Sanseito – NinjaNewsJapan

Podcast Du Jour

bomb threats seem to be the crime du jour it really should be the crime of the month or not

the crime of the day but you know what i mean it is the current trendy crime to call in bomb

threats the last three episodes i think we’ve had a bomb threat each episode the sancedo party the

party leader was going to go to a university and give a speech this is the university in tokyo

very big university very big very important and he was then going to participate in debate

was very nice of him it was canceled because of a bomb threat specifically mentioning the sancedo

party leader coming to the campus he said using violent threats simply because someone has

different views or opinions is detrimental to public discourse said the incredibly racist xenophobic man

he further said the lecture was about why i became a politician because i hate foreigners

the current social situation in japan too many foreigners historical background we shouldn’t

have let foreigners into japan and what students should do to engage with politics they should

join our party and try to get rid of all the foreigners and there was almost nothing about

foreigners now that’s interesting the almost so he was going to talk about foreigners to a degree

uh was he saying that this speech was going to be less racist than my usual speeches or was he saying

that the level of content of racism in my speech was so minimal it should be not considered a big deal

this time he then he then further said we do not engage in discriminatory behavior towards foreigners

which is something that someone who does not engage in discriminatory which is someone who does not

engage in criminal god damn it you do not engage in discriminatory behavior towards foreigners is

something that no non -racist has ever had to say so if you do not engage in discriminatory behavior

you don’t have to go around and tell people that you don’t engage let’s put it this way i’ve never

walked into any room ever and said hey everybody just pay attention to me for a second i do not

engage in discriminatory behavior i’ve never had to go into a room and make that statement and i’ve

never had to go in a room make that statement because i don’t do those things so i don’t need

to ever defend myself about those things he he wasn’t done yet he had one more thing nor towards

lgbt people which again if you’ve never discriminated towards a group of people you’ve never had to

specifically say to a group of people that we don’t discriminate towards you i’ve never had to say i

discriminate i i’ve never had to say i don’t discriminate against mongolians or peruvians or

any other group of people because i don’t this puts me in a tough spot because i clearly don’t agree with

the politics of sencedo but i also am not a big fan of calling him bomb threats to shut him down because

politics is about you know get europeans out there and i actually think our racists should be more vocal

because it makes us a lot easier to identify the racists and that’s the bit that people like

people hiding it and then softening languages and stuff like that i don’t want that i want them to

come out and be proud of being the racist they are so that we can point them out and go that guy’s a

racist i’m not going to vote for him or if someone does vote for him you then know that they are racist

and it makes it very easy to recognize that the people who support them are the racists it’s like i

started crying as soon as i started the podcast we have a typhoon coming and uh it’s kicking up a lot

of crap in the air it’s raining today the typhoon’s not here yet but i’m pretty sure my allergies are

going to kick off pretty hard which is a constant problem i have doing the podcast 2025 consumer trend

report said that tv ownership among single men under 30 has dropped by 40 which is not a big surprise

the national average for television ownership is sitting around 90 so most people in japan in most

houses have a tv men under 30 are dropping television which is not a surprise to me at all i got two kids

i would say those two kids never watch tv if they’re going to watch something they’re going to watch

youtube they’re going to watch on their phone they’re going to watch something yeah they’re never

going to pick tv unless it would be a streaming service which isn’t technically broadcast television

anymore it’s a streaming service which they could get off a computer so if you had a computer if you

had a setup like mine where you have dual monitors and stuff that’s actually probably be better than tv

in 2005 across all demographics tv ownership was at 95 computer ownership has since passed tv

ownerships like i just said get a really sweet computer setup you don’t need a tv anymore

and it has other benefits a 2022 nhk survey said 30 of people in their 20s didn’t watch

any broadcast media so that was four years ago not surprised at all again i think kids coming up are

not going to watch any broadcast media if it’s not made available to them conveniently that they can

get quickly i don’t think they’re going to have any interest at all with the marriage rate being low

there will be more single people with less need for a tv because what they’re thinking is

if you’re a couple you might want a tv so you can watch stuff together but if you have a big ass monitor

and a computer you don’t need a tv still you could still just watch really good stuff on your computer

and if you have like the tech setup i could probably put a monitor downstairs and connect it to my

computer or i could have a secondary computer i would choose two computers over a computer and a tv any day

i would much rather have the functionality of the computers i think young people are growing up with

this level of technology so they don’t see that as strange at all stagnant wages made tv look like an

unnecessary expenditure like a luxury good and that coupled with the nhk fees have made it even worse so

here you have a channel on television that i will never watch so you want to pay you want me to pay

every month for this channel that i’ll never watch considering i barely want to watch any broadcast tv

anyways that’s the issue they’re running into the old school media legacy media is now falling to the

wayside and they don’t know how to catch up they need to make nhk streaming but then they’re going

to realize no one wants to watch nhk the nhk license is that if your television can receive

a signal then you have to pay nhk fees even if you don’t watch nhk but then they came out with these

tvs that don’t receive signals they’re just basically streaming boxes so they don’t have to that’s one way

around it computers i mean it’s the internet technically i bet you could hook this up but

the way it is set up right now i could not watch nhk i don’t have to pay for my monitors there’s no way

i would buy a television and then start paying an extra one two thousand yen whenever it is a month

for nhk for a service i don’t want for the one i’m never going to use even if i do pay for it

i mean you just got to look at the landscape and where kids are going if it’s not on their phone if

it’s not on a computer they’re not even going to look at it anymore

a 1200 year old temple holds the inextinguishable fire which is claimed to have been kept burning

which has been claimed to have been burning under a start all over again a 1200 year old temple

holds the inextinguishable flame which is claimed to have been kept burning uninterrupted for 1200 years

it was destroyed in 2005 because of a fire and then rebuilt and last month it was burned down again

now i saw about 18 articles on this half the articles made the same joke that the inextinguishable flame

was unharmed by the fire but they don’t say whether the fire the inextinguishable

i’m having trouble saying inextinguishable inextinguishable inextinguishable they’re not

saying whether the inextinguishable flame had some connection to the actual temple burning down or not

so that’s the bit i want to know was the inextinguishable flame did it get out did something

happen i mean i would like to know that did someone come and try to burn down the building that’s holding

the inextinguishable flame that has actually been completely unreleased it is the far more interesting

part of the story aside from the joke that the flame was not hurt by the fire which i instantly

had that thought as well so i’m not actually like dishing on the people who wrote that but don’t always

go for the first joke you think of what actually started the flame this is where some investigative

journalism has to come in and again i got a full -time job so i can’t be the investigative journalist i

would actually like to be it was put out in about two hours by firefighters they had to have a

helicopter come in uh and drop water on it so yeah the actual joke would be the inextinguishable

flame could not be extinguished but then the fire was extinguished by the firefighters if that started

the fire or the inextinguishable flame suddenly decided to take its still name seriously i do have

a question though if we’re not going with like alanis morissette rules is a temple containing an

inextinguishable flame burning down ironic or not that is uh i feel like it is i feel like

a temple that is designed to hold a flame burning down is in some way ironic but i would need a

greater authority on irony to actually tell me i guess it’s supposed to hold the flame and then it

burned down the structure that was holding it so that is an irony or is that just like murphy’s law

this is a tough one i don’t know the answer i’m gonna need some people’s feedback do you think

a temple holding an inextinguishable flame burning burning down is ironic or not what do you think it

is you can send an email to chunkmcbeefchest at gmail .com or you can send a voice message at

speakpipe .com chunkmcbeefchest 18s all age 16 to 17 so you know you know they’re having good ideas

they’re having thoughts uh they’re really thinking things through i do remember back when i was 16 17 it

is when i did easily the most reckless things in my life uh things that i absolutely 100 should have

got arrested for and i’m very very lucky i didn’t i’m not going to say what i did the statute of

limitations is off so i don’t really have to worry about it but at the same time i don’t want to

besperch myself by digging up uh old skeletons uh they called 110 which is like 911 in america

on themselves so they were a little group and they have their little scooters and motorcycles

and they were like hey we’re bored what do you what do you want to do and they’re like you know

what i would like to drive recklessly down the road and they’re like well that’s fun and all we do that

all the time let’s let’s make it more fun let’s have the police chase us so we’re gonna call the

police on ourselves we’ll drive recklessly down the road they’ll chase us it’ll be exciting

that is to me very very 16 year old thinking these stories often have like a random 20 year

old involved but this is just 16 and 70 year old kids their actual quote was we wanted to enjoy

being chased by patrol cars and called the police to lure them out they drove into oncoming traffic

they were swerving in and out of the lanes they were blowing through red lights just general driving

dangerously there is a kid in my town who has a scooter and he’s modified the muffler or maybe even

taking it off because it’s really loud and he drives around the park near my house in a circle

so i can actually hear me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me

as he drives around i was walking dave one day in the park and he drove through the park and i was

like if this kid hits dave i’m going to clothesline him so hard he stayed away from me which is good

they actually lost the cops so in a way this was almost successful but the cops used surveillance

footage which is now the end of every ninja news japan story the cops used surveillance footage to

find out where the teens went went to their houses they caught two they have warrants out for the

other ones and they know who they are so they’re probably by the time i’ve actually read this story

to you on ninja news japan they have already been caught the sumiyoshikai which is a yakuza

