Tag: vandalism

Like a Frying Pan to the Face

(upbeat music)

This is episode 333 half the devil’s
number episode of Ninja News Japan.

‘Cause we do about 50
episodes a year once a week.

I don’t do every single week
’cause there’s holidays and stuff.

I will take a week off here and there.

But anyone who’s been
around for the last couple weeks

or the last couple months or
the last couple of years, of course,

thank you for hanging out and
listening to Ninja News Japan

and news from Japan
and my musings on being

a resident of Japan
and living in the world.

And I hope it’s brought you some
entertainment more than anything else.

Let’s get to our news.

First story’s kind of depressing.

Japan has dropped to 90 seconds place
of 116 countries in English proficiency.

So the overall level of English ability
of the Japanese people has gone down.

It’s the lowest on record.

Last year, they were 87, so
they’ve gone from 87 to 92nd place.

The drop has been
between 18 to 25-year-olds.

Lower than the overall average
compared to people who are 26 and above.

So people who are 26 and above,

the average ability in their
English proficiency is higher.

People 18 to 25, they are below average.

The government’s trying
to make excuses, I guess.

I don’t know.

You’ve got to come up
with a reason for this.

Why are these students, particularly low?

They’re saying these
students kind of lived through

coronavirus and has
affected their motivation.

So they are less motivated to study.

So they don’t study as
hard as they didn’t really

achieve the proficiency
that they would want.

It’s interesting, because someone

a representative said that
Japan hasn’t actually dropped.

They’ve just stayed the same
while all the other countries went up.

So really they’ve
maintained their standards,

but other countries have
improved their English proficiency

forcing Japan down, which is
an interesting way of looking at it.

Because I actually wouldn’t
have thought of that.

We look at lists, we look at numbers,
we look at things that go up and down.

You think of them as just being
relative, who’s done more, who’s done less.

If you maintain the
same in everyone else

advances, you actually
drop in your rankings.

So that’s pretty interesting.

If you’re interested in who is number
one, the Netherlands, six years in a row,

the Netherlands has been
number one in English proficiency.

Beating out.

I was about to say beating out America,

but unfortunately that
I might actually be true.

I don’t know what kind of test.

The test they administer there
is not going to be the same test

they would administer in America,
but it would be interesting view.

Gave English-speaking
countries like Canada,

Australia, New Zealand,
England, and America.

The same test to see where
they ranked in English proficiency.

I would actually be very
interested in those results.

I would like to take this test.

I have taken multiple
English proficiency tests

that students of mine have
taken, just to see how I do.

And it’s not always perfect.

I mean, I do well.

Let’s give me some credit.

I do do well.

But I am like Japan.

I don’t think I’m
improving my English skills.

I think I’m maintaining.

So if someone else is
improving, they would surpass me.

So that’s very possible.

And I hope that for you.

The highest ranked Asian country,

which is what Japan
wouldn’t be more likely to be

measured against Singapore,
they got number three.

So Netherlands number
one, the highest ranked

Asian country is
Singapore at number three.

So since we’re talking about rankings,

I thought, oh, wouldn’t
it be nice to have

a counter-ranking where
Japan has improved?

Well, Japan rises to 31st place
in global digital competitiveness.

What does that mean?

I’m not 100% sure.

There are 67 countries that get ranked.

And you might be like, wow, that’s great.

31 out of 67.

It’s an improvement of one from last year.

So the ranking assesses
the adoption and utilization

of digital technologies
that drive transformations

and government
business models in society.

So Japan recently gave up floppy disks.

They recently have tried
to push things onto digital,

which should have
been digital 10 years ago.

So I see Japan’s technology push is
catching up more than anything else.

This is published by the
Swiss business school.

The ranking is based on statistical
data and surveys of executives.

So this is based a lot on, I would
say, an older generation of people.

Executives do tend to be older people.

Singapore claimed the top spot this year

with South Korea Hong Kong,
Taiwan, and Nordic countries

such as Denmark, Sweden,
Norway, all ranking within top 10.

Japan remained 31st.

Although Japan was recognized
for its robust technological

frameworks and high
standards of higher education,

it ranked poorly in areas
such as business agility

and international experience among senior
executives where it placed at the bottom.

So an interesting thing of
what they’re saying is like Japan,

they’re teaching people well, their
infrastructure is good, their education is good,

but the people who are
actually using it implementing it,

the executives, the current
executives in Japan now

are horrendous, raking
at the bottom is bad.

Business agility, Japan is not
an agile business environment.

That is something I have
not worked in a bunch of

Japanese companies, but
I’ve seen a lot of these stories.

I’ve looked at Japanese
companies and things like that.

Japan’s traditional way
of thinking is not agile.

In its ability to pivot,
in ability to change,

they do things the way
things have been done before

because that’s the way
it’s been done before.

So that’s the right way to do it.

That is kind of the base philosophy of
most Japanese companies and people.

It is this utmost respect
for tradition and history,

which is respectable in
some aspects of life, but

then you turn it on and
go, maybe not everything.

And the second point,
the international experience

among executives, yeah,
Japan is very insular.

They don’t travel outside their country.

They don’t interact with other cultures.

They don’t do a very good job
of existing on the world stage.

And that is actually something I think

the next generation of people going up in
Japan, that’s where they need to look at.

Don’t look at just Japan as your market.

Look at the world as your market.

And what can you do to achieve that?

And that would actually change
the nature of Japanese business.

It would get you up in this ranking.

I don’t give a shit about
rankings if I’m being really honest.

But rankings do give you insight
into sort of comparative data

and that comparative data
can tell you where you’re weak.

And then you can start to improve
yourself if anyone took this seriously.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This is where I was going to do the quiz,

but I didn’t manage to
arrange some of this week.

And episode 333 is, I think, might be
the baseline for how we move forward.

This is since I’m just did
a story where I’m talking

about, like, look at where
you need to improve.

This is what I need
to do with this episode.

Is, where do the failures in this episode?

How do I need to improve?

I need to figure out a way to
get the guest on more efficiently.

It means I have to do
the guest segment earlier

than the actual
recording of the episode.

I can’t have people sitting in the wings.

I got to work on other people’s schedules.

But this is where I
was going to do the quiz.

So I thought, ah, here’s the quiz that
I wrote that I didn’t actually get to do.

So I’ll just put it out there.

And then I’ll answer the question.

Maybe I need to come up
with a little thinking song.

The 65-year-old man came
to Japan with his family.

The problem is, this very
small story got massive push

on the news sites or that
talk about Japan news.

This came up like eight, nine times.

It’s one of those classic stories.

It’s fairly inconsequential.

But it’s got that kind of like
flavor that everyone enjoys.

It’s got that little bit of like, mmm,
oh, the little, all-genu, the little,

je ne se qua that everyone
loves in their news stories.

‘Cause it doesn’t hurt anyone too bad,

but a guy gets kind of
taken down for who he is.

My first assumption was anyone in
Japan would have heard this story.

If you pay attention to the news at all.

What crime does he commit?

So a 65-year-old man
came to Japan with his family.

What crime does he commit basically
on his first day walking around the city?

I gave four options.

Number one, he sexually
assaults a woman at a bar.

Number two, he got
drunk and gone into a fight.

Number three, he commits
a form of vandalism.

Number four, riding a bike
drunk and on his phone.

As you learned in last week’s episode,

riding your bicycle drunk
is now illegal in Japan.

Riding your bike while using
your phone is illegal in Japan.

Doing the boasts, accumulates those, takes
those two crimes and put them together

and gives you an extra big
fine and possible prison time.

So then we would have the discussion now.

Ask me some questions, turns out.

I mean, all these four
choices are pretty standard.

Stories of foreign people coming
to Japan and getting in trouble.

The last one’s the most interesting one.

