alliswellinjapan comments

What an outrageously embarrassing announcement for TEPCO. With all due respect towards the perseverance and diligence of the people in Tohoku something like this is only possible if not permissible in this country where the "riot" terminology does not seem to exist.

Wouldn't be so fast to conclude this to be a rare case. We've had people cutting off their fingers in SK as a show of protest over this issue in the past. Like it or not many are taking this very emotionally on the other side of the sea either through personal war experiences or systematic education. Whether Japan takes a hard line or not the emotional implictions should not be taken lightly either way.

Not many would be able to fully understand what drives his suicidal tendencies. Would however imagine there to be many like him in the world who voluntarily takes to the battlefield as the only means thinkable for them to escape from the sad reality and/or regrettable past. Would wonder whether the healthier or more sane option to be drugs or taking one's rage onto others. Hope he eventually finds his way out.

Don't think this survey will win the hearts of the people here who are likely to continue to prioritize low crime rates and higher safety relative to other parts of the world.

An integral part of life that unfortunately cannot be easily changed or better addressed under the "it won't happen to me" mindset. There also continues to be those who take a fatal risk through cooking blowfish on their own. Hope at least the numbers are decreasing each year as more people are reminded or made aware.

Mizuho Fukushima is well known for her anti-execution stance and thus her objective in conducting this survey is clear. Ironically enough however it may also serve those in support of the system well in that through promoting awareness of the public on what those committing criminal acts deserving of death penalty would be up against it may also work to prevent some of the crimes to be committed in the first place as much as it would induce people to reconsider how it should be carried out.

Yubaru: That wasn't really my point and the fault is probably on me lacking clarity in what I wrote in the first place. Am only raising criticism over a guy who is not even eligible for marriage being allowed to raise a kid being allowed to do whatever he wants with the kid to allow things to go this far. To elaborate further my criticism is actually towards the parents of the young couple while also aware that things can only be judged at this point based on speculation in lack of details on what the actual status of things were with this family, which we should come to know soon.

Yubaru: Male would have to be 18 to be eligible for marriage under Japanese law.

How can this ever be. The guy is not even eligible for marriage.

Such a great athlete with such a great personality. Not so often that you find both coming from one individual. Japan should be proud of this guy and appreciate the amount of praise he is getting from the US media, NY media in particular following his announcement not to mention the fans there. What a great ambassador he turned out to be.

Two each. Let's get it over with.

Maybe an additional 18.9 bil for the sailors?

What an ironic turn.

Should be made into a movie. Must see for the young dreamers.

Guilty or not, having sex with three students on a consecutive basis is not normal in my book. Neither are his exhibitionistic testimonies which reflect his strong addiction towards sex in general. Suspect this may very well become the first case of sexual addiction to be made public in Japan.

This after all is what the nation voted for. The critical weakness of the anti-nuclear parties was that none of them had a convincing post nuclear abandonment B plan in place. End result is that these parties' calls for "zero nuclear" were rather viewed as mere shortsighted maneuvers to secure votes and did not really resonate with the idealistic values shared by many. Shame really.

Good possibility for Ishin to follow suit as far as Narita airport newlywed divorces go.

When Abe visits the US, would expect them to agree on two things in particular. One, clear US commitment to the US Japan Security Treaty as it concerns the Senkaku and two, Japan's preparation to enter TPP talks. With that Abe will patiently await China to gradually tone down their provocative rhetoric and actions while shifting gears back to focus on strengthening economic relations. Meanwhile believe Abe is actually a pro-TPP at heart knowing him as someone who sought to reform the agriculture industry during his first premiership but failed in part due to the financial scandal of the Agriculture Minister he appointed which ended in his suicide.

One can only hope for Abe to prove everyone here wrong. Given LDP's victory did not come from utter popularity there will be no honeymoon period and he will need to start delivering from day 1. The upper house election of next year should also pressure a prompt execution of whatever that needs to be done. Confrontation with all the negative views and criticism is probably a good place for him to start.

LDP's pro-nuclear position was never unconditional. Don't think they are prepared to forcefully push anything through which does not truly reflect the general views and sentiments of the nation, which the Komeito seem to represent.

DPJ could never put their acts together as one party and not only did they fail to deliver on their manifesto turned out they didn't even believe in it themselves. Kaieda is likely to bring the DPJ back to their original leftist stance and clearly pro-China. Would be interested to confirm whether they maintain their support for the sales tax hike that Noda pushed through. If not, very likely that they will be joining forces with Ozawa's Future Party.

Hopefully the upper house election which awaits next year should add some pressure to Abe to start working on some deregulation and structural reform initiatives. Hopefully the voters will be carefully monitoring his every move in the meantime.

letsberealistic: Don't think the J-people can ever be convinced that it's actually an "evolution" unless the EU and other "advanced" nations can actually prove that homocide and other violent crimes can be avoided or kept at low levels with the absence of capital punishment which they appear to be unable to do. With all the concerns over the cruelty of some of the crimes that occur here J-people still consider Japan to be much safer than most of the other countries. Majority believes that protection of human rights need to be geared more towards potential victims than the criminals and Japan will probably never change in lack of convincing logic coming from the rest of the world backed by factual data.

Respect human rights or not don't think the J-people are prepared to agree to let go of the death option any time soon, so long as we keep hearing about some of the cruelest criminal acts imaginable.

Ban should have been lifted yesterday. Beyond me why DPJ never bothered to push this forward prior to the recent election.

Good article. Wholeheartedly agree.

Agree with Cha that it's Abe's men who carry a higher risk of saying anything which may trigger emotional anger in Korea while Abe himself is expected to be careful and calculative in his remarks as he has always been. Abe should specifically instruct his men to keep their mouths shut. Hope Park and Abe can agree to focus more on the future while patiently taking the time as needed on the specifics of the past. In the meantime Abe should at least comment whatever he can to express his sympathy towards all comfort women who suffered during the war. Ishihara will probably say whatever he wants and should be ignored.

GW: Yes, would have asked the same had we the luxury to, say if it were a decade ago. If he fails to prove you wrong then it's a guarantee that Hashimoto will be our next PM. He will probably do a better job in shutting up the bureaucrats but that's not the only change he will bring.

All these ex-bankers involved must have felt safe in joining the ride having been bribed by a reputable company the size of Olympus. Still cannot believe this is something that actually happened.

herefornow: A glimpse of hope may be in that Abe already had a fairly organized plan during his first premiership reflective of the challenges at the time much of which are certain be incorporated in his new plan. His failure at the time was not driven by his policies or lack thereof but rather the sharp decine in approval ratings following a series of scandals of his appointed Ministers which led to LDP's defeat in the upper house elections. Given the drastic nature of his iniatives I'm sure he also had enemies within the party whom he could not have handled at his young age as well as Koizumi had. All in all one can only hope he is back tougher and wiser in executing his policies through choosing the right men and better at battling his enemies within LDP and in Kasumigaseki. His move to bring back the economic and fiscal policy council as well as creating a new ministerial position to oversee the council's activities is already indicative of his intentions to take full control in relevant policies and decision making vs the bureaucrats primarily MOF (who pretty much controlled DPJ at the end of the day). Would be comforting if he could somehow immediately mend relations with China as he did the last time without being distracted by Ishihara.