their house and he
finds a way to give them sleeping pills.

So I’m assuming they had tea together
and he got sleeping pills into their tea.

When they were drowsy, he stole 26
million yen in cash and a Boston bag.

I’ve had this conversation before.

Why do you have 26 million
yen in cash in your house?

Older people in Japan,
they still seem to hoard cash.

Why is it not in a safe?

Like if you’re gonna have
that much money around,

have a safe, put it
in the safe, lock it up.

They haven’t obviously in a box or something,
26 million yen, like I know the yen

isn’t the same value as the American
dollar, but it’s still like $20,000.

That’s $200,000.

26, what is it?

5 million yen is about 50,000 bucks.

So 20 million yen, yeah, that’s $200,000.

Why do you have 2,000?

See, this is it, like the math
is sort of boggling to me.

Why would you just keep
that much cash around?

Like you don’t need that
much cash to buy anything.

You’re not gonna go buy a car with cash.

Regularly enough to keep it in your house,

put it in the bank, it’s
safe, it won’t go anywhere.

You’re not getting any interest on it.

Japanese bank’s interest rate is
really low, but you’re not gonna lose it.

You’re not gonna have a guy
coming to your house and just take it.

It’s not insured or anything, so that’s it.

The Boston Bank, I don’t
know enough about bags,

I’m assuming Boston
bags are very expensive.

The part where this
really goes over the top

is when he left, so the
older couple is drowsy,

they’re sleeping, he’s
taking the money, he’s taking

the Boston Bank, and then
he sets the house on fire.

A neighbor noticed the fire
and called the fire department

other neighbors went into the house and
woke up the older couple and got them out.

So then no one actually
died, no one actually got hurt.

There was some lung, some
smoke inhalation, the son of

the parents got, and he had
to go to a hospital check out,

but he’s okay as far as I can
tell from the articles I’ve read.

I guess when you take the money,
the older couple, when they wake up,

we’re gonna know who you are, and
that is it, you have to have no witnesses.

And then the money would have
technically burnt up in the fire,

but yeah, this is just, now
this is a double attempted

murder theft and some sort of
fraud and calling going on with it.

This guy is in a heap of trouble.

When you get in a taxi, and the driver,

so let’s say you just
had dinner, you call a taxi,

and you get in the taxi,
and then as the taxi goes,

the driver looks back and he
says, you know, you look sick.

Here are some pills, do you take them?

My answer is no, I am
not going to take any sort

of medicine from someone
who is driving in a taxi,

not because I have anything
against like sort of the

capacity of a taxi driver to
diagnose my illness, but I just

don’t know who you are, because
you’re a random taxi driver.

What has happened is a young
girl came out of a restaurant,

got in a taxi, and then the
taxi driver, while he was driving,

looked back and said, you
look sick, here’s some medicine,

take the medicine, she
took the medicine, she

took the pills, and
they were sleeping pills.

So this is the second case of sleeping pills
being used in one week that we know of.

Four and a half hours later,
she’s found a sleep in a parking lot.

The urine tests, she
was staying in the hospital,

they did a urine test, they
found the drugs in her system.

So they know that she was drugged,
they try to trace back her steps,

they know she was in a taxi,
they find the security cameras

from the area, find the
taxi, they find the taxi,

it has an SD card in it with
the cameras, that’s gone.

So they think the taxi driver,
of course, is trying to, you know,

hide any evidence of him doing
any sort of any wrong doing,

but it was quite easy to find
him once they had sort of the

basic evidence of where she
began, where she ended up,

but they know where she was,
they know where she got in the taxi,

and they know what
was going on in that area,

they could check security
footage, they found the taxi driver.

They have had several reports of
people who have lost their memories

after taking a taxi,
which is very concerning.

So there’s our good piece
of advice, final piece of advice.

I want to make a little short
one today just because again,

I’m not feeling great, I
don’t have the energy

to keep going for hours
and hours and hours.

I wanted to do some more
stories today to be honest,

but hopefully we’ll get a longer one
next week when I’m feeling better.

The Ninja Ninja is Japan,
final piece of advice,

from Chunkman Beef Chest,
your host, to you, the listener,

or the viewer, or
however you’re seeing this.

Hey, I love you.

Just put that out there,
make sure you remember that.

There is someone in the
world who does care about you.

And be, don’t take
drugs from a taxi driver.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

See, as soon as I start
streaming, if you, yep, okay.

He’s moving around.

Let’s see what Dave
does before we get started.

(upbeat music) Yep.

Whoa, what was that?

Just trying to, trying to
storm down some space there.

My concern is once I start,
he’s going to start complaining.

Singing up, and then
I’ll take you out again.

Dave, it’s okay.

Yeah, relax.

It’s weirdly hot in my room.

Okay, there you go.

Let me get some nice Dave,
ooh, stretch his leg out, sexy.

All right, let’s get started.

[SOUND]

Punchy People

This is a bit rushed.
Normally I record tomorrow.

I don’t know if I’m going
to be able to get this

episode out early, but
this is going to be the

only opportunity I have to
record. So I’m going to record today.

Try to edit tonight
and tomorrow.

Who knows? Just want to
get the episodes out on time.

I have to work tomorrow.
So I’m a bit flummoxed,

confused, out of sorts because I’m just,
it’s not my regular schedule. I really like

keeping a regular schedule.
But to make me happy,

we got a message on speakpipe,
speakpipe.com/tongueveachas.

It means I get to
hear your voice.

And that is actually very
exciting for me to get to hear some

of the people who actually
have another podcast.

Let’s hear what Gray
has to say from the peak.

Fuck off from the speakpipe.
I just wanted to say,

bro, the discord link is
dead on your link tree.

Please update.
That would be sick.

So I have already updated
that. So if you go to the link tree,

Chongveveachast, now
you do get a links to a whole

bunch of stuff that you
probably are not interested

in, but it does have a
discord on it that I’ve

really set up ages ago, but
only started using recently.

So if you want to join
the discord, you can

go to the link tree,
join the discord there.

A tech support request. It’s
not a tech support request.

It is actually just helping
me out because there’s

no way I can keep track of all the links
and stuff that are across social media.

And let’s be honest, I hate social
media. I hate taking care of it.

I don’t mind doing it.

I don’t mind interacting. I
actually like interacting with people,

but the maintenance
that goes into social media,

it was just never for me. I
want to sit here and make stuff.

I want to put it out
there on the internet.

I want to make podcasts. I
want to make videos whatever.

I don’t want to promote
them maintenance is a pain.

That’s actually the thing.

I need a promoter. I don’t
can’t offer any money.

So the best I can offer is
beard oil. I have a five pack here

started using, am I
advertising? If I was getting

a sponsorship, then I wouldn’t
have to go to work tomorrow.

Here’s a deal. Is
near mile beard oil.

I have promoted your
product for free, but I would

love to quit my job. So if
you want to sponsor this

podcast, giving me enough
money so that I don’t

have to go to work
tomorrow, not even forever,

just tomorrow because this is,
I’m recording Monday morning.

I usually record
Tuesday morning.

I’m recording Tuesday
morning. Fuck, I’ve already

affected the sounds up.
I’m recording this morning

because I have to work
tomorrow because I have

a full-time job. So
I’m a bit out of sorts.

So this is the fifth or
sixth start to this podcast

episode and it’s not
going well. I’ll be honest,

but I’m very excited to
have a message from Gray.

I do appreciate anyone
pointing out any issues

because that’s the only
way I’m going to find them

or be able to try to fix
them. I have an RSS feed

issue going on right now.
I have stat tracking issues

going on right now,
knowing that the discord link

was old or not working.
It’s actually super helpful.

So I really appreciate
that. Let’s just get a

little bit more from Gray
and then we’ll move on to

the actual episode. And,
uh, two, uh, thank you so

much for making the
podcast. It’s nice to listen to

you before I end the
bed. I find it very weird

that people listen to
this before they go to bed

because as the podcast
goes, there is a structure to it.

Uh, the dirty or more
violent stories are

at the end, which means
while you are drifting into

sleep when you are when
you are mind is sort of

your body is closing, but
your mind is opening is

when I start talking
about the dirty weird stuff.

Um, I don’t know if that’s what
you should be falling asleep to.

Secondly, um, I think we should
be falling asleep to your voice.

I think Gray is a
way better of what

basically I’m saying why
is why am I podcasting?

And he’s not, he clearly
has a nicer sounding voice.

So if I was going to
fall asleep to a voice, my

own or his, I would
choose his, I think every

time is they got that
sort of nice timber to it.

It’s a little deep. It’s nice.
It’s better than my man.

Uh, secondary proposal,
I could write the podcast.

You could record the
what you could do the voice.

And then we’d maybe actually
this might go somewhere.

Yeah, I would like
to show up on one

of the segments. So it
would be cool to fuck around.

And it would be
cool to fuck around.

I don’t know exactly what you’re
saying, but I’m open to anything.

Uh, if you would
like to join, so we’ve

been doing quizzes and
the quizzes, I’m already

trying to change them
a little bit last week.

We didn’t do a quiz.
We did essentially a little

Japanese lesson. Uh,
my friend Tom joined and I

showed him a couple of
words that were sort of

new Japanese words.
He took them back to his

students and he tried
them on his students.

They knew Mofu Mofu, but
they didn’t know the other ones.

And it’s like, Hey,
maybe you guys need

to update your Japanese
and he’s saying that to

like a group of like young
people, which is pretty funny.

So I’m not going
to just do quizzes.

Quiz is was a great
format to start with, but I

want to expand it into
like every idea I can have.

And I want to do it with other people.
So if you would like to join the podcast,

send an email to
chuggavelefchest@gmail.com.

You could drop a message and
speak pipe like gray is just done.

Uh, you can join the discord,
which is in the link tree.

And we can arrange to record.

I usually do it over zoom
and I just record the audio.

So you don’t have to
be on camera or anything

like that if you don’t
want to, but we can try

to fit it to your schedule
because I recorded

outside of the live
recording that we do on

Twitch, usually on Tuesdays,
but today is Monday.

You can tell that’s
really resting on my mind.

I’m just not getting
anything right.

Let’s start the show.

Now I’ve already now
that we’re into the format

I’m comfortable
with that I’m used to.

I’m actually already
a little bit more calm.

We have an update.
We have the story.

So there was God fucking discord.
We have an update on a previous story.

We have the NHK
does national news and

they do it in multiple
languages and they do it in

Chinese and they had a
guy doing the national news

in Chinese and he decided
to sort of just go off

script for a bit. He
switched to English.

I found that part really
interesting. And he made a couple

of statements like the
Senkaku Islands belong to China.

Uh, he said, don’t forget about
comfort women and the rape of non king.

So he was basically saying
like we have to remember the

awful history of Japan
and there are these disputed

islands between China and
Japan and they belong to China.

He’s just making a staunch political statement
right out the gates. That’s a problem

when your radio show
represents the government of

Japan because it’s a
national broadcast system.

So it’s actually, it’s not
pro government, but you

certainly are working
for the government.

An executive had to quit
to take responsibility for this.

Two other executives had their
pay cut because this happened.

And I actually in
the last episode when

we talked about it said
like this seems unfair.

The executives, unless
they were sitting there

with like hovering
their finger over a mute

button with a seven
second delay or something,

they had no control over this. And they had
hired this guy to read the news in Chinese.

He decided to go off
script. So I was thinking it

was only he should be
punished. I said that was unfair.

The contract with that agency
that hired that guy was cut.

So that guy and
many of his co-workers

actually lost their jobs in
Japan if they were in Japan.

They might have been
doing it from overseas,

but that contract was
ended. So that guy killed

that contract for multiple
people, which I think

ah, that’s what that’s
what actually would happen.

So his friend should
be angry in him.

The executive quit, this
is a very Japanese thing

is you, there’s a problem
in your company and you

quit and you say, I
take responsibility for it.

I quit. I’ve always found
out a weird system.

We went through a period
around 2010 in Japan where there

were 10 prime ministers.
Because anytime there’s a

problem, the problem
would be like the prime

minister say, oh, it’s
my responsibility as like

punishment or whatever. I will
quit and then they would quit.

I realize that doesn’t
fix the problem.

You’re just moving the
problem onto the next guy.

You’re saying, okay,
you can blame me and I’ll

step down and then the
next guy comes in clean.

He’s still has to fix the
problem. So I think you

usually have to fix the
problem and then quit if

that’s the way it’s going
to work out or maybe

just fix the problem. If
you fix the problem really

well, maybe nobody
has to quit. I don’t know.

This is slightly different.
I thought it was weird

that the executive
quit, but then it turns out

two weeks later, he was rehired by the NHK.
They said they rehired him because of his,

they said they rehired
him because of his

experience as an overseas
journalist. So he’d worked in Russia.

He’d worked in China. He’d worked in a
couple of different places and they said that

experience was valuable. But
then it seems very convoluted.

So why did you let
him let him quit in the

first place or just don’t
let him resign or to say,

look, yeah, it is
responsibility, but we’ll just

keep you in the job. It
doesn’t say if he was rehired

is the same job,
which I find interesting.

I’m pretty sure he
was. It just seems like a

convoluted way for him
to take responsibility by

resigning, but then
not actually taking any

responsibility because
he got hired back on.

So it’s like an agreement
was made. Hey guys, this

bad thing happened. I’ll quit.
You hire me again in two weeks.

So I’m just going to
take a two week vacation.

And then you can say like someone took
responsibility for this thing happening, but

then also none of us in this
room right now get punished.

Although those two other executives
did get a pay cut for a couple of months,

but I’m assuming they’re
making enough money

that it’s not really negatively
impacting their lifestyle.

I did have a secondary question. As
soon as this seemed like a scheme,

I started going like, oh,
has his contract changed.

So when he was he quit and then he was
rehired, was he rehired at the same salary?

Was his salary improved?
Did what changed?

And then none of the
details came out in that.

But it being NHK, I was
like, oh, this might actually be

public information. So
I kind of started going

to look for it, but I
honestly just don’t know

what to look for. So I
am going to do some

research because I’m
wondering if in a weird way

this Chinese announcer
saying a very political

thing so that this guy had
to take responsibility for it.

So he quit and
then he came back.

If that actually worked
out is him getting a raise.

We’re living in the
future. It’s 2024.

Although some aspects of
Japan, if you’ve lived in Japan,

do not seem like
living in the future.

There are some bits
that are super futuristic.

There are some bits
that just you’re like, again,

so I live in a Japanese
house and the heating,

cooling system of Japan
as a country just has not

caught up with
anywhere else I’ve lived.

Korea had the heated floors.
Amazing, the heated floors.

Japan basically has air
conditioners in each individual

room, which means this
room will be cool or hot,

whatever I set it to.
And then I go out in the

hallway and then either
all the cold air, all the

hot air goes out as
soon as I open the door.

And the hallway is either
super hot or super cold.

And you just get these like
shocks to your system constantly.

I was on the train
the other day.

It’s getting to the end of
September. It’s still very hot in Japan.