That was kind of my, what
I put in there to make it the

most interesting one
because it applies to a new rule

that was just implemented
in the last couple of weeks.

The actual answer is
number three, vandalism.

He used his fingernails to
carve his family members’ names

into a tory gate, which is, okay,
if you’re gonna vandalize stuff.

I’m gonna give us, stop for a second.

I need a second camera
so I can turn to the camera

and actually talk to the
criminals in the audience.

If you’re gonna commit vandalism, so
this would be, we’d turn to camera three.

I don’t have three cameras,
I have one, but we turn

to the second camera
and we say, “Hey, criminals.

” If you’re going to commit
vandalism, don’t write your

actual names in it because
then your names will be connected

to the actual crime, which
would be connected to you

giving the police a very easy job of
figuring out who committed the crime.

Here’s a little story, I,
once committed vandalism.

It was in university.

I didn’t get housing my
first year of university,

which was a very
weird problem to have.

The fraternities offered housing.

So you could stay in their fraternity
house and pay rent, it was very low,

but you didn’t actually
have to join the fraternity.

So for almost 10 months,
I lived in a fraternity

house without being a
member of the fraternity.

That was a very weird experience.

Anyone else who was in a similar situation
in mind ended up joining the fraternity.

I was the only one
who didn’t actually join.

They had a balcony and it was all wooden.

It was very old and I was
just playing with my thumb,

just like this man
carved in with his finger.

He carved his name in.

I didn’t carve in my name.

I carved in fuzzy Zellweger, which
was a very old golfing, famous person.

I don’t know anything
about golf, so I don’t know

why that name came into
mind, but I knew immediately.

If I carved in my name, then
the crime I have just committed

is immediately linked to
me, and it’s kind of ever

self-evident who committed
this crime and I’m caught.

So you don’t carve in your own names.

So this man, you’ve
committed the first crime here,

was actually how stupid you
were in committing the crime.

That should be an addition
to the crime you’ve committed.

So he used this fingernail.

He carved in family members’ names.

I don’t know if it was just initials,
but he was caught pretty quickly.

Touring gates are sacred.

So we had a story a few weeks
ago, maybe a couple months ago,

of fitness influencer
came and did chin-ups

on the toy gate and
got just blasted online.

This is worse than
that, because you’ve

actually done physical
damage to the toy gate.

They’re not taking that shit lightly.

The vandalism was founded
11.20 AM at 4.30 AM that night.

So over the course of a single
day, the police went, found this guy,

went to his wherever he was staying in his
hotel on a resume at 4.30 in the morning.

They did not hesitate to arrest this guy.

He had to do the perplock
from the hotel to the car at 4.

30 in the morning.

All the pictures of him of
him with like a fuzzy hair,

and he’s just got like Ben
head and the stuff, ’cause he just

woke him out and said, throw on
some clothes you’re under arrest.

We haven’t got any information
since then of what’s actually happened.

My guess is that he was
just asked to leave and left.

First offenses in Japan,
especially small ones, don’t tend

to come with jail time or any
sort of actual real punishment.

They defer a lot of stuff and say like,

look, if you do this again,
you’re gonna get in trouble,

but if you’re a tourist, they’re like,
look, just go and don’t come back.

But if they wanna make
sure he doesn’t come back,

they charge him with the crime,
they find him guilty, and then

they send him away, then he
can’t come back into the country.

(upbeat music)

A record scam occurred.

Someone took eight
hundred and nine million yen.

That’s five million dollars in one scam.

What do you call it?

In one scam, it’s not one scam event,
one scam session, one scam, something.

I want another word in there,

but I don’t think there is, I
think it’s just in one scam.

My brain was going for another
word to make it like the event.

‘Cause it wasn’t a single instance.

This scam happened multiple times.

You got money multiple
times from the person.

So what would you call that?

It’s like it’s a sequence.

Ah, I need to, I have to look and see.

There’s gotta be some correct
verbiage for that, but anyways.

A Chinese national was arrested for fraud
because of investment scheme via line.

He impersonated a famous economic analyst.

So he basically put up ads saying,
I’m this famous economics guy in Japan.

It’s an ad saying like
if you want information

from me, you can pay
money, we can do some stuff.

I’ll make you super rich if you
give me your money, excellent.

So the appeal of this scam, I think, is
that they don’t go out hunting for you.

So they’re not looking for marks.

They let the marks come to them.

And then that gives the
person a lot more confidence

when they start actually
talking about the money and stuff.

This is one of the more
effective versions of

scams is when you get
the people to come to you

to give you money because
they’re already partially

convinced of your things legitimacy
if they show up at your door.

This is not showing up at anyone’s door.

This is all via the internet.

A 71 year old woman responded to
an online ad and added the line account.

So line is a chat kind of thing in Japan.

It’s one of the biggest ones in Japan.

So she sees an ad and it says,
add this line account and we can talk

about your investment
future, something like that.

She adds the line
account and starts chatting

with this person who she thinks
is a famous economic analyst.

Initially she gave 10
million yen in November

and the scammer’s
faked profits via an app.

So they made an app and
then they put her number in

and they made it look like that number
was going up so she would invest further.

She looked like she was making money.

Over the course of the time
she made 47 more transactions.

Many were cash career.

So she’s basically like,
meet me at this train station.

I will give you cash.

They dropped the cash off.

One cash drop was 83 million yen.

I don’t have any money.

I’m not a rich person.

I don’t have any money.

I have enough money to survive.

I’m not in any trouble or anything.

This woman had eight
hundred and nine million

yen to play with, to
use for investments.

She was capable of dropping
83 million yen at one time

and not really seeming to have
a significant impact on her life.

Whereas if you just
handed me 83 million yen

today, my life would
be completely altered.

It’s almost like these
rich people who I’m

gonna, I don’t know
anything about the lady.

They don’t release a lot of details

about the victim in this
case, which is probably correct.

But you can assume with the sheer volume
of money she was funneling into this thing.

She either is president of
a company or was president

of a company or this is
like generational wealth.

But she had a lot of money that she
could just play with in her personal life.

It’s almost like these super rich
people who clearly are comfortable

with super rich amounts of money,
super large amounts of money.

Don’t know how to use that money.

Because if she just took 83 million
yen or eight hundred and nine million yen

and redistributed amongst
poor people like me,

I don’t want to make it sound
like I’m poor, but I’m not rich.

It would have this huge positive impact
on my life and she’s just thrown it away.

This scammer just took her.

So after a certain amount of money,
eight hundred and nine million yen,

five million dollars later,
she started realizing maybe

something was up ’cause she
wasn’t getting her money back.

I don’t know, I feel weirdly
frustrated for myself

’cause I don’t have any
money to invest in anything.

But then I could get scam too.

I would do that because I would go
out hunting for something to look at

that would promise me a certain
amount of return on my investment.

And then I would invest it
and then you find out you’re

getting scam but they
always get you to roll in more.

But there’s an app that they say to look at

and the app’s telling
you’re making more money

and you believe it because you want
to believe you’re making more money.

I got a lot of sympathy.

Even though this is a rich person
who clearly had more money than since,

I do have sympathy ’cause they
don’t deserve to be scammed.

I just would like them to use
their money in a more sensible way.

As in bank rolling, the industry
depends next 333 episodes.

An 88 year old father, Chef,
and a 60 year old manager

who is the son of the same
restaurant got into a fight.

The father threatened the son with a knife

so the son hit the
father with a frying pan.

I don’t know why, but that was
enough for me to be into this story.

Like that was a cliche fight.

Like he whips out a
knife, he starts threatening.

The other guy picks up a pan.

Whoop, whoop, whoop,
have to make the sound.

Bong, they were both arrested.

The father said there is no mistake

that I threatened him by
holding a knife up to him.