organization it’s like a subset of a bigger one i i don’t actually know the different groups of the

yakuza because they’re becoming less relevant in the modern age which is good and bad i don’t know

i have always been a little confused by the rules governing organized crime in japan

they opened an office now yakuza organized crime is already illegal so them opening an office and this

is just a place where they meet because it was in an apartment building it was like the guys would go

there and have their meetings and stuff so it’s technically an office even though they’re just

running apartment building but there’s a rule in japan that gang offices are not allowed to open

within 200 meters of schools libraries and nursery schools now the thing is these are organized

criminals they’re criminals they’re not worried about the law so the fact that you’ve made this

other law is seems irrelevant at first but i’m like oh this is just one more additional charge so

they could charge them for opening this office and then search the office and then find other

things maybe they’ve been involved in and commit more crimes so it’s really like opening the door to an

investigation more than anything else but it does always seem like since organized crime is illegal

why would you bother making a rule about where organized crime groups can open offices but then

you sort of see it like it’s like jaywalking jaywalking was never designed to actually arrest people for

crossing the road illegally it was so cops would have a reason to search black people

that was actually where it came from in america thanks america uh then jaywalking became pretty

universal like most places have jaywalking most places don’t enforce it very much but the actual

idea of jaywalking is not to arrest people it’s to give an opportunity for a police officer to search

someone who’s actually committed a petty crime and then hopefully find a bigger crime and i guess fill

a quota of some sort they opened an office in an apartment building 100 meters from a school

a nursery school three admitted to the allegations and three denied it so they arrested six people

three people who were like yeah we opened our office uh it is what it is i’m sorry and the three

guys were like nope not saying anything and i can tell you which three of those members i would want

my organized crime gang and it’s not the three who whistled right away kenjiro tsuda has filed a

lawsuit now this is the guy who does the voice of kento nanami and jujutsu kaisen he does a couple

voices but he’s very famous for that voice in particular and that is a very popular anime he has put a

lawsuit in with the tokyo district court suing tiktok for using an ai to clone his voice so the

app can use his voice to narrate videos so you know they have the generic voices that narrate voices

narrate videos that people make and they say mindless pointless things most of the time i haven’t used

one yet but i’m sure i will actually get there someday probably like 20 years after it’s actually

cool and popular but he’s claiming that tiktok cloned his voice and now has made it available to

everyone to use on their videos which is damaging his publicity i think it is this is a very weird

crime because there is no you cannot copyright your voice right now in japan at least not yet

but if the voice leads people to believe that it’s actually the original speaker it could be a violation

under the unfair competition act so because my job is voice acting if someone makes an ai clone of my

voice and starts using it and that damages my business now we have a case whereas we say like

he cloned my voice i want to copyright my voice we can’t do that right now tiktok is claiming

that they are just using a universal male voice which is incredibly unlikely because again ai can’t just

do generic anything it has to take from something maybe they modify it maybe they pitch it up maybe they

pitch it down speed it up slow it down that kind of stuff but it is taken from someone i actually

was playing with ai when it was new and i didn’t feel as opposed to it as i do now ai and art is

just completely unacceptable to me at this point um but i had one take one of my videos one of my

ninja news japan videos and i thought oh it’d be really cool if they did an auto translation into

japanese it auto translated and then cloned my voice now i didn’t know it was going to do that

cloned my voice and actually kind of manipulated my mouth so it looked like i was speaking

not perfect japanese but ai japanese i played for some friends to see if they actually thought it was good

they didn’t actually think it was very good so maybe the technology is not there yet but

the tone of the voice did sound exactly like my voice which was very scary which made me think oh

should i bother to copyright my voice probably not again i’m not that popular but

if it did somehow damage me yeah that would be really unfair to me as someone who does a podcast

there’s a video element to this podcast but hardly anyone watches it it is 99 people listening just to

my voice on the internet they download the podcast and they listen to it if they got a japanese version

or another version of that using my voice and they would think it was me well then they could start

saying sensato stuff they can start saying the racist stuff and then i would have to come out and

actually make a legitimate claim that i do not make discriminatory statements against certain groups

because they have actually heard my voice make discriminatory statements so that that would be the

first situation where i would have to say that even though i’m maybe not that person so i just thought

of that now it’s a little disturbing actually they are demanding that tiktok remove the content so

they’re not actually trying to get money from tiktok they’re just saying like you got to take these

down you got to stop using this voice there are currently 180 videos that they know of uh using the

cloned voice for narration over the last two years so we had a guy it was months ago maybe last year

who left work on a regular basis to go to the gym and i thought man that dude must be ripped he was

apparently going to the gym like almost every day but he wasn’t going to the gym gym and working out

he was going to the gym and soaking in the bath and sitting in the sauna so he was essentially just

going to the gym and relaxing which is i mean a great way to spend your time to get away with it

of course he didn’t get away with it he got caught he got in trouble uh and he got fired a 26 year

old city worker was fired for going to the gym 185 times over the last three years so that is

a minimum of once a week so if you could have kind of played it in like i go to the gym

and help other people stay healthy and maintain the welfare of the country that actually could have

kind of worked out maybe uh but he went to gyms when coming back from off -site assignments so he went

to some other place and then on his way back he would stop off at a gym do a workout and then come

back to the office he missed 296 hours of work which he’s going to have to pay back and he was

commuting on taxpayer money so he’s probably gonna have to pay that back as well uh and he was going

to the gym up to 10 times a month so that is twice a week so i was saying once a week just to make it

like 52 weeks a year doing really quick dirty math in my head but twice a week pretty regularly

maybe even more a colleague saw him mid -workout at the gym which makes you immediately question what was

the colleague doing there now very likely it was the colleague’s day off and they went to the gym

because it’s their day off and it’s perfectly acceptable to go to the gym on your own time

but went to the gym and then saw a co -worker at the gym who they knew like hey that guy’s supposed

to be working right now it’s my day off not his day off if you know the other person’s schedule

then went back and ratted him out again proving that if you’re going to uh abuse systems you have to

make sure the people around you are satisfied enough that they don’t care about turning you in if you

want to be successful not a cops there was one in his 20s one in his 30s and they were basically

working at a holding facility between july and october last year and they started bullying

an inmate primarily because he wouldn’t follow instructions correctly so i don’t know

what kind of instructions probably just like a line up walk over here take off your shoes stand here

face the wall you know sit down and eat that kind of stuff they said he wasn’t following instructions

correctly so they started to kind of bully him but then they found his reactions to be funny i’m

assuming they were kind of over the top where he panicked or something like that and it was very

bully oriented behavior so when he started overreacting they found it funny so they kept

doing it and escalating they grabbed the detainee’s face while he was sleeping so he’d be sleeping in his

bunk they would go into his room and they would just grab his face which is weird they pulled his

trousers up which makes me think they were wedging him so they didn’t grab his underwear and pull it

up they just grabbed his trousers and pulled it up i’m assuming guys in holding facilities and stuff

are basically wearing sweatpants and whatnot but they were wedgie wedgieing this adult which is a pretty

awful thing to have happen to you and then they sprayed disinfectant alcohol on his crotch

now you think you know these guys clearly got away with it for months how did this guy get caught

well the detainee sent a letter to the police district and he said like i’ve been abused this

is really unfair so a letter arrived to police hq it had been sealed so it hadn’t been checked by the

people who were supposed to check it because whenever you get a mail goes in or out of a facility that has

prisoners they usually check it and read it so that would be interesting if one of your bullies

actually caught you sending this but i don’t know maybe they didn’t were reading it i don’t know

what the actual rules were i actually had a student once who his job was working at a prison and his

one of his jobs was to read the outgoing mail and you think oh my god it must be super interesting

reading other people’s mail he’s like no it’s just super depressing because all these guys are just in

jail and they’re not doing anything and they’re really sad and they really just wish they were not

in jail so he said that it was actually a really depressing thing don’t wish for stuff you don’t

actually want to live uh so they were caught they the the younger guy got a 10 pay cut for three

months and then demoted the the higher level guy the 30 year old guy he was reprimanded two supervisors

got in trouble for not supervising their subordinates but they were physically abusing an inmate that seems

like assault i think that should be prison time and that is very confusing to me like i i don’t actually

think these guys should just be reprimanded i don’t think it’s a 10 pay cut i think they should

be fired i think they should probably look at some jail time themselves and then the table switch

it just seems like cops in japan they do this kind of stuff and they just get away with it they just

get like a slap on the wrist and then told to stop often they quit or retire but yeah man i don’t

think cops should be allowed to abuse prisoners it’s 11 30 in the morning and in tuesday meeting

the boss gets up and leaves the meeting goes to the kitchen break room and gets a kitchen knife and

then comes back and then attacks and slashes the head of a subordinate and like you think at some

point like okay i’ve been furious let’s say i’ve gotten angry at work i’ve gotten angry at co -workers

i’m sure co -workers have gotten angry at me uh you are there all day every day with people you didn’t

end up really disliking each other or having trouble but i have never gotten up to get a

knife and if i did let’s say i did get so angry i’m gonna go up and grab a weapon i think by the

time i got to the weapon because he went to a break room if i go to the break room and then just take a

breath be like i’m not stabbing anyone today i’m not going to jail over this i don’t even know what