But a lot of the
community is cut.

But I got on the train the
other day and the heat was on.

So I’m thinking it
was an accident.

But they turned on the heat.
I guess coming up to October

is officially fall. I
think it’s officially

fall now, but it still
feels like summertime.

Yeah, man. Japan has
this very weird thing where

people will change
their clothing and stuff

depending on the
season, not on the actual

weather outside. So
it’s like it’s still hot,

but it’s now fall. So I’m
going to start wearing

my fall warmer clothes,
even though it’s still

quite warm outside. And
I’m sweating all the time.

But anyways, that’s not
the story we’re talking about.

I’m talking about soft bank.

Soft bank is the first company
in Japan to offer digital salary.

So some companies when
crypto kind of went through

its boom, we’re saying,
we’ll give you crypto

as part of your
salary. I think it was an

investment, but it had
to be a very small amount.

There’s some legal
issues with paying with how

you pay your employees.
Pay pay is one of the

payment systems in Japan.
I actually had a conversation

with this with some
friends last night about

and they know there
is no Venmo in Japan.

It’s not recognized by
the Japanese government.

There is no cash app in Japan because
Japan has its own Japanese systems.

Japan is very insular and
pretty much everything.

So they don’t want other systems to come
in and kind of assert the ones that are

being used in Japan. I don’t
know if they’re better or worse.

I use pay pay. I
used to use line pay

because everyone had line
and if you needed to share

money or send money,
it was very easy.

That was kind of the main
reason I did that one and it was

already on my phone.
Pay pay took over line pay.

They’re going to be the
same company next year.

So I switched over to pay
pay early because why not?

I was scamming them
for double points for a

while because I used my pay
pay credit card in my pay pay app.

I used my line pay credit card in my
pay pay app. So I got points on pay pay

and I got points on line
pay but they shut down

that system very
recently. So now I just use

pay pay exclusively.
But with the government

approval, you can pay a
salary up to 200,000 yen

in pay pay directly. So it would mean on
pay day in my phone, in my pay pay account,

the 200,000 yen would
just show up. Now let’s say

I get paid more than
200,000 yen, which is very

likely if you have like
a regular full-time job.

The rest of that money
has to go to the bank.

So you can get part
of your payment up to

200,000 yen in pay pay
as a system. And if that’s

where you’re using all
the time, it makes sense.

You can split it. You can
decide how much like I

want 100,000 yen of my pay to
go into my phone every month.

That can happen as
well. 300 companies

have already contacted
pay pay about adopt about

adopting digital payment
systems. And I’m guessing

because at the end of the
day, it happens automatically.

You don’t have to deal
with banks in the same way.

It’s faster and I bet it’s
actually also cheaper.

A nursing nursing
home care worker.

So I mean these are
people who are taking care of

old people in Japan. It
has a grain population.

There’s a lot of old
people. There’s a lot of

demand for this job.
So there’s a lot of people

who can get jobs in
this kind of care system.

They were arrested for
assaulting 105 year old patient.

I don’t know that one
was like 105, like any

sort of assault is going
to be significant if the

person is 105 years
old. So that is crazy.

It turns out they also
assaulted three other patients.

The youngest being 94.
So these are like 94 year

old people end up. And
this guy is like getting

frustrated with them and
punching them in the face.

The actual statement
was I was so frustrated

with caring for them.
I couldn’t help myself,

which makes it very clear
that you should not be

working in this industry.
The home care facility

they were working
at was for exclusively

patients with dementia.
So you I mean dealing

with old people can be
frustrating dealing with

people my age can be
frustrating. Dealing with older

people who also you know
have dementia is going

to be extra frustrating.
If you’re going to get so

frustrated, you then think
punching him in the face

is the acceptable
response. And that’s going to

somehow make things better.
You probably shouldn’t be

working in that industry.
I think if you’re sort

of a punchy person all around,
you shouldn’t be in care work.

That’s just this is going to be one of
those statements that engineers depend for

moats out there. If you’re
a punchy kind of person,

you shouldn’t go into
care work. Staff noticed a

bruise on one of the
patients. So they decided

to go check the security
camera. And it turns out

the bruise the patient had
wasn’t related to the assault.

But because they checked
the security camera,

saw the assault take
place giving maybe different

injuries, different bruises.
So the person got caught.

So I’m like this other
person absolutely should

be in health care because
they’re like oh that guy has a bruise.

I should just go
check just to be

safe because again we’re
dealing with dementia patients.

We’re dealing with older people.

Maybe they fall down. Maybe
they get bruises all the time.

Maybe they bruise very easily.

This is all totally on board. It
would be very easy to ignore.

But they’re like, you
know what? Let’s bruise.

I should just go check
the security camera.

Goes and sees these
older people getting

assaulted and then is
able to call the police.

So that second person
should get a raise.

But care workers are
not appreciated and that is

probably not going to
happen. Since we’re talking

about people punching
people who should not be

punched, I guess no
one should be punched.

I mean you go into boxing.
I do. I practice due to

I get punched in the face. I
think it’s actually quite funny.

But that’s voluntary.

So that voluntary aspect
changes the whole atmosphere of

the getting punched in
the face. If you are an

old person in a home
care place, I don’t think

you expect or deserve
to be punched in the face.

I mean, okay old
people can be shitty too.

Sometimes they might
deserve it. But that doesn’t

mean you can do it.
There’s lots of people I

see dated to oh god now
we’ve got to do who you

should be allowed to
punch or not, which is

going to be a big book.
There are people I think

I should be able to punch just
me exclusively, not anyone else.

Because I think I
have good judgment.

All right. A teacher in
Shiga, since we’re going

to go to the other end of
the spectrum, we’ve now

talked about punching
old people on the face.

Let’s talk about punching
young people on the face.

A teacher in Shiga was
arrested for hitting an

elementary school age
boys about 10 years old

in the right eye. So he
decked a kid in the face.

He was reported to
police the same day.

So the kid went home
probably had a black eye because

he got punched in the eye
by a full grown adult teacher.

The parents called the cops.

Absolutely, 100% exactly what I
would do. Police are investigating

the reason for the assault.
Now, I am not saying

it’s okay to punch
little kids in the face.

But I can absolutely
tell you the reason.

Without even meeting this
kid, without even knowing the

situation, he was being
a mouthy little shit.

Now, kids are mouthy
little shits. This is one of the

things having had
experience teaching kids,

having dealt with kids.
I’ve dealt with kids in

education situations. I’ve
dealt with kids judo classes.

I’ve dealt with kids
just out in the street.

I’ve dealt with kids when I took my
kids to the park when they were younger.

I understand, in general,
kids are mouthy little shits.

I’ve never punched
one of the face.

So in all those situations as a teacher,
as a guy doing judo teaching kids judo,

as a guy in the park,
as a parent, I have never

punched a kid in the
face despite the fact that

they were being mouthy little
shits and probably deserved it.

But again, deserving it and actually
getting it aren’t always the same thing.

That’s what kids do. So this
is the same as the care worker.

If you can’t handle little kids getting on
your nerves, you shouldn’t be a teacher.

It’s really that simple.
We’ve had a couple of stories

where teachers
just kind of lose it.

There was a couple maybe a
month ago. Kid was mocking his

teacher and copying
him and the teacher just

goes over and tackles the
kid. You shouldn’t be a teacher.

That’s just straight up.
Don’t go into that industry.

They’re going to figure
out you have a weakness.

They’re going to
get under your skin.

That is, again, what kids
do. Hello, Dave, Dave.

I’m God damn it. God, I’m
going to settle you down.

You get this little puff here sometimes.
Hello.

I would like to angle the camera down
just a little bit so you can get his head.

But then when I do that, he
spends a lot of this time sleeping.

Then you would just
be looking at my nose

down and a sleeping
dog, which actually still

think would be aesthetically more
pleasing than what you’re seeing right now.

Kids are going to get your
weakness. They’re going

to figure it out. So let’s
say I’m self-conscious.

I wear a hat because
I’m losing my hair.

But I’m not that self-conscious,
but if you make fun of it,

I’ll make fun of it. But
if a kid understands

that it is sensitive to
me, they absolutely 100%

will make fun of it
constantly until I break.

A man was arrested for
violating stalking laws for

sending six text messages
to his ex-girlfriend.

And I was like, “Oh,
that’s a weird title because

that doesn’t sound too
bad.” Like he sent six,

usually the text messages
stalking stories are,

I sent 500 messages a
day. It’s always, I sent

thousands of messages over the
course of a month or something.

So it’s always a lot.
And I was like six,

the number stuck to me, stuck
out to me as being very small.

Like this was like an
insignificant amount of text.

It would be very easy to ignore.

Then of course, we got
to see the content of some

of the texts like, “I’ll
never break up with you.

Breakups don’t have
to be too sighted.

” So she broke up with
you, then you’re broken up.

You don’t get to really
decide. I was like, “That

has an underpinning that
maybe we’re not a big fan

of. I’ll come and get
you.” That contextually,

since you’ve been broken
up, has a very different

meaning than like if I’m
going to come get you

as an pick you up and
drive you somewhere and

be a good guy, that’s
great. But since she’s broken

up with me and made
it very clear she doesn’t

want to speak to me
anymore, I’ll come and get you.

It takes on a very
different meaning.

Again, being an outside
reader of this, we have

to sort of like try to
be as neutral as possible.

So once you get context,
that makes a big difference.

I’m trying to sometimes
try to think like a cop would.

So I see this message.

I’m like, “Well, that can be
interpreted two ways we need to

understand the situation.”
But the situation is

that she had blocked him
on all the ways they had

talked to before and then he
started sending these messages.

So I will come and get you.

Yeah, that’s a threat. So
I’m coming to your home.

I do like that this guy
is not explicit in violence,

but everything he’s writing
doesn’t apply violence.

Like this is actually a
fairly well crafted threat

because you could say
once you get arrested

because you’re going
to get arrested for this,

you could say once
you get arrested that you

were not threatening,
you were just giving facts.

Like I’m coming to your
home. I’m coming to get you.

Like what does that
mean? That means I’m

like going to come and
pick you up or I’m going

to come and take you
somewhere. I think maybe

this guy was smart
enough that he was banking

on that working, but
any reasonable outsider

like myself would go,
“No, you’re threatening this

woman because she
blocked you and dumped you.

” The woman broke up
with him at the end of August

and having now seen
the way he’s responded to

being broken up with,
“I can’t fathom why she’s

such a charming personality.” It’s
clearly he’s got like sort of anger issues.

He can’t handle rejection
or he can’t handle being told

he doesn’t get what he
wants or something like that.

These, this response
demonstrates why he was

dumped in the first place.
And so he’s not taking

a moment to reflect
and be like, “Maybe I have

to improve myself as a
person.” He’s like, “No,

I’m going to lean into
it and be even worse.

” And that’ll get her
back. He said he was angry

at being ignored because
she had blocked him previously.

So I’m assuming
he got a different

phone or a different phone
number or something like that.

So he can start sending
text messages again.

Which again makes it
very clear the way he

must behave while
they were actually dating.

He said when he was
being arrested, I thought if I

send her scary messages,
she wouldn’t respond.

And that’s why I
used a strong language.

So he’s again, he now he’s
trying to say like, “I wasn’t

threatening her. I was just
trying to get her to react to me.

” Which again kind of demonstrates probably
why he was dumped in the first place.

“80 year old man goes into the bank.” And
he’s decided, “I’m going to rob this bank.

” At 9.25 a.m. on a
Tuesday, which I was like,

“Ah, I don’t think he’s
planned this very well.

” I don’t know when banks
have the most money in

their cash drawers. But
that is the kind of thing

you, if you’re going to rob
a bank, you should check.

So they’re going to have
ways of dumping the money.

They’re going to have ways of
taking money back to the safe.

They’re going to have
ways of taking the

money from the safe to a central
location or something like that.

So you need to figure out the peak time to
rob a bank. And I bet banks have actually

figured this out as
well and they try to like

randomize the times.
So that you never really

have peak money in
the cash, in the tills.

But at the same time,
they have to have a

certain amount of money
on hand. He held up the

teller, he took a gun
out, and he held up the

teller demanding cash, and
then the teller hit a silent alarm.

So again, I don’t know if this guy
had really done his planning. He’s 80.

Maybe he’s basing this on what
banks were back like when he

would have been like in
his youth, so 40 years ago.

So maybe he’s 80 years
old and he’s basing his

knowledge of how banks
are run back 40 years ago

when he was in his 40s
when he was just like

a regular adult. And
he doesn’t realize like

everything has been
updated. Like maybe he doesn’t

know that there are
silent alarms, the police

as soon as you start
watching movies, you actually

gain a lot of information
by watching like

heist movies and stuff and
know that silent alarms are a thing.

The police showed up and caught him
before he was even able to leave the bank.

It turns out he had a toy
gun. No one was injured,

but again, also probably because he
was 80 years old and using a toy gun.

Now I kind of ended that
last story with a gentle

joke, a jai, but the
fact that this man was

80 years old and therefore
not much of a threat

and he had a toy gun.
Well, we immediately have

another story of an 81
year old man who is a threat.

So I guess even if
you’re 80 year old,

we shouldn’t underestimate
your ability to threaten

or hurt other people.
A tax official started

going to this guy’s
house. He had to because

there was a claim against
him, so he hadn’t been

paying his taxes or something, or
he’d done something a little shady.

This guy needed to deal with some
tax issues. So a tax official shows up to

this guy’s house. The
guy, the 81 year old man,

attempts to run the tax
official down with his car.

In his car, he also
had a hunting rifle.

He had license for hunting
rifles. So he had, when the

police arrested him, he
had foreign the house,

I want to get more
details about this guy

because this guy, 81
years old, sounds hard core.

So I’m wondering what the, I’m betting
he just decided not to pay taxes anymore.

Is he 81 years old? He’s like,
I’ve paid a taxes for 80 years.

I’m not paying taxes anymore.

You guys go screw
yourself. Tax official shows

up. He’s like, you know
what? I’ve got to run

him down with my car. I
got a hunting rifle in the back.

Whatever. Like, who’s
going to stop me?

I’m 81 years old. I go to
jail. How long do I go to

jail for a life? Life could
be like three more years.

Guy’s going to be arrested
for driving without a license.

So that’s not a very big thing.

Like he get in
trouble. You get a fine.

I don’t know how much trouble
you actually get in for driving

without a license. He was
driving a car and a motorcycle.

Technically, two
different licenses.

But again, I think it
would just be rolled into

one thing, driving
without a license.

You pay a fine. I think
that’s pretty much it.

The police know where this
guy is. So they show up to a hotel.

He’s staying at with
a girl. They show up at

7.20 a.m. I think that’s
perfect time to show up.

I mean, that is like the
guy’s up and he’s around,

but he’s not really
aware and ready for like a

kerfuffle, which is exactly
what’s going to happen

when the police show
up. Please bang in the door

like hey, where the
cops cut lettuce in.

