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I haven't been checked by police in a few years now. I think it stopped around the time the American embassy issued a warning about racial profiling in Japan*.

There was a period where I was stopped and asked to dump the contents of my backpack into their bike basket every week outside my apartment though. Pretty annoying. Hope they caught the real criminal though. :D

*https://x.com/ACSTokyo/status/1467629914857816065

If only this was as hot as it got...

With Golden Week you have to zig while everyone else is zagging. Kyoto, Nikko, Okinawa - no way. But other places exist and they're worth checking out.

I know he scored the penalty but Salah seemed a bit off his game. With all that said, United got lucky - capitalized on a mistake to get the equalizer. Odds are still in Liverpool's favor I think.

And this is just a case we know about..

How many more water faucets does this happen to that aren't reported?

Stay vigilant, people.

He's too young to be Taoiseach. Likely it won't matter anyway as there will be a complete clear out come the General Election later in the year.

People are justifiably mad at this crowd - and they've long overstayed their welcome.

Nothing for Better Call Saul. Kind of a joke contest.

Loved Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin on the Netflix show so will give Echo a chance. The trailer looks promising... Hope it's not a bloated, boring, meandering mess like most (all?) Disney+ Marvel shows.

That only worked as long as the bulk of the Chinese population saw their economic lot improving measurably year after year. The "status quo" was ever increasing prosperity. 

Good points. I guess I would counter by saying the zero covid policy tested the appetite of the Chinese public for change and didn't really amount to much. I think you could be right over the long term though.

Too many Chinese have studied and traveled abroad. Most families have relatives living abroad. Despite the censorship they know what their leaders tell them is not true and most do not harbor ill will towards the democratic nations like their leaders do. 

The problem is, most are quite comfortable with the status quo. They might know they're being lied to but they really don't care enough to do anything and are quite used to having limited state-approved conversations in public.

China would want to be careful about the Senkakus though. You have the current US president saying that they'll defend Japan if it comes to it and the likely opposing candidate would only love an excuse to give them a smack after covid.

Optimistic. Inflation will subside, interest rates increase to zero, salaries slightly increased to keep up with inflation, Kishida steps down and is replaced by Kono perhaps. Stronger yen.

Tourism boom will naturally slow down but stronger performance by Japan's private sector will offset the shortfall in money in for Japan Inc.

Something unexpected could happen - invasion of Taiwan, a quake, etc. - but otherwise pretty hopeful for 2024.

I don’t get it, Times Square, NY can pull it off but Shibuya, Tokyo can’t?

Yeah apparently not. Gerontoracy rules supreme in these parts.

It's just that all these superheroes are C-listers. Spiderman and Thor will draw a crowd regardless of quality but I don't think I'd even heard of Captain Marvel until these movies started coming out.

Country with population crisis, loneliness and suicide problems - "Let's ban one of the few things we do where young people can meet each other".

By all means, arrest people for anti social behaviour but this sort of crackdown is as dumb as it is unwarranted.

Mayor Hasebe should be ashamed of himself.

Foreigners and young Japanese are an easy target for the media in Japan.

This Shibuya Halloween story will be discussed non-stop on TV where an ever increasing number of seniors will be told that Halloween and having fun is the work of the devil.

Spitfire is on the money here. This is the gerontocracy at work and you see it time and time again if you read or watch any Japanese media.

Other events that aren't strictly Japanese such as St. Patrick's Day where Omotesando Hills is closed off for a parade and other international events held at Yoyogi Park show this can be done safely and generate a massive amount of money. You can bet you'll have old cranks that would love those events cancelled too.

In any case, last year proved they've ruined any chance they had at monetizing Shibuya halloween. Typical lack of creativity from stiff, soreheaded old bureaucrats.

I have my own parties to go to this year so won't be at Shibuya but hope everyone going there has a fun and safe night. :)

Inclined to believe it's not as bad as it's being made out to be. A lot of these X detractors, some mentioned in the article, have an axe to grind with Musk.

Check out Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads. Graveyards. Way too soon to be heralding Twitter's death knell.

I don't actually use X all that much myself because JapanToday is the only news source I need :D

Like it or not, this does unfortunately give ammo to racist groups here making it that bit harder for the rest of us. Originally saw this news on kansai television channel on youtube with the top comment of over 50 likes being "外人を日本に入れるべきじゃない". A couple of people called it out but still kind of sad to see.

