Brandon Abedor comments

While my personal distaste for Trump is palpable, both are media wh*res.

There are no winners with stories like these. Both women will have severe trauma, and a life is gone, and the police may be touted as heroes putting the "bad guy" away. While my limited knowledge of this means the person driving is always at fault (unless you're a foreigner, then it's always your fault), I'd hope we can at least determine if the person driving truly was doing all required by law.

"Increased pressure" can mean a lot of things, but it seems like shorthand for threats of various kinds. Though, we are talking about obesity, so perhaps someone's literally sitting on them.

I digress. No corporation ever willing told their customers "hey buddy, go easy on this product", unless it's a drug. On the contrary, they want people to buy more of their stuff. Advocates want you to buy their ideology, companies want you to buy their products. But companies at least give you a choice to buy their stuff, lawmakers and advocates will just scream louder until you capitulate.

If the company goes broke to the "increased pressure", the shrill opposition will simply move on.

It's not a funny story, but the dork in me instantly made me think this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7hdIh-gtw

Garner must have become a republican.

Oh, man, this guy will be missed. The one track I'll remember him by would be the final scene in Aliens with the Queen.

I hope he pays taxes.

I used to work in an 1000Y an hour cafe in which you'd get some mind-numblingly boring people from time to time. Wasn't worth it. This guy might want to consider raising his price, or at least ask transportation fees...that is, considering how many Japanese dota-kyan.

This proves criminals are not all that bright. Shinjuku is one of the busiest stations in Japan. He actually had the audacity to try this and get away with it?? The guy had better chances of getting through Antarctica naked than getting caught. Idiot.

It's a sad thing, yes. But placing more inspectors around may not actually prevent sickness before it happens. What it WILL do is make things more costly. Since the kids got sick, and we're here reading about it, this bento-making company will already have to face strict penalties-- from consumers. Bad businesses tend not to STAY in business, regardless of how good/cheap/rare the food is.

This is a serious problem, but I hate the phrase "raise awareness". The public are more aware to this problem than they are to members of Arashi or AKB48 combined. I do encourage women to confront, call out, scream, identify, or hell, even clobber their molester. I wish to have the truly guilty punished. Though I feel for the women of these horrendous crimes, the exposed suffer dearly for the accusation, whether they are the true aggressor or not. Innocent men are accused often, and sometimes lose everything because of mistaken identity. If the police took a more balanced pledge to assure both victim and accused would get justice, then I'm all for this measure. But from what I've heard (and I'll be honest, a lot of hearsay), that is not always the case. Victims are often coddled, and the alleged chikan is demonized in an impartial, unfair, doubt-stricken manner. Even experts have said (on this site, I think!) if someone calls you out to be a chikan, whether you're guilty or not, your best option is to RUN. On the tracks if necessary. Some men just need to be lucky, it seems. Both to get away with it, and to not be extorted by some bad women, bias cops, or patriarchal laws.

My idea? Have a sign that instead says, with large print, "Thinking of touching her?" then, with smaller boldened text, it would read "50,000Y fine, exposed as a chikan at your job, you'll be fired, your wife finds out, your kids find out, expensive lawyer fees, divorce, possible jail time with real criminals, no pension, ridiculed by your friends, you'll lose your house, and forever be known as a pervert." Then, maybe, at the bottom, it says something like "Just don't do it." or simply "Yada." Maybe make a few different ones, with an attractive short skirt-wearing young high school girl reading a book, or a shapely 20-something minding her own business (maybe on her cell phone), or hell, even a nurse or flight attendant. Whatever gets the main point across.

My take on those funny "Ie de yarou" posters. :)

It is an escape. Of course it is! But there is more to it than that. It's been said that people who wish for suicide don't want the die, they just want the pain to stop. Whether than be from social, physical, or emotional elements doesn't matter; that person has had enough.

I don't believe that mere strength is all it takes to reject suicidal tendencies. EVERY man has his/her breaking point, and to go just a bit beyond that can lead people to do things us ourselves did not know we were capable of. Perhaps it can also be said that "only a strong man could do it!", as some people here are right. The opposite of strength, weakness, can PREVENT people from doing it.

I don't know if this to be completely true, and I know there were plenty of exceptions, but it seems that when Japanese used to commit suicide (due to failure, dishonor, etc.), it was in a reasonably confined area, not "messy", and with pain-- lots of it. It seems the #1 place for suicide now is the 7:33am express, so there's no shortage of horrified onlookers, or scores of staff cleaning up the grisly remains. In this case, to hide behind the banner of it being "atonement" equals peeing in the corn flakes (or tea) of all the people, and their families, involved.

Mass suicide in Tokyo, is nothing new, so we can't necessarily say it's because of raising taxes or the world being/getting freaked up. We can if there is an increase of suicide since policy went into effect, but that's a different debate. The reasons people off themselves for, again, range drastically. Speaking from experience, Japan is a country where you keep your personal feelings to yourself, and avoid disturbing others. My church started an anti-suicide hotline, in both English and Japanese, for people just wanting to talk. The Japanese lines were so packed with callers, they started calling the English line despite not speaking a word of English! I'm not saying "just being able to talk about your problems will cure society from the plague of rampant suicide, but I am saying that the societal pressure in Japan makes it difficult for one not to get excited of the release it will bring. Chairman Mao, paraphrasing, almost encouraged suicide, since China had so many people. Merely deterring people from suicide won't prevent it. If people wanna go, they'll go, and they'll find ways to do it. Worse ways. Yes, the living conditions in Japan are strict. But I think the society in Japan has not identified suicide as something personal. Rather it's seen with "shoganai" mentality by almost everyone, maybe even those people who they themselves, want the pain to stop.

This is an absolutely grisly story. Let's reserve judgment until all facts are presented.

If the second cop was konking Zs, was he the one that "reported" it at 2:45?

What a horrible turn of events. I wonder how the company will be linked to this, if at all.