He decides in his underwear to
jump off the third story balcony,

hit the ground and run
away. There is so much

in that sentence,
though. So first of all,

he’s in his underwear.
And he’s like, I don’t have

time to put on anything
else. I’m just going to go.

I’m on the third story.
I can make that jump.

I’m like, that would already
be a hesitant thing for me.

I know three stories
isn’t technically that

much, but it’s also a
lot at the same time.

I’m assuming he’s hitting
the ground. Even if it’s a

grass, it’s not going
to be like cushiony soft.

That’s going to be
really, really rough.

But then he gets up from
the jump and just runs away.

So no twisted ankle, no
broken foot, no nothing

that either that or
his adrenaline so high,

he’s able to run through it. I’m just
kind of shocked by the whole deal here.

He was suspected of being
part of under you under you is

a semi organized
group of criminals now.

I actually had her story last
week where we talked about a

semi organized gang. And I was
really unclear on how that works.

This one I’ve heard of before.

This is basically a loose
gang of individuals who

are willing to commit
crimes and what they do is

connect on social media
when they are in the same area.

They commit a crime
to it with each other

and then they separate.
So it’s very hard for

the police to track down
the entire gang or any sort

of network because the
network is always changing

because I commit a crime
with you and then I move

on to another thing. And
then on the social media

I connect with someone else.
I commit a crime with them.

And then I get
the support I need.

I get to commit the
crimes. But then none of

us are actually tied to
each other too closely.

So it actually depends
on how active you are,

how dangerous you are.
So he was suspected of

being one of these guys.
They didn’t actually have

as much proof, but they
did have proof that he

it was driving without
a license. So that’s what

they were going to pick
him up for because he was

a member of this disorganized organized
crime, which is a great way of saying it.

11 cops were waiting
for him. Now the thing

is, what do you do?
You surround the building,

you sort of get sort
of people in the area,

that kind of thing because
you only need two or

three cops to take
one guy into custody.

When he jumps out the window
off the balcony, off he goes,

there were no cops out there.

They did not expect him to
jump out the balcony and get away.

So they had no cops
sort of around that side

of the building. I guess
they were all around

the front door expecting
him to use the front

door very politely as
they just walked him out.

He got away. There were 11 cops waiting
for him and he still got away. Secondary,

the cops all they have to do is put out an
APB on guy running around in his underwear.

And it’s going to be pretty obvious.
Like they should be getting calls.

Hey, I just saw a dude run
down my street in his underwear.

Hey, there’s a guy
in his underwear in

this convenience store
buying pants or something.

I can’t, can you buy
pants? I think you probably,

you can buy t-shirts
in underwear and socks.

I don’t know if you can buy
pants. Maybe you can buy shorts?

I don’t know. You can
buy almost a full thing

of clothing and it can
be in the store in Japan.

That is how Japan
convenience stores aren’t

literally more convenient
than anywhere else.

But at the end of the
day, this guy got away

and I got to say like
I rip on criminals a lot

of ninja news Japan. But
I got to tell you, I do have

some respect for this
guy who if he’s going to be,

he’s one of the better
criminals we’ve had on the show.

Okay, December
15th, a body was found.

It has been drowned. The
police suspected suicide,

but then they turned out
there was no real motive.

Like this guy didn’t
seem particularly

depressed when they
started looking into his life.

They’re like, there’s
no real reason for

this guy to have killed
himself. So now they’re

like, we got to figure
out if maybe there’s some

foul play at hand 10 days
after his death, a friend

of his takes 160,000 yen
out of his bank account.

That’s like a thousand
bucks, let’s say.

So the police are like, Hey,
why do you have access to

his bank account? Why
are you taking money out

of his bank account?
He’s been dead for 10 days.

That seems a little
suspicious. The man claims

he held the bank card
and obtained consent

before taking the money
out. He had the bank

card for sure because
he had to have the bank

card to actually get it,
but did he obtain consent?

This is now when it
gets really suspicious.

Why are you, how do
you have consent to take

money out of this dead
guy’s bank account?

Did you get consent
before or after he died?

That kind of thing. He did have
the number and he claims to

have been managing
this guy’s finances for

quite a long time. So
there’s actually like,

this is again, very
good crime if it’s a crime

because we actually 100%
don’t know if it’s a crime.

So this is to me, one
of the more interesting

bits of this, they say
they became friends 30

years ago because
they both like baseball.

So they were at baseball
games, they saw each other,

they started talking, they hung out, they
watched baseball at the same bar, whatever,

they became friends
over baseball 30 years ago,

they’ve been friends
for a very, very long time.

The friend was the beneficiary
of the dead man’s life insurance.

Life insurance doesn’t often pay
out if you commit suicide though.

So that’s actually a sole other
sort of issue. If he murdered

this guy for the life
insurance, then he had to

make it look like an
accident, whereas the police

immediately assumed suicide
because he was pushed into a river.

So that’s kind of the
first issue that I have.

I’m like, this is, is it murder or was it
an accident? Because it was a murder,

it wasn’t planned out
well enough, whereas this

guy seems to have had
access to everything else.

So it seems like he would
have been in a position

to make a good plan. They’ve
been friends for 30 years.

He trusts him completely.

He did actually seem to
trust him with his finances.

It actually would have
made more sense to rip

him off bit by bit since you
have access to his finances.

And then if you were going to try
to kill him for the insurance payout,

pushing me into a river
does seem like suicide in

Japan because it’s going
to be like jump in front

of a train, jump into a
river. These are pretty

fundamental ways to
kill yourself in Japan.

One month before the
man drowned, the friend

asked how he would
collect on the life insurance.

So that’s another very suspicious thing
to ask immediately before someone dies.

So this is, again, this pushes
it more towards murder.

But at the same time, the
guy had so much control over

the other guy’s life, the dead man’s life.
It seems like it’s, there, there’s so much

accessibility. It
seems suspicious.

But what if he actually
is doing the thing he said,

and the thing he said was like he was helping
take care of this guy as he got older,

he was getting out of shape. So we used
to go down to the river, work out together.

I, because he stayed at
home and never did anything.

I took care of his finances.

I helped no, he sounds like during
the 30 years, he was a very good friend.

And then near the end of the time, it
becomes suspicious because if this was an

accident, the suspicion
would naturally lay

like go towards this guy. To me, the most
suspicious aspect of this is that the man,

they were apparently
seeing each other all the time.

This man dies, and the
friend wasn’t the one

who called the police.
To me, that is the one that

pushes it towards murder
more than anything else

because it was 10 days
after the death, he took money

out of the bank. That
means he hadn’t had contact

with his friend, he loves and
manages his finances and whatever.

Over the last 10
days, that’s a very

long period of time not to
have contact with someone

you’re so close with and
then not get suspicious

and call the police. So
if he wanted to do this

murder correctly, he needs
to play into the fact that

he was essentially a
caretaker of his friend for the

last X amount of years,
and he is the one who would

be most likely to report it
to the police and therefore

get the police on the
track. But the problem is

then you are opening the
case. Maybe he was just

hoping he would disappear
and nobody would notice.

But then again, how
do you collect on the life

insurance if no one
knows the guy is dead?

So there’s a lot of question marks in this
one. I am going to follow up on this case

very carefully as
much as I can because I

actually think there might
be enough doubt here

that the man doesn’t get
prosecuted, which in the

case, he would still have
access to the bank accounts.

I don’t know how that
gets shut down in Japan or

not, but he could take out
as much as he wants now.

I guess the police probably at this point
have already taken the cash card away.

But it seems like he
has messed up this plan if

he actually did it, but
there is a big question mark.

Maybe he didn’t
actually do it, which is

what great murder
mysteries we’re all about.

If you want to join the
show for a segment, you

want to do a quiz, you
want to do some Japanese,

you want to do some fun stuff,
you want to just chat with me.

I would love to have
you on the show.

You can send a
message to speak pipe up.

You can send a message to
speakpipe.com/truckmanbeefchester

and email to chunkmanbeefchestergmail.com.
I love interacting with anybody.

That’s actually not true.
I gotta stop being so fucking literal.

I do love interacting with
everyone who enjoys the show.

That might be the
caveat that I need.

Interaction with people who listen
to the show is very motivating for me.

So I actually was like,
I gotta work tomorrow.

I was like, I just won’t
do an episode this week.

I got the message from Graham.

I’m really motivated to try to
get an episode out this week.

So your interaction helps me
produce more and better shows.

So thank you to
everyone who’s listening.

And if you want to be
on a segment, if you want

to just chat, if you
want to send a question,

speakpipe or Gmail, links
are in the description.

The link tree,
hopefully is all working.

I’m actually going to go
check that again right now.

If you want to join the
Discord, it’s not very active yet.

But again, I’m sort of just building
it from scratch at the moment.

And thank you for listening.
Thank you for giving me your time.

And if you listen to this one, you’re
going to sleep. It’s creepy, creepy time.

Mental Gymnastics

(upbeat music)

So I think it’s maybe getting
time for a new theme song.

So I just decided to try out
one of these AI generator things.

Just to see if it was any good.

So my prompt was news
intro, drums, and trumpets.

‘Cause you know, pretty much every new
show starts with like bam, bam, bam, bam.

(humming)

There you go, I should do it in my mouth.

Why am I, why am I getting AI?

When I have the natural
instrument of my body.

It was horrible.

Like every song was absolutely atrocious.

I had to do about eight
or 10, and not one of them

sounded even close to
what I would call music.

So musicians, you’re safe for
the next little while, at least.

I mean, I bet AI could at
this point generate the script

for this show, although almost
impossible because I don’t script it.

But you know what I mean?

If you fed all the ninja
news Japan’s from the past

into AI, it could
generate, if you take the,

I must be able to take
the news, take my style

of speaking and put it
together, clone my voice.

The podcast is automated now.

I don’t actually have to do anything.

But the theme song, you’re safe.

I’m still thinking about what to do.

I wanna pay people to do
it, but I don’t have money.

Like I’m not rich.

This is an update on a
story from previous week.

So we had our two gentlemen who
decided to graffiti Yes, Kuni Shrine.

I’ve talked about why.

Yes, Kuni Shrine is a controversial place
for people from primarily China in Korea.

We’ve talked about graffiti.

Is it bad?

And overall, basically, yes.

This guy, he sprayed, what did he spray?

It was dog poop, actually
could go back into my old notes.

I should’ve checked.

He sprayed what I would consider like
grade two level thoughts onto the shrine.

He was a little more honest about it.

The first guy was like,
this is a political statement.

The second guy’s like, I don’t like this.

I actually kind of
appreciate the honesty there.

He escaped back to China.

And so in my report, last time I was
like, he’s not going to get arrested.

No, he’s going to happen to him.

Chinese police do not care if
you’ve committed a crime in Japan.

You can read into that a
bunch of different ways,

but at the end of the day,
it is a fundamental truth.

But he did get arrested.

So I said he wasn’t going to get
arrested, but then he did get arrested.

But the reason he got arrested
for a different crime, of course.

So there is sort of a karmic
version of justice happening here.

He committed a crime
and he is being punished.

He has committed two crimes.

He’s being punished for one.

Does that count for both?

I think the criminal justice
system in China is pretty harsh.

So I’m going to go ahead and say yes.

The graffiti in Japan,
honestly, graffiti, how bad is it?

I don’t think you should graffiti
vandalize things, whatever.

But in the end of the day, how
many people are I still getting hurt?

You got to clean it up.

I would basically make the criminal
clean up the thing they graffiti.

That’s a pretty fair punishment.

He was arrested on suspicion of extortion.

He was threatening people involved
in online streams for shopping.

So China is very popular to have shopping
streams where you bring products out.

You talk about them.

You move it on people can buy that product.

And he apparently was trying
to intimidate these people

into getting them to put
money into a bank account.

So just essentially just
extorting them for money.

While I, of course, would judge
someone for graffitiing something.

I couldn’t understand the
politics behind graffitiing.

That’s a coony shrine.

I really can’t.

I wouldn’t do it, but I can understand it.

But when you get into extortion, it’s pretty
clear you’re just a bad person anyways.

And so there is not a lot
of a redemption arc here.

And I’m sure that Chinese justice
system is absolutely going to bury you.

So good luck to him.

A Japan Postman, I say
Postman because it’s a guy.

So I’m not trying to be sexist biased or
use my sort of older misogynistic style.

I was speaking.

It’s an actual Postman.

But also could be Postboy
because this Postman

was a teenager and I was like, wow, I
never thought about the age of Post people.

It’s kind of a neat thing.

But because I never thought about it
because in my image, they’re just adults.

But I don’t want to insult
people, male carriers.

And skill wise, you need to be able
to deliver male to certain addresses.

That is about it.

I’m sure there’s more to it.

Again, I feel like I’ve
already insulted someone.

I’m sorry.

I think it’s valuable job.

I think it’s important.

Japan Post is dedicated.

I once did an online thing.

It was probably for t-shirts or something.

And because the website, I put my
name in Japanese and Chinese characters.

So in Kanji, on the form, it
showed up as question marks.

So the Chinese script
wasn’t on the server

side of the system they were
using the payment system.

I guess they were set up for
only English perfectly makes sense.

They still sent it out because I assumed
the whole system was just automated.

Two months later, this package shows up.

All it has is my name in English and the
postal address and they still got it to me.

So that level of
dedication made me really,

really appreciate Japan Post as
a group of very dedicated people.

But now we get this story
and it’s a team who is hired.

So already it’s like,
maybe that’s the

problem, but also I
don’t think it’s like teens

are inherently lazy or
not capable or anything.

I don’t look at young people that way.

I look at individuals.

So this individual, the fact that it is a
teen, I think, is what got it to the front

of the news because it’s sort of playing
into people’s presuppositions about youth.

A teen Japanese postperson
dumped 2,378 letters

and 449 parcels in
seven different locations.

So over the course
of mid-June to July, so

that’d be about six weeks, just
like I can’t deliver all this mail.

So I’m just going to take it here.

I’m going to dump it.

I’m going to take it over here and dump it.

I’m going to take it over here.

1049 parcels, though, okay.

You’re a mail person.

You’re supposed to deliver the mail.

You decide you’re not
going to deliver the mail.

You start dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

If you’re going to commit, this is a crime.

I’m pretty sure this is a crime.

Just dumping the mail.

You have the parcels.

You might as well steal the parcels.

I know I every
regularly say I should not

give advice to criminals,
but then immediately

sorry giving advice
to criminals, but it’s

because I’m like the police officer
who gets into the criminal mindset.

I just want to be in their thought, but in
my head, I’m like, well, if you’re going to

throw it away, you might
as well profit from it.

There may be some
good stuff in the parcels.

Keep them.

You might as well even take
the mail home and open it.

Maybe someone sending
someone some money or something.

I’ve now realized that if
I became a postperson,

if I decided to just
start dumping stuff,

like I didn’t want to deliver the
mail, I didn’t want to do my job.

I would be like, well, let’s
take it home and I’ll go through

it and see if there’s anything
valuable that I could keep.

Less likely to get caught.

So the fact that he was dumping
it in seven locations outside.