the argument was about but i’m not going to jail over this or if i actually get the point where i grab

the knife and go back and then i would take a moment and be like what am i doing right now am i

because there’s there’s space in there and that space is when you calm down and realize look i’m

human they’re human we have a disagreement we’re angry at each other emotions are high all that

stuff we can get past this we may never be best friends but we can at least not stab each other

that’s that is the level of co -worker i’m looking for the boss was arrested and he admitted immediately

to the allegations he said he’s always doing sloppy work and i just snapped and man that is an

accurate statement there’s a lingerie company that is having trouble because people are making fake

ads using the company’s name now i the internet is the internet so yeah people are like spoofing

brands and stuff all the time i bought a fake rolex i knew it was a fake rolex but i actually

bought the watch to see a what kind of quality it was b how did it look and c how long did it last

it lasted about six months and for like a hundred bucks that’s not worth it because you can a hundred

bucks you’ll actually get you a fine citizen eco drive watch that will last for years and years and

years so not worth buying fake products because they won’t last as long as a cheap official product

in most cases that comes with some kind of guarantee didn’t even make it to a year though so that was

kind of garbage it was an interesting experiment but people are making uh fake ads and then the

problem is they’re starting to make this company look bad so they advertise the bone slim fit bra

claiming it is recommended by japanese doctors and that implies that it is designed for japanese body types

japanese women it says if your breasts are too big your interview rate will drop by 30 percent

so the implication is if your boobs are too big you look less professional you look less professional

you’re less likely to be able to get a job so that’s an interesting sort of stance to take and the actual

lingerie companies like we would never say that we don’t think that’s true there’s no research to back

that up i mean that’s maybe the first thing whether it’s true or not is kind of irrelevant if no one’s

ever checked these guys are just saying that but they’re using our name to make these false claims

that’s problematic because then it negatively reflects on us the actual company it reduces having large

breasts reduces the impression of professionalism which again probably not true it depends on how you

dress overall your atmosphere a whole bunch of other things the victims are people who actually buy the

fake underwear so this woman said she bought 10 600 yens worth for she spent 10 600 yen and got four

items it was cash on delivery and it was clearly fake as soon as she opened it up and she said look

it was i washed it twice and they ripped it was really thin material it was really there was no way

it was actually going to fulfill any of the purposes actually claimed i knew immediately it was fake i’d

been ripped off the company has submitted 135 000 take out takedown claims and it says it’s damaging the

brand overall which i absolutely believe is true because they are making outlandish claims they’re

selling inferior products and they’re using their name to do it brings us to our new collaboration

where you get ninja news japan bras no ninja ninja japan bras ninja ninja japan branded underwear

which is a 100 guaranteed to improve your interview rate by 62 percent i learned in psychology class that

if you use a regular number it’s actually more striking and people are more likely to remember it

so remember ninja news japan if you want that interview wear our underwear

you

No Free Phones

(upbeat music) McDonald’s.

We talked about
McDonald’s and the scalping

issue they had when
they had this release.

It was Pokemon stuff.

And then they had one piece thing.

They were gonna do put
that in the happy meals.

And then that got delayed.

And then like, okay, we’re
gonna try to take a stance.

We’re gonna try to fix this.

And the plan is better.

But effective, we’re
actually gonna wait and see.

And that’s kind of what
McDonald’s is doing.

They’re actually testing like, “Will
this be effective with this be helpful?

” They have the Sanrio 20th anniversary
happy meal set coming out soon.

And they’ve decided to try to
employ some anti scalper rules.

So if you go to McDonald’s, you want it.

It’s going to be limited
to in-person purchases.

So you’ll only be able to buy it if you
go to a McDonald’s and actually buy it.

Drive-throughs okay, in-person’s okay.

They have like a kiosk now.

So you don’t actually talk
to a staff member of that.

So okay.

But there will be no
mobile apps or deliveries.

And it’ll be restricted via UberEAT.

So if I want to order UberEATs, I can
probably order only one or two happy meals.

I can’t order like 10 or 20 and
have those delivered to my house.

The maximum will be
three happy meals at a time.

So that means if I have
four kids and those four kids

want happy meals, one gets
a thank you and goodbye.

And that’s because you don’t get a happy
meal because you don’t deserve to be happy

because scalpers have
made the world a worse place.

So these restrictions were only going
to be applied for the first of four days.

And then the next week it seems like
they’re going to do another five days.

So I think what McDonald’s
is actually trying to do

is they’re trying to test
to see if this actually

helps or hinders or
does anything at all.

If it doesn’t do anything at all, they’ll
probably come up with a different strategy.

If it does work, they’re going to probably
introduce this kind of system all across.

Because the scalpers
really ruined it the last time.

This doesn’t stop me from
going to the McDonald’s,

ordering three happy
meals and then getting my

happy meals and then
going to the end of the line

and just coming in again
or just going to different

like two or three restaurants
and sort of circulating

and getting as many
as I can within a day.

(upbeat music)

In Japan, there’s a party.

It was called the anti NHK party.

And they have this thing NHK is the
National Broadcast Incorporation of Japan.

And NHK is part of the licensing fee.

So if you know in the UK
you have to pay every month

and just be able to have
a receiver for television.

It’s the same in Japan,
you’re actually supposed to pay,

I think it’s 1,000 to 2,000
a month depending on

like your situation, I’m not
sure how they calculate that.

But if you receive terrestrial television,
you’re supposed to pay this fee.

Now a lot of people don’t, a
lot of people think it’s unfair.

They’re like, I don’t like
NHK, I don’t like their politics.

I don’t think it’s, I get
any value for the money.

Their documentaries are garbage.

I’m not a big fan of NHK.

Why do I have to pay this
fee for a thing I don’t want?

I don’t watch television.

So I feel like I shouldn’t
have to pay for it anymore.

My kids, my family, they
don’t watch television in Japan.

Why are we paying this
fee for a thing we don’t use?

We have a television in the house.

At this point, I would be
willing to get rid of the television.

I don’t think anyone
does use the television.

They’ve tried to
redefine what television is.

So if you have any sort
of internet connection,

any sort of any other thing, you should be
paying this fee because you live in Japan.

I have always disagreed with it.

I have no problem with it being voluntary.

If I actually wanted any of the
viewing, I would love it if they

just took NHK off my TV and
then I didn’t have to pay this fee.

But this is the only way
NHK can make any money.

So it’s the only way they can survive.

So they really, really want people to pay.

They had this guy set up a political party.

This political party was basically saying,

we’re going to do everything we can to
get into government and then stop NHK fees.

The NHK fees are unfair.

We shouldn’t have to pay them
as citizens, but it’s not right.

Then he said, you
shouldn’t have to pay them.

But legally, you shouldn’t
have to pay them.

And a lot of people listen to this.

And he actually started
getting some political clout

because he was saying things that
people liked, I don’t want to pay it.

This is the thing I don’t like paying.

You shouldn’t have to pay it.

And people were like, hey, I’m listening.

But then he started saying some
stuff that wasn’t necessarily true.

He said, look, if you get sued by NHK,

and you become a member
of the anti-Anage K party,

we will pay your legal fees
and fight the suit for you.

Now, I’ve heard that somewhere else.

And the other place I
heard it was in America

when Donald Trump said, if
you say things that support me,

that other people don’t like, and you get
sued or whatever, I’ll pay your legal fees.

Now, if I remember correctly,
Donald Trump didn’t pay the legal fees

and I think you can guess what’s
coming in this story right now.

Seems like history repeats itself.

But what he did do is
come up with a scheme.

And schemes appeal to
people because schemes

make it feel like you’re
doing something smart.

He said, we’re going to
set up a proxy system.

So what happens is when the
NHK guy comes to your house,

you say, yes, I will sign the
contract, but I don’t put my address.

I put the address of a lawyer that sort of
is connected to the NHK anti NHK party.

And then my bills will go to that lawyer
and then he’ll just deny those bills.

Well, you can guess
that system seems really

smart ’cause you’ve
completely side-step.

I’ve never gotten a bill.

Why should I have to pay
a bill I’ve never gotten?

The bills go to these
lawyers and the lawyers

are like, well, I’m
not paying this bill.

This bill isn’t for me.

Well, now you can see that NHK
is much as I might not like them.

This system isn’t going to hold
up and under any sort of scrutiny.

So what happens next is the NHK
starts to disallow the proxy system.

They say, we’re not
going to allow you to put in

a dress that isn’t the
one you’re at right now.

We’re not going to
allow you to do this thing.

And the problem is every one of those bills

that’s been going to the
lawyer that you have not

been paying, that debt
doesn’t get disappeared.

It doesn’t go away.

You can’t fight it in court.

So then some people
actually got sued by NHK

and they lost, which means they have
to pay a much bigger bill all of a sudden

that they’re not ready
for and that’s problematic

because now instead
of paying 1,000 yen a

month, I have to pay
60,000 yen or 100,000 yen.

And maybe I don’t have that much money.

So now I have to pay back interest in
arrears and penalties and things like that.

And that’s all problematic.

In 2024, there was another lawsuit

of an online political activist
who said like he thinks

that the NHK, the anti NHK
party, is doing suspicious stuff.

So he starts suing him
for the proxy system.

Sews the leader of the party.