The son said it’s true I
hit him with a frying pan.

So they’ve both admitted to their crimes.

Both were taken to the custody
and then both were related to release.

So I’m trying to figure out what
happened because I guess the

police were like, do you want
to press charges on each other?

‘Cause both have admitted
to the crime they committed.

Like you’re not supposed to
threaten people with knives.

You’re not supposed to
hit people with frying pans.

But maybe they didn’t
want to press charges

against each other
’cause it’s father and son.

And maybe they have
this kind of contentious

relationship and this is
how they just live their lives.

There’s a weird thing about chefs and the
chefs are all tough and violent and stuff.

And I’ve never seen chefs as
being that kind of personality.

I think it’s like a
persona they’ve put on

themselves, which is how
you get the Gordon Ramses

who like shouts and is
really mean to everybody.

I don’t think that’s a
good way to run anything.

But I’ve never run a successful kitchen.

So what do I know?

But then there’s an interesting thing
where police can send it to prosecutors

and the prosecutors can
choose to press charges

even though like the victim
doesn’t want to do that.

Like they can actually do it
on your behalf ’cause the crime

has been committed whether
or not you’re angry about it.

But Japan being Japan, since
they’re not going to get help

from the other person like
the son’s not going to like

turn on the father, the
father’s not going to turn

on the son, you’re in
this like weird situation

where they’re not
going to actually go after

each other when you
actually get to court.

And that’s actually what
the prosecution needs I think.

Japan has very famously a high probably,

like basically if you go to
prosecution, you’re guilty.

It’s 98%, 99% is massive number.

But it’s because if they’re not 100% sure

or they’re going to get
that, they cut you loose.

So I’m betting that’s
what’s actually happened

because they weren’t going to
get the two to turn on each other

like we’re not 100% sure this
is actually going to work out.

We’re going to kind of loose so
that our record doesn’t go down.

A small city that’s
proposed a tourist event.

It’s a very good thing to do.

You have to have lots
of events for tourists,

you have to have tourism,
tourism’s a big money maker in Japan.

So they have a meeting,
they’re like, hey guys,

we want to make an event
when I have a creative idea.

Then we have a lady over here
and she’s like, I have an idea.

Let’s make a competition where
people pretend to kill themselves.

And then acted out, the idea
came from someone who sold

and demonstrated toy
retractable plastic swords.

So it was a little sword
and you push it into your

body and it retracts
into the hilt of the sword.

Okay, so no one’s actually getting hurt.

You’ve seen those like stage
knives and kind of stuff in the past.

So what they’re like, we’re going
to, every city has a samurai tradition.

I mean, it’s one of those things where they
do like, ooh, samurai’s came from here.

Samurai’s came from everywhere.

This is not a big deal.

So like, but samurai’s
had to commit sepucca.

They had to kill themselves.

It’s a very dramatic thing.

They have to like, run
it across their stomach.

They have to die dramatically.

We’ve seen it and movies and that stuff.

Let’s have that competition.

And this went forward and
everyone thought it was a good idea.

So the posters go up.

And it said, seeking
participants, sepucca contest.

We are seeking participants for a
sepucca contest to be held at the

Don Don Terrace at Matsui City
Hall in December 14th, a Saturday.

After committing sepucca
with a plastic sword,

please demonstrate
your acting skills by

writhing around for 30
seconds to one minute.

So there’s like a timeframe of when you
have to die, which is pretty interesting.

The person with the most vivid
performance will be named champion.

The use of fake blood is prohibited.

Now that quite sensibly turned
out to be not the best idea.

So the city’s like, hey, no,
you’re not going to do that.

So then they had to do a retraction.

It was canceled.

I would like to apologize to the
involved party at City Hall for causing

such a disturbance from something
we intended to serve as entertainment.

On the other hand, we have also
received emails from people saying they

are proof of the idea and want to
participate, but we feel that holding it can

contribute to a loss of trust from City
Hall, so we are canceling the contest.

So basically, yeah, some people were
like, hey, I want to show my acting chops.

I want to fake kill myself on stage. I
want to get everyone to look at me.

While I die for 30 seconds to a
minute, it’s going to be a great show.

Other people are like, hey, take a second
and think what you’re actually doing.

You’re pretending to kill yourself on
stage in front of a whole bunch of people.

Maybe that’s not the best idea.

Maybe that doesn’t really
represent our city well.

Maybe that doesn’t
represent City Hall well.

Maybe that’s not something
we should be doing.

A drunk passenger sleeps on the
subway car for five hours overnight.

So what happened is this
is a pretty normal thing.

People get the last train.
They’ve been drinking.

They’re really drunk
when they get on the train.

If you’ve ever taken the last train
home from wherever you are in Japan to

enter your home station, you have
encountered the extremely drunk person.

They fall asleep on the benches.

They take up too much space.
Maybe they fall on the floor.

The interesting thing is when the
cell phone or wallet falls out of them,

like people will pick
them up and put them on

the bench next to them
so they don’t lose it.

It’s one of those nice
things about Japan

where it’s like a relatively
honest place where

they don’t tend to steal
from you when you’re drunk

out of your gourd, which
is what a lot of people are.

The interesting thing is what happens
when you get to the last station.

So the staff have to wake
you up and get you off the train.

You’re not allowed to stay there. Since
it’s the last train, you can’t get home.

There’s a whole other set of issues
that you have to deal with as the person

who just kicked off the train.
You missed your stop.

Can you walk home sometimes possible?
Sometimes not.

You probably get a hotel around
the station or something like that.

Karaoke box, something like that.
Who knows? That’s your problem.

What happened here is
the guys on the end car.

The staff come in. They wake them up.
They’re like, you got to get off here.

It’s the last station. So he’s drunk.
He gets up. He walks off.

The station staff person
goes to the next car

to see if there’s anyone
else on those cars

or starts moving up the train.
Then they turn off the lights.

What happened is the drunk I walked off
the train. The station staff walked away.

He’s like, I’m too tired to walk to
the ticket gate and go out the station.

I’m going to go back in and lie down where
I was very comfortable 10 seconds ago.

He gets back on the
train and falls asleep

five hours later because
the first train’s like

six o’clock in the morning, five 30
in the morning, something like that.

Five hours later, staff come
and find him asleep on the train.

The driver of the first
train of the day found

the men asleep inside
the train at 5.20 a.m.

He was said to be intoxicated.

So this is a guy who had 12,
12, 31 o’clock. Whenever that

last train was, was drunk out of his
mind four hours, five hours later of sleep.

And he was still drunk
out of his mind when

they tried to wake him
up in the next morning.

So should you come visit
Japan? Don’t commit vandalism.

Don’t if you, okay, if
you’re going to commit,

this is again when I have
to switch to the camera

where I speak to the
criminals in the audience.

If you’re going to commit
vandalism, don’t write your name.

That’s just going to be straight up advice
from an institution who’s Japan to you.

Don’t use your own
name in your crimes.

That’s what aliases are for. But if you
come to Japan, don’t commit vandalism.

And if you do get super,
super drunk, know that if you fall

asleep in the last train,
they will kick you off.

And if you fall asleep, I
don’t know if it’s a crime.

I guess it’s trespassing.
So he doesn’t

seem like he’s actually been
arrested or gone in trouble.

But it is a good
thing to know that

if you’re on the last
train, they will kick you off.

7 Foot Vandal

We’ll check it out y’all.

We got what you need.

We’re all living in
apartments, condos, vans.

Well, dude, even you can have a studio.

The studio in a box.

Yes, we can help you with that
right here at Blind Knowledge.

We work on your budget and
we figure out your measurements.

We’ll get you the best
sound for the best price.

Let me know.

877-237-1143 or at Blind Knowledge.com.

Yup.