So the report came in on July 31st.

Someone found mail
and parcels in between

house and a river, so
I didn’t write it down.

They found it, they
basically found one of

the places that the kid
was dumping the mail.

They called the post office and the police.

The post office talked to the
guy, he admitted to doing it.

He just said, I can’t
deliver all this mail.

You guys are crazy with all
the mail you expect me to deliver.

It’s too much.

Clearly should not have been a mail person.

So what they’ve done,
they didn’t arrest the kid.

I’m finding this the interesting part.

He’s not been arrested.

The post office is filing
for damages and that

means he’s going to have
to pay the equivalency

of whatever that all that stuff was
worth, so they have to work that out.

They found pretty much all
the mail could still be delivered.

There were three parcels
that were so damaged

probably because of rain or something
that they couldn’t read the address.

There’s three parcels
will not get delivered.

They’ve put the message out there.

If you are missing a parcel,
you can contact the post office.

Maybe they haven’t for you.

But at the end of the
day, it actually seems

like after 2,000 pieces
of mail go missing.

Someone should have
noticed a little sooner.

Japan, we’ve done a
lot of things about Japan.

Battening down the hatches.

There’s some good sailor talk
that I’ve learned from my father.

They get stricter.

Japan does not get
looser in its laws and rules.

They get stricter.

So what has happened?

Electric scooters became available.

They immediately started making
rules about electric scooters.

About a month ago, we did a story about
those little motorized suitcases you can sit

on and go through the –
supposed to be through

the airport, but some people
were riding them in the streets.

If you ride them in
the streets, they fall

under motorized vehicle
rules and you have to

have all these modifications to
make it legal to go on the streets.

Cycling, very common in Japan, you –
it’s a very convenient way to get around.

Because the trains are great,
but trains don’t go everywhere.

So if you take a train
somewhere, it’s often

more convenient to take a bicycle to your
final destination, not the movie franchise.

Why?

That didn’t even make sense.

Just as soon as I said final destination,
the movie comes into my head.

I have even watched those movies.

I know they’re all about like people
dying and they know they’re going to die.

I don’t care about that.

I don’t know.

I like horror movies.

I like movies.

I never cared about the
final destination series.

Maybe I should – maybe
I should be my – maybe

I’ve been overly judgmental
about something I haven’t seen.

So I gotta make some amends and
maybe actually go watch one of those.

There’s like six.

That’s a bad sign.

Anyways, cycling is very common.

So they have decided
to get a little stricter

with the rules for
riding your bicycle.

And it’s going to
be people riding their

bicycle drunk and people riding their
bicycle while looking at their phone.

So if you are cycling
while using your phone,

you can now get fees, fines,
not fees, fines and jail time.

If you are a repeat offender, you
have to go to bicycle safety school.

I go quite like that.

I bet it’s not very good.

I have the gold driver’s license

  • Japan has a tear system.

So if you have no reasons,
I don’t drive very much.

So I have never had accidents.

I’ve never had a ticket.

So I have gold.

My wife got one ticket.

She has blue.

It actually really bugs her that
I have gold and she has blue.

When I renew my license, I have to go in.

I think I have to just go in, change
it, maybe watch a 10-minute video.

But if you have blue, you’ve
got to watch the long video.

That’s literally punishment.

I love it so much because as I just
said, someone I know has to do it.

I don’t.

If you are a repeat offender,
you have to take a safety course.

I bet that course is miserable.

If you are found using
your phone on your

bicycle, it can be up to six months
in prison and a 10,000 yen fine.

If you found our
phone to be a threat to

pedestrians, so if you’re just riding
looking your phone, that’s a cry.

If you’re riding looking
at your phone and

you almost hit people, it can be
one year in prison and 300,000 yen.

So that’s a significant jump up.

So if you’re in danger in
other people, that’s a big deal.

If you’re drinking
and bicycling, it might

used to be, you’re not
allowed to drive drunk.

So riding your bicycle drunk
was therefore acceptable.

Now the only way acceptable to
travel while drunk would be walking.

It’s probably a good idea,
even that might be dangerous.

But if you’re drunk and you’re riding your
bicycle, it can be punished by up to three

years in prison and
half a million yen fine.

So they have decided that not
only are you going to be careful

on your bike, you’re going to
be sobering careful on your bike.

There are four options.

Okay.

So the story itself is
there is a reporter, a

lady reporter for
business sort of daily thing.

She was arrested for breaking stalker laws.

She texted a reporter
at another paper 64

times between August
17th and the 25th, which

I was like 64 sounds like a lot,
but that’s only eight texts a day.

That’s dedication.

I don’t know.

Eight texts.

I think if you and I had
a chat, it would be 50.

I guess it was just 64 initiating messages
where the guy didn’t really respond.

Anyway, like if it’s
on the session, 64 isn’t

it, but then if it’s 64 just you,
messages in a row, yeah, that’s a bit much.

That’s crazy.

Okay.

But that those 64
messages came after she

had been warned by the police not
to attempt to contact the man again.

So now you can see that 64 is way too many.

It is.

So the police show up and
they’re like, hey, don’t text this guy.

Okay, and all anymore.

And she’s like, okay,
well, just 64 more times.

The way she sent
messages, so this actually

implies to me because
the information was not

in the paper in the
news story, was not

overlined or a traditional
text messaging thing,

which would imply maybe
that he’s blocked around that.

She would send a message
via pay pay, the payment system.

She would send him
like one or two yet and

then the message she connected to it was
I want to see you or something like that.

So she sent 64 messages
through pay pay a payment system.

So for the American listeners
or whatever, it would be

like Google pay sending
it like a couple of pennies.

And then you can send why you sent
those pennies is like, I want to see you.

So she was actually paying
extra for each of those messages.

She’s pretty serious about it.

So her reason, so your job
is now to guess her reason for

continuing to send messages
after she had been blocked.

So I have four options.

One, I want to see you, but she
meant professionally, not personally.

B, it’s a payment app and
therefore they are not messages.

C, he didn’t block me, so like
he didn’t block me on pay pay.

So it must have been okay on pay pay.

Or D, it was for a story on stalking.

Man, so I don’t know how this story yet.

Good.

Because if you hear the
story, it kind of ruins the quiz.

This has been my biggest concern.

It hasn’t happened yet.

But my concern is I
start the quiz, get to

the quiz part and
they’re like, oh, but I’ve

heard this story and know the answer and
they haven’t like cut me off, in which case

I would have to abandon
the whole thing anyway.

But okay, you can ask
questions about the four options.

And again, the three that are not true, I
will try to make up real sounding answers.

Do you remember the options?

She basically got a restraining
order against this gun.

It was one step lower.

So the police warned
her that if you continue,

you’re going to be
breaking stalking laws.

He hadn’t officially
gotten a restraining order.

So there is maybe a little
legal wiggle room, but I

think the message was
very clear you need to stop.

The police had warned her, that’s yeah.

She’s clearly gone through pay pay,
just keeps sending messages, I don’t think.

I don’t know.

And I don’t know.

I’m walking on a mental gymnastics with
this level three still to go, be doing.

Does he see what do you have?

Okay.

So C was he didn’t block me
therefore, it must have been fine.

So he didn’t block me
on pay pay specifically.

Or it was for a story
I was doing on stalking

and just wanted to get
into the mind of a stalker.

Be is also pretty good mental
gymnastics, why is that right?

Yeah, it’s a payment app.

So I wasn’t sending messages.

I was sending payments
and you have to

connect a message like a thing to
the payment, like a receipt almost.

So the receipt was a I want to see
you, you can ask a couple of questions.

It’s hard to ask questions on this
one because it’s just guessing, I guess.

So the person she was
sending, the pay pay messages,

I don’t know, messages
to, is he also a stochist?

Is he also what is he also in
the same kind of a fashion?

Oh, he’s a reporter.

They are both reporters.

They work at different publications.

So I’m going to assume that they met
professionally somehow, like at the same, they

were at the same story
or at the same location

or a conference or something,
professionally, they overlapped personally.

They did not.

And I think I’m good
with D. D, it was for a

story I was doing on
stalking, is incorrect.

When she was arrested,
the statement she

made was, it’s true
that I sent him messages,

but I thought I’d been accepted
because he didn’t block me.

I’m not concerned by
the accusations, oh, I’m

sorry, I’m not convinced
by the accusations.

So she’s saying the police told me to stop.

He hadn’t blocked me
on pay pay, so therefore

I’m not convinced
he’s told the police.

So the police are just interfering
in her personal relationship.

They aren’t.

It has nothing to do with the guy.

She thinks that the police are
jealous of her relationship or something.

Well, they might, but
I mean, what other

logics are like, the
police have come and told

you stop messaging this guy, and she’s
like, well, wait a minute, he hasn’t blocked

me on pay pay and I
can send him messages

and then he gets those messages
and he hasn’t said anything.

Therefore I’m not convinced
that he told you to tell me to stop.

I see.

It was the line of mental gymnastics.

That was a, it’s a lot.

I mean, she’s gone
through the three or four

different justifications
to get to the point

where it’s like still acceptable for
me to send messages to this dude.

On pay pay pay, that’s the fact that it’s
on pay pay, a payment app really solidifies

to me that this, she
was not either he didn’t

give her his contact information
or he had blocked her elsewhere.

But because she saw
this one opening that did

you ever see the German
guy who was in love

with like a kpop band,
it was a video online.

That’s probably like pre
pandemics for like five, six years ago.

He’s, he’s doing
his justification, he’s

basically been given a
restraining order and he

says, ah, this restraining order wasn’t
given to me by the woman I am stalking.

It was given to me by
the management company.

So it’s the management
company trying to stop me, not her.

It’s sure that Naio
likes me and that she

wants me to come back
to Korea and here is why.

So first of all, at the start of this
year, I received a restraining order.

At this restraining order was not from
Naio, it came from JYP Entertainment.

It did not come from Naio
and JYP Entertainment

tried to destroy my image
and tried to intentionally

scare Naio away from me because they feared
that Naio might neglect her job if me and

Naio start a relationship,
but obviously that

would not be the case
because I would obviously

support Naio’s job as
an idol and stay with

her in Korea so that she can still
focus all her time for her career.

Secondly, I always have treated Naio with a
lot of respect and I truly, truly love Naio

with all my heart and I am working really
hard all the time trying to make Naio happy

and trying to make her
realize that I truly love her.

So why would she hate me
that would not make any sense?

I know one time I
accidentally leaked Cheyong’s

phone number and I admit it was a
mistake and I apologized for that already.

And I know that there
are a lot of fake news about

me on the internet
created from unprofessional

news outlets who
try to gain views with

click-pake titles and fake
rumors to make money out of it.

But Naio is smart enough
to know that there are

a lot of fake news
about me on the internet.

Naio knows that I am a
good person and Naio knows

that I am in love with
her for almost years now.

So like he is convinced in his head that
the girl does love him back or would accept

him but it is the management
company that is interfering.

Yeah they are just
going to stop us getting

together, the management companies and
scares that I am going to take her away.

That does seem like
it and so this seems

like on the same kind
of thinking, it is like

the police are trying to
stop us from getting together.

Why?

So in the other one, the management
company would be losing an asset.

So she falls in love
with this guy and they

disappear and she is not
going to do music anymore.

But in this case, the
police, why would they

bother to interfere with
a personal relationship?

They do not care.

If you ever get a message
on pay pay from me

and you don’t block
me, I hope you realize

what you have actually
done is just open that door.

I mean yeah, pay pay is also a
messaging app, it is time to figure.

I actually did an interview with another
podcast this morning called Requiem Radio.

So that should actually be
out this afternoon or tomorrow.

So if you are listening
to this, you want to

hear another two hours of
this noise coming out of my face.

You can listen to that as well.

He had another two hours of just me
and another guy we are talking about.

We talked about movies
and comics and anime

and we talked about Japan and
we talked about YouTube and stuff.

So some new interesting insights into me.

If you don’t get enough of listening to my
voice every single week, multiple podcasts

and YouTube channels
in Jesus, I bet it’s a lot.

Anyways, feel free to
check out Requiem Radio.

You get another two hours
of chunk of beef chest.

Don’t know why that popped into my head.

I think I had a link that has
now gone because I was talking.

There’s a city hall and they
were keeping Excel sheets.

Japan loves Excel sheets.

They use Excel sheets inappropriately.

Like they use Excel sheets
that should be Word documents.

I don’t know why, but just Japan, Japanese
companies, something about it, something

about Excel, really is attractive
to them as the catch all document.

Maybe it’s the cells.

I don’t know.

I find it frustrating
not because it’s wrong

or bad, but I’m like
this actually would

be more comprehensible as a Word
document than it is in Excel sheet.

And then the Excel
sheets I often get at work

are gigantic, like
incomprehensibly large.

So how am I supposed to actually
get any information out of this?

They don’t seem to understand that Excel
sheets are used to contain information.

And then make that
information more digestible.

That seems that last step, the
step that makes Excel sheets in

my mind useful is the one they
don’t seem to have adopted yet.

It’s very relevant.

Like most Japanese
offices, this city hall was

keeping an Excel sheet
on staff performance.

Between 2020 and 2022,
it was called Progress

Report and it was
delivered to the department

head every week or two so that they
could check the progress of employees.

This was about a specific employee.

There were multiple
categories, like words and

actions, so I guess if they said
inappropriate or appropriate things.

In the sufficient abilities, quite
direct, but stuff you’re not good at.

The marks were then
put into the Excel sheet,

making fun of one of the
employees’ appearance.

So one of the statements was, the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

Another statement was, his underwear can
be seen from under his polo shirt’s hem.

It’s disgusting.

It took me a moment
because was that, at

first I was like, is that
you’re tucking your

shirt into your underwear and the
underwear hikes up out of your pants?

I was like, no, because
it’s from under the

hem, so it sounds like the polo shirt is
too short and you can see his underwear.

Anyways, someone felt
that that was inappropriate,

instead of speaking
to the man, put it

into an Excel sheet that would go
as a report to the department head.

The thing is, this was
on a public network

within the city hall,
which means eventually,

of course, the man,
in this case of the

victim, found it, found the comments,
and then saw it as power harassment.

He reported the
harassment, the conclusion of

the investigation was
the document itself was

a measure necessary for smooth and proper
performance and therefore not harassment.

So what they’re saying is, this document’s
intent, so keeping track of things people

do well, keeping track
of things people do not

do well, so that we
can give them feedback.

That is appropriate.

They do continue, though.

However, it contained
sentiments unrelated to

duties, so his hair looking bad, his
underwear are sticking out of his pants.

That does not impact his actual ability to
do his job, like whether I like it or not,

is irrelevant and therefore,
that did constitute harassment.

They did meeting with the department head.

The department head, at
first, he said, “It’s just facts.

We only put facts in there, but the
back of his head looks like a bird’s nest.

That’s an opinion.

In May or May not, I don’t know why I would
have to see a picture, and then you have

to show me a picture of a bird’s nest and
put them together to actually see if that

is factual, but his
underwear is sticking up

also, I guess that is
technically a fact, but

I think he was trying
to cover it up, but

then they said, you
know, let’s dig into it.