I’m going to have to put Dave down.

Because what he saw is when
you signed up for this proxy system

to try to scam the government
and scam the NHK system

was that you were actually
giving consent for them to use a lot

of your information, which
included selling your information

or using it in ways that
maybe you didn’t intend.

So this is problematic.

So he got sued for that.

And then his position, the
leader of the anti NHK party,

changed significantly saying that
you do have to pay the NHK fee.

It is a legal requirement.

So what we should do now is
we should all get rid of our TV.

So if you don’t like it, if you don’t like
the NHK fee, get rid of your television.

Now consumer and fares is
targeting an anti NHK party.

And it seems like the party is in
the process of collapsing completely.

But again, like I said, I don’t know if
getting rid of your TV is actually enough.

Because they say your
smartphone can pick up the signal,

the navigation system in
your car can pick up the signal,

computers that are connected to
the internet, the internet can pick it up.

So I don’t know how
that actually works, which

makes it problematic for
it actually being successful.

So this is another thing
that maybe will come

out in the legal system
in the near future.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Talking about political parties, Sensato,

the right wing sort of mega
version of a party in Japan.

They have been starting to take all
the sort of points from the mega script.

And in Okinawa, there is a Sensato
person who got into some power.

They got voted in.

And they decided to make
some comments and statements.

And you’re never going to
guess which ones they make,

because you could probably
guess which ones they make.

They said that transgender identities are
contagious during a city council meeting.

And so the young people, if they’re
taught about LGBTQ issues in school,

that will sort of open
them up to this infection,

this disease that is
the transgender thing.

The irony is, if it is infectious, they
wouldn’t get the vaccination for it.

So if there was a vaccination for this
thing, they would be anti-vaccination.

So they wouldn’t get the vaccination
for the other thing they dislike.

And this is sort of the problem is that
because they’re sort of anti-everything.

I’m anti-vaccination.

I’m anti-this.

I’m anti-that, which
means if there’s something

that could actually help me
with one of the things I like,

I might have to do one of the other things
I don’t like to actually get rid of it.

That doesn’t matter.

They’re saying that kids who
show any sort of LGBTQ tendencies

should be referred to as psychologists
to get that deep trauma taken care of

instead of actually anything that’s
sort of affirming to their life, which is–

I mean, again, it’s
sort of just the script.

It’s what you would expect from someone
who holds position in a party like this.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Talk about scams a lot.

One of the scams that came out recently

was a lady who thought she
was talking to an astronaut

who said he was low on
oxygen, and they were in love.

And then he was like, send
me money, and she didn’t.

She got scammed, but I
felt really bad about that.

But that kind of scam is actually– astronaut
has not the first time I’ve heard that.

As a scam, we’ve actually heard multiple.

I’m talking to someone
on the international

space decision scams,
and they need money.

One guy said, I needed money for a
return trip, which is absolutely insane.

There’s a new scam in
Japan, and this actually, again,

being new, it’s actually worth talking about
so that people are aware of what it is.

So what they’re trying to do is
set up old people with smartphones

that they have installed
apps on, and those apps,

they can then access any other
information they put into the phone.

So a fake police officer
called a woman in her

70s, and he said, you
are a suspect in fraud.

So what I want you to do
is go buy this very specific

smartphone, and I’m
assuming from a specific seller.

She didn’t buy one.

She was like, nah, I’m
not buying a smartphone.

If you’re the cops, you
can come and try to

deal with me properly,
and that’ll be fine.

And I thought, okay, well,
that would be the end of it.

But then a smartphone
showed up at her house.

It was delivered to her house.

So whether you actually
buy the smartphone

or not is irrelevant,
which is interesting.

So they’re just going to
send you a smartphone,

and if you start
using that smartphone,

you’re then immediately connected to
the person who is the fake police officer.

And that fake police officer
starts giving you advice.

Now, she got the phone.

She started actually answering the message

and started interacting
with the fake police officer,

the scammer, and that’s
when it became problematic.

So the scammer told her
she could buy gold via an app.

And so she ended up spending
over 5 million yen and losing 1.

5 kilograms of gold, which actually
is equivalent to 26 million yen.

So that is sort of
problematic because the family

that she’s with might just
see her using her phone,

and they don’t know what
she’s doing on the phone.

And I’m sure that phone
has sort of the apps

actually include like if
she puts in her credit

card, they get the
credit card information.

And now they’ve actually
spent all her money.

And I guess it needs to be
said, if a magic free smartphone

shows up at your house,
you probably shouldn’t use it.

(upbeat music)

Thanks for talking scams.

Naughty co, don’t say, is
an astrologer for companies.

And she has been arrested for,

and this is where I kind of
was thinking we could do a quiz.

What do you think she was arrested for?

The quiz would actually be too easy.

She was arrested for fraud.

Because she’s an astrologer,
I’m already a bit suspicious already.

I don’t believe, if you’ve listened to an
interview, Japan for any amount of time,

you know I don’t believe
any of these sort of things.

That’s the first problem.

Her deal was she would meet
with you, sort of wine and dine you.

And then she would convince
you that if she put crystals

at the foundation of your building,
so let’s say I want a business

or I own an office building, or I
own a building with other people in it,

in an apartment building,
she convinces me to spend a

certain amount of money to
put crystals in the foundation.

And that will improve the
Feng Shui of the building.

And that improvement will then
bring more money for me into my life.

And a lot of people went for it.

Now she was doing what is
essentially a Ponzi scheme.

‘Cause she was saying
you invest 10 million yen.

And you’ll get back your 10 million yen
plus five or 10% or something like that.

And she was getting money from an investor

and then doing sort of
payouts to other people.

And she was using that
money she was getting

from investors to wine
and dine other people

to get more investors so
she would get more input.

And then she was paying out some of
the originals, but some people were like,

it’s getting pretty
hard to actually get my

money out, which makes
me a little suspicious.

And that’s when it started
to catch up with her.

Ponzi schemes are
convincing because when you

get your first payout,
you actually get money.

So that’s very convincing.

So then you’re more
willing to put more money

into it and then get
more money out later.

But then it suddenly gets
difficult to get your money out.

I actually got caught
in one of these months.

And it was very, very hard to
convince me that I’d been scammed.

I was lucky that I hadn’t put in a
huge amount of some the first time.

And so I got my first payout and then
I put in more money this second time,

but I’m not rich enough to actually
put in enough money to actually lose.

One of the things they say about
investing is don’t invest money.

You’re not willing to
lose, which is actually true.

‘Cause I lost that money
and I never got it back.

I did manage to shut down his website
and actually like cause him some problems,

the scammer, but it was a
big group overseas who knows.

They called me years later,
like one or two years later

and started talking about how I could get
all my money back maybe even plus interest.

And I really quickly realized like
it’s a call center and it’s a huge scam.

And she was supposed to
be calling on part of the British

government, didn’t have a British
accent and all this other stuff.

It was just very suspicious.

And then I got them shut down too.

But that just meant they needed to get a
new phone number and new website and stuff.

Naughty code, don’t
say, then say, then say,

Naughty code, then say,
actually managed to get

2 billion yen from 70
people now, 2 billion yen.

If you had gotten to 1 billion yen,
you now have enough money to live.

You should have taken that money and run.

That’s what a lot of people were in
the comments of this story we’re saying.

And I actually agree.

This is the problem with criminals.

They get something and
it’s going and it’s going well.

They’re like, I’m gonna keep
going and going and going.

And then the money gets so big and
you have so many people you’ve scammed.

Someone’s gonna catch on.

And then that’s actually
when your house of cards

is gonna collapse because
you make it too big.

You have to set a number in your head.

This is the same with gambling.

You set a number in your head.

And if I achieve that number, I stop.

And the problem is when
you start making money,

making money, making money, people are
like, well, there’s no upper limit here.

I could make all the money in the world.

But that just means sooner or later,

you’re gonna bring too much attention
to yourself and you’re gonna get caught.

(upbeat music)

I don’t know if I would
call this a scam per se,

but it sort of falls into the same category,
which is why I’m putting it together.

There’s a guy who goes to a hostess club

and he pays the extra fee to
see the same hostess every time.

And that’s definitely saying to the hostess
that this guy has, he’s attracted to me.

Maybe he has feelings for me, but that makes
you, again, a target for being scammed.

Now this wasn’t a scam like
the ones we’ve just talked about.

This is a way more basic scam.

She says, hey, I really like a night
view at this one very specific place.

Let’s go to that one
specific place together.

And that’s like, hey, man, that’s a date.

She wants to see me outside the club, which
means she’s not in this for the money.

She’s in this ’cause she loves me.

Well, the problem is what
she’s actually trying to get you

is to go to a remote location
and at that remote location,

what happened was there were
three Yakuza waiting for them both.

They took him out of the car
and they started beating him.

He was punched in the face
and in the stomach many times.

And then he was stabbed
multiple times with an all AWL,

which is, if I’m correct,
this is what bricklayer’s use.

He’s not fighting off three
Yakuza who are there ready for him.

And he’s ready to have a good time.

He’s going to talk to this
girl that he’s attracted to.

He’s maybe going to try to make out whether
who knows where this is going to end up.

And then three Yakuza are
suddenly on him beating him up.