It’s got a lot of updates.

Before I actually do that, we
have just started my summer break.

The kids around summer
break for like a month.

My work is me two weeks off.

So next week, this is the first day.

So I was able to record today
because basically nothing’s happened yet.

We haven’t organized anything yet.

But next week, I don’t
know if I’m going to get

an episode out or I
might get one out later.

I’m going to try.

I don’t know.

It’s a holiday and I don’t
feel obligated to entertain you.

That’s just the straight-up truth.

Now if I can entertain
you, I would love to do that.

The reality is, am I not?

Anyways, two weeks from now,
there will be a regular episode.

It will be back on.

It will be all awesome.

I’ve actually just inadvertently
implied that the holiday episode

I record will not be awesome,
but I’m sure it will be fine.

So let’s get to some updates.

I’m just letting you
know that maybe your

free entertainment may
not be available next week.

It may be.

Maybe if you pray
hard enough to the right

God, I will have enough
time to do the thing.

And then record it for you.

Now I don’t want to start.

I want to berate you in a
weird way to the point where

you now feel obligated
to pray to some annoying…

You’ve been playing Assassin’s
Creed Valhalla, so I think Odin.

Odin might be the guy before.

I’ve always been a big fan of Thor, both
the original version and the MCU version.

God, Chris Hemsworth’s body.

I know it’s all fake
because he’s he’s Jack

downstairs, but I’m damn
with that man takes his shirt off.

I respond and I’m a heterosexual male.

Still kind of respond to that in a
positive way if you know what I’m saying.

Alright, so I actually do the podcast now.

That wasn’t too much of a distraction.

I got to put on updates,
which I’m pretty happy about.

Last week, I talked about barbinheimer.

So that was the hashtag
that they came out

because Barbie and the
Oppenheimer movie are

coming out the same day and everyone’s
like, “Oh, we’ll make a double feature.

It’s so quirky and
ironic because one’s

super light comedy fun movie, the
other one’s very heavy and serious.”

I created the barbinheimer hashtag.

Now, Barbie is coming out in Japan.

Oppenheimer currently is not
slated to be released in Japan.

The Warner Brothers Japanese account issued
an apology for the barbinheimer hashtag as

it being relatively, you know, instant, not
instant seer, insensitive to, you know, the

historical reality of
what’s happened in Japan.

The Internet being the Internet, Internet
citizens were not super happy about that.

Internet people are always classy.

Let’s put it that way.

I spent a lot of time on the Internet,
stream, video games, do podcasts.

I spent a lot of time on
the Internet just for fun.

Yeah, I’ve run across some of
the joyous aspects of the Internet.

Always classy, always fair, always honest.

So in retaliation to
the lack of apology from

the American Barbie account, that’s
very specific is what they’re doing.

Because the Japanese account apologized
and they said, “That’s not good enough.

The American Barbie account is still
not acknowledging that this is insensitive.

It’s still not acknowledging
how gross this is.”

So because what they
were doing, if you go

in search barbinheimer,
you will find Barbie.

The one I found the first one,
which I did actually think was

pretty solid, was Barbie with
her hair as a mushroom cloud.

Okay, and it’s all pink.

The Internet was like, “Japanese” and
it was like, “We could play this game too.”

So they started shopping?

I guess shipping might
not be the right word.

I was about to say photo
shopping, which is the right word.

But then I thought maybe they’re
shipping to use some younger parlance.

9/11 images in Barbie
pink or with Barbie

overlaid or things like that, creating
their own memes in retaliation.

I don’t know how I feel about that.

I didn’t care about
barbinheimer because, sure,

whatever, people are putting
two disparate things together.

Whatever.

I didn’t take it too seriously,
but again, I’m not Japanese.

I mean, people are also like,
“You gotta be able to talk about it.”

But again, I guess it
is for them, it’s serious.

My feelings on it, I’m
torn, is what I’m saying.

I find the 9/11 memes they’ve made in
portace, but at the same time I find the whole

barbinheimer thing in
sort of in portace as well.

I do understand the marketing of it.

Those people jumping on, like,
“Hey, this memes happened.

It’s promoting both our films.

Let’s get on that.”.

I get why that happened.

I guess I just live in a real
world where gross things happen

and you kind of just let it go so
you can move on, move past it.

Not so for Japanese people in this case.

Not, I don’t want these people to
say that this is Japanese people.

They don’t represent all of Japan.

Most people in Japan
probably don’t even

know this is going on because
it is very much an Internet thing.

I talked previously about a YouTuber who
was playing essentially a visual novel, a

Stein’s Gate visual
novel and he spoiled the

ending and they sued
him because they’re saying

that this is giving away
the ending of a story.

Therefore people are
going to be less likely

to pay for that story
in the future if you

spoiled the ending
because people the whole

point of doing one of these
things is to get to the ending.

He wants two years in prison plus
like a million years or something.

And they said that
he must be punished

severely to prevent the
decline of the content industry.

The verdict came out yesterday,
but hasn’t been announced yet.

I was looking for it this morning.

It being August 8th as I recorded this.

So the verdict was supposed
to be brought down August 7th.

I don’t think he’s going
to get two years in prison.

But I could see a hefty fine.

Prosecutors being
prosecutors, they always ask

for massive, massive punishments
and they’re going to get less than that.

I think that’s kind of the strategy.

But yeah, it is
interesting that this visual

novel has had such an impact because to
me visual novels are really small things.

But again, it’s a whole industry in Japan.

People pay a lot of money for these things.

So ruining it for other people,
you’re ruining it for the company.

They’re going to take you to
court and I think they’re going to win.

So this was a very interesting development.

Over the last, it’s probably
like five, six months.

Sushi terrorism has been an ongoing theme.

There was the kid and he drank
from the soy sauce bottle directly.

So he licked it and stuff.

Then you put it back.

Other people use that
disgusting that went viral.

His friend recorded it
put it on the Internet.

Now these were just kids.

They were doing dumb stuff and recording
it and putting it on the Internet.

There was some other
kids who were licking and

touching the Sushi that was
going by on the conveyor belt.

Sushi, the conveyor
belt Sushi company is

saying like we had to change
our entire system because of this.

Our stocks dropped billions of yen.

This has cost us so much money.

We’re suing the kid.

They wanted they were suing
the family because he’s underage.

So they actually have to
sue the mom for 67 million yen.

I can guarantee that this person does not
have 67 million yen just in liquid assets,

they were able to spend on the fact
that his son licked a soy sauce container.

They have reached a settlement but
released no details, which is killing me.

Because I think what’s
happened is the company,

Sushi, they wanted
to make a lot of noise.

They wanted to make
sure everyone knows that

if you do this and we
catch you, we’re going

to come after you and they
took it all the way to the limit.

Then they said, look,
we don’t actually want

to ruin this lady’s
life for the fact that

her son, a teenager,
is just a bit of an idiot.

Every teenager is,
I was, might still be

sometimes, but I absolutely
was a bit of a dick and

an asshole in a dummy when
I was like 16, 17 years old.

The boy admitted
responsibility and they

have reached a reasonable
agreement, is what they’ve said.

I do want to know what the
reasonable agreement is, but because

he’s underage, I bet no
details are going to be released.

But I’m betting they got
to pace enough money

that it hurts the family, but
doesn’t ruin them completely.

Or there’s a payment
plan or something like that.

They’re not going to
take all 67 million yet.

This was just a show to stop other
people from doing the same thing.

I think.

And I think that’s
actually a fair thing to do

because Sushi does, they
got lawyers on retainer.

They can do this forever.

They can try, if she tried to
fight back, they could ruin her life.

Not being reasonable, normal human beings.

They decided not to
go that far, but they

still want to get the
message out there that

if this happens again,
we will go that far.