This is harassment.

When it became out
that this was harassment,

it kind of changed
his tune a little bit

to claiming he did not know
about the tab with the comments.

So he’s claiming that he was given this
Excel sheet every single week or so, that it

had comments added to
it every single week or so.

He claims that this
thing he was sent every

week with new added
comments every single week.

He didn’t know that there was
this one tab, just the one tab.

I looked at all the other
tabs, didn’t look at this one

tab that had the harassment
in it, so I didn’t know.

So I think maybe he’s
being a little dishonest.

I think maybe this guy actually has a
case that this is a former harassment.

Now, the department
head would have been very

justified in sitting down, have a
conversation with him about his appearance.

You just have to be
very sensitive about it.

And you have to realize
like, does this matter?

So in a lot of jobs, how you look will
not negatively impact your performance.

This is what work from
home is actually taught us.

Like if you’re working on a computer,
let’s just say software programming.

If you’re in your pajamas, it does not
negatively impact your performance.

In some cases, being
comfortable might even

increase your performance,
but it’s irrelevant.

So I think this might
be a case where could

they have dealt with
this more deftly, probably.

What they could have
had is really sincere

conversation, maybe
constructive criticism of

how we could help you in the future,
maybe we can make some recommendations.

Maybe when you’re
underwears hiked up, we

could actually suddenly
take you to the side

and be like, hey, you
might want to pull your

shirt down and your
pants up or something.

It’s about 11 p.m. and I’ll always 20/3.

And a guy works for Yomi
Udi, he’s a cameraman,

and he’s out at this
time, he’s working.

So he’s riding on his
bike, and he goes to a

place where he needs
to take some pictures.

And there’s some guy skateboarding
there, and he’s like, fuck these guys.

So he starts a fight
with three skateboarders,

and I’m going to assume the
skateboarders are younger.

Skateboarders do tend to be younger.

But one of the things I
know as a former skateboarder

myself, when I was in
my teens, skateboarders

band together and they have big pieces of
wood with metal tight, like stock to them.

So it’s never a good
idea to mess with us

skateboarder because
the other skateboarders

are going to join in
to defend their friend,

and they have big
pieces of wood with metal

screwed into it, that
they can then hit you with.

The cameraman then kicked
one of the skateboarders.

Now the skateboarders,
good boys to be honest,

they did not retaliate,
they just chased

them down, they did
not like attack them, he

tried to escape, he ended up getting
caught, no one else got hurt any further.

The police show up and they’re like, hey,
you’re not allowed to kick skateboarders.

I know some people
might consider them a

lower class of citizen, but you’re
still not allowed to kick skateboarders.

He said it’s not fair
that I’m working while

they’re playing, while
others are playing.

So he’s saying that because I
have to work at 11.30, no one

else should be allowed to have
a good time at 11.30 at night.

If I’m working, everyone else should be
working, no one should be having any fun.

That is unreasonable, and not a
reason to go around kicking people.

And I actually think he might be lucky he
got off as light as he did, because I think

what’s going through his
head, like how frustrated he is.

One of the things we
talk about is work life

balance, and again, yeah,
this guy is working at 11.

30 at night, when he doesn’t
clearly want to be working,

is what’s setting him off,
attacking other human beings.

He just, he got to set limits,
he can’t work all the time,

but then I guess that’s again
the Japanese work life style.

Okay, we’re getting into the darker stuff.

I’ve decided, okay, I
did a Seamig B episode,

and it was about murder
in Japan and on YouTube,

it got like 20 times more views
than any other video I post.

I usually get like
double digit views on the

podcast, because this is an audio format,
and that’s where most of the audience is.

It was never really
taken off, because I think

anyone who listens
to this, they’re listening

on podcasts, but to
try to make it worth

listening to, I had like
comments and stuff.

I used to not do any
murder on this, because

I tried to be so
flippant, and I realized

I’m not actually that
flippant, I just talk

and then give my opinion
and maybe make a joke.

So I did this episode
of Seamig B on murder,

and it got like triple
digits, 450 or 60 was

the last number I saw, which is
a huge increase from let’s say 25.

So I was like, well, there’s
no reason to shy away

from murder if that’s what
people want to hear about.

So in Indonesia, Japan going forward,
basically no topics off the table.

I just think if it’s got murder, I
probably will just make less jokes.

It will just be more fact stated,
maybe an opinion here or there.

But if that’s what
people enjoy, I mean, I

was hesitant, because I wanted to make
jokes, but I’m like, ah, still make jokes.

It actually is very obvious.

Here I am 300 in whatever
episodes later, just

figuring out I can
decide not to make jokes.

I can decide not to be flippant.

It’s a revelation for me.

I always feel like you have to, you have
to make jokes, you have to be flippant.

There’s a ferry that connects Japan
and South Korea, it’s about 200 kilometers.

It’s a passenger ferry.

So you get on in Japan
and you take this nice

boat ride, it’s probably
about a few hours,

and then you get off in
South Korea, you go on

holiday, Koreans do the same
thing, they come to Japan.

And I actually think it’d probably be on
a good weather, very nice way to travel.

And staff member was returning to
her room, and she found her door open.

Now she thought, ah, I closed my door.

Then she found her underwear
drawer open, she’s like, that’s weird.

Clearly if she thinks
she’s closed her door,

she’s the kind of
person who closes things,

not like my son, who now has gone into this
weird habit of just leaving drawers open,

which I’ve asked him
to close the drawers and

he looked at me and he
goes, no one’s going to die.

My immediate response was of
course, you will, if I see this open again.

That’s parenting.

So this is a room, a
birth on a boat, so the

bed has a curtain around it so
you can block out light and stuff.

She pulls back the
curtain and she finds a

30 year old man, first engineer on
the boat, attempting to hide in the room.

First of all, I’m going to be
really honest, terrible hiding spot.

There’s not going to be a lot of
places to hide in a room on a boat.

They’re going to be small
and very tightly packed.

But closing the
curtain to the only really

usable piece of furniture
in the room, I assume,

is not a good hiding
place, you get under the

bed, get behind the
bed, get above the curtain

maybe even, I don’t
know, something like that.

Then maybe you’d have a chance, I’m not
even, they’re still not successful, they’re

going to catch you,
but imagine just pulling

back the curtain,
there’s just like this

30 year old man, they’re going,
hmm, kind of just stole your own D’s.

He kept in game and could talk into and he
admitted to doing it, he quit the next day.

So they were like
saying, let’s not involve

the police, please no
charges, they actually

talk to the girl and they
said, please don’t press

charges, he’s going to quit,
he’s off the boat, he’s gone.

She was a little torn
because he’s like, we’re

worried about the
reputation of the boat,

we’re worried about
the duties, operations of

what’s going on, this is
going to negatively impact us.

So they were trying
to pressure her into not

pressing charges to
try to keep it quiet.

I think that’s really it.

I had a whole other idea though, if they
press charges, is this international law?

Is it maritime law?

Is it the South Korean jurisdiction
or the Japanese jurisdiction?

Because I believe it’s a Japanese
boat in South Korean waters.

So is it the Japanese
boat means they should

report to the Japanese police because it’s
Japanese citizen who would get arrested?

It was a South Korean staff
member who had her underwear stolen.

So should they report
to the South Korean

authorities that a South Korean person
had had a crime committed on them?

Should they call interpol
and solve it that way, just have

interpol international police
come in and just deal with it?

Should they do maritime law?

Now, I didn’t look up
maritime law for theft.

I actually do enjoy maritime law
because often it’s very, very logical.

So maritime law does
have a lot to do with intent.

So there’s float some in jetsam in this.

So basically your boat is
sinking, you throw stuff off.

If you threw it off, it becomes salvage.

If you threw it off with the intent
to come back for it, it’s not salvage.

So salvage you if you come across
it, you can find it and just take it.

It’s not salvage, you have to
give it back as maritime law.

So intent became the most important factor
when it came to float some in jetsam.

There’s also the stuff that syncs.

I forget there’s two names for that too.

Again, for the same,
some has been abandoned

and there’s no
expectation that it’ll come

back and then some they
intend to come back and get it.

That actually makes a huge difference as to
whether or not you are allowed to keep it

because some is salvage,
some is not salvage.

In this case though,
the Japanese guy clearly

intended to steal, so
that makes him a pirate.

So he should be treated like a pirate.

Now he didn’t do any of
the swashbuckling cool stuff

to escape because he should
have been able to escape.

So I think he should
be treated like a pirate

and how do you balance
it out to make it fair?

Yeah.

Walk the plank.

It’s the only answer.

Oh, I did the song too, sir.

I didn’t know what keel hauling was.

Keel hauling is when
they would drop you

over the front of the
boat and then drag you

under the entirety of the boat and then you
got to think there’s barnacles and stuff.

The stuff they scraped off.

Barnacles are sharp.

They cut you and then
this was before engines

and then you would come
up the backside of the boat.

If you’re still alive, that
was your punishment,

but most people
died in that process.

They could keel hauling
him but see, there might

not be barnacles because
of modern technology

but there is a big frickin
propeller engine at the back.

So if he survives that,
then God is on his side.

Anyways, we’ve got to
move on to the last story.

In 83 year old woman living in a care
facility in Fukuoka, she entered her room and

she found a stranger, someone sleeping
in her room and she became furious.

So she decided to do
the only logical thing.

She walked up and
started just punching her,

leading to the woman’s
death because it was

another older woman who
was sleeping in her bed.

Now it turns out the 83 year old
woman had entered the wrong room.

That is a very, very interesting
set of circumstances for this death.

So she’s walked into a room.

I’m going to give her
that it’s night in its

dark because the other one was
already sleeping in her own room.

If she had looked
around, she might have

noticed that this isn’t
my stuff, but at the

same time if it was dark, maybe
she didn’t because it’s a care facility.

So every room is probably
set up basically the same way.

So it would be a pretty easy mistake
to make, but I think it’s very clear.

You see someone sleeping in a
bed beating them is not the answer.

She should have gone
and gotten security and

then gotten them to check and
get the person out of the room.

And then she could turn around
because you make the same assumption.

Maybe that person came
into my room by accident

and went to sleep because these are
all older people they might get confused.

They might have sort of early
onset dementia or something like that.

Who knows?

But immediately going to
fist a cuffs on a sleeping

person who is defenseless
is an unreasonable reaction.

So the beating led to
this other woman’s death.

She was arrested.

into introducing murder
as a story into the podcast.

So I cut it off pretty quick.

I don’t want to talk
about it too much until

I get comfortable with where I want
to go and how much I want to say.

You can see this is a slightly
new direction for the podcast.

Trouble in Paradise

It’s the first case in Japan.

I didn’t take the time to actually check if
this has been prosecuted anywhere else.

This is something I maybe have to add into
my research phase is when we talk about the

first case of something
in Japan, that doesn’t

mean it’s the first
case of that same thing

in the world, but new laws, new prosecutions
are always very interesting to me.

At least have arrested
a woman for riding an

electric suitcase on the
sidewalk without a license.

I think that’s one of
those things where you’re

going to go ahead and
do you need a license

to ride an electric suitcase
if you don’t know what that is.

It’s a suitcase that’s electric.

It’s a suitcase with a small
motor in it that powers the wheels.

In Japan, they get really strict about
things that are vehicles that you can ride.

We’ve done the stories about people
getting in trouble for bicycle laws.

We’ve done stories about
people riding scooters,

electric scooters, and
getting arrested for that.

And do you need a license for it?

It’s a bit of a gray
zone because licensing

doesn’t include electric
suitcases, but then

the counter argument is
does a suitcase need a license?

Obviously in this case,
the police think it does.

The police have arrested this person
for violating the Road Traffic Act.

Even though they were
riding on the sidewalk,

so if you ride your
bicycle on the sidewalk,

if you ride your scooter
on the sidewalk, the

road laws still apply
to you and you might

actually be getting
in trouble for riding on

the sidewalk when very technically
you should be riding on the road.

I don’t think this is one of those
things that’s actually written down.

That might actually be the main problem.

The maximum speed.

This was a nice point of issue
because like, is it dangerous?

Are you going to hurt somebody?

The maximum speed of
the electric suitcases was

10 kilometers an hour or
about 10 kilometers an hour.

I’m actually betting
with the wheels that

small on a sidewalk,
you couldn’t go that fast

because I bet every time you hit a crack in
the sidewalk, you stop or have to lift it

up.

I used the skateboard
and the small wheels meant

like any tiny divot you
hit were problematic,

but I think the actual
problem is that this

electric suitcases does not
meet Japanese safety stands.

So this was a tourist who
came from overseas and

was riding on their suitcase and this
suitcase was not considered safe in Japan.

So that’s one of
those things where it’s

like, okay, last week I
talked about how Japan

has these weird rules
where if you go to another

country because it
was some skateboarders

and they went to another
country where it was

legal for them to drink
and they were drinking

and then the coach got
in trouble because like

you shouldn’t be letting
them drink because

it’s not legal in Japan and
they’re like, but we’re not in Japan.

So you can see this like circular
argument goes around for a bit.

In this case, I think
it’s a bit more clear cut.

You bring something from
another country to Japan.

It has to meet Japanese safety standards
or you shouldn’t be allowed to use it.

So I think that might
be the core issue, but

because electric suitcases don’t have laws
written for them, they’re like, oh, well,

what are we going to
like dingham on so we

can get this thing off
the road so it’s safe.

The tourist, the woman, denies the charge.

So she’s just saying like, no, I
did not violate the road traffic act.

She does not consider
electric suitcase a vehicle.

Now, I thought that
was a very interesting

defense because the
logic she’s using is like,

I don’t think this is
a vehicle, therefore

I should not be punished
under vehicle laws.

Except that’s not how laws work.

Like if I don’t consider
something theft,

doesn’t mean the police are
not going to arrest me for it.

It doesn’t mean I’m not
going to get prosecuted for it.

If I walk into a store
and I pick up a Playstation

and I just start
walking out of the store

and they go like, hey, you’re stealing,
I go, well, I don’t consider this theft.

That’s not going to be a
very solid defense, I think.

I think.

I mean, I haven’t tried it yet.

Maybe a more adventurous listener out there
might want to go out and give it a shot.

I don’t think this is going to
hold up in court is what I’m saying.

I don’t consider it
a vehicle, therefore I

should not get in
trouble for riding a vehicle.

I feel like there’s, there’s
another joke to me made there.

It’s a really dumb thing to get in
trouble for riding an electric vehicle.

But yeah, if you’re going
to bring stuff to another

country, you got to abide
by those countries rules.

This is actually a conversation I’ve
had with Americans who come to Japan.

They seem to think the American laws
follow them as they understand them.

And again, just like me, I
don’t claim to be a law expert.

Most of the laws I’ve
learned about America, for

sure, have come from
television and television

is not exactly 100% accurate
and everything it presents to you.

So, it’s not the best source of your
legal information is maybe what I’m saying.