He gets stuffed in the trunk of
a car, taken to a second location.

They pull him out and beat him up again.

They break his teeth
and do some other stuff.

They manage to take a
smartphone and 30,000 yen,

which for four people being
involved, that is not much of a payoff.

And that’s actually the
problem because they

weren’t targeting him
because he was rich.

They were targeting
him because he was easy,

but he was easy probably because he spent
all his money on this one hostess already.

The hostess should have
just kept stringing him

along and taking his
money essentially legally

versus taking him out and
then sort of beating him up.

And then now they got like a pay
day, but that pay day is garbage.

I mean, honestly, it
wasn’t worth like 30,000 yen

divided amongst four people, four
people that are initially involved.

That’s not even 10,000 yen each and
that’s not even like a really nice meal.

September 4th, the arrest were made.

Six people were arrested.

So there was the hostess,
the three Yakuza and probably

staff or someone else and
people other tangentially involved.

It took him a month to actually
heal from getting beat up so badly.

And I feel really bad for the guy.

He was a painter, he was working on us.

He was attracted to this woman.

And what happens, she
took advantage of him.

I think the problem is the hostess system.

It’s one of those systems designed
to make you feel like something.

This happens with streamers and
stuff where like it’s a really hot girl

and a guy donates money and he feels
that he feels a meta connection to someone.

It’s a connection that he
thinks is real, it isn’t real.

It’s the same thing.

The hostess being right
next to you in real life

would make it feel
stronger, but it’s still not real.

‘Cause she’s getting paid to make you think

that she likes you so that you’ll
come back and spend more money.

She gets paid by how
much you spend at the club.

She gets paid by you coming back
again and again and being a regular.

So that’s one of the
things that I think is,

it’s predatory and I
actually think it should be

not necessarily legal,
but that’s just my opinion

and no one in Japan
cares about my opinion.

(upbeat music)

Back in June 14th, police officer in
her twenties was in a police station.

Let’s go to the toilet.

Pretty natural thing, you
have to go to the toilet.

She goes to the toilet.

She goes to the toilet
and she watches her hands.

They could drop.

You washed your hands
after going to the toilet.

The problem is at some point
she decided to take off or belt.

Her belt is connected to her holster.

Her holster has her gun in it.

She put that down next
to the sink, washed her

hands and then got up
and just walked away.

So five minutes after the police person
washes their hands and leaves the toilet.

Someone else comes into the same toilet

and then notices, hey, there’s a gun
ammunition and a belt sitting there.

That’s pretty bad thing to have happen.

Maybe I should report that.

Now they’re in a police station.

So this is safer than
somewhere out in public,

but the thing is, this exact same
story has happened multiple years.

So I’ve done this story on Ninja Ninja Pen.

At least twice.

One was a police
officer left their gun in a

convenience store and one
was a gun and a plastic bag,

like a Ziploc bag of
ammunition was left in a toilet.

So this is not the first time this has
happened, as freaky as it actually might be.

Five minutes later, someone comes
in and then actually goes to the staff

of the police station and they’re in and
says, Hey, there’s a gun in the bathroom.

Maybe you guys should take care of that.

This was a civilian.

Now they work for the police
station, but they’re not a police officer.

So there’s like, you can see like,
if this place is open to the public

and you left your gun in
this place, that’s problematic.

I don’t know, it does go
to the safety of Japan.

Like you are able to
actually leave your gun

somewhere and it
doesn’t become a problem.

Someone just turns it in.

Because when this story was sent to me,

so one of the people
sent it to me on Discord,

I read the story, without
even finishing this story,

I’m like, someone turned in that gun and
there was actually nothing wrong with it.

The police officer, of
course, did get reprimanded,

did get in trouble and they’re
gonna like, we’re gonna do

training and stuff like that
in the again of the future.

But let’s be honest, Japan is such a
safe country, with such nice people in it.

Losing your gun isn’t a big issue.

(upbeat music)

Something of a problem in Japan.

Japan is one of those countries
where people get lifetime employment.

That’s a really common thing.

So it means they do a lot less job
hopping than other countries like America,

where I think in America,
if you stay at a company

for five years, people start asking
like, do you have any ambition?

Are you going to move
on that kind of thing?

Japan, it’s way more normal for people

to stay at companies for
years and years and years.

They have lifetime employment
contracts, they’ll sort of

take care of you if you stay
at the company for a long time.

That system’s still in place.

Now, modernization means
that people are changing

jobs more often, it’s
becoming more of a problem

because people don’t
know how to deal with it.

But what’s actually
happening now is a story

called revenge quitting,
revenge quitting.

So what does this actually mean?

This is like I quit my job
and I delete all the data

I make on my computer when leaving,
just to cause problems to my coworkers.

This could be sending
us sarcastic farewell email.

So I send an email to
everyone in the company

and I started like, oh, it was
so wonderful to work with you.

I actually, I guess tone is
something that’s hard to come across.

But you can tell sarcasm one it’s there,

like talking about some
of the other employees

and how they helped you
when everyone knows they didn’t.

Quitting out without doing
any of the proper handover stuff.

So not helping the person
who’s going to take over my job

or the people who are going to
pick up the work when I leave.

Leaving purposely during
the most busy season.

So most companies, they’re busy.

I let’s say it’s a travel company
and you’re going to be busy

during the two weeks summer
vacation time or leading up to that.

And then you quit at that time on purpose

just to cause more trouble
for the other employees

in the company sending
complaints or insults via mass email.

So sending an email to all the company

and insulting like specific co-workers
or your boss or your manager.

And then making false
accusations of harassment

on your way out the door
just to cause them problems

because companies have
to properly investigate that

and properly investigating
something, cost them money.

This is now apparently 10% of
people who quit do something

that falls under this
revenge quitting category.

But the problem is causing
problems for businesses

in Japan on purpose is
called obstruction of business

and it can actually lead
to claims for damages.

So some companies are now
going to fight back against this

and actually start
sending, I don’t know if

you get, they’re not
going to get arrested.

The police are going
to contact you and say,

you did this thing, you damaged
this company, you’re now

being, you know, have a,
it’s not going to be a warrant.

What, you got to pay a fine
or restitution of some sort

for the damage you did to
the business that you left.

So it’s something to be aware of.

I don’t know what the systems are like.

I think in America, the
very at will sort of nature

in most contracts means
like they can fire you anytime,

but also means you can quit anytime,
which means it’s really hard to make a case

for something being done purposefully
or maliciously and make that stick.

Where in Japan, that
system is not in place.

So my brain just went, my brain
just angry quit, revenge quit on me.

So let’s end that story.

(upbeat music)

There is a tradition in Osaka
when the hunching Tigers

baseball team wins a
game, wins a championship,

not just a game, when
they win a championship,

people jump into the river
in the middle of this city.

That’s a really bad idea because any river

in the middle of any
city is probably disgusting.

They found when testing that recently,

there is a sanitation
risk because there is

200 to 5,000 E. coli
per 100 milliliters.

So if I jump in, some gets in my
mouth, I’m probably going to get E.

coli or something related to it.

In 1985, sort of when this tradition
started, they threw, they won a championship

and they threw a statue for
Colonel Sanders from KFC.

They threw him into the river.

And then they actually
had the Colonel’s curse

because they weren’t winning
championships anymore.

They actually blamed everyone.

They said, because you
threw the Colonel into

the river, that is why
we didn’t win a game.

But then they won a game in 2003.

I keep saying game, but it
actually should be championship.

In 2003, they won a championship.

53 people jumped into the river.

2023, they won a
championship two years ago.

26 people jumped into the river.

And now people are jumping into the river

not necessarily because of their
massive fans of the hunched and tigers.

They’re jumping in the river because
they know they’re going to get video

because they’re going to do
it for their own live streams

because they’re going
to do it for internet cloud.

And the government, the local
government’s like, this is a dirty river.

Don’t jump into this river.

It’s not healthy, it’s not safe.

Do not do this, but people are doing it.

And now they’re worried
about people doing it

in bigger numbers because
now you can put that stuff

on the internet and
go, look at the crazy eye

time I had in Japan
when I jumped on the river.

Look how they have this tradition and
I participated in this tradition in Japan.

And it’s dangerous and you might get sick.

And as Nirvana, the band
just said, you might die.

(upbeat music)

Four people were arrested.

And what they were arrested for was performing
lewd acts live streamed on strip chat.

One of the world’s largest pornographic
sites I had never heard of strip chat before.

I guess I got the two three favorites.

I go back to them again and again.

The president of a company
who’s only 28 years old,

companies called Topah and three women
committed acts of indecency in public.

So this is a very interesting
thing ’cause normally

these stories are about
the lack of censorship.

So I run my own company.

We did a story about the
guy who runs essentially

the biggest porn site
in Japan he got arrested

and his claim was, oh, I
didn’t know you were supposed

to censor the pornography in
Japan because I grew up in America

despite being a Japanese
person when he was

born and a Japanese
person living in Japan.

He was claiming cultural ignorance
and he actually kind of worked.

None of these guys are
gonna be able to get away

with it they all lived in
Japan their entire lives.

The three women are a
24 year old manager of the

company and two unemployed
women ages 40 and 34.

When I was talking about this story

with a friend of mine, the
first thing she said was 40,

who performed the lewd
acts for the online content.