Not sure what you do but a hefty fine confiscating all the money he makes out of his inflammatory videos and a month or two in the slammer would be a start.

but even in 19th-century America it became an excuse for vandalism and mayhem..

I too am old enough to remember the 19th century. But we must not let our Victorian sensibilities impede on the hard fought freedoms of the current era.

I say, let there be Halloween for those who wish it and let those who not wish it do literally anything else as is their inalienable right.

Halloween is for children grow up

Halloween is for everyone.

Not many of you went last year I take it? Halloween in Shibuya has been killed - just police shouting at people to keep moving on loudspeakers, very few costumes, mostly just influencers and shutter bugs showing up to have a gawp.

It was great about 10 years ago when there wasn't such a big crowd of normies but those days are long gone.

Leave him alive for as long as possible in that husk of a body he composed for himself.

When I look around, every single seat was occupied by a young, beautiful japanese woman, all by herself, having her lonely tea & cake in a saturday evening.

That's what they want. I've never believed the birth rate decline was an issue to do with insufficient income. Poor people tend to have tons of kids.

It's just that there are so many options now and it's so easy to just not have kids. Especially for men who are capable of having kids in later life if they really want to do so.

Don't know if there's a solution to this to be honest asides from making everyone's lives sufficiently bad or boring enough that having kids doesn't seem like that big of a deal by comparison.

When they passed that $2.2 trillion COVID stimulus bill, they left us with 90 million people on Medicaid, 42 million people on food stamps.

Majority of that money goes directly into the US economy (as opposed to foreign adventures and buying up carbon credits). The attacks on budget deficits as a whole by Rand Paul conservatives are just bad economics. The gold standard and balanced budget policies directly strangle economies and the middle class. The usual think tanks sponsor this rubbish despite all the lessons learned since the 1920s crash.

So there's how much public debt? How much of that is in the US private sector? Infrastructure projects? Paying the salaries of public sector employees. It doesn't just vanish into nothing. Cutting all these things with austerity - well then you lose all that output but you get to show everyone your lovely looking budget surplus. Hurray.

Government budgets cannot be run like households budgets. It's crazy that 100 years later some republicans still support this nonsense.

FYI - I'm also an outside independent observer.

It's just a bus on rails now. Even Amtrak can serve food.

I wouldn't say it's quite that bad yet...

How did that work out? I haven’t heard anything about it at all recently.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-023-00623-0

"Prophylactic administration of ivermectin reduces the severity of pathological changes associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection"

For the record, I'm not a proponent of using Ivermectin to treat Covid but I think the massive backlash against it was frankly quite weird.

Driving standards here do seem to be quite lacking. Poor enforcement I think - you just wouldn't get away with some of the things I've seen on Tokyo roads in other cities.

Road rage here is also insane - everyone here is convinced they're a driving genius.

With all that said, last year was a record low in traffic deaths in Japan*. So a 2.1% increase probably doesn't mean that things are suddenly getting worse.

*https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14812779

Good to see. One of the reasons I came here 10 years ago was the low unemployment rate. Very easy to get a job if you have an even halfway suitable skillset and work at applying to positions for a month or two.

Don't recommend going through recruiting agencies here. Most generally don't know what they're doing - definitely not worth the commissions they charge.

Yes, there are dangers you should be aware of when exercising outdoors in humid or hot conditions but it's also important not to use this as an excuse to avoid exercising completely. Anything you can do, be it weights or walking, will help. Try the early morning or late evening when it's not that hot and make sure as the article advices to drink plenty of water.

Nearly 70% of Americans, nearly 60% of Europeans and 25% of Japanese are overweight or obese with all the physical and mental health complications that come with that status. Completely avoidable in most cases with only 150 minutes of physical activity a week (and once you see the results, you may want to do even more than that).

The U.S. dollar fell to 139.54 Japanese yen from 139.68 yen.

Some good news.

Tourists were always flocking back en masse once the gates reopened. I didn't hear anyone say "masks will keep tourists out."

Yeah but there was plenty of whinging last year about going to other places instead because racist border controls and cry for me because I can't go on my holidays where I want to last year.

It will be telling if this tourism boom continues when the yen gets back on its feet. People just have travel a higher priority in a post-Covid world.