Bungle comments

Stage four cancer means that she has about a year to live.

With all the horseplay being reported in the news this incident was just the tip... of the iceberg.

If the jeans were unwashed and belonged to a high school girl in the 1930s, I reckon they’d fetch a lot more than that here in Japan!

Meat and two potatoes on he menu today.

Heaven forfend that the Brits are forced to start making their own stuff again. The Tories turned Britain into a mercenary’s paradise, so what did they expect foreign companies would do in an economic downturn?

Nine years old is old enough to be aware of the danger of falling out of open windows. Sad all the same.

Why is the word "filming" or "film" used to refer to recording videos using digital devices with no film being used? Heck, even back in the days of VHS camcorders, it was "record" or "recording"...

How often do you dial a telephone number on an actual dial? Or hang up when there is no receiver, and when even the hook upon which to hang it became obsolete long before any of us was born?

The terminology remains valid even though the tech may have fallen out of favour.

Hatakeyama sounds like a flaming nuisance.

Once again, more lost souls. It’s a pity they didn’t use this opportunity to talk to their peers and counsel each other.

Uemura was sitting next to the woman who was asleep when he reportedly put his hands up her skirt, pulled down her pantyhose and placed his hand inside her underwear.

Mid-morning and in full view of other passengers, too.

I find it remarkable that anyone would even contemplate such a logistical nightmare - in my opinion the girl went for the shakedown.

Looking forward to reading Ghosn’s memoirs in all of their Kafkaesque glory.

Even though I’ve been down the rabbit hole a while, the Japanese propensity for extreme navel-gazing never ceases to shock me. It’s so sad how people can get so lost in themselves - especially the young.

I hope Osaka hires a Japanese trainer.

I asked a policeman your question once. He told me that they avoided arresting bosozoku because most of them eventuially quit the gangs, get married and go on to normal lives. This would not be possible if they had arrest records.

Impound the bikes and, if you're feeling generous, charge a release fee.

Liam Neeson has been convicted of wrongthink in the court of social media where the judges are SJW and the jury Twitterati.

Shame. Shame.

I’m afraid that my sympathy ends right at the point you choose to take others with you - depression or not.

@Akie

The problem is Japan's demographics. Firstly, to make up the labour shortfall, citizens would have to continue working well into their seventies. Now, if one is in good health and one enjoys what one does, that may not be too much of a burden, but what about those with age-related illnesses or people doing construction work? I wouldn't want to be labouring on a building site nearing eighty years-of-age! Secondly, there is the question of wages. Corporations would almost certainly demand that seniors take a hefty pay cut after a certain age in order to employ them. Most septuagenarians wouldn't work for sweat shop wages given the choice, but a poor Burmese/Laotian/Vietnamese might.

Start getting used to this from April. Expect visa overstayers to go through the roof and Japan's black market to swell.

It reminded me of the Japan-Filipino Committee that was formed to help Filipinos in Japan; it consisted of only Japanese members, not one Filipino member!

Isn't it funny how all these committees purportedly formed to assist minority groups are usually composed of senior Japanese men...?

But a Japanese mother’s mentality is to kill them because they don’t want to burden / inconvenience others to care for them. Really warped-out society.

It is a collective cultural conceit. Arrogance, if you will.

This guy probably has yeast infections in all sorts of intimate places.

The real message is, if you're a white male you must follow the script, that you're always going to be considered potentially racist, if you speak out you must be on-message or else.

It is racist to associate black people with certain crimes even if the stats support your position.

Not racist... just uncultured. Isn't Barbara Ehrenreich American? Well, blow me down.

Well, it makes sense given the two countries’ beggar-thy-neighbour economic policies.

Sounds like someone tried to blackmail her but she gave them the middle finger, which precipitated the anonymous tip.

...

"Anonymous tip"? More like one of her co-workers was visiting this establishment, saw her and ratted her out.

I suppose that a colleague saw her working there, said he'd keep quiet if she let him have a few freebies, and when she flipped him off, he went squealing.

Under fire for ordering arson? Hilarious.

Even though this guy’s a clown, I’d advise the occupants to move now that they’ve been green lit.

What's the harm?

Given that mizushobai is itself in a legal grey area and that this woman left herself wide open (!) for blackmail by criminal elements, I’d say it’s potentially a big problem.

This is what happens when houses have zero insulation, so people have to burn kerosene inside wooden structures to stay warm. Third world.

This is what happens when you leave any kind of stove unattended, and when you have no functioning smoke detectors in your house. Hot water bottle for me after lights-out.

The teacher should be fired and arrested for assault or is child abuse acceptable in Japan?

The people who abused this child are the parents, not this teacher.