But we, I did have a
conversation with an

American talking about
Miranda rights and they

seem to be confused as to why they don’t
read you your Miranda rights in Japan.

And I had to explain they don’t
have Miranda rights in Japan.

He’s like, well, no, you
have to have Miranda rights.

I’m like, yes, in America, you
have to have Miranda rights.

In Japan, they legally can hold
you for 20 some days for no reason.

And he was like, well, no, that’s legal.

I’m like, in America, that
might be illegal in Japan.

That’s fine.

So, there are people
who travel and they

seem to think the laws from
back home travel with them.

This woman might have thought, ah,
my electric suitcase is safe in China.

So therefore, it’s safe everywhere else in
the world that those rules travel with me.

But in Japan, maybe
much higher safety standard

laws for tiny electric
suitcase engines.

I think they’re just not allowed at all.

I actually haven’t seen any.

I’m sure they’re around.

I don’t know how they’re classified.

So that’s actually maybe the
issue is the classification issue.

Are they a vehicle?

Is it luggage?

Is it a toy?

Once that settled, the
decision could actually

be made as to whether or
not she’s committed to crime.

But they’re saying you’re
writing this on the sidewalk.

It’s on the sidewalk.

Therefore, it falls under the traffic act.

I think she might be a little screwed.

The Japanese Olympic outfits.

All these countries
now, the Olympics are

coming up there,
demonstrating their displaying.

They’re like, here are
our new Olympic outfits.

And they always, I don’t know, it’s
a little like polo Ralph Lauren for me.

Hey, these are athletes, and
I want to look kind of sporty.

They always come out
with a jacket suit thing.

And I’m always like, okay, it looks fine.

But it’s got to be in
your country’s colors.

Japan is luckily just
has red and white, so it’s

pretty simple, solid,
color scheme to work with.

They’ve also done their training outfits.

And their outfits are
going to have a new

technology that will
block infrared cameras.

And this is because of a
problem that’s occurring in Japan.

It’s carried over to the
Olympics and there might

be a variety of creepy
people at the Olympics.

You’re never going to
get away from the creepy

guys, you’re never
going to get away from

the creepy guys.

That’s just sort of a fact of life.

So the new material absorbs
infrared light similar to stealth aircraft.

So why are they going
to such lengths using

stealth aircraft technology
woven into these athletes uniforms?

Well, it’s because what they found is there
are these creepy dudes and they get these

telephoto lenses with
infrared technology

and there’s also
smartphones that can do it.

When I actually read
this article because as

I do the articles, I was
trying to get two or three.

One of them actually said
what phone has this capability?

And I was like, you
are literally advertising

the creepy technology
to the creepy guys.

So I actually, I didn’t
write it down, but I

was like mentally
going like, well, I’m not

going to promote the
ability to, but no one

of this is an engineering
experience creepy.

They’ve all learned
the lessons from this

via other people who’ve
made these mistakes,

although we do have a very naive young man
coming up at the end, essentially with the

infrared technology because of the
heat of the body, they can act as x-rays.

So what was happening
in track and field

meets primarily was as the
athletes were being athletic.

These guys would take pictures
and they’d find that it could

x-ray through their clothes and
they could see their underwear.

It didn’t really seem to do
much else or if the clothes

were a little loose, you could
see the shape of the body.

So these guys were
taking these pictures,

posting them on the internet and putting
very sexualized captions underneath.

In 2020, the athletes complained.

So the last Olympics,
the athletes actually

complained to the Olympic
committee after finding

picks of themselves online with sexual
comments underneath and sexual captions.

This is primarily come from the
volleyball and track and field team.

I want to chalk it up to research.

I did look at some videos and
track and field came up and it

wasn’t like any sort of perverted
thing that I was looking at.

It was just some track and field stuff.

The YouTube algorithm
immediately started sending me to

overtly sexualized versions
of track and field things.

Like it wasn’t people
doing track and field.

It was track and field
athletes walking, pulling

their shorts out of their butt,
stretching and stuff like that.

And I was like, okay,
the algorithm isn’t helping.

That might be just because there are
so many creepy people on the internet.

The internet is very much
figured out that I’m a dude.

So as soon as I
look at anything, it

immediately tries to
like, can I connect this to

a sexual version of this and
try to get me interested in that?

It’s one of the reasons I have
multiple YouTube channels and I

have decided to make each
YouTube channel algorithm work for me.

So what I actually realized
just now is I need to make

a algorithm that brings
me the creepy news for this.

So like when I do
research or try to find

videos or news articles
and things, and it’s

going to have a creepy element, I
could keep that to one algorithm.

So the algorithm that I
actually want about me,

like my actual interests,
is separate from that.

Because I have one of my channels.

I’ve only looked at
movie trailers and so in

the algorithm now just
constantly is pulling movie trailer.

So I don’t have to search for them anymore.

I was like, I should be
manipulating the algorithm more.

But now actually,
yeah, I should also try to

protect myself by having
a separate algorithm

for this slightly creepy news so that
maybe it doesn’t reflect so badly on me.

Cops and Shimane are
now officially allowed to

wear sunglasses and
drink liquids while on duty.

So interesting sort
of structure of what

happens is it’s not like
they weren’t allowed

to wear sunglasses
before and it’s not like

they weren’t allowed
to get drinks before, but

it was looked down upon so
a lot of police wouldn’t do it.

The sunglasses, we can
separate these into two issues.

The sunglasses issue,
very much like tattoos

and Japan, sunglasses as an
image is connected to criminality.

So if you have tattoos
in Japan, they think you’ve

committed a crime or been
to jail or something like that.

That’s a pretty
well-established thing from Japan.

A lot of young people are now
growing up with tattoos as common.

That opinion is slightly changing.

Sunglasses are similar.

So any sort of yakuza
movie you want or any

sort of yakuza thing or
anything with criminals

in it, the criminals will
probably wear sunglasses.

When they make posters and the poster
has a criminal on it, there’s two versions.

There’s the old-fashioned
one, which is going

to have him like constructing
a mask out of a handkerchief.

And then there’s the modern one,
which is him wearing sunglasses.

So in Japanese culture, sunglasses are just
directly connected to criminal behavior.

Sunglasses, there’s a
very other weird thing.

This is a society
thing or a cultural thing.

They think you can only wear
sunglasses in the summertime.

So I actually wear
sunglasses in the winter,

because when they’re
snow and it’s very bright,

the sun actually hits
the snow and then

comes up in your eyes, this is
a thing called snow blindness.

So it’s actually a really good idea
to wear sunglasses in the winter.

I would wear them in the
winter on my way walking to

the station or my way into
work or something like that.

Coworkers would always go,
“Why are you wearing sunglasses?

” It’s cold outside.

And I’m like, sunglasses
aren’t designed or

their function is not to protect you
or to keep you cool in the summertime.

They are to protect
your eyes from brightness,

which is outside right
now because we have

a sun and snow, which is actually
making the brightness worse.

And you can see that
they were kind of shaking

their heads at me like,
weird, dumb, foreign

guy wearing his
sunglasses in the wintertime

and I was like, “Okay,
I mean just go blind.

I don’t care.

It’s none of my business.

” But I’ve actually had
that experience directly.

The drinks, now there
was a couple of stories.

We did it.

They made me six months ago.

The idea was that if you
wanted to go get a drink, you had

to go to the cobon, which is
the little sort of area office.

You had to sit down, you had
to change your clothes, go buy

drinks and then come back
and change back in your uniform.

They didn’t want officers in uniform going
to convene the stores because they didn’t

want it to look like the officers
were just slacking off or hanging out.

You had to look like you were a
good civil servant doing your job.

There was a picture.

I think it was some American or Canadian
cops and they were out in the summertime.

They both have sunglasses
on and they both got

big things to Starbucks and they’re
standing talking to some people.

And this was a big thing in
Japan like, “Is this acceptable?

Is this allowed?

Why are they able to do this?

” People and it’s summertime
and they have to be able to see.

And it’s summertime
and they need to hydrate.

So then being able
to drink water or juice

or something else like
maybe a sports drink,

that’s really important so they
don’t get heat stroke and stuff.

Sunglasses, so they
can see, these are

actually pretty basic
things in other countries

in Japan because
of these associations.

It was frowned upon.

What the police did
in Shimane is they

actually wrote it into
the rules that they are

allowed to wear sunglasses and
they are allowed to go buy drinks.

Should anyone actually
complain that someone’s

wearing sunglasses or buying drinks, they
can now actually say it’s actually in the

rule book that this is
acceptable or as before

it wasn’t and so it was frowned
upon so a lot of cops didn’t do it.

So this is a shift in
culture being supported

by the police to make them
hopefully more effective.

So like, yeah, they’re
not dehydrated and they

can see, those are
two really big elements

of being a good cop, I
assume, I have no idea.

They are introducing new Japanese
bank notes, I believe it’s tomorrow.

This is July 2nd when this episode is being
released, July 3rd, I think is the day the

new Japanese or it’s the
7th, anyway, it’s very soon as

this week, new Japanese
paper money is being released.

They are going to release a new 1000 yen
note, a new 5000 yen note and a new 10,000

yen note which is basically all the
money, paper money you use in Japan.

They used to have a
2000 yen note, it didn’t last

very long, it actually
caused a lot of problems.

An example of a
problem, this is causing,

there’s a ramen shop,
no, a lot of ramen shops,

you don’t actually go
up and order, you don’t

sit down at a table,
you go to a machine

and you put your money in the machine and
then you get a ticket and you sit down and

just give your ticket and then they
don’t actually interact with you very much.

For a lot of people,
that’s actually part

of the appeal of the
ramen experience, let’s say.

New money means that these
machines will not accept the new money.

So we had this with the 500 yen coin was
updated and so it’s a different way, it’s

a different material, it’s a different size
which means if you put it in a machine,

the machine won’t accept
it, it’ll just spit it out again.

With the money, it’s
the same thing, so these

like ramen shop owners
were the first ones to complain.

This is not just
exclusively ramen shop, that

was the first story, the first
example and it’s a really good example.

His business relies
on this machine that

takes money so that he doesn’t have to
spend his time taking money from people, it

actually takes the
place of a cash register.

So that means he has
to replace that machine

and he’s complaining
that will the government

subsidize him replacing
the machine because it

can cost a lot of money
to replace machines.

If you have a chain of
ramen shops, you have

to replace the machine in
every one of those shops.

If you have any other
service that just takes

machines, I’m trying
to think of ones I use.

When I go to the Judo
Club, I go to a sports

center, I have to put
money in the machine now,

I pay 200 yen, so I
usually try to bring 200

yen, but it accepts bills, that
machine has to be replaced.

Or they’re just going to
put a note on it that says

this doesn’t accept the
new thousand yen notes yet.

But there’s going to be a point where every
machine that accepts bills, which is a lot

of machines, the biggest one
that I can think of is drink machines.

Every corner you go to in
Japan has a drink machine.

Every one of those machines
accepts thousand yen notes.

You can put a thousand
yen note into every Coke

machine you see, every
vending machine you see.

Every one of those either
has to be updated or changed.

I don’t know how they read it.

I don’t know if they read
security features or they check

the material or what, but
that’s going to be problematic.

I haven’t heard anything
from Coca-Cola or

any of these big
companies that actually run

all these vending
machines, so I’m wondering

if they just check a
security feature on

the bill, whereas the
ramen shop owner has a

different machine that
checks it a different way.

I don’t know about any of that.

All I know is that these new bills,
introducing new money, always causes problems.

It’s a good thing.

We’re not in England
because the Queen died.

They have to update all the
money, the King Charles is old.

They’re going to have to
update the money pretty soon.

This is not a quiz in the way I’ve done
the other ones, it’s not multiple choice.

I’m going to give you
more of a dilemma and

see if you can, I kind
of want your solution

to the dilemma and then I need you to guess
what the, we can kind of work through what

the other person’s
solution to this dilemma was.

You have a 20 year old
young man and this is 2024,

so understanding the
availability of technology

I think is important to this story, like
we have the internet, we have cell phones.

We have lots of ways to get lots
of different kinds of information.

Yeah, okay.

You’re pretty big, which is a, yeah,
you’re pretty comfortable with that.

Even us as like fathers,
older men, let’s say,

we still can find what
we want on the internet.

We can like, if you need information,
you can get that information.

Yeah, I’m not at the
point of my parents, but

I don’t understand the
technology around me.

Good.

This young man, 20
years old, I would say a

younger person more attuned to technology
and the availability on the internet and

whatnot, his desire was
to see a naked woman.

Oh.

What do you think
he did to achieve this

purpose of seeing a naked
woman on the internet?

I did not say that, it’s
in my immediate solution.

I think your immediate
solution and mine would

be if I want to see a naked woman,
I would find one on the internet.

Yeah, well, like open the
chat with all of my wife’s in it.

Okay.

Yeah, I don’t think he has a wife.

He doesn’t, he doesn’t have
that option available to him.

So I mean, we’ll grant it that that you
do have that option that he does not have.

So he can’t do the same thing.

And this is a Japanese young man.

This is a Japanese, this
is didn’t you use Japan?

He’s not a ninja, but he is Japanese.

He’s certainly not an ninja.

That might even be it.

I have this really,
but just instantly in my

head, I’m like, he went into a
girl’s locker room and tried to hide.

Okay, he went into is correct.

A girl’s is also correct,
but it is not a locker room.

That may have been where you got caught.

Toilet is not a toilet.

Ah, they wouldn’t have to be
naked in the toilet would they?

No, he wants a naked lady.

Yeah.

So where are some place?

I’m a locker room.

Not a locker room.

I believe what happened because
again, the actual story was a tad spartan.

I believe what happened
was in the locker

area, the changing room
area is where someone

may have noticed that
this was not a woman.

So that’s a bunch of little hints in there.

You got to use it.

It’s some detective work.

He was in a locker
room area when someone

noticed that he wasn’t
female, like a changing

room of source was
at a clothing store.

Oh, no, no, you’ve gotten further away.

I think locker room is way more accurate.

Wow.

Why else is there a locker room at the gym
when you need to see you’re getting closer.

So it’s a place.

Yeah, you got to obviously women
women are going to be naked.

I would actually.

Okay, second hit, the
women will be naked

for an extended period
of time in this place.

Having him a better opportunity, they won’t
be naked for an extended period of time.

Yes.

Where are people naked for an
extended period of time in Japan?

Oh, it’s a hot spring.

It’s similar to a hot spring.

Let’s say you’re in the city.

Oh, okay.

So it’s a center.

Yes.

Okay.

So he decided he woke up one morning.

He’s like, I want to see a naked lady.

I’m going to go to
the female side of the

center for listeners who don’t
know what the word center means.

It is a public bath.

It’s like a building.

You’ll have a male side and a female side.

It’s a public bath where you go and
take a bath and you’re with other people.

So you see naked people.

If you are interested in the opposite sex,
you would have to get to the other side.

How did he get to the other side?

He just went through the door.

Oh, no.

No, no.

