[music]
A man goes into a temple and he walks
up there is a scroll hanging from a temple.
I’m already like “You gotta
be cautious with scrolls.
” I mean that’s
just a straight up.
All the moves I’ve seen, man, scrolls.
You gotta be careful around those things.
Those dangerous materials.
This one is called “silk
ghost figure in light colors.
” Again already, you don’t
steal the scroll with a ghost
title because that is the
scroll that has a curse in it.
He’s going to steal
that scroll, run out, and
be cursed forever
in like horrible things.
This is the beginning of a horror
movie, a Japanese horror movie.
I guarantee if I put a little
effort into it, I could have
gone and found a horror
movie where the beginning was.
He stole this scroll
and then was cursed and
haunted and ghost
came after him and stuff.
Or the only other reason to steal a
scroll is because it’s part of a quest.
So you have to like lift a curse or
fight someone or something like that.
To end something, you
need this scroll to take it
to fight a ghost or destroy
a ghost or something.
Scrolls are bad news. That’s all I know.
Media has taught me one thing.
Scrolls are bad news.
Don’t mess with scrolls.
Hopefully he’s not a
situation where the scroll
is necessary for him
to get like lift a curse.
He decided he needed this scroll more than
anything else. He goes into the temple.
He steals the scroll.
He takes the scroll and he runs away.
The chief priest runs him
down and gets the scroll back.
Now, that in itself, like
again, so in my head,
that’s a Kung Fu fight
happening right there.
The chief priest jumps
up, uses some like, I don’t
know, ninja magic, temple
magic, ancient magic.
I don’t know, something
flies through the air.
There’s lots of robes
going, that’s gotta happen.
And then he’s like
kicked to the back of
the head, knocks the
scroll out of his hand.
He just cares about the scroll.
He doesn’t care about the fight.
But the guy’s like,
no, I gotta fight.
There’s Kung Fu fight happens.
That’s the story in my head.
What seems more realistic is like
he just grabbed him, held onto him.
Someone called the cops,
cops showed up, he was arrested.
He never really explained why
he needed to steal the scroll.
The head priest, the chief
priest, said pretty cool thing.
He’s like, I hope people
don’t steal scrolls.
I would prefer he just comes
and looks at it and enjoys it,
like all the other tourists
and stuff, because it’s free.
So clearly the only reason
he could steal it is because
of a curse and that man
has now doomed to go to hell.
Our minister of farming last week.
This is an update to last week’s story.
Last week he made a
comment that he had so many
supporters and so much love
and people loved him so much.
He was so great and everyone thought
he was awesome. He never had to buy rice.
Rice prices in Japan are
hitting an all-time high.
So that’s maybe a tad
insensitive thing to say.
You don’t as the guy responsible
for rice and rice prices sort of related.
You don’t go around talking about
how I get all my rice free. You peons.
You little people, you have to
pay for your rice, sucks for you.
Now again, he was saying this to
another bunch of rich people and they all
thought it was like, Ha Ha Funny,
but then of course the coming gets out.
Then he goes out. He’s
like, I went on social media.
That’s what I realized
how angry people were.
This is kind of, you know, I
don’t get it. Like why is everyone
so upset that I’m getting my
rice free because I’m so awesome.
He checked social media and realized how
infuriated people were. That was May 20th.
There was another
sort of side bit.
He actually in his apology,
the order’s out already.
He had to apologize.
In his apology, he said
that his wife had
already admonished him.
This was something
that I had heard before
but never connected.
It never clicked to me.
And what he’s doing is
diminishing the importance
of the actual outrage
that he’s feeling.
My wife has already complained
that I’m a piece of shit.
You know, that should be enough.
And it’s also like the hand-pecked
husband kind of stereotype.
I’m like, I’m getting this at home and all.
It’s my life is so hard.
And it’s actually diminishing the
complaint that people have at mass.
Which I didn’t realize until I read
another article that was pointing out.
This is sort of a trope at this point.
They talk about it being show at Arrow.
These people who kind of were raised
in that period adopted this attitude.
And this is part of their
apologies, which makes
it feel less sincere to
Japanese people now.
Coming from outside the culture,
I didn’t know that element of it.
So reading about it was
very interesting because
I expect there will
still be a few apologies.
And they go, “Wow, I went home. Why wife
told me off? Man, I’m really hard done by.
” I didn’t know that was
like a stereotype or a thing.
But it actually takes away
from the sincerity of the apology.
So his apology wasn’t even
sincere when he was doing it.