Try to think is a very
fair thing to be able to do.

It’s got to add on.

I’m actually quite happy
Sushi Rho didn’t fuck him.

They could have.

And you think of corporate people.

I think this is again a
Western image of corporate

people just being like absolute
bastards, ruining people’s lives were fun.

In Japan, yeah, they’ll go far,
but I think the level is different.

The attitude is different
and people are people still.

Like I’m sure there are
massive corporate assholes.

We actually have some other stories
going on that I didn’t actually write down.

There’s a car company
and they killed all the

trees outside of their
car dealership because

they were basically the trees were
obstructing your ability to see the cars.

Of course, all that’s illegal.

And then they got pulled up on getting in
trouble for scamming and lying and stuff.

That’s pretty standard
car dealership stuff.

It’s a bit shady as far
as an industry goes.

It has a reputation for a reason.

But I would say the
average executive maybe

is dumb in the way executives
are, but is not a complete asshole.

From what I’ve seen on the
Internet, I don’t know these people.

I don’t run in those circles.

I know that the president of JAL for the
last like 10 years has not taken a salary.

He literally said, I’ve made enough money.

I can survive for the rest of my life.

I will not take a salary.

I just want to make this business
the best business it can be.

You’ll support the workers and stuff.

So all the money he
would have made went

back into the company
into the employees and stuff.

And I thought, man, that’s awesome.

That is a completely
different form of corporate

thinking, which I can
get on board with.

And I guess maybe that’s also not
called, I don’t know which is more common.

Although Sushi Do in
this case didn’t go out

of their way to destroy a family just
because a kid was being a fucking idiot.

They did want to get a message
out, which I think they did successfully.

I’m going to have to
run my transition sound

again because I have
to get to the next story.

World Heritage Sites being
vandalized, is that like an Internet trend?

So we had the guy
vandalized the call of CO.

And then we had a kid named
Justin vandalized a temple in Japan.

And now I’ve read about two
more instances at the call of CO.

And the call of CO once, you
can get five years in prison for that.

Well, one of the most
famous temples, super

famous because I know
the name of the temple.

That’s how famous it is.

Not like I’m like a temple fan.

Toadaiji Temple was
vandalized with a picture

of a fairly poorly rendered cat, believed
to be scratched into a door by a finger.

Now, this is wood that is
literally thousands of years old.

So pushing your finger into
it is going to leave a Mark.

You don’t even have to use a nail.

Justin that little shit before, he actually
used his nail to scratch his name in.

Now I do want to give us some
credit to the vandal this time.

They didn’t write their name.

Actually, one of the
previous episodes I

was like, what you
should do is you’re going

to vandalize something
is don’t write your name.

Someone else’s name and then they’ll
be like, hey, Chuck, the beef chest.

Did you vandalize this?

I’m like, well, no, that says Brad Pitt.

So Brad Pitt must have been
here vandalizing it, not me.

So they drew a cat.

So unless a cat did
it, no, here’s the thing.

The height of the cat had like where
they did it was about 180 centimeters.

So I’m going to say,
let’s say someone who’s

slightly under six foot lifted
their arm up and drew a cat.

That’s how they got to 180 centimeters.

So the best we could say is this is someone
who is approximately six feet or so.

Because either they’re
six feet and they were

drawing at eye level
or they were less than

six feet and they were
drawing a little bit of

bum or they were like seven
feet and drawing but elite them.

Woo.

So we could have a seven
foot vandal on our hands.

They’re not doing the
CSI stuff where they’re

taking footprints and
then calculating by

the impression of the footprint and
how heavy the person isn’t stuff like that.

But it seems like
because of those initial

reports, it’s now in the
mindset of people visiting

these places and it’s
being, it’s like a thing.

But the fines for this are hardcore.

So like again, the ones
in Italy, five years in

prison, a couple million
dollars or whatever.

I actually think it was like
a few hundred thousand

dollars, but a few
hundred thousand dollars.

I don’t have that.

I can’t pay that.

No one’s in the Japan.

It’s the same.

It’s like millions of yen
and possible jail time.

Absolutely not worth doing.

Like again, I want, if
I’m going to do a crime,

I want them to be a benefit
for me and my legacy is not it.

Like I want money.

If I’m going to commit a
crime, it’s going to be for money.

It’s not going to be so
that I become famous

because that kind of
fame isn’t what I need.

I need money.

I should have started
dropping in like ways

you could donate money
to you right after that.

I need money and then do the donation.

That actually would make sense.

Still not doing it.

I’m not going to come out here and beg.

Look, okay.

So you want to support the
engineers Japan, tell other

people to listen to it, get
other people to download it.

The rate review thing that actually
helps with algorithms and stuff.

I would love that.

I’m not even going to ask for that.

All I want is people who
are interested in it to listen.

And if you really, really want to make
me happy, send me questions and stuff.

So I have more things
to I can gain Gauge with.

So I can follow up on
stories or answer questions

about being in Japan or
my opinions or whatnot.

Your questions and
comments are easily the most

motivating factor to doing an
engineer’s Japan and see me.

So if you want to support the
podcast, don’t send me money.

I mean, send me money, but don’t
send me money by a see me B T shirt.

That would be all right.

Because then you get
something out of it too.

But send me stuff that I can talk about
or react to or we can have an interaction.

That to me is the peak.

You can go to speak pipe.com/chocolateweefchest
and leave a voicemail, which I can

then drop into the episode
and then use as a segment.

So now that I’ve said that,
we’re going to move on.

This is maybe my pre
holiday begging for interaction.

Just a bit sad, isn’t it?

I’m so lonely.

16, 99% of people in their
30s and 40s never watch

Vtubers, which to me is
a surprisingly low number.

I actually would have thought hardly
anyone in their 30s and 40s never

watches Vtubers just because
Vtubers became a thing fairly recently.

So I would assume older
people aren’t aware of them.

It’s not like they hate them or something.

I consider doing this podcast as a
VTuber, but I just didn’t have anything

set up and by the time I started doing
video on Twitch and stuff, there was no

point and going through
another process to set it up.

Although I still think a
VTuber, a super cute anime girl

and me not changing my voice
at all would have been funny.

And then every time I say
that, people get this like shitty.

I had to lose been done before.

You want a list of things
that have been done before?

It’s fucking everything, man.

The only thing I can claim to be completely
original was Montana, L.D.A.B.L.O.

The audio podcast
choose your own adventure.

And the only thing, the only reason I think
that was original is because I may have

just been the first person to
organize it and put it together.

And it was a huge pain in the ass.

I have tentatively started working on
a second one, which hopefully would be

better, but sitting down and just writing
for hours and hours and hours is pretty.

Pretty hard to find that time in my life.

But that is probably, and then
even then, people will like, you know,

choose your own adventures
have been done before.

Adult ones that are supposed to
be funny have been done before.

It’s like, if you actually went by
things that have been done before,

there would be no reason to do anything.

And let’s face it, Montana, L.D.A.B.L.O.

It’s fucking better than
all the other ones anyways.

All right.

No, no, I’m not going to, I was going to
do this sound again and restart the story.

I’m not going to do that.

I’m just going to keep going.

I’m going to power through.

Okay, so people in their 30s
and 40s, one to two times a week,

13% watch V2 or three to four times
a week, four percent, every day, 14%.

It’s more men than women.

I think that’s just
generally on the Internet,

you tend to find more
men doing dumb shit.

watching V2 versus isn’t dumb.

It’s fine.

V2 versus are great.

That’s it.

I just, I actually
thought 69% they’re like,

whoa, it’s, it’s,
that’s not a surprise.

I thought it would have
been the 80s or 90s.

Because again, just older
people, not that in tune

with what’s going on on
the Internet and the stuff.

A 14 year old Turkish boy was arrested for

throwing a smoke bomb at security guards.