No, no.

There you go.

He dressed up as a woman.

Yeah.

So the woman’s locker
room, and it was in the

woman’s locker room
where someone went, he’s

wearing a long wig, like a wig with
long hair, but really did like badly.

It seems that way because
he was noticed really quickly.

And we got, I saw a
picture of the guy, he’s

not particularly masculine
or particularly the feminine.

So I was like, if he
put some work in it, he

could have gotten
away with it for a while.

But he was caught not
immediately, but very

quickly someone
realized like this is not a

woman in the in the
changing room for the sento.

So he was, they called the authorities,
they showed up pretty quickly.

He was arrested.

And they said, why did you do this?

He said, I wanted to
see a naked woman and

like a real flesh blood, I guess the internet
just wasn’t doing it for him anymore.

Yeah.

Like he just, he’s just, I don’t want
to encourage this, but don’t do that.

You could, you could go to a show
you could, like there are other ones there.

There are other avenues
to see real live naked

women, if you really want
to, without getting arrested.

There was a dispute between a made
cafe and a curry shop in Akihabara.

This is maybe the most Japanese story I’ve
ever done in the entirety of Ninja News

Japan history.

They did a collaboration.

So you have a made cafe and
they’re going to say like we’re

going to basically loan out
our maids to this curry shop.

And they will do stuff
in the curry shop and like

increase the, the people
go to the curry shop.

We’re going to see the maids
and like, hey, these maids are fun.

Let’s go to the made cafe.

People go to the made cafe, but like, hey,
you can get curry from this curry shop.

You know, win, win, win.

Not necessarily.

There’s always problems
and paradise that the

made cafe is saying that the
dispatch fees have not been paid.

So they are supposed
to pay a certain amount

of money to dispatch a
maid to the curry place.

The cafe claims it is owed 250,000 yet.

Now the reason the conflict here is because
it seems like the made cafes were refusing

to do some of the tasks
that the curry place,

the curry restaurant
was asking them to do.

These include soliciting customers.

So you have to stand outside and say like,
come on in, come have some delicious curry

with the cute maid, preparing
salad and not doing dishes.

So the maids refused
to just solicit customers.

The maids refused to wash the dishes.

The maids refused to prepare the salad.

And the curry place is saying, this
is all part of working in a curry place.

You gotta do all these things if
you actually want to work here.

And the maids are
saying, this wasn’t in the

contract we made when
we did this collaboration.

Therefore we’re not going to do it.

So right now with the information
I have, I’m on the maid side.

If it’s not in the contract, you
shouldn’t be asking them to do it.

They don’t have to do it.

But the curry house is saying
they’re going to sue the maid cafe.

So this is an interesting
thing because if

this is all based on
contractual stuff, it’s

going to be pretty clear cut
when the contract comes out.

But I bet the problem is
the contract isn’t that airtight.

It’s said like work at
or service or help or

assist and it wasn’t
specific in the roles.

So the maid cafe probably told their staffs
one thing and then when they got to the

curry house, they were told a
different thing and now it’s problematic.

This is going to start a war.

This is the only thing.

I want to see a maid war
in the middle of Akiobada.

So man in Hokkaido.

It’s Hokkaido.

It’s a safe place, all our bare stories are
from Hokkaido, but don’t worry about that.

He goes out.

It’s like 6.30.

He goes out.

He doesn’t lock his door.

Small town.

Hokkaido, whatever.

Cool.

It’s peaceful.

Later a woman enters
his house and a neighbor

calls the police
and says like, I think

there’s someone in
my friend’s house or my

neighbor’s house who
isn’t supposed to be here.

Can you go check it out?

Please show up and
they’re like, hey, he’s

supposed to be here
and the lady goes, yeah.

And then the guy comes back.

He’s like, I don’t know this lady,
so please get her out of my house.

She was arrested and when
she was arrested, they asked

her, you know, why did
you go into that guy’s house?

She said, I was told to enter the
house by my spouse by telepathy.

So I did.

I don’t know how you argue that.

The telepathy is one of those weird things
like, if you’re hearing something, is it

because I’m crazy or is it
because I’m actually receiving

a message, you’re going
to believe you’re not crazy.

So you’re actually receiving a message.

So I just really enjoyed that little, that,
that is a defense was a very interesting

thing because we very hard
to prove one way or the other.

[MUSIC]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Podcast Name de wa nai

(upbeat music)

Japan’s having a lot
of issues with tourists,

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

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

The weak yen is actually making it

so that people can
come here and spend a lot

more money, which is
good for the economy.

They are finding, though, that again,

these cultural issues
tend to crop up regularly,

and so now cities are
starting to make some changes.

Shibuya, probably famous
for being a party place.

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

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

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

I’m Canadian.

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

In Japan, that is technically legal.

That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable,

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

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

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

“therefore I can
do it all the time.

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

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

It is fun and exciting.

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

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

“We’re taking the shinkansen.

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

“That’s kind of like
a tradition almost.

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

in public, but is it
socially acceptable?

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

not necessarily what
is socially acceptable.

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

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

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

because the previous year
there was basically a riot.

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

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

It just went way too far.

This wasn’t foreigners, though.

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

So at first, it was just Halloween.

Then it was Halloween and New Year’s.

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

It’s going to be all year round.

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

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

So what happens?

Japan has a very interesting
way of dealing with laws.

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

because you haven’t
changed the national law.

It’s just been prohibited locally.

So if a police officer approaches you

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

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

This is actually what happened.

I remember this, I was a teenager,

and if we went downtown
in Ottawa for Canada today,

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

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

usually underage people or
teenagers and stuff, drinking, they

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

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

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

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

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

So it’s between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Which means if you really
want to push the limits

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

have lunch drinks in Shibuya
and get wrecked in public.

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

If you want to be one of those people,

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

and get super drunk
in the middle of Shibuya

in the middle of the day
and then when the police

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

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

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

for a public disturbance
or obstruction of business.

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

But what they’re actually
doing by not making

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

Do we need to make punishments?

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

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

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

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

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

Then they’ll start doing jail time.

Then they’ll start increasing
punishments over time.

And that’s how Japan
tries to find a balance

between the rules
they’re making and reality.

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

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

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

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

As we’re going to hear in
our gubernatorial election

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

Welcome to the quiz.

Yes, I need to get some no-pass.

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

So you may have read that
this is actually something

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

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

But there was a thing called
the Ninja certification exam.

Have you heard about that?

Has it a Ninja new certification?

No, completely unrelated.

I am planning on suing.

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

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

the headline and don’t
actually read the details.

I waited on the podcast.

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

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

It’s a written test.

There are three levels that
cover history and ninjitsu.

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

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

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

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

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

at the lowest level,
the lowest level ninjas

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

There are three options, OK?

A, hit a target with a shoot again.

A B, cosplays a ninja.

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

Do you know what I mean?

No.

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

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

fingers and then curl
your fingers in a monkey.

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

So you could hit a
target with a shoot again,

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

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

You can ask questions, we can have a chat.

Yeah, what kind of spells
are we talking about?

Well, it’s like a joke spell.

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

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

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

Right, OK.

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

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

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

actually technically
say what the exam for.

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

And they have tour guides
who dress up as ninja.

I went to visit it.

And they have like the female ninja,

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

But they have like a ninja show.

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

built that shows like the
hidden passages and stuff.

So there are tourist opportunities.

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

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

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

Right, OK.

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

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

Hitting the target would shoot again.

That was my initial thought.

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

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

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

And I had to throw a thing at a thing.

Yeah.

So did you hit it?

No, no, way more important.

Forget the quiz.

How did you do it?

Oh, good.

Because at Iga Castle, I went there too.

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

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

So it was actually surprisingly hard.

I got the t-shirt.

It was a medium.

But I didn’t complain.

I was happy to win a free t-shirt.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I did it.

And I stuck in the thing in the target.

That’s pretty good.

The guy said that was so goy.

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

Well, you could take the test at least.

The written test.

Of course, it’s a written test.

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

There’s always a written test.

Yeah.

Cosplay is an ninja.

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

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

So it is, but is that worth extra points?

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

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

I personally think
that’s the lamest option.

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

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

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

You already went.

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

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

This is some heavy
thinking we got going on.

Yes.

Straticizing.

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

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

Yes.

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

I’m wearing black.

Yeah.

But the hand gesture
thing does take a bit

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

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

There are 81 hand symbols
and nine primary ones.

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

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

And I honestly couldn’t do it.

My fingers are not nimble enough.

So that sounds like
it’s higher level than…

I felt like that was actually kind of hard.

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

But then again, Japan is a safety country.

Are they going to let
basic trainees do that?

I’m going to start hucking stuff around.

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

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

Where is this?

Right.

You are incorrect.

It is B.

It is the lamest one.

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

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

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

Yeah.

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

that exam to not put
that effort in, though.

But it was also only the low level ones.

I guess there’s an
expectation that the

higher level ones are
doing, because there

are three levels,
which I would like an ex.

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

much explanation that goes
into these sort of fluff stories.

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

” Nice.

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

Surely.

Well, unless they have
the test on a different

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

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

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

Right.

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

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

That would be my guess.

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

How many participants, middle of that?

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

It would include all three levels.

Are all three levels all written?

What they were talking
about is the answer is yes.

It was an exam.

There were three levels
of the written exam.

Thank you.

How many, so how many sought the test?

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

I’m going to say 47.

47.

How did you came to that note?

How did you come to that number?

Well, I think it’s Japan-wide.

It is Japan-wide.

Twoism is booming, so
there’s probably a need

for people dressed as ninjas,
plastic ninja stars around.

Yep.

I agree with all that.

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

that a company that
I used to work for

usually brought in around
100 teachers a year.

Mm-hmm.

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

That’s what that was my thinking.

It is 124.

Ah, I thought a lot
of ninjas had a whole

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

That is true.

We don’t get the failure rate.

I was trying to look
up for any sort of

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

So I didn’t get how
many actual ninjas passed

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

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

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

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

Yeah.

And, yeah, Kenji might
have turned up and he

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

Yeah, he didn’t get those extra points.

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

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

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

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

That’s true.

I figured the high
level for extra points,

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

Haha, yeah.

It just appears.

I don’t want you to come from.

Yeah, yeah.

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

an elaborate underground tunnel
system without anyone knowing?

Without anyone knowing.

Yeah.

I was like, I wonder if
other countries have

like like there’s a
like the Italy has like

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

They need people to dress up.

Yeah.

Because Canada has
Edmonton, Edmonton has

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

So they got to have people
dressed up as cowboys.

Now, in that area,
people dress up as

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

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

paper exam for it,
because I think in Calgary

stampede, which is
what this festival is

called, they’re getting
actual people who

work with cows, like
they’re actual cowboys.

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

to do some tests here
to get a higher level.

There’s a paper test in Japan.

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

like presentation thing
of showing how to do

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

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

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

What’s this?

There’s always a test.

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

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

I’ve had students in
the past, they wanted

to be tour guides, take
like a world heritage

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

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

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

the Taj Mahal of Japan,
which is what they

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

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

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

All right, well thank you
for your participation,

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

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

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

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

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

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

450,000 of those people
were foreign tourists,

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

and it was like a million
Japanese people and

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

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

The mayor is suggesting
that foreigners only

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

are saying, why would you
charge foreigners more?

This is one of the
issues that’s going on

restaurant, some
restaurants are deciding to

charge foreign people
more, we did a story

previously where if you
were a foreign person, there

was a foreign menu
with a foreign price, and

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

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

The mayor’s justifying
this suggestion by

saying he’s comparing
it to the Louvre or spots

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

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

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

again, foreigners have
to pay a certain amount

of money to go see
things in Egypt, whereas

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

He’s also justifying
it by saying they need

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

foreigners find out they
pay more money for this

attraction where locals pay
the same amount of money,

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

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

increasing their price
for less people to show

up, and maybe less
making less money overall.

It’s very hard to tell.

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

the discussion phase
now, or B, do other

places start taking on
this model where then

any tourist who comes
to Japan suddenly is

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

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

What do they do with me?

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

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

How do you know the difference?

I do have a residential card.

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

That probably would
be enough to get me to

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

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

We’re going to talk about bears.

Bears have actually cropped
up a lot in stories recently.

Bears versus Japan.

There was a town.

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

They have like hunters associations.

These are the people
who legally own firearms.

They can go out and
hunt animals and that would

include bears that have
encroached on society.

So you got bears coming
into towns, you need

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

These are the guys you got to call.

You got to pay these guys.

Now hunting a bear,
fighting a bear essentially

is dangerous and this
town and the hunting

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

They wanted to give
them 3000 yen danger pay.

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

” I’ll give you 30 bucks.

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

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

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

It’s not really worth it.

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

Now I guess you call
the cops, but the cops

again, they have
very small pistols and

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

So that means the
bear now in this town has

free rein in a different
city in Fukui, a bear

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

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

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

It is getting close to summertime.

It’s hot.

Maybe trying to get some
air flow through whatever.

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

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

Pretty good move on her part.

I don’t know if she did a flip.

I don’t know why I suddenly thought that.

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

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

So the cops then surround the house.

They’re on standby outside the house.

That was it.

There was no follow up.

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

They don’t say anything happens.

So if we take this
story at face value, those

cops are still standing
outside that house.

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

We see our houses as safe places.

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

Then once a bear is
come into your house and

he’s lived in your
house for maybe as long

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

What happens then?

Do you feel safe in your house anymore?

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

That kind of thing?

Who knows?

Yeah, I don’t know how I’d feel.

I don’t deep sleep.

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

bedroom in the basement,
which was really cool.

He liked to build stuff.

I like to be slitter
apart from the family

because I was a
rebellious, weird little kid.

I was like nine years old.

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

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

generally go in through one of
those little basement windows.

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

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

I screamed or freaked out and he ran away.

Very technically nothing
happened, but also someone

broke into the house
and stepped on my head.

Since then, fairly
traumatic experience, I

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

Any sound that happens
during the night, I

will wake up and this
is like 40 years later.

And that’s it.

It’s just the rest of my life.

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a bear.

So you’re walking along the coast.

You’re with your family.

It’s really nice.

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

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

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

The ocean is going pretty hard.

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

So they get some nets
and stuff down so they

can help him climb up
and they help the kid

climb up first and
then the man climbs up.

He saved his kid’s life.

That’s pretty awesome.

The parents wanted his
name to say thank you.

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

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

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

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

I found a wallet turned it into the cops.

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

So this is a normal
Japanese thing to want to

say thank you in some
way, usually by sending

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

The Filipino man said,
and this is a phrase

that he probably learned
from anime, this being

a non native Japanese
speaker, there’s already an

assumption that he’s
using this sentence because

he’s either watched
a ton of old samurai

movies or he’s really
into anime where they

say this kind of thing
translated into English.

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

So when you win the
big fight, when you save

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

This is the phrase
you use in these sort of

old movies and in your
anime and in your manga.

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

an example of an anime
character saying it so

I can copy that because
I’m sure my inflections

wrong and my spacing
of the words is wrong.