Which I, again, as a not
in Japanese person, didn’t
realize when I was
reading the apology stuff.
He checks social media. He realized
how infuriated people were. He apologizes.
And then on May 21st, he quits.
Now he was going to get fired.
The Prime Minister was
going to tell him to step down.
He was trying to keep everything in place.
The problem is that the ruling party right
now, their approval ratings really low.
So he’s like a scandal of
any type is going to sink us.
Here’s a short message to Americans.
Imagine a politician making a joke
about rice prices or never paying for rice
and actually losing his job because it is
deemed as irresponsible for the politician.
Just imagine that world.
That could be your world if
you had held people accountable
for the things they say.
I’m not talking about anyone in particular.
I’m not taking a political stance.
But it shows sort of the difference in
the different systems where in Japan,
an off-handed comment can get you to the
point where you lose your position in power
because of the scandal
because people are angry at you.
The same day, May 21st,
a new minister is named.
You got to have a minister or a farming.
So one gets fired.
You got to bring another win in.
They choose the former
Prime Minister, Koi Zumi Sun.
Who’s not like, he’s
not just like his first job.
He’s actually been a
minister of the environment,
which leads up to
the joke that actually
happened on the internet
when he was chosen.
The minister, Koi
Zumi, is famous for
introducing the two
yen price for plastic bags.
So if you get a bag, at a convenience
store, you have to pay at least two yen.
A lot of places to have a small
bag is two yen. Big bag is five yen.
That kind of stuff.
Pretty sensible thing for
the minister of the
environment to introduce,
because the minister
environment is trying to reduce the
amount of plastic people
using what’s to encourage people
to bring their own bags.
So you charge for the plastic bags.
As soon as this guy was announced, Koi Zumi
was announced as the new farming minister,
a trending joke happened in Japan, and it
was charge for rice bags started to trend.
So everyone started saying, “Oh,
great. This guy’s in charge of rice.
Now I’m going to have to pay two
yen for the bag. The rice comes in.
” That started trending
almost immediately because
the entire country started
making the same joke.
Some would say this is a good move. Some
would say it’s not because he was sewing.
Again, he was taking his job seriously
as the minister in the environment.
But at the same time, it’s another rich
dude in Japan, politics is a legacy game.
So it’s families, have
politicians, and their kids go into
politics, and they get into
these roles, and they do this.
There’s probably an expectation
that this guy, because he
was son, he was the son of
the previous prime minister.
He’s going to aim to be prime minister
someday. It’s like a form of nepotism.
But yeah, it’s
like a family job.
And that’s a very Japanese
thing to do is have just family jobs.
I don’t know how I
feel about this guy.
Hopefully he does try
to take this seriously.
He’s actually said
his goal is to get a five
kilogram bag of rice
from the government.
Price at 2000 yen, which should
impact the price of all the other rice.
So if you can get
government rice at 2000
yen, foreign rice should
be around 2000 yen.
Other Japanese rice
should be around 2000 yen.
So he’s got a clear
number in his head that
he’s put out there
that he wants to aim for.
And they’re releasing the government rice.
So I don’t know if he’s
doing it or the other guy did
it and just shouldn’t
have said the thing he said.
It just shows how
seriously people take
statements that the
Japanese politicians make.
Which again, I think could be a
model in some other countries.
This is from the discord.
There is the chunk of beef chest
discord, which is open for anyone to join.
If you would like to find the link, you can
go to link tree slash chunk of beef chest.
And you’ll find a link to the
discord where you can join.
It’s still in its early stages.
You’ll find a lot of my stuff there.
But then people are now starting to
drop in stories for me to check out.
Which I really appreciate.
I really just want people to know that,
you know, any efforts into this podcast.
I want to pay those back 10 fold and make
sure they get the attention they deserve.
Or at least we could just interact.
I do want to bring guests back on.
I want to bring quizzes back on
just honestly, last couple of months.
Really hard to organize anything.
There is a manga from back in 1999
that predicted the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
The earthquake.
Not the actual specifics of the disaster.
But it said there’s going to be an
earthquake in that month in March in 2011.
I do have a problem.
I don’t really believe
in predictions and stuff.
I had my palm red before I came to
Japan because I was going to leave.
Now I didn’t give the lady any hints.
So she were in my palm.
She said you’re going
to work with your hands.
I do not work with my hands.
She said you’re going to move west.
I moved east.
I mean, it was almost as
if she was 100% correct.
So if she had just said
the opposite of everything
she said, it would have
all been kind of right.
So that’s one of those things where
she did her cold reading completely wrong.