And what he said was, uh,
okay, so let’s give it a story.

He claims that he had been scolded before
with his friend, oh, but not his friend.

So his friends and him were
sitting outside this building.

They were playing loud
music and smoking cigarettes.

He’s 14 years old.

So he’s not supposed to be doing that.

Uh, and then he came and then a security
guy came out and scolded him specifically,

but not his friends, but
he claimed was discriminate.

discrimination.

So he said, don’t
discriminate against foreigners.

I’ll blow you up and then
through a smoke bomb.

And if I can give you a list of things
you should not do, smoking is number one,

uh, being playing loud
music in public is not great.

But I guess I’d give a pass on that
because there’s no law against it.

Claiming discrimination is possible, but
you’re not going to improve your case.

by throwing a smoke bomb at someone right
after saying don’t discriminate against me.

I’ll blow you up.

I’ll blow you up is a threat of
violence, which again is illegal.

So he’s committed multiple crimes.

Now he’s 14 again.

He’s underage.

He’s not going to be
going to jail or anything.

But he was arrested for our favorite
crime, forcible obstruction of business.

All right.

This is, I don’t know if
this is Saturn at 10 years

in a row, the demand for
rice has dropped in Japan.

It is 100,000 tons down to 6.81 million
tons of rice needed or wanted this year.

It’s the lowest since they
started keeping track in 1996.

It’s weird that they only
started keeping track in 1996.

I don’t know why that was one of
the bits to suck out on me in this story.

In 1996, they started keeping
track of how much rice they eat.

I think that would
have been like ancient

times, how many barrels
or bushels or whatever.

I don’t know how rice is measured.

Grains of rice, I guess just wait.

Tons of rice.

People eat.

Like it’s sort of one of those things.

It’s a staple of the country.

The Ministry of Agriculture
is encouraging farmers

to switch to other crops like soybeans or
wheat because they are more in demand.

So I’m wondering this is partially because
of the population of decline in Japan.

So it’s representative of
there being less people overall.

It is also partially demonstrating a
change in dietary wants or needs.

So people generally are eating less rice.

I would like to see a breakdown.

This didn’t give me enough information.

I would be really interested in
what the breakdown of that is.

Is it because there
are just less people and

therefore less people
eating rice or is it because

there are more people eating other
diets than just a rice-based diet.

Like is keto taken off in Japan?

I kind of looked at that a
little bit but didn’t find anything.

particularly demonstrable of what’s
actually happening with the diets in Japan.

But it’s a weird thing to see.

You think of Japan, you
think of Asia, you think of rice.

And Japan is a country
just eating less rice overall.

It’s very interesting.

That’s it.

I’m going to go eat some rice now.

I don’t know.
I’ll try to pop up the country.

I, again, just at the end, I want
to make sure everyone knows.

It’s summer holiday.

I’m going to try to get an episode
out next week if I have time.

It might be late.

It might not happen at all.

So I’ll see you in two
weeks worst-case scenario.

I’m innocent

(upbeat music)

Okay, I’ve got a bit of
a new setup, so I have

to make sure, you know,
the mic volume is right.

I’m not hitting my P’s, the plosives
in the wrong spots and things like that.

But I think we’re okay,
so we’re gonna get started.

The boy who was in trouble last week,

17 year old Canadian
boy visits a temple in

Nara and decides,
“Hey, I have a good idea.

“I’m gonna take my fingernail,
I’m gonna carve my name.

into this temple from the year 710.”.

Which is just the dumbest thing you do.

My point last week was,

don’t carve your own name in it.

And then when they say
like, “Did you do this?”

They go, “No, no, that was some
guy called Justin Bieber, “not me.

“I think the kid’s name was Justin,

“so I guess I didn’t work
out if he put Justin in there.”

Ah, flaws everywhere, you gotta
think your plans through criminals.

So, what the temple decided
to do was put up a sign.

The sign is in English
and Japanese bilingual.

The problem is,

Canadian kids aren’t the only problem.

As we have the guy in Italy,
I forget where he was from,

there was a guy who was in Italy and he
carved his name into the call to see him.

His name was Ivan, but I don’t
wanna be so racist in the case.

I think he’s from Belarus, I don’t know.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter.

It’s not an exclusively Western
English problem to be dumb.

It is every country.

So you can’t put up the sign in every
country in every language from every country.

So,

the priest from the temple said, “In the
future we would like to use pictograms,

“so people from all over the world can
understand, “which I think is a great idea.”

It says, “What is the
pictogram for don’t be a moron?

“Don’t damage the site, don’t carve
your name “into ancient temples?”.

I would be mostly concerned about curses.

You go in there and you
put your name on something.

and you put your name on the wrong thing.

You’re cursed forever.

I mean, that’s the first issue.

So another reason death note wise
to put someone else’s name on it.

Don’t stick your own name in an ancient
temple on any document and anything.

Maybe that wall you’ve written
your name on is the curse wall.

You don’t know because you’re visiting
the temple ’cause you’re not an expert.

If you were an expert, you would know

not to put your name on the temple.

This is this shows how
nice Japanese Buddhist

or Chinto priests or
whatever they are were

is they said, “This was
done without malice.”

I actually kinda disagree.

I think the kid knew it was bad.

That’s why he did it.

It is still regrettable and sad.

In Japan, if you damage
ancient stuff, I’m trying to decide,

should I go through all the
rules and stuff or make up,

get it’s kind of used my own
natural speaking languages,

you know, break an old shit,

the breaking old shit
law can be 300,000 yen,

which, wow, a lot of money
isn’t that much money.

Or five years in prison, that’s
on the other hand, is a lot of time.

So you gotta be real careful.

where you stick your name.

Again, I would be less
concerned about 300,000 yen

and way more concerned
about a curse on my eternal soul.

(upbeat music)

All right, so this is actually a big story.

It came up like five, 10 times
in different feeds this week.

And it’s because it’s a big deal.

It is something that
everyone loves story wise.

Certainly you don’t want this to
happen to you or someone you know.

False accusations, false arrests,
accusations flying back and forth.

Oh, it’s terrible.

But it is like the whole
true crime genre is based on

how we like to watch horrible
things happen to other people

and like just sit back with the popcorn.

A man was wrongfully
arrested in a revenge porn case.

A revenge porn is like, I
get newbie pictures of you or

naughty pictures of you and
meet together or something.

And I say, we’ve, our
relationship is sourdad

and I’m going to post them on
the Internet just to get back at you.

That is illegal in Japan.

I think it’s probably illegal in most
places, Japan’s taking it pretty seriously.

I’m assuming because it must
have happened a lot already.

Well, how did we get here?

A guy was harassing a woman.

He was threatening to take nude pictures
of her and post them on the Internet.

Now the pictures that he
sent to her via her Instagram.

were photoshopped.

Apparently, well, I guess, you know,
and the average person doesn’t care.

So she went to the police and like this
guy threatening to put pictures on me.

There were different accounts, but it was
clearly all coming from the same person.

The, some of the accounts
used this guy’s family name.

So she said to the police,
“This guy is sending me stuff.”

The police didn’t do
a lot of investigation.

They arrested him really quickly.

Now they said, because
of the urgency of the

case, we did not have
time to check the IPs.

The thing is, in total, they
held this man for 40 days.

In Japan, you can be held for 20 some days.

by the police without
actually being charged.

What they do is they have,

oh, we have this accusation.

We’re gonna hold you for 20 some days.

I think it’s 24 because of days
off or weekends or something.

It’s an odd number.

It’s not a number you
expect, but I’m just

gonna use 20 ’cause
that’s sort of the base.

Then he gets released and
they grab him again pretty

quickly saying like, oh,
there’s another charge.

We’re gonna hold you.