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

that you can get it and
you can practice this.

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

So you can take that,
take some time, practice

it, coerce it to yourself,
maybe find some

examples of it on the
internet and awesome.

You can now say this
really cool thing, but

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

just walk around
saying that, you have to

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

something cool and then
saying something cool.

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

that he said this
after doing this really

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

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

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

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

And so I once gave my
judo suit, both related

to judo, of course,
I once gave my judo

suit to my wife because
she was going to wash

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

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

That was awesome.

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

And then once I was
doing like a meeting

with some people who
just come to Japan, and

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

What do you do?

I do judo tatata.

Everyone goes, have you ever broken a bone?

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

Ah, that was awesome again.

For me, it was legitimate inquiry.

Have I ever broken
one of my own bones or

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

But because again, it
was unintentionally cool.

I didn’t try to be cool.

It was actually way cooler that way.

Scandal.

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

Some top Japanese skateboarders
took part in underage drinking.

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

It is basically at
that point in life, I

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

of my life is going to be
professional skateboarder.

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

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

No, I wasn’t that good.

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

I was very, very good
for a complete amateur,

but I was nowhere
near professional quality.

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

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

I was good.

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

This was during an Olympic
qualification trip to China.

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

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

So I think this is what happened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Japan has got
this weird idea of holding

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

They have said that
if you go to a place like

Canada where marijuana
is illegal and you

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

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

They say if you go
overseas and you create

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

And so this is it.

They have this weird idea.

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

That might be why
these guys are just getting

trouble because they are representatives
of Japan in another country.

So they’re probably partially
funded by the government.

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

you probably have
taken money from the

government, which does
mean the government does

have a little say in
how you behave or sees

you sort of like an
ambassador to your country.

You have to behave
better that kind of thing.

One of the skateboarders
themselves were

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

He didn’t get fired.

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

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

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

They’re taking care of themselves.

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

So I think reprimanding
the coach, having

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

I think that’s fair.

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

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

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

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

I cannot hear the voices out there.

When I was a skateboarder
and I was 14, 15

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

It’s actually funny.

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

It seems like 13, 14 is really normal.

I had one beer.

I don’t like beer.

I don’t do acquired tastes.

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

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

So that’s actually probably a good thing.

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

And it was, we’re on
to the gubernatorial

election news and this
is actually quite a lot.

And aid to the current
Tokyo governor, Yudical

Koike, claims that
she faked her degree.

How do you become the
governor of a prefecture?

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

So now there’s this
big thing out there like

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

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

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

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

Now, I looked at that sentence.

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

I look very carefully
at what they’re actually

saying because that’s
the more interesting thing.

How they say it.

What they’re saying is the important part.

In this case, she has
not denied the allegation.

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

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

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

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

She started posting
short videos of her

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

It’s actually an AI
version of her moving her

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

And that is an interesting
thing because now

these videos of her
explaining things can

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

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

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

Should she be doing it personally?

Is this good enough?

Is AI a threat?

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

We should use technologies
that are available to us.

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

And then of course,
the first set of comments

under her videos are,
did you have AI generate

your degree from the
University of Cairo?

Which is awesome.

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

So in Japan, most of
your election knowledge,

most of my an actual
election knowledge

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

America dominates the news
cycle even in other countries.

So a lot of what I
understand of politics is

influenced by heavily
by the American system.

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

There’s a lot of TV advertising stuff.

Japan has very strict rules.

You can’t really do the same thing.

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

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

You can’t just plaster
posters or ads everywhere.

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

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

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

It’s some very Japanese
looking businessman,

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

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

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

So they’re trying to
put as much personality

as they can into a very
awkward photo shoot.

This system has been hijacked in Tokyo.

56 people have entered
and they can put up posters.

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

Now this is not the actual NHK party.

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

you had to pay fees to this
national broadcasting company.

They’ve become a party
that’s essentially trolling

politics, trying to get
messages out there

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

kind of important because
there are things people

are either embarrassed
or too shy to talk about.

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

She took up half the slots.

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

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

boxer, not even like I
want to be governor.

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

you should follow me on
Instagram and watch me kickbox.

Another candidate
got a warning from the

police for making a
poster that is of an almost

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

Their platform is talking
about censorship in Japan.

This is the same group.

I did this story
previously, but I can’t

remember how long ago,
where they talked about

how if Japan would open
up its censorship laws

and not use pixelization
in their pornography

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

We have done stories
where it’s like the

ranking of pornography
has come out from Pornhub

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

So this guy is saying
we should capitalize on

this love for this thing
our country does make

and we are holding it back
by being too conservative.

He’s teamed up with
actress Sakurai Miyu, a

very specific kind of
actress if we’re going

to be clear and they
wanted to end nudity

censorship laws and
promote freedom of expression.

Because she was basically
naked, I think they had

little flowers over the bits
that need to be censored.

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

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

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

allowed to put those
posters up, I’m going

to pivot to making
cannabis legal in Shibuya.

So marijuana cannabis is illegal in Japan.

It’s actually still very seriously.

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

It’s just drugs bad.

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

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

board, which a lot
of people are like ah,

that you know other
countries they like grade

it like marijuana is
not as bad as heroin in

Japan that’s considered
like a slippery slope.

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

You did a bad thing.

You get the exact same sentence.

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

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

If you wanted to do
this seriously he should

just wear a suit and
look as normal as possible

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

salacious on the posters
and I bet you’d get

a lot of support because
one of the hardest

things to do is it
takes something that is

essentially embarrassing
like I look at pornography

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

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

If there is an economic
gain for the country

by doing this thing it
might be worth doing.

Sure regulate the industry.

I actually have no problem with that.

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

paint and tries to look
at the Joker and stuff

it immediately goes well
why would I take you seriously.

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

might be considered a
side issue into the forefront.

Of course there’s commentary.

The news did interviews
with people on the

street and one man says
it does not communicate

their policies at all
and I was like well no

it does because the
kick box or her policy

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

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

to make kickboxing
like a national thing

that everyone has to
do which would be crazy.

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

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

There were a lot of
complaints that they were

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

actually on board with
that which is another

reason to do it in a
more serious vein where

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

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

Thank you.

you you.

you.

you you you you you

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

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

Does mean the
government does mean the

government does mean
the government does have it.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

Dueling Mt Fuji

(upbeat music)

  • It’s a copyright law.

Last week I talked about frivolous case.

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

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

Because it was a lady who took images

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

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

Mainly it was personally
used to run onto the internet.

Now this case this week is a bit different.

This week there was a
flyer for a mayor mayoral

candidate which sort
of changes the context.

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

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

That could be copyright infringement,

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

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

A mayor using promotional materials

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s just that’s kind of thing.

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

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

agree with the person
using their theme song.

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

Now what they did was they
took the poster as basically

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

and then they kind of
softened up their bodies

so they looked a little more
like physically appropriate.

They didn’t really look
like basketball players.

It’s imagine you took
some slam dunk characters

and made them out of
wax and then put them

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

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

But the uniforms, the
positioning and whatnot,

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

This I actually think is a very good idea.

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

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

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

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

Is this acceptable to you?

Maybe we have to throw
you some money, something.

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

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

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

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

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

They should actually be upholding
those laws that they make.

This poster went out, they got in trouble

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

took full responsibility,
apologized for it,

took down the poster
and then changed it up.

No, of course they didn’t.

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

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

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

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

(upbeat music)

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

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

There were five teen boys.

They were all about 17, 18 years old.

They were all arrested and
they were arrested for doing.

I didn’t think doing was a thing.

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

There are laws because
doing used to be a thing.

And it used to be legal.

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

going around shooting each
other with pistols anymore.

So we have to make it illegal.

So if you look up like
the last time there was

a duel it was actually
surprisingly recent.

There are states in America where if you,

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

I believe Washington stays
actually allows you to duel

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

But in Japan, again, having
all the samurai culture

and people whipping out
swords and cutting each other

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

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

dueling is illegal in Japan under 1889 law.

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

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

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

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

It looks quite cool.

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

And it actually says
in Kanji, in Chinese

characters, beat
Nagasaki prefectural police.

And they both groups wanted this helmet.

And it actually seemed
to be one against four.

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

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

of a different gang and
they fought over this helmet.

They fought in a multi-story parking lot,

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

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

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

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

They do have the firearm and sword laws.

So having swords, very
much equates to cutting off

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

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

Police were alerted when
someone called and reported.

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

So it seems like four against one.

So it seems like they fought.

They were fighting over this helmet.

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

They took off his clothes
and then he ran away,

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

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

I’m actually okay with that.

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

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

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

That is arranging a duel.

That’s why it fell under this law.

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

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

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

Four guys show up against one.

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

So I think those four guys
should get more troubled

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

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

the Denise used pen,
giving advice to criminals.

I practice judo.

I go to judo two, three times a week.

Like I do it very regularly.

I fight people all the time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

(clock ticking)

So welcome to the quiz.

  • Yeah.
  • Okay, good response.

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

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

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

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

So there are four choices.

Okay.

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

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

(laughing)

So back, do you wanna hear it again?

(mumbling)

Okay, so we have four options, A,

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

B, the mayor is a cancer on this session.

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

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

Okay, so I have questions.

  • We can talk about it, yes, yeah.

This is not like a hard quiz thing.

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

So this might be a bit of telling about me.

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

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

So both were men.

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

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

still have meetings, all
send instructions and stuff.

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

is they weren’t letting
someone take over the

role in the intermediate
time, in the interim.

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

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

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

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

I want a moratorium on old politicians.

And I think government
decides the age of retirement

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

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

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

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

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

Why are they even allowed?

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, you got to pick ABCD.

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

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

  • Yeah.

All right, one more time, A.

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

The mayor’s cancer this session.

I wrote them down.

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

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

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

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

  • 100% correct on the first try.

That is amazing.

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

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

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

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

asked if he wanted to
correct his statement?

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

What do you think he said?

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

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

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

that is trying to reframe
it, he doubles down.

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

What do you think he said the second time?

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

I’m going to give you
an opportunity to retract

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

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

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

I said what I said, and here we go.

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

So he’s one of the, he was frustrated

because the guy is trying
to run the city government

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

It would be better if he just died.

Then the next day,
there was a bigger meeting

and he did apologize
because I’m betting someone

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

Wishing the mayor was dead.

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

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

where he actually
formally has to apologize.

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

so it never existed,
which is of course,

my favorite political
move, that didn’t happen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, God.

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

I mean, I think everyone
has wished someone dead,

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

I’m not going to say it out loud.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like, I have a mouth.

So, you’ve talked to me before.

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

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

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

I can see that for sure, but this dude,

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

This is, I hope he dies.

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

So they keep track of this.

So, Mount Fuji has come in the news lately

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

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

Japanese, I think every
Japanese person does

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

There’s one where you
started like three, four

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

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

I have never walked up Mount Fuji.

I’ve lived in Japan for 20 years.

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

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

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

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

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

is maybe if I could see
other mountains and vistas

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

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

the mountain itself
than actually climb up it.

That is the logic I use.

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

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

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

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

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

But they started keeping track in 1961.

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

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

four weeks of stories, have
been tourist behaving badly.

People trying to stop
tourists from crossing the line

of what’s considered
proper decorum in Japan.

It’s pretty reasonable.

Like it’s pretty sensible stuff.

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

not Japanese and they end
up offending locals and stuff.

But of course, how
many foreigners got stuck?

145.

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

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

this is all foreigners getting
stuck on the mountains,

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

It is 99% Japanese people.

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

790 of the people were in their 70s,

and people over 60s
accounted for more than half.

So it actually seems like
older people are thinking,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

go mountains, not being
able to get back down.

That makes perfect sense.

Since we’re talking a little stats,

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

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

We do talk a lot about scams.

There’s a lot of scams in Japan.

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

every country, are always
trying to steal your money.

That’s something you should be aware of.

Peace loving Japan,
they still want your money,

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

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

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

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

This is mostly from people 50 plus.

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

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

They think someone’s
saying something to me.

I’m going to believe what they say.

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

And that’s a bit annoying.

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

awareness course that could
be offered to older people?

Like, how do you recognize the scam?

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

I did get scammed
out of a little bit of

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

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

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

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

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

That’s not actually a terrible thing.

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

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

so that you can actually
be aware of possible scams.

There’s a lot of subscriptions,
service complaints.

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

You subscribe to something,
and then you decide

you don’t want the
subscription service anymore.

And it’s really hard to
quit the subscription.

They like try to like lock you in.

A lot of gyms are famous for this.

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

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

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

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

The biggest scams in
social media in Japan

right now are foreign
exchange market trading.

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

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

so I put more cryptocurrency
into the plan, and

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

So, by giving me
that first return, I was

now very confident
that this was not a scam.

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

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

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

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

and then when it
was a bigger number,

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

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

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

We can’t withdraw your money.

You have to do this.

You have to do this.

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

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

” And then it was
very clearly a scam.

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

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

So, you put your money
into the foreign exchange

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

Luxury bags off fake websites.

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

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

Couldn’t cancel subscriptions?

The kind of subscriptions
they’re talking about?

Cosmetics.

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

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

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

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

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

You can’t find a way to cancel it.

There’s no unsubscribe button.

You can’t cancel anything.

They just keep charging your
credit card again and again.

Or health food.

So, it’s actually interesting to me.

These things that are essentially
maybe praying upon insecurities.

I want to be healthier.

I want to be younger.

I want to look better.

Those are the places
where they start scams.

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

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

Suspicious phone calls, mostly
real estate and construction.

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

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

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

Don’t get scammed.

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

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

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

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

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

You know what I did, actually.

I had a credit card
that was going to expire

and I subscribed to
all these things that

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

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

And that’s it.

I got out of it.

So it would be great
if the credit card

companies would create
like a one-year credit card.

So it works.

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

new credit card, not the
old one just continued.

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

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

Okay, this is the last story of the day.

A Japanese pianist
was arrested for, I should

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

So when he was on
the airplane, he has the

cabin attendants, the
stewardess is the stuff.

And they wear aprons
when they’re cooking or

making stuff in the
back and maybe I assume

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

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

That’s actually a pretty
big fetish in Japan.

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

He apparently got caught and got arrested.

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

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

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

theft stories anymore
because there’s nothing

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

I would do volume and
stuff for a while, but

basically we’ve heard
the underwear theft

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

” But they never say
what they do with it.

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

In this case, he’s very specific.

“I smelled it and I wore it myself.”

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

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

While they were away
from the galley area, he

went back to the galley
installer from there.

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

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

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

He had gone to
hospitals or I guess maybe

even like clinics and
stuff, they would have it.

He went to these places
and stole the uniform,

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

I do understand a lot of fetishes.

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

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

And I wonder how they come about.

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

that I did and I really
enjoyed psychology

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

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

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

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

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

he’s getting paid to
play piano and he messed

it up because he just
could not resist his fetish.

If you would like to join
the Ninja News Japan

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

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

difficult to set up with
time zones, but if you

would like to participate
in one of the quizzes,

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