Or she just like her assessment
of me was completely wrong.
So all her predictions were wrong.
I enjoy predictions.
I don’t believe them.
So I read a horoscope.
If one comes up conveniently,
I will do some palm reading.
If it’s easy.
I don’t take it very seriously.
I had my palm red when I was in Korea.
And she said I’m going to die when I’m 72.
And I looked at her and
I went, is it going to hurt?
And then she went, I started laughing.
It was like super old lady.
She’s dead now.
And she started laughing.
And she goes like, I can’t tell that.
And actually that gave a
little more credence to her
prediction by saying like,
this is what I can predict.
This is what I can predict.
I kind of like was like, took it
almost a little more seriously.
And that might be why that
prediction sort of stuck in my head.
So in my head, when I hit 70,
I’m going to start doing drugs.
It’s just all the drugs I want
because I’m going to be dead by 72.
So I’m not like wasting my life
or using my body by doing drugs.
Probably end up on an international pan.
Anyways, in 1999, there was a
manger release called the Future I saw.
And this was the author was
having dreams, revelatory dreams.
Did I just make up a word?
Prevalatory?
Prevalatory.
Predictive dreams is the word
I probably should have used.
I just went through a whole
new English phase just there.
And in that, she started
making a story about a character
who has predictive dreams
and interpredictive dreams.
She’s trying to deal with
like, do I take this seriously?
Is this real? Do I tell anybody? Do I?
Sort of the real things that
would happen if you had predictive
dreams and the things you dream
actually started to come true.
One of those was in March 2011.
There was going to be a disaster.
She updated it and she said the
real disaster will come in July 2025.
Next month, no, in two
months from the release of
this podcast, there’s
going to be the real disaster.
Making, I guess, Fukushima
seemed like it wasn’t the real disaster.
It’s not super specific,
but it sells books.
So in the books she
claims that the South Sea
of Japan will boil,
causing a megatsunami.
So she’s talking about there’s
going to be an underwater fault.
It will open up and that
sort of that lava, that
stuff from inside is
going to boil the water.
But it’s going to be so violent,
it’s going to cause another tsunami.
It’s going to be three times
stronger than the Tohoku earthquake.
Now, I don’t think that’s
how earthquakes work.
I don’t think they can predict it.
Scientists don’t have
the level of technology
where they can actually
predict earthquakes.
But people do take it seriously.
So some people have
started canceling their plans to
come to Japan, mostly tourists
from China and Hong Kong.
They have access to this manga.
They take what is said in
this manga seriously because it
successfully predicted that
there would be an event in 2011.
They’re also taking it seriously
that it’s going to be an event in 2025.
So they’re canceling their trips.
And because of that, it actually
was reported on the news.
It’s probably how most of
those people have seen it.
But in Vietnam and Thailand,
social media has picked this up.
And they’ve started spreading it around.
So tourists from Vietnam and Thailand have
started canceling their trips to Japan.
So people are staying away.
The actual social media
message in Thailand and Vietnam
at this time is to stay away
from Japan in July 2025.
So it’s actually having
a real world effect.
It’ll be very interesting to see if
anything actually happens in July 2025.
Because predictions are great.
Like I could sit here and just do a
thing where I make a ton of predictions.
And one of those is right.
Everyone’s going to take it
really seriously, even though all
the other predictions that I
made that didn’t happen are right.
Like I could be like there’s going
to be an earthquake in this month.
There’s going to be
earthquake in this year.
It’s going to be like, ooh, if
one of those things happened,
they’ll start taking the
other stuff really seriously.
When I came to Japan,
it was 2001 and I joined
the company and they
had like a all staff meeting.
And in the all staff meeting,
this old guy comes up.
He goes, there’s been
an earthquake in Osaka.
There’s been an earthquake in Tokyo.
That means the next
earthquake is going to happen
in Nagoya, which is
not how fault lines work.
It’s not how earthquakes work.
They don’t do like a
tour of different regions.
They don’t like do it evenly.
You could have 20 earthquakes in
Tokyo and zero earthquakes in Nagoya.
I think the percentage of an
earthquake in Nagoya happening
maybe would go up over time
because it hasn’t had an earthquake.
But it’s not going to do
like an equitable system
to make sure that every
region gets hit equally.
So I was like, that seems really weird.
And I was sitting at the back of the room.
I didn’t know how these things were run.
I was sitting in front of the windows.
And then he says, all you people
sitting in the back by the windows.
You’re all dead because I
guess the windows shatter
and like cut all our
heads off or something.