So basically what they do
is they set up live streaming

on this website called StripChat
and it’s based in Cyprus.

So technically they’re like
maybe trying to get around it

that way saying like we’re not filming the
content and it’s being streamed in Japan.

We’re filming the content in Japan
but we’re streaming it to Cyprus

and therefore we’re getting
around the censorship laws.

But the problem is you’re still
doing the lewd acts in Japan.

So you’re not gonna be
able to get around it that way.

And the funny thing is the
website, StripChat supports

Japanese language which
means it’s partially target

at Japanese audience
so they know what they’re

doing, they know they’re
doing it on purpose.

Like any other streaming site,
viewers can pay viewing fees,

they can give gifts and
money to support the

performers and those
people doing the live stream.

The website deducts a commission
but you’re able to make a lot of money.

Topah has solicited women being via…
Topah has solicited women via advertisements

posting on social media
site X, the everything app.

Containing such enticements as being paid
up to 85% of revenue and saying hourly pay

can be over 30,000 yen,
so 30,000 yen an hour.

More than 100 people have registered themselves
at an office operated by the company.

The investigative sources
said that the company’s

shot video images of naked
women in their lewd acts,

mainly in studios in Tokyo
and live stream the content.

The company has gained over 100 million yen

in viewing fees and other
rewards via the website

since February last year and
distributed money to performers.

According to similar web limited,
a website analyzing service firm,

StripChat has been
accessed about 667 million

times on month on
average from May to July.

So they are making tons and tons of money.

Accesses from Japan
accounted for 20% of the total

which was the second largest target
after 21% from the United States.

Japan and America have their proclivities.

I don’t know.

They are very firm on
chasing the pornography.

America’s always number one
in Japan’s always number two.

Like that’s pretty consistent across when
they do porn hub end of year stuff, Japan.

And they are accessing what
they know as a legal content.

They know it and it’s
supposed to be censored

and they know what they’re seeing
on these sites which is not censored.

And that’s a few much they can do about it.

But they are going
consistently after these creators.

Because it wasn’t public, it’s interesting

because it doesn’t sound
like they were outside in public.

It sounds like they were
just in studios that they

rented but that’s still I
guess counts as public.

So they’re actually making the
charge a little worse because of that.

(upbeat music)

23 Beer

(upbeat music)

Sanseito is a group.

We’re not gonna be getting
away from any time soon

in the news because they are all over the
news ’cause they’re the inflammatory group

that is now anti-immigration,
anti-foreigner

and they’re, you know,
saying a lot of stuff.

I mean, that’s really just the
easiest way to like sum it up.

They’re saying all the horrible
stuff out loud so we can talk about it.

They have proposed a new constitution.

Japan’s constitution was kind
of settled after World War II.

It kind of took care of a lot of military
issues that maybe they were having

and it kind of rejiggered how the government
works and how the emperor is treated.

Well, Sanseito has some ideas.

They want to put the
emperor back where he was.

They want to revere the emperor.

They think everyone who lives in Japan

should see the emperor
as the leader of the country.

Now the thing is for politicians, I
actually think they don’t want this.

Just because if you’re a politician and so
you’re gonna be prime minister, let’s say,

and then you decide, ah, I
will put this other guy in charge.

That means I’m not in charge anymore
and I think at the end of the day,

what these guys want to be
more than anything else is in charge.

They want everyone to revere the emperor

and in brackets, I wrote
“Expelled the barbarians.

” This is a phrase
that I’ve heard before.

The foreigners being
referred to as barbarians.

Article one in their new constitution
is put the emperor back in charge.

So he’s the man, the emperor is the guy.

He should be seen as the head of state

and emissary of God and
a lot of the other things

that the emperor used to
be when he was in Japan.

Ultimate power, basically.

Article three puts him
back to the head of state.

Currently he’s not, he’s a representative.

He has no actual political power.

They’re saying we should
put him back in political power

so the government has to
do what the emperor says.

They want to make it so the
emperor approves cabinet suggestions.

Currently article four says
he shall not have any power

or activities related to
the actual government.

Their new Article 19, the
state can freely determine

the conditions for every
resident of foreign nationals.

That would mean someone like myself,

who is not a Japanese
national, but lives in Japan,

they can decide quite freely for
no reason if I get to stay or leave.

So even though I have a permanent visa,

under this new constitution,
the state could then decide,

ah, now we don’t want him
any more and you’re out.

And so I have no recourse for
that because I have no political power

because no foreign person shall
have a say over their own freedoms.

So all of these things are designed

so that only Japanese people
have power within Japan.

Only Japanese people are
respected under the new constitution.

The land is public property
and shall not be transferred

to foreign national so
I have bought a house.

I have bought the land
that the house sits on.

That means that land would now
revert back to the government,

which means the government could
decide whether or not I get to live here.

Maybe they don’t kick
me out of the country,

but they take my house away, they take
the land away and I have nowhere to live.

They’ve said maybe they’ll pay you back.

Maybe not, maybe
they’ll just confiscate it.

That’s their choice and I think
we pretty much understand

that given the option of paying
someone back or just taking their stuff,

people generally go with why
don’t we just take their stuff?

There will be no foreign politicians.

There are currently a couple.

People not born in Japan who are naturalized
in Japan who have become politicians.

Like a lot of countries, you’re
not allowed to become the president

or the prime minister if you
weren’t born in the country.

But most of them, it’s actually pretty easy
to become a politician in that country.

There is just sort of a cap on how
high you can rise within the ranks.

No foreign politicians,
naturalized citizens

can become politicians
in the third generation.

So, I mean, my great-grandkids,
if I’m reading this

correctly, not just my
grandkids, my great-grandkids.

So I’m naturalized, let’s
say I become Japanese.

I’m naturalized.

My kids are Japanese,
their kids are Japanese.

Those kids next in line could
become politicians in Japan.

So it sounds like you need
three generations in Japan.

I might be reading that a little wrong.

It might just be my grandkids,

but I’m pretty sure what they mean
is my great-great-great-grandkids.

Our grandkids, Article
20, states that Japan

will maintain a military
for self-defense.

So currently we have
the self-defense force.

This is not classified as a military.

There have been pushes by
conservative parties in Japan

over the last few years to
redefine what defense means.

So one politician came out and said,

defending our nation might
include shooting missiles

into other countries,
like maybe we don’t go

there, but if we can
shoot missiles and land it

in their country and
blow up a whole bunch of

their stuff, that’s a
form of self-defense.

I think that’s a pretty generous
version of what self-defense

might be called, but that’s
what they were trying to do.

They’re saying screw that.

We’re just going to redefine it.

We don’t have a self-defense force.

We have a military in
place for self-defense.

And then of course, their
expansionist ideals might come to pass.

They would be able to do that.

The prime minister would be
directly in charge of the military,

which means they’re assuming it
would be a San Sato prime minister.

That prime minister would
be in charge of the military

and the emperor would be
in charge of the government,

but then also the emperor would
be in charge of the government

So the emperor would also
be in charge of the military.

And that is, again, what
the Constitution does now

is break all that up,
so you can’t have that.

There would be no equality statutes.

So I, as a foreign person,
even if I get residency here,

even if I become a naturalized citizen, I
would never be seen as an equal person.

And this might even go further.

It might be like women are
now no longer equal to men

or some other, some group
is less equal than others.

They’re just like going
to take all that away.

There are no safeguards of any sort.

There’s no mention of freedoms either.

So right now, one of the
big things during COVID

that I learned about is
Japan’s Constitution currently

states you have the
freedom of movement, which

means when they were
saying, like, locking down,

it was actually kind
of going against the

Constitution because
this is constitutional.

You can’t deny people the
ability to move around freely.

So this became a problem because
we’re like, please stay at home.

They couldn’t tell you to do that.

They could only ask so that if people
decided, I want to go out of the big things.

People went out to play Pachinko.

And that ended up being a problem

because those people became
essentially super spreaders.

That’s how it was
spreading around with people

were refusing to stay
home and going out to work.

No political freedoms,
no religious freedoms,

no freedom of expression, no explanation
of what happens when you get arrested.

These are all pretty big deal.

Like we’ve done a lot of stories.

Japan’s system of arrest
is already fairly draconian.

It cannot get pretty dark pretty quick.

You want some protections in place
so that you know what’s going on.

Those are all gone.

(upbeat music)

SBI Shinse Bank.

They have completed a repayment
of the 230 billion yen that is $1.

5 billion.

And it received as a bailout in 1998.

This I found to be a
very interesting story.

I think this is like kind
of went under the radar

because it’s been paying off
this every year for multiple years.

SBI bought back all their assets that
were owned and run by the government.

So basically the government paid the
government gave them 230 billion yen,

but that meant the government
kind of owned a big chunk of that bank.

Now that they’ve paid all that
money back, they’ve bought

back all the things the
government was in control of.

So now they are a proper bank.

Now they have greater operational freedom.

They are considering re-entering or
relisting on the Japanese stock market.

The thing I found most
interesting about this

was this bank has now paid
off a debt that was given.

I understand that you know,
American car companies were bailed out.

There were other been
bailouts in North America.

And I don’t think those companies have even
come close to starting to pay them back.

So this is like 20, 30 years later.

This bank has actually
paid back the debt is owned.