So they held this man for 40 days.

The whole time he’s insisting is innocent.

The problem is what a criminal is due.

If they listen to an incident in Japan,

they’ve learned that what you
do is like insist your innocent.

Don’t confess, make
the police do their job.

Problem is, you’re actually innocent.

You’re doing exactly what the criminals do.

So I had no intention of
uploading any revenge porn.

I don’t have any newty pictures of her.

The person sending the threats.

That wasn’t me.

What would a criminal say?

That’s what the police
are looking at you going,

what would a criminal say
in the same situation, buddy?

Exactly what you just said.
So we’re holding you.

40 days.

The lawyers for the guy,
they’re pretty accurate.

They’re saying this is hostage
justice to coerce a confession.

So I’m being held for
day after day after day.

I’m gonna lose my job.

I’m gonna have all these other issues.

I have no recourse.

If I want to solve this to end this,

confession is the fastest way.

They’ve had multiple cases in
Japan of people who have confessed

to crimes they didn’t commit
because of this very action.

The lawyers saying like, this is unfair.

It’s inhumane.

What I have learned, though,
and this is the part I actually do

enjoy about the
ingenuity of Japan is what

the things I learn
about police and justice.

And something people
need to know is that the

rules don’t, your rules
from home don’t follow you.

I’ve talked to several
Americans who seem to

think that American
law is international law.

Like they’ll talk about like they
have to read your, your Miranda rights.

And I’m like, well, Miranda
isn’t a thing outside of America.

So Japanese cops don’t
read your Miranda rights.

They just actually grab you
and take you and hold you.

Again, they don’t have to
actually charge you with anything.

It could be an accusation or a suspicion.

And they are legally allowed to
hold you for the 20 X amount of days.

And then they can do that for each charge.

So then they let you go.

And then as you walk
out of the police station,

they pull you back in and go,
well, we’re going to hold you

for another 20 days for another
charge, another accusation.

If we have 15 20 accusations, we
can hold you for 15 20 times, 20 days.

We just have to keep like
going through that cycle.

They can essentially
arrest you for nothing

for years if they have
enough accusations.

Like let’s say each email is
an accusation in this case.

They could hold him for
20 days for each email.

Now it turns out while he was being
held or while he was in one place,

uh, information was being
sent from another place,

that’s how they
realized this isn’t the guy.

But again, that would have been sort
of the first thing you should have done.

That’s actually part of checking IP
addresses when it comes to Internet cases.

And if they had done that right away,
they wouldn’t have held him for 40 days.

Maybe they would have held him for the
first 20 and maybe you could justify that.

But the second 20 days, it
doesn’t really hold up anymore.

And what I’ve learned though
is you can get 1,000 to 12,500

yen a day for each day
you’re held by the police.

Like if you don’t get actually arrested
for a charged with an actual crime.

The man who was falsely
arrested is asking for a senior official

to explain to his family
and go to his work

and explain to his work why he was
basically missing from work for 40 days.

So like this isn’t covered
in your time off policy.

Uh, you could lose your job because
they actually need you to come and do work.

This is one of the problems.

Weirdly, the police have stayed,

and this is we don’t believe there was
any wrongdoing on the prosecutor parts,

which of course is how the police think,
which is maybe one of the big problems.

But that’s also the
way the laws are set up.

So very technically they
haven’t done anything wrong,

but they’re also not held responsible for
interfering within innocent person’s life.

A group of youths,
which is an excellent thing.

I don’t want to use a group.

I want to have like a gaggle, a gaggle.

What would you call it?

A group of youths?

Uh, I was all about to say a conundrum,

but that just implies certain negativity.

I actually think youths are great.

Um,

a joy of youths.

Oh, that sounds nice.

Anyways, uh, in Japan,
adulthood used to be 20.

It’s now been taken down to 18.

These youths are now saying, well,
the rules say that if I want to run for

government, I have to be 25
or 30 depends on the position,

but let’s use 25 as our low end
to be like a perfectural governor.

You have to be at least 30 years old to
run for mayor or something else or a local

election. You have to be at least 25.
He’s like, well, if we’re adults,

then we should have adult rights,
which would be running for office.

Uh, I’m all for this.

Ninja Ninja Japan, if you listen for any
amount of time, I have complained multiple

times that we have way too
many 70 year olds in charge.

Way too many people who don’t understand
sort of the modern aspects of life.

Because they’ve been in
politics for the last 50 years.

So they only see politics in a certain
way and anything that’s come up in the

last 20 years, they don’t even
like think about it or consider it.

I think those guys need to be out.
I think we need some fresh blood.

I think youth is the way to go.

Would I vote for an 18 year old?
Probably not.

So again, this is where it
becomes a fair system, though.

Like if community in general thinks 18
is too young to be mayor of the city or

governor of the prefecture,
then they won’t vote for them.

But if the 18 year old is convincing
enough, people will vote for them.

So I think absolutely led 18
year olds run for office any office.

If the world at large things are too
young, they’re not going to vote for them.

It works.

But this is should be a legal right.

So a legal right.

So they’re filing with
the Tokyo district court to

be allowed to run for
office, certainly in Tokyo.

And I am 100% on board.

I hope they’re successful.

This goes to like drinking laws and stuff.

Everything’s just to be established
either in adult or you’re not an adult.

So like America, you’re an adult
at 18, but you can’t drink until 21.

What the fuck?

That doesn’t make any sense.

If I’m an adult and I can drive a car
and I can buy a gun and I can join the

military and I can kill people
on behalf of the government, I

think I should be allowed to
have a cocktail after all that.

But yeah, apparently their laws are
different and they don’t make any sense

to me.
Of course, here’s the other side of youth.

It’s nice to have a
balance between stories.

I do enjoy that.

There were four boys with motorcycles.

They’re driving around.

They’re like, you know what?

This is not exciting enough.

One of the four boys
is like, let’s call the cops.

The driver, there’s like
three o’clock in the morning.

What the kids do in
Japan, they’re in like a gang.

They drive on the wrong side of the road.

They go through red lights and they’ll
do circles around the intersection and

block traffic and they’ll be they’ll
ride like four or five motorcycles wide

so that no one can get past them and
there’ll just be shitty to other drivers.

If they’re out at three
o’clock in the morning.

And they’re like, this is not enough.

We’re causing trouble, but we’re
not getting all the attention we need.

Certainly not the attention we should
have gotten when we were younger,

which would have stopped
this kind of behavior.

Let’s call the cops on ourselves.

Now I have in my many years now of doing
the introduced Japan talked about bad ideas.

Calling the cops on yourself
and not expecting to get arrested.

It’s just a bad idea.

It just doesn’t make sense.

It’s not the way the world works.

So they call the cops the cops
show up and they get arrested.

Well, they all admitted to the charges
and they said we wanted to get the

thrill of luring a police
car and being chased by it.

And I guess you got that.

I don’t know how much
of a car chase this was.

It sounds like they got
taken down pretty quick.

Although in the news story, they
maybe have just cut that part out.

But at the end of the day,

don’t call the cops on yourself.

I think might be this week’s Ninja
News Japan advice for criminals.

In Japan, motorcycle, bicycle, sorry.

We just talked about motorcycles.

Bicycles are classified as light vehicles.

And therefore they must have a
belt just like a car must have a horn.

You could be fined though.

Well, there are some rules about
the bicycle belt that I didn’t know.

This is why I’m putting out this is
almost like a public service announcement.

Bicycles, you can, so
you’re riding a bicycle,

you could be fined
for continuously ringing.

You are a bell.

It’s a violation to ring the bell for fun.

So if you’re just feeling joyous
riding your bicycle and you’re thinking,

ding, ding, ding, yeah, 20,000,
you had to find for you, bitch.