But then my first thought to that
was, why did you put chairs here then?
Like why did you put chairs
into place where people
if there is an earthquake
are all going to die?
That seems like really
irresponsible of you, the leader
of this actual sort of
safety seminar you’re giving,
which was actually just like a
whole bunch of scare tactics.
It was not honestly a very pleasant
way to be introduced to Japan.
This story actually also
came from the discord service.
So thank you for posting
in the discord server.
49 year old man was arrested for
coercion of an electronic store clerk.
So what happens?
He goes and buys it hair clippers.
I have hair clippers.
I just shaved my head down really short.
I sometimes use them on my beard.
He calls and say, these
clippers aren’t working.
I’m really angry about it.
And you sold me these clippers.
So I need you to bring me a
replacement set of clippers.
And the clerk being a
Japanese guy who’s really
like takes customer
service really seriously.
He goes, yeah, okay.
I’m going to get a new set of clippers.
I’m going to bring him to your
house and will swap him out.
And then you don’t
even have to do anything.
You can just like get back to shaving
your head or whatever you were doing.
So that sort of shows the
level of customer service
this guy was getting
because of his complaint.
The clerk shows up at
his house and this guy,
the customer starts showing him his tattoos
to show him that he is part of the Akuzo.
So he’s a really scary guy.
So you better do what I say or I
might even like beat you up or kill you.
That’s actually the implication.
If I started ripping my
shirt off and showing
you my tattoos, the
message is pretty clear.
I’m part of the mafia.
You better do what I say.
Keep me satisfied or this
is going to end badly for you.
The guy had already brought
the new clippers to his house.
So I don’t know what kind of thing
he actually wanted from the guy.
So what he does is says I want
the traditional Japanese apology.
So you’ve got to get down on your
knees and then that’s suddenly not enough.
Probably because the
guy was going to do it.
So the guy says,
let’s prove that these
clippers work and you
shave your head because
a very traditional way of apologizing
in Japan is to shave your head.
There was actually an idol really
early on in the new Japan days.
She had a boyfriend and a lot of the contracts
and sort of the understanding is that
they don’t get boyfriends, they
stay purer, they don’t have sex.
It’s actually written into their
contracts that they won’t date.
So she had broken this rule, this rule that
she would keep herself purer for her fans.
So to apologize for having gone on a date,
she shaved her head and then she went on
to the internet to apologize to her fans.
So this is like a
long-standing Japanese thing.
It’s just, I’m not supposed
to show how, show your
contrition to your audience
or the fans or whatever.
So he’s taken on this
like, oh this guy’s actually
scared of me, he’s
going to do what I say.
So he says, I want you to shave your head.
So he shaves the right side of his head
and then the guy I guess was satisfied,
he cleans up his hair
and then he goes back
to the store and
immediately calls the police.
Because what had just
happened was called coercion.
So the guy threatened
him, told him he had to do a
thing, coerced him into
doing it, calls the police.
This guy’s arrested the original
clippers that he was complaining about.
When police picked them up,
found out that they actually worked.
So this whole thing didn’t need to happen.
I’m betting he thought they were
either battery powered or rechargeable
or something and he hadn’t plugged
them in or hadn’t charged them.
And so they didn’t work.
But when the police tried them out,
the original clippers actually worked.
So this whole thing was
completely unnecessary.
This guy’s going to jail.
They referred to him in the
newspapers as unemployed.
Now, there’s two possibilities here.
One, he’s got really scary tattoos
and he’s not part of the Yakuza.
Because Yakuza, Mafia members actually have
to register themselves with the police,
which is I find mind bogglingly
weird, but it is part of the process.
So if you are a Yakuza or Mafia
member, you’re going to be registered with
the police and that’s how they’re
going to refer to you in the newspaper.
The newspaper didn’t refer
to him as a Mafia member.
They referred to him as unemployed,
which would imply that he’s not registered.
But he could still be a
criminal and unregistered
one, which to me
makes a lot of sense.
And then be one of these sort of
newer dark groups that aren’t as organized.
So he is a criminal, but he’s not a
member of a criminal organization
as the traditional idea of
having all your Yakuza tattoos.
He’s more sort of one of these new
loose groups that sort of change and meld
and different members come and go
over time as they do different crimes.
But it seems like he’s not maybe the
Mafia member he was making himself
out to be in the original sort of
threat of showing office tattoos.
A 42-year-old Chinese
exchange student was stalking
a woman named Haruna
Kojima, who was also an idol.
She’s a former idol, I think she was
in AKB-48, and then she went solo.