And which means all
that money went back into

Japan, all the taxpayers
who paid out for that,

they kind of get it back
because those services are there.

This is interesting to me because imagine
if the companies that receive bailout money

during the crises they had, actually
ended up paying back that money.

Like it is a significant sum.

Like we’re talking billions and billions
of yen, billions and billions of dollars.

And that’s just gone in most places.

Most companies don’t ever
actually pay back that money.

But now I also look at it like this
bank now has operational freedom.

So it now can become like
every other bank and every

other bank that I can
think of is fairly predatory.

So now because it’s lacking
any government oversight

because the government
doesn’t own part of this bank,

it’s now free to kind of
be run the way it wants

to be run and the way
these banks want to be run

is predatory and abusing
people as much as possible.

So I’m wondering if maybe
it would have been better

if the bank hadn’t paid
back all the money and still

had some government
oversight within the actual bank.

(upbeat music)

Fake police scams are on the rise.

We actually talked about
this one a couple of times.

These people and they
send you like an email

and the email has like a warrant for your
arrest and then they call you and they say,

you have to give us
access to your bank account

so we can check that you’re not
the person receiving illegal funds.

We’ve had a report that
illegal funds have been put

into your bank account,
you need to pay it back

and then you’ll get it back
after all these other things.

But basically it’s people
pretending to be cops.

We’ve done a couple of stories of this

where people thought they
were going to be arrested

and the police and the
fake police officers come by

they get access to their bank
accounts or they pay out a

certain amount of money to
make sure they don’t get in trouble.

We’ve had people call
up pretending to be like

your grandkids and they
say like I need two million yen

or I’m going to get arrested
so the parents give the money

to somebody who shows up at their
house and claims to be a police officer.

These are the scams
that are on the rise in the

moment because they
have been very successful.

From January to June, the
police think they have taken a $38.

93 billion yen.

The special fraud is up 50%
that is from the same period

as last year so it’s
not quite doubled but 1.

5 the amount of fraud has increased
and the money is taken is now 2.

6 times more so it’s
more successful, there’s

more fraud and it’s been
more successful overall.

There have been 4,737 cases of fake police

that’s 30% of all fraud
and the money is up to 65%

so the other scary
part is that this kind of

fraud has been very,
very successful in Japan.

(upbeat music)

An inspector of Ahemes
organized crime central division

contacted a girl who had
posted on social media

like a dating app, I’m assuming
like a Japanese version

of Tinder that she was
interested in papa katsu.

Papa katsu is compensated dating.

So it doesn’t always mean
sex but that is usually the

underlying implication is that
you’re going to meet this person,

you give them some money,
give them some presence and then

you’re going to have sex and
then you’re going to go on your way

and the girls do this, the young
girls do this so they can get money.

They met at a hotel, she got money from the
inspector and paid for the room and left.

Now again, if they went to a hotel,
I’m assuming other things happened

that was left out of the
article so I can’t say something

happened but it would be weird to go
to a hotel and just pay for it and leave.

And when they say hotel, I
think they mean love hotel.

I’m actually have to
do a little bit of reading

between the lines to
make sure that this sort

of makes sense for
anyone who’s listening.

The inspector got her number
from the taxi company that she called.

So she’s like, I’m
leaving, goodbye, I got

your money, I’m gone,
I paid for the hotel,

I’m assuming he gave her the
money for the hotel and extra.

But then he wants to contact her so he finds
it, he looks at what taxi she got into,

contacts the company
because he’s a police officer,

he can do that and say I need the phone
number of this person who got this ride,

he gets her phone number
and he calls her, he says,

“This is the police, I want to
talk to you “about papa katsu.

” Papa katsu because I’m
the one who papa katsu’d you

in this instance, he got her home address
and met her at a nearby convenience store.

So this is already terrifying.

Like this cop is gone, done this thing,

collected a whole bunch of
personal information, used that

personal information to get the
girl to come and meet him again.

He says this was a sting operation and
he gets his money back minus the hotel fee.

So essentially, he gave her
so much money for the meeting

and he gave her extra
money for the hotel fee.

He got the meeting money
back but didn’t take back

the hotel fee so he
basically paid for the hotel

but nothing else despite
this being the implication

that the whole point
of this was you pay her

to have those sort
of personal relations.

The mother inquired
with the police station.

Now it looks like, this
article was a bit rough.

It seems like the mother was
also at the convenience store

and how she didn’t lose
her mind in that moment

when she found out this police
officer had gone and gotten his daughter.

Like the daughter, there’s a
certain amount of responsibility

for putting it on the internet
that I want to meet men for money.

But she’s underage so she’s
maybe just not grown up yet

and this fully adult male police
officer took advantage of this.

The mom should have been losing her mind.

But she was at the convenience store too.

She calls the Ehime police station
and they say it was not an investigation.

She finds out that the police officer
has just basically scammed her daughter

and called the police and the police are
now considering taking disciplinary action.

The considering to me was very
disturbing because the girl is underage

and they all know she’s underage
and we know he’s an adult police officer.

This is a form of fraud.

I mean, he basically
tricked her and lied to

her to get her to do
something that’s fraud.

And I mean, I think the most obvious
one is this is a clear abuse of power.

He used his position as a police
officer to get personal information

and then use and abuse
that personal information

to commit the fraud he
did on this young woman.

The fact that there are
considering taking disciplinary action

and having already
taken disciplinary action

is actually one of the
scariest aspects of this case.

(upbeat music)

Momoka tojo was in an idol group and she
was in the group who’s called Katagoto Bank.

Okay, I mean, I’m honestly never.

I don’t even do enough research on these
idol bands to listen to one of their songs.

So I can’t say if it’s good or bad,
but I’m assuming it’s the same stuff

that I’ve heard a
million times that I hate.

So that’s why I don’t listen to it anymore.

She posted a picture of her and a man and
the man was revealed to be her boyfriend.

So this was a birthday celebration.

She was posting pictures
on her Twitter or something

and it was her and a guy and then people
like, oh, that must be her boyfriend.

I don’t think she actually went
out and said it was her boyfriend.

Then she took down
the pictures really quickly.

Now it could have just
been her friend, but it came

out pretty quickly that it
was actually her boyfriend.

She was found to have a
boyfriend, which in a lot of

idol group contracts says
you’re not allowed to do.

You’re not allowed to have a boyfriend,

which I, this is one
of the weirdest things

about idol groups is they
want to keep the sense,

the feeling that these women
are available to the audience,

which is in itself a
really weird, creepy thing.

But then they also make
them put their lives on hold,

like they can’t have boyfriends, they
can’t have normal human relationships.

That’s really scary to me.

I don’t see how that is actually legal.

But in the contract it says, if
you break the rules, you punch them

so sometimes they have to pay
money, sometimes they have to do stuff.

We had to grow away,
way, way back in AKB48.

She shaved her head and then went on TV

and like a polyester on
YouTube and apologized

for breaking that contract
with her and the audience.

The punishment here was that Momoka
had to post one year of good night photos.

I assume this was like a
photo of her saying good night

to her audience to prove
that she was alone in her bed,

which I mean, you know, you
take the picture alone, turn them,

put the phone away and then
you roll over to your boyfriend.

But she did it.

Now the thing is, she left the band back
in May, but she still posted the picture,

so she decided I’m going
to complete my punishment.

I’m going to keep posting
pictures every night

of me saying good night
just to keep the promise

that she made, which I actually
have a certain amount of respect for.

In her last post, she said, I would
like to offer my sincere apologies

for the great inconvenience
I’ve caused to my fans

and all those involved who support me on
a daily basis due to my careless actions.

Over the past year, I’ve deeply reflected

on my actions and have faced
myself honestly from now on.

I’ll be even more mindful of my words and
actions so that this never happens again.

Now that she’s no longer in the band,

I don’t think she actually
has to worry about it because

now she can have a boyfriend
now she can do what she wants.

Now she can be like a normal human being
if that’s what she actually wants to be.

I always find it’s weird they talk about

how much they’ve inconvenienced
or hurt the audience.

You can say like, I’m sorry you guys
are disappointed, but I have a real life.

And this is not the first time this
kind of controversy has happened.

We had an idol group.

I think it was the AKB 48 again.

One of the girls had a boyfriend

and they’re like, you
either have to get rid of your

boyfriend and quit the
group and she quit the group.

I had so much respect for that.

Because she’s like, who
are you guys to be demanding

that I live my personal
life the way you want?

Yes, I work for you.

Yes, you have demands.

Yes, there are things you can ask of me.

But that’s going too far.

You can’t tell me to not fall in love and
not have a boyfriend and not live a life.

I don’t even know if that
relationship worked, but I love that

she just turned around and walked
away and said, screw you guys.

I’m going home.

(upbeat music)

Since we’re doing apologies,
the mayor of Juetsu,

on July 1st at City Hall,
he was talking about sake.

These were like all old politicians.

They’re talking about sake.

And then naturally it turns to rice
because how many cliches are we hitting?

This is naturally turns to
rice is such a weird thing.

But I guess this is really
normal for these kind of people.

He said, rice from sanda tastes bad.

A politician should not be
saying stuff about another

prefecture or another place
in really shitting on them.

He shouldn’t be saying that out
loud because that’s not useful.

