combinibento comments

Hi sign includes the company name NEET株式会社, so I assume he is in fact employed by that company and is thus very well "in employment."

I admit Japan does many things well, including the manufacturing of electronics (although their prowess has become pretty irrelevant over the past several years), but the survey isn't saying much:

All participants were between the ages of 20 and 59, with middle or upper-class incomes

So Dentsu just refused to count responses from those with lower incomes? Or refused to ask them? Yeah, this survey seems legit.

Cars... Japanese marques are still the go-to choice for many looking for reliably-made transportation, eco-friendly hybrid and electric vehicles, or a lightweight rear-wheel drive sports car.

Agreed, Japanese are great at making, with a few exceptions, bland-looking autos that are reliable and eco-friendly yet fail to look remotely cool or provide drivers with an invigorating, fun driving experience. What 9 year old has a poster of a Prius on his bedroom wall?

Food

The blurb in this category mentions Japanese food only. How is this even a legitimate thing to ask? Of course the Japanese are the best at Japanese food! And they are pretty good at making decent dishes of other cuisines as well (although I've never once had a really good burrito in my 8 years spent searching for one in Tokyo). But I refuse to believe that folks from 17 different countries said that Japanese do "food" in general better than anyone else.

Things that should have made the list: Awesome toilets, fireworks and service.

I like reading this story if only to imagine his quotes being spoken in that wonderfully funny voice of his.

I can see how this is a complicated debate; while there is something to be said for a new, state-of-the-art stadium (which fans in sports markets in which such stadiums were recently built can certainly appreciate), the existing National Stadium is one of the nicest looking buildings in all of Tokyo and, in my opinion at least, still looks more stunning than the spaceship-wannabe that is currently being debated.

Yes, if you are comfortable putting your dog in a stroller you should have no qualms about putting your child on a leash.

Paul, they loved you when you were 64. Not so much now.

What a relief. Whenever I cross there I always think, "This place could really use some more ads."

Unless there are companies that are willing to sponsor the new teams, this could be difficult

That Japanese teams are so closely associated with their corporate owners has always bothered me. I can't imagine the MLB being nearly as fun to follow if a corporation had the identity presence on a team as it does in Japan. I shudder to imagine if the NPB rules were followed in the MLB... "Google Giants," the "Nabisco Athletics," the "Chevrolet Tigers." Who would ever want to root for them? Not to mention all the corporate logos & trademarks that dominate the Japanese baseball helmets and uniforms. I'm biased of course but I think there would be more of a following in Japanese baseball if the teams did like they do in the MLB and emphasize their association with a geographic region rather than drowning their identity under corporate sponsorship.

the poll also found that 65% of women reject those proposals outright.

I may not be great at math, but isn't this a pretty good success rate? If a guy hits on 10 chicks, 3-4 of them will not reject the proposals outright. [Slams chu-hai, takes off wedding ring, heads out to street.]

Police are analyzing security camera footage from the station as they continue to search for the urn’s owner who will face charges of improper disposal of human remains.

It's entirely possible the decedent's last wishes were to have his/her ashes placed in his favorite spot. (I admit it's odd that this would be Miyahara station, but then again this is Saitama and there aren't exactly a lot of scenic places one would want to rest for all eternity...)

I've heard many a Japanese boast about the abundance of food varieties that exist in their culture, but nothing surpasses the number of sexual fetishes they have.

They advised Imura to change her address and job but she said she could not because she had two sons to support.

Classic. In other words, "We cops are so incompetent and our system is so broken, there is nothing we can do to intervene and help you. You'd better just take matters into your own hands, even if these means inconveniencing yourself to no end." I understand it's odd she declined to file a criminal complaint, but it's a shame a verbal plea for help to the officers wasn't enough for them to do anything other than "issue a written warning," which obviously doesn't deter folks like the cops think it will. I'm sure there are dozens of reasons a harassed woman, scared for her life and alone with 2 children, will decline to go through the probably cumbersome (and maybe even public) process if filing a criminal complaint.

Some cocktail suggestions for their "balding menu": High Bald, Gin-and-Hair-Tonic, and of course, No Sex on The Beach.

This is all just for show, a transparent attempt by Japan to obtain an approving pat on the head from the US, right? All these "security measures" without so much as a credible threat. These measures aren't taken anywhere else, least of all in Obama's own neighborhood where real terrorists have attacked and anti-government lunatics make threats all the time...

I just want to take a moment to thank the author for dedicating an entire paragraph to explain the meanings of red, yellow, and green lights.

With other idol groups that might not be so bad, but in Rev. from DVL’s case, it’s like attending a meet and greet with the original Jackson Five but only getting access to Tito.

I'm sorry, did this author just compare "Rev. from DVL" to the Jackson 5? It's not even like attending a meet and greet with Maroon 5, much less the Jackson 5.

If the above accounts of this guy and his "management" style are accurate, is at best extremely, grossly negligent and should be held personally liable. To think he had all those accounts, ostensibly worth millions, reduced to a list of handwritten passwords kept in his office is a colossally stupid practice; it is simply unimaginable that the head of a currency exchange would be so lazy.