It is prohibited to ring the
bell to get people who are

walking out in front of you,
like pedestrians out of the way.

So you’re riding, you
could ding a link, excuse me,

so I am passing through
20,000 in for you, bitch.

The thing is, I didn’t know this
law before and I know it now.

And I, couple times a week, do
quite long walks and there are a lot of

grannies out there who
do a lot of bicycling on the

sidewalk and they really don’t
want you to be in their way.

They feel like the sidewalk is their
personal highway and they ring the

shit out of their bell and
I’ve just learned that they

ring the bell at me for walking
20,000 yen for you, bitch.

There’s going to be a lot of
20,000 yen fines coming up.

And you just look out for me, grandma.

I’m coming for you.

And that’s the way it’s going to be.

Actually, probably won’t.

I bet by the time I call them
is not a police won’t show up.

This might not be worth it, but
if there is ever a problem, 100%

I’m trying to try to get
old lady pay 20,000 yen.

Not to me, unfortunately, but I’ll
maybe I could do super damages.

They don’t really do that Japan.

It’s too bad.

What do you do when you’re feeling lonely?

When I’m feeling lonely, I
get my little friend here, Dave.

I scratch him and we snuggle.

And that’s that’s really what Dave’s
purpose is, is to make sure that I

don’t feel lonely and go off the rails and
maybe call emergency services 2,761 times.

So I’ve never called
emergency services in Japan.

I’ve never had to lucky me.

That just means I’ve had a lucky life,
but also means I’m not lonely and bored

and thinking like, how
can I entertain myself?

I could ride around a motorcycle at
three o’clock in the morning, call the cops

and get them to chase me, or
I could just sit and over a two

year, nine month period, call
emergency services 2,61 times.

This lady was very, she
said the reason she did it

was she was lonely and I
actually find that quite sad.

I feel a little bad for
the lady because yeah,

she’s, she’s resorted
to this to get attention.

She’s got nothing going on.

And that’s a sad situation.

She would call up the fire department
and say, I have a stomach ache.

I took a large dose of
medicine, my leg hurts.

And she would ask the fire
department to dispatch some Ambulae.

Then when the ambulance arrives,
she would claim she didn’t make the call.

We just started out with a
revenge porn story where an

innocent man was held by the
police and abused by the police.

But this is the opposite
where the police are quite nice.

So it’s really, it’s tough because
I do want to give a balance view.

Most cops that I’ve met, I’ve known,
I’ve dealt with, have actually been

really good people and I feel like
they would never falsely arrest me.

And they would do a proper investigation.

But of course, that’s not everybody.

In this case, she was warned several
times to stop calling emergency services.

And she kept doing it.

And that’s why she’s in trouble.

Did learn about a scam.

There’s a lot of scams targeting older
people and it’s usually on the phone.

And what they do is call you and
try to get you to transfer money,

trying to pretend to be
a relative or something.

But those guys, if they
work in an office, it’s

actually quite easy to
track where they are.

A computer and stuff, IP
addresses, much like again,

our first story of the
day with a revenge porn.

So how do you deal with that?

You get in a car and from eight
o’clock in the morning to 8 P.M. at night,

you stay on the highway and that makes
it much harder for the police to find you.

They can’t ping cell towers as quickly
and it’s, it’s, you keep on the move.

You’re hard to catch.

This is actually some smart criminally.

The problem is if you’re working in 12 hour
shifts, they don’t want to stop the car.

So you got four or five people in this car.

You’re in the car for 12 hours.

You’re driving along the road.

You are pooing and peeping, peeping
in that car, which is really gross.

So I, I mean, I was thinking
about there were 50 cases

involved, which are total about
94 million yen and damages.

So 94 million yen, they’ve
scanned out away from people.

Is that is everyone in the car
getting an equal share of that?

I bet not.

I bet there’s a boss taking majority of
it and he’s paying these guys a salary.

When they say crime doesn’t pay,
this is kind of what I’m thinking about.

How much money am I getting paid to be
in a car for 12 hour straight to pee in a

bottle and maybe poop in
a bucket or something with

other guys in the other
guys are doing the same thing.

So this car is rank by the end of the day.

It is not a place I want to be.

How much money would you have
to pay me for me to do that willingly?

It would have to be a lot of money.

And I bet these low level criminals
are not getting the pay they deserve.

Which is why they should do denies.

I don’t think that’s going
to work out for anybody.

So this is the last interesting story.

This is public policy.

The mayor of Osaka has put
into place or he voted in a place.

He put it up.

Proposally.

He proposed a rule change and he

said that the this is
a really ballsy move.

I kind of like this guy.

He said that government officials
should get a public review and that

public review if it’s low enough,
they should have a salary cut.

So I learned that the mayor of
Osaka makes a million yen a month.

That’s 12 million yen a year.

The average salary is four
to five million yen a year.

So he’s making three,
four times more than

the average salary by
being mayor of Osaka.

Now that it’s actually less than
I kind of would have expected.

But I’m assuming to
get to be mayor of Osaka.

You already have funds elsewhere like
campaign or your rich family or backgrounds.

A lot of political people in
Japan, they’re institutional.

So like their parents were politicians
and their politicians, that kind of stuff.

So the way it’s going to work is they’re
going to do a survey of 3,500 residents.

And if you get a low enough number,
you get a 30% decrease in your salary.

Now you’re still going to be making
way more money than the average person,

but at the same time,
a 30% cut in your salary.

That that sends a message to anybody.

The current mayor has overwhelming support.

So that’s probably why he’s pretty confident
about this, but again, could change.

So I found that an interesting thing.

I think it’s a really nice idea.

I was thinking the way to really
make this effective because again,

you can use American
politics as the standard version

of politics because it’s
in the news all the time.

And it’s all very rich people.

I think if you get low enough
numbers, you should actually have your

personal funds reduced by X
amount of money and put that in.

So like a Trump, let’s say he’s in
office, he gets very low numbers.

Boom.

X amount of money goes from his
personal accounts into just the tax system.

And he has to pay for
a system he doesn’t like.

So if it was a Republican
and they get a low

score, they have to
pay for social services.

If it’s a liberal.

conservative Republican and Democrat, whoo,
forgot the word Democrat for the second.

If it’s a Democrat and they get a low
score, they have to take money from

their personal life
and pay for the military.

Probably pay for some
cluster bombs or something.

That would give you, you would want
to keep everyone happy, which is what

the politicians are really
supposed to be doing in theory.

So I’m interested in how this works out.

Again, the just the straight up idea of
this guy doing this is pretty cool to me.

So we’ll see if it has an impact on
other aspects of politics in Japan.

I was hoping that’s hoping you
get a view of Dave on my lap.

The problem is, if I do this and you
can see Dave, then you can’t see me.

anymore.

Part of me thinks Dave is the far
more appealing member of this team.

So you’re here listening to my voice,
but just seeing the little sausage Dave

in his little burrito thing here
would probably be more appealing.

I would, I bet I would get more views.

Because this, I put
this on YouTube that the

podcast version
wouldn’t actually matter.

I probably get more views.

What you were seeing was this, just my
lame chest, the talking mouth at the top.

I actually might do that next week.

Give this a shot.

This might be my new format for YouTube.

Because you don’t see my head.

You just see my mouth talking.

And then you get to Dave here the
whole time because he’s just chilled out.

And if I, if I get him up and scratching
and stuff, it’s almost like SMR.

This might be my new, my new scheme,
my new plan, but then you can’t see the

Domo Coon up there, which is sort of the
secondary appeal of my desk at the moment.

I could move Domo Coon down here.

I mean, that’s empty space right now.

So certainly some things to think about.

I moved my desk around.

Just try to clean everything up.

New format would be pretty solid.

I think I might, I think I might really try
to capitalize on the Dave aspect of the.