It’s not beneficial.

And of course it’s how you
end up on Ninja’s New Japan.

It’s by saying a bunch of dumb stuff.

The only way he can
make it worse is by doubling

down on it, which of
course is what he did.

Two days later, he said it again
to students at a trade school.

So he really, really wanted this known.

He really wanted it known that he believes

that rice from sanda tastes
like dog compared to rice

from his prefecture
or his area or whatever.

But it turns out he lived
in sanda during high school.

So a lot of people are seeing this as a
double portrayal of like you lived here.

You have a connection to this area.

Why are you shitting on a rice?

And I’m gonna be honest, like
this might be my barbarian palate.

But I don’t taste a significant
difference between rice.

Maybe I don’t just eat enough raw rice.

Usually I have rice in
something or something with it.

So I’m not getting just rice taste.

But I honestly a lot of
times can’t tell a difference.

Like I tell if it’s too sticky or too dry.

I could might be tell different types,

but the actual flavor of
rice is pretty nondescrated.

It’s rice.

Sanda’s mayor on July 10th.

So this is like nine days later.

Has a press conference
and he demands an apology.

So the mayor of Joettes, who kind of realizes
like, dude, I’ve actually screwed up.

I’ve just said their rice
tastes like white twice.

This guy’s calling me out.

I’m gonna have to do something.

So he calls on the phone.

Sanda’s mayor then says
that’s not good enough.

You can’t get unsanda to the world
and then call me privately for an apology.

You have to come and
make an apology in person.

So he did on July 29th.

He goes to the city hall.

So he had to go around to
several places where they make rice

and then choke down that disgusting Sanda
rice in front of the people who make it.

So here’s like a series of big
quote from an actual article.

So I’m just gonna read
the whole thing for you.

During his visit on July 29th, Nagawa was
served a bowl of freshly cooked Sanda rice.

It stunk like dog.

Without saying a word, he
quietly finished every grain.

That’s actually a big deal in Japan.

You have to eat every
single grain in the rice bowl.

It’s rude to leave any behind

because every grain of rice
is someone’s work in effort.

Occasionally sipping
tea and nibbling pickles

try to probably try to wash that disgusting
Sanda rice taste out of his mouth.

When he was asked about the taste, he
said it was chewy and genuinely delicious.

Nagawa met with Tamura
offering a deep apology.

I sincerely apologize for causing distress

with my extremely careless
and inappropriate remark.

Fair.

I mean, is this a dumb thing to say?

He then visited local rice
farmers and again, expressed regret.

So he had to do like this for a whole day.

I love when they like, eat this
rice you said was disgusting.

Come to the people who make
the rice and then apologize to them.

I deeply reflect on having
made everyone uncomfortable

and I’m truly sorry, one farmer
responded, it made his feel a bit bad.

Honestly, I mean, fair enough.

You said my stuff that I grow tastes like.

We work hard to grow this rice
and we hope you understand that.

After touring production sites, Nagawa
addressed a group of farmers directly.

What you have built up through hard work

was disrespected by my
thoughtless and inconsiderate words.

I again offer my deepest apologies.

Some farmers voice serious
concerns following the remarks

saying, what happens
if Sanda rice prices fall

where sales decline will
Joe etzu take responsibility?

I truly regret causing so much distress.

I am deeply sorry.

So I mean, he sucked it up and
did the thing he was supposed to do.

He showed up and he
had choked down that rice

that is just horrible,
horrible, disgusting.

I mean, rice that animal
shouldn’t eat, but he did it.

So I mean, I guess for you.

I mean, he should have
just retracted his comments,

which is what every
other politician does.

And that just erases it in the first place.

(upbeat music)

Karuma Zacky Shrine,
they needed a profile

picture for their X
account, the everything out.

So they had one made with AI.

So it’s like an anime version of a shrine,

temple girl in the
traditional shrine outfit.

It’s very Japanese and I’m
not a fan of AI, but who cares?

Like I, when AI started making pictures,

I started doing it just like everyone
else playing with it and seeing it.

But it’s not something
I have any respect for.

But I mean, this shrine probably
doesn’t have any artists working for it.

So they thought this was a simple solution.

They just wanted to get
something up maybe that day.

The problem is, this is a
shrine dedicated to artists.

So artists come to this shrine to pray
for, I guess, success in their art projects

or like the plays that they’re
in or the songs that they

make or something, which
would include visual artists.

So they might have been
able to get one of those guys

to do it for free, but
maybe that took time.

They never explained why they went
with AI or with the AI route, but they did.

And so some people were disappointed,
but then they started getting emails.

And you know, if you start getting
emails, everything’s gone wrong.

Except in Engineers Japan,
where you can send me a message

directly, you can send an email
to chuckingbeefchest@gmail.

com or you can leave a
voice message at speakpipe.

com, slash chuckingbeefchest.

I would love to hear from you.

The shrine started getting death threats.

I’d take some death threats.

I mean, I’d analyze them
on air and be super fun.

So they ended up taking down the AI avatar,

actually closing their X
account basically the same day.

The emails got threatening.

Someone sent, your
damn shrine will burn to the

ground in an unexplained
fire one of these days,

which actually unexplained
means you said it.

I mean, it’s actually really clear
what’s actually going on there.

Also, physical violence was threatened
in another couple of messages.

An unemployed man was arrested.

He was pissed off by the use of AI art.

So we don’t know again the details.

We don’t know that much about the AI art

or if he cared about AI
art or if he cared about

this like, or maybe
he was a failed artist.

That’s why he was
unemployed or that kind of thing.

Maybe he struggled with his
job or lost his job because of AI.

I could create a bunch of
scenarios where he hates AI.

But I think taking it on the
temples kind of the wrong target,

the person, the AI, the
person who actually used AI

to make the art, so the AI
user also started getting threats.

Come to my house with three
million yen and apologize or I’ll kill you.

Death threats in Japan
are very, very illegal.

So the police are
actually looking into that

if they find the guy he’s going to be
arrested for making that very real threat.

Unless AI, they should have had the
guy get three million yen and said like,

I’ll bring it to your house where do you
live and then the police could show up.

(upbeat music)

The 55-year-old man was driving
backwards down a one-way street,

which since the car’s facing the right way,

that is the right way,
like that’s okay, right?

He’s just going backwards.

He stops, gets out and
argues to the people.

So people probably were like, hey
dude, don’t drive that way down the street

and he stopped and
got out of his car and

argued with them and
they said he was drunk.

And then two, people
come out of a ramen shop

and they’re like, he’s obviously
drunk, so they call it cops.

Cops show up.

He’s three times over the
legal limit based on a breathalyze.

Our breathalyzes are not super, super
accurate, but they do do something.

So they actually can arrest them
now because they know he’s drunk.

He states to the police and
this is something you should

not say to the police, I
drink 100 liters of beer.

I was very interested in this

because I don’t think a human being can
drink 100 liters of anything and survive.

It takes 480 milliliters of pure
alcohol to kill a human being.

Now this is not an exact figure.

It’s like if you’ve been
drinking your whole life

and building up that
resistance, you can do more.

But on average, the average person,
so I’m gonna just say 170 pounds,

whatever size human being, 480
milliliters of pure alcohol would kill you.

Beer, 500 milliliters,
500 milliliters, beer.

So a normal size, a slightly
bigger size can of beer is 4.

2% alcohol or 21 milliliters
of pure alcohol in a beer.

If you take 480 and
divide it by 21, you get 23,

so that would be 23 beers
would kill the average person

if you just drank them in a row
because that would be enough alcohol.

Again, I think the volume of liquid
would already start doing some damage,

but that’s enough
alcohol to actually kill you.

Maybe even like the beer
would dilute it ’cause it’s

actually not that much,
but that is 14 liters of beer.

And that is not even anywhere close.

So he’s claiming he
drank 100 liters of beer.

This guy is claiming he’s drunk in 10 times
more beer than it would take to kill you.

(upbeat music)

A 19 year old part time
clerk made four false charges

at his store totaling 109,
199 million, 599,999 yen.

And then went to another store, I
guess got access to their cash register

and charged himself 99,999,999 yen.

And the reason he did
this was to get the point.

He wasn’t actually like
stealing money directly.

He was saying, charge this.

I’ll use, I assume, something like pay pay.

And then I’ll get the points for it.

And then no one actually loses any money.

The points he got would
have been worth 950,000 yen.

He took that 950,000 yen, he got in points

and he went to restaurants
and he bought clothes

and did sort of like all
normal 19 year old kid things.

But of course, the
transactions are shown up.

So people are like,
hey, did someone spend

nearly a billion yen in
our store yesterday?

And hey, they got points for it and
hey, what account is that connected to?

Hey, it’s connected to
your account 19 year old.

They didn’t just fire them,
they actually called the police.

It was a very interesting
attempt at fraud because he was

actually doing a nice thing
where like no person was hurt.

Like the corporation that
provides the points was

going through some damage,
but they have insurance.

And again, I have no sort of love for
corporations if they get screwed a little bit.

Corporation screw us all the time.

So I’m actually kind of okay with it.

No individual was hurt, but it is theft.

It is sort of a big problem.

I do like that he just
went on the register and hit

as many nines as he couldn’t
till he ran out of space.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

(whooshing)

(upbeat music)