“When I was 13 or 14, I even tried to make a full-body suit myself, sewing stockings together. But I stopped, thinking maybe I was doing something weird.

And, you would be right.

They aren't the first ones to apologize for defective balls, amirite?

King of Hosts

So he's a Royal Host, eh?

Raise your hand if at least half of the Japanese females you've come across in your life have answered the question "What do you want to do professionally," with any of the following: esthetician; airline attendant; run own cafe; make-up artist; run a bakery; homemaker; wedding consultant; or fashion designer. (My experience may be rare but I doubt it.) My point isn't that these aren't lofty goals, it's that overwhelmingly Japanese women seem to choose "girly" careers. The challenge isn't making science (or the fields of law, medicine, engineering, business, finance, etc.) more open to women; it's getting women to want to join those fields. (It won't be easy though; as this article illustrates, even societies without Japan's level of sexism are male dominated.)

It sure says a lot about the strength (I guess) of Japanese "family values" that, if the article's suggestion that risks are increased due to fractured extended families that don't talk or see one another for several years, despite being completely shut out of their relatives lives or otherwise ignored, when they come calling for help these elderly just do what their asked and offer a helping hand. I can tell you one thing - if I went several years without talking to my parents and called up out of the blue asking for a large sum of money I would probably get hung up on. These Japanese sure show some unconditional love!

Does anyone else see this commercial, with the blossoms blowing through the streets of the town, as an intentional reference back to their earlier HD TV commercial from 5 years ago or so, with all the colorful little balls bouncing through the streets of San Francisco? I'm pretty sure JT even ran a story about it. Just youtube "Sony balls commercial" and you'll see the similarity... Anyway if that was the idea, I think it is pretty cool.

He wasn't the captain, nor was he one of the ships engineers so why should he have gone down with the ship?

I think the phrase "go down with the ship" as chosen by the author here is a bit misleading... I thought the same thing and read a little elsewhere. Turns out he and another guy left the ship at the last minute and jumped into a lifeboat that they knew was supposed to be for women and children only, but didn't get found out because it was too dark and those in charge of the lifeboat were too busy to notice. (I remember a similar such scene in Titanic where it showed people shoving other women and kids away to get into lifeboats; they were certainly portrayed in a negative light.) Essentially he was viewed as embarrassing Japan; other western people investigating the incident did call him a coward, so it wasn't only Japan... Of course who knows what one would do in a situation like that; you see a spot on a lifeboat about to depart and you jump in it. I can't blame him...

Wait, really? How is that not considered a a form of insurance fraud?

Same thing happened in a case back in the late 1980s where a person defrauded the insurance companies by claiming to be someone else, and then killed that someone else to obtain the payout. A creative attorney I know sued the insurance companies for being so gullible and negligent in allowing such an easily-detectable fraud to be perpetrated on them. A little investigation can reveal who anyone is. The lawyer won that case for his client, the victim's family. Granted that may not fly in Japan...although it should.

“It’s wholly implausible,” the company says in its response, “that military commanders in charge of thousands of personnel and armed with some of the world’s most sophisticated equipment, relied instead only on the press releases and public statements of a foreign electric utility company.”

In other words: The US military, with all its sophisticated technology, should have known we were lying through our teeth. Our press releases, full of willfully misleading information about radiation levels was obviously intended for the droves of our Japanese citizenry who are much easier to fool.

@Marilita, as you may know, remote areas within very rural parts of Japan like Gifu and Gunma often have homes without any modern plumbing and therefore use outhouse toilets, septic tanks, etc. They are routinely maintained, as they must be to work properly. You probably wouldn't ever come across this in Tokyo but I could be wrong...

To those knocking the comments about having a fun time with this, don't judge - if you're not in a bad, sad and irreparable marriage (or even a "good" one but without any sexual attraction to your spouse) then you will not understand. Japan in particular is one of the worst places to get divorced; not only is there the complications of stigma, money and the like but as all those familiar with the family court system know, a man who wishes to divorce his wife is for all intents and purposes viewed as a deadbeat who wants to bail on his family and will have no rights to his kids (it's not just that way for foreign spouses, btw; the Japanese courts are just as bad to Japanese men). And even for women, they get far less here than in countries to which Japan considers itself to be an equal. So if there exists a tool where a person can have some fun sex on the side without having to go all nuclear on his family, all the better. Frankly, it is just so naiive to look at this and say, "Tisk tisk, you should invest your money into fixing your marriage." Puhhleeeeze..

This looks like the guy sitting on the left is opening his robe to reveal an Iranian woman hiding inside.

Police officials said they could not immediately confirm the website was made by the Yamaguchi-gumi, nor comment on it.

It couldn't have been made by them. These guys are supposed to be a powerful, wealthy bunch, right? Surely they could have found a web developer to come up with a fairly decent web-page that (1) does NOT have a hit counter straight out of 1995, and (2) does NOT use a URL so hilariously long (Guy: "Dude, What's your email?" Gangster: "It's Hiroshi@zenkokumayakuboku... Guy: Hahaha... No, dude, seriously. What is it.). In their defense, accessing this link from a smartphone leads to a page apologizing for how poorly their web-skills are.