So she was still really popular.
She was in Shibuya, and this guy
managed to stalk her and track her down.
He grabbed her arm and she fell down.
And that is assault.
That was back in October 2024.
His court case is ongoing now.
So we know why he did it
and was he threatening her?
Was he attacking her?
What kind of stalking was this?
In court he stated, “I loved her
and wanted to see her every day.
When I saw her I got
excited and grabbed her
arm thinking I would
confess my feelings.
” He had already been
warned to stay away from her.
So he said, “I thought it
was a misunderstanding.
I believe if I told her my feelings
directly she might give me a chance.
” And that is the weird
scary parasocial thing
that’s going on on
the internet right now.
So this actually happened
last year in October.
But now we’re seeing
he’s giving the idea
like I thought I had a
relationship with her.
I thought I had confessed to her.
This is a 42 year old man.
Like she’s only in her late 20s, early 30s.
She’s may very well not
be interested in this age gap.
She doesn’t know him so she’s
not going to have any feelings for him.
This is one of the weird
things of the one-sided
internet version of
parasocial relationships.
I, when I came to Japan,
worked for like a little
website and I didn’t
interview with a cosplayer.
And then of course I
naturally started following her.
And then after a while I got all these
like insights and she kind of would
like knew my name if she like streamed
and I would like type something in.
She’d be like, “Hey buddy.
” And then I felt like I was
more close to her than I was.
And she had no idea who I was.
She did that interview, forgot who
I was and moved on with her life,
saw that this name that showed up
in her streams and stuff was regular.
So she started to remember the name.
If I met her on the street, she’d be
absolutely terrified like who’s this guy?
And I’m like, “I know you.
We have a connection.”
It was really quick for me to like take a
moment and go, “She doesn’t know who I am.
She doesn’t know anything about me.
We’re not friends.
” And I had to remember, I
had to like remind myself of that.
So I didn’t like go to the depths these
other guys are doing because I didn’t
allow myself to because I had that reality
check available in my conscious mind.
These guys don’t have
that filter or that step.
And that’s where these
kind of like, “I believe that if
I confess to her she will
love me back things happen.
” It’s actually really terrifying because
we’ve had a bunch of stories in America of
streamers who are like going out and people
are like chasing them and following them down.
And like, honestly getting angry that
they’re not reciprocating their feelings.
It’s actually one of the scariest parts.
Luckily, I don’t have to
worry about any of this.
TikTok prankster.
I could honestly just end the story there.
You could fill in the blanks
and probably be fairly accurate.
It’s just the specifics of how he was
being an asshole is actually the story.
But the fact that he was an asshole
to someone who didn’t deserve it
is so common now, I don’t actually
feel the need to say anything more.
May 19th, he goes to a gas station
and he goes to the gas station and he
says, “I don’t know how to like unlock
the cap of my car to get the gas in.
Can you show me how
to do it or do it for me?
” He gets the girl, the
gas station attendant
to get in his car and
then he locks the doors.
Now, I don’t know if there
was some sort of mechanism
he had in so that he
could keep her in there.
He managed to keep her in the car for
two minutes straight, so just enough time
to be absolutely terrified that something
really bad is about to happen to you.
Two minutes locked in someone
else’s car has to feel like forever.
Like that’s just the honest to goodness
truth that this woman was probably
absolutely terrified that she was
going to be taking away and killed.
He started recording, so
kept her in, he started making
jokes and then like, “Aha,
you’re locked in my car.
” That kind of bullshit. He was
arrested because this is not kidnapping
but confining someone, I guess
confining someone is a form of kidnapping.
Like not allowing their freedom of movement is a form of
kidnapping because there have been stories that I’ve done in the
past where it was like you’re working at a company and then
they lock the door and they tell you’re not allowed to leave.
That falls under kidnapping laws.
If that ever happens to you,
like you’re in a situation where
like someone is keeping you
from leaving, that’s kidnapping.
That’s the lot falls
under in Japan anyways.
I guess it’s like confinement,
that kind of situation.
But he was arrested and he said he did not intend to
confine the woman despite the fact he’s the one who
locked the door, the capture in the car, which is
absolutely means he confined her in that car on purpose.
And I just hope these guys start getting
punched enough that it’s enough to actually
scare other people away from doing the
same bullshit because this is so tiring.
Man walks into the temple, there’s
lots of temples all over Japan,
beautiful places, great places, I
fucking don’t know, I’m not a tourist guy.
Go fuck yourself.
That’s not how to start.
Okay.