cubic comments

No old men on roofs got injured? Well, that's unexpected.

There is one thing to be educated about the cruelty of the war and another to constantly dwell about it.

Exactly.

I understand S.Korea's general point in all of this, however I do not think this is exclusive to Japan. Do British kids learn about the 'reality' of the British Empire at school? (I for one didn't) Do French or Dutch kids learn about the brutality during their colonial rules in Vietnam and Indonesia respectively?

I'm not sure if S.Korea will ever be satisfied, even if Japan did exactly what they say - no doubt they would be demanding further apologies when there is another election over there.

smithinjapan: ah yes, there's another string to Abe's bow. There's no chance the general pubic (intentional) will vote for him again, even they can see through this.

@Paul Jones

You do know that Abe was PM previously (after Koizumi), and actually tried to quit just 3 days after initially being sworn in officially? Then he finally managed to quit a year later due to stress. His term was defined basically by antagonising China, S.Korea like by going to Yasukuni in an 'unofficial' capacity like Koizumi, and pretty much nothing else.

The only thing going for him is that some of his family are of Taiwanese descent and he was (is?) relatively well-received over there. I doubt he would be able to offer anything spectacular towards working towards a resolution for the Senkaku dispute though. After the last 5 years, the country needs stability under one party and PM to actually put policies into practice without stop-starting and rebooting every year. Keeping Noda and the DPJ in for the next 2 years at least represents some progress, whereas the LDP and Abe are just rewinding the tape back to the beginning.

And thus the DPJ and Noda get another term. Good result. Well done LDP, you've shot yourself in the foot with a rocket launcher here.

Damn, Abe won. Who saw that coming?? Looks like the DPJ and Noda will be in for another term. Will be good for the country to have some continuity at least!

Would they even know if a resident used this service? I'm going to try anyway.

average at best.

He's going down for a while for this - look at what Horie got for something with a much smaller financial market impact.

timeon

cubic, why would you bet that?

Because if you go to a wedding you have to pay JPY30k+, if someone has a baby you have to pay JPY20k+, if someone dies you have to pay JPY20k+, if someone goes to hospital you have to pay JPY10k+....life events in Japan generally involve illogical exchanges of cash (just don't give me a wedding/funeral 'omiyage' - thus saving your money and my money). My bet was that divorce would involve that too.

Smaller device, fewer components, cheaper freight.

The current PS3 lifespan isn't that much longer though - will they even get to the stage where they start making money on this new model?

I bet getting divorced in Japan also involves giving various people token amounts of money for no reason, like with practically anything else.

An even slimmer version? Why try to solve a problem/meet a need that doesn't exist? This is why Sony et al are losing money big time - too much investment into developing unnecessary upgrades and products. I'm sure the product will be 'good', just not required by the consumer. They need to 'slim' down their product range to max their profitability and efficiency in assigning their R&D resources.

Pictures of children - because you have to find something nice to say about them.

Haha, that is brilliant and also true.

I didn't think it would take long for somebody to link that 'hilarious' sushi video EVERYONE IN THE WORLD EVER seems to love.

Damn, that is a lot of sugar. I probably consume about 1000ml of sports drinks each week - time to cut down.

As others have said, having wives supporting their husbands is just a front to secure more votes. I would rather a President/PM sold their leadership on what they are going to do, rather than who they are/what they represent. Personally, it makes no difference to me whether the head of state is married, divorced, single, estranged, etc., as long as they have to know-how to back it all up.

Well, that's just great. You hear that, Ed? Bears. Now you're putting the whole station in jeopardy.

Why take the risk to do this? This is what the internet is for.

Crazy story. Getting involved in Yakuza stuff is a terrible idea from the perspective of your own safety, but you definitely did the right thing as a human being. I've been in a similar situation where I stepped in myself - even though you are putting yourself in completely unnecessary danger, you feel a sense of responsibility to do something when everyone else is standing back.

smith - as Japan are still relatively 'new' as a footballing nation, I don't think they will break out from the "oh, didn't this Japanese player do well in Europe?" attitude any time soon. Perhaps in the next 15 years when Japan most likely has hundreds of players in Europe, their expectations will be much higher...but I think we'll just have to put up with coverage like this until then.

YongYang

Manchester City and Stockport County

Heh, good one.

I do recall seeing a lot of negativity here that Kagawa was nothing special and needed to learn English to have any chance or something...I suppose we'll just let his performances speak for themselves. Best player on the pitch against Everton, scored and linked up with RVP and Cleverley really well on his home debut.

They're drawing attention, which I guess was the objective of this. Never thought Toyota would ever be doing this kind of advert.

He's just getting older. Most swimmers start to decline in their late 20s. At 33, he probably has little to no chance of getting a medal in Rio. He's an Olympic legend for Japan, but if he isn't satisfied not challenging for medals anymore - it's time to start to pass his expertise onto the next generation full-time. Otsukare, Kitajima.

smithinjapan

That kind of mentality, and the pressure it puts on the athletes are the reason why Japan never takes the haul home that it promises before the games. They ALL need to be congratulated and recognized -- they are all Olympians.

Chill out, it was just a legendary Homer Simpson quote. They were all congratulated enough before the games, who cares.

I enjoyed this, nice article.

Only the medallists should be there. The winners should be showered with praise; the losers should be taunted and booed until our throats are sore! (HJS)

Oh come on. After one season in Japan (South-Korea, Thailand, Germany, etc), everybody hates meeting the eikawa-JET-backpacker-GI fauna. Nothing wrong with having no affinity with a society of bratty binge drinking air-heads from day one.

I'm not talking about those guys - I'm saying this distinction between "Japanese friends" and "foreign friends" is weird. Like you can only have one or the other, and they both 'serve' different purposes or whatever. This sort of stuff is over-analysed to the death.

Sawa's confidence and strength is certainly something, but there are much better looking players on the team. I've read/heard before that she's apparently "popular among foreigners" - probably the Japanese media jumping to conclusions because she had an American boyfriend.

sfjp330 - No chance of the US getting the games again, they hosted it in the 80s and 90s. Turkey is a good shout - Spain probably have no chance considering they probably don't have anywhere near the money required to improve infrastructure, etc to host the Olympics.