fogetti comments

Mental illness.

Is it? Because this is happening far too often in Japan compared to other OECD countries. I find the Japanese family life in general pretty barbarian and I find most people in a family setting lacking any and all kind of conflict resolution / social skills. Just like in all other parts of life, Japanese people seem to be only capable to follow guidelines. But I think this is a general education/attitude problem, not necessarily a mental problem.

Now it's not enough that you have to travel on fully packed trains, you will also be forced to be late wherever you go.

And as someone mentioned, there is really no difference between walking up the stairs and walking up the escalator in terms of danger. So why don't they just ban overall any type of walking for that matter.

This is one confusing article. I guess it's very comfortable for the government to count those furloughed employees and contract workers as people out of interest and out of the equation.

But who would have guessed right? Especially after Suga's speech in the diet.

I'll quote:

Suga stated, "There are various measures in place and, in the end, the government has the welfare system."

Later, CDP lawmaker Renho stood up and said, "That (the prime minister's) answer was beyond the pale." She then asked, "Is it not the job of the prime minister, and politics, to work to prevent people from falling into welfare?"

We all know the answer for that. The government's job is to wire billions to Dentsu. There is nothing to see here.

Real estate prices are near an all-time high. Stock prices are around an all-time high. Cash reserves near an all-time high. Keidanren's complaining/cynism near an all-time high.

@theResident

Life is miserable for almost everyone here, including the Japanese themselves. So by your logic everyone should just leave and let you guys enjoy each other's company with Abe and Suga in threesome?

And yes. It's widely known because it was reported by Reuters that many governments (Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania among others) had to simply give up on the Pfizer vaccine because Pfizer underestimated it's capacity.

Out of how many tests? That is missing from the report.

Regarding the dropped case: if you live in Japan as a Japanese and happen to be an executive you'll know that this country's judiciary is a joke and you are untouchable. This doesn't hold if you are a foreigner of course...

Welcome to the 20th century!

its actually the 21st century

Not in Japan though

I am sick to my stomach. But I think Japanese society at large is also to blame. There are systematic failures in this country, especially in mental health care.

I always wonder why are these kei cars (if that was indeed a kei car) street legal. They are coffins on wheels in my opinion.

Let me summarize Japan Corp for the uninitiated just to give context to the article: government regulation and/or intervention is non-existent, nepotism and shady underhanded practices are rampant, corporate governance is unheard of and ignored, HR and management practices are based on backstabbing, blaming, micromanagement and bullying employees literally into death, labor laws are ignored and even in the case of labor related trials they are pretty much useless because they don't penalize the business representatives enough. Welcome to Japan. Enjoy.

@Mr Kipling: what a great idea! So everyone is guilty until they are found innocent?

But why do we stope there? By your logic, we should incarcerate everyone when they are born until they are found innocent. Then we should send everyone to educational camps. How sweet is that.

Give me a break already!!! Shoveling out ¥2.3 trillion(!!!) of the window, out of which shoving ¥75 billion into Dentsu's and other shady enterprises' pockets in a VERY VERY murky scheme and then asking for a tax increase??? Really??? REALLY? Isn't that just a slightly bit brazen???

@Goodlucktoyou

I think there is still hope if they have life vests.

Are you serious??? You die from dehydration in 3-5 days. There is no exception to that. The chances that they survived in the open sea is zero. Only if they would have been drifted to an island by luck could have they survived. But that must also have happened days ago in order to survive.

The parents were really brave, although they risked their life kind of unnecessarily IMO. They should have tried taking picture of the perpetrator and his car instead. Although that might have been impossible, we will never know I guess.

OTOH, what is with these charges in Japan? Attempted murder? I guess it takes more than riding 20 meters on the bonnet to murder someone.

I hope nature will have some mercy and spares the life of some of them. But this is very bad news, whoever bounces and flounces in the open sea :(

Testing everyone regardless of symptoms "takes a huge amount of resources and brings very limited benefit", he said.

No it does not. The only people who say this, are those who cannot acknowledge that handling the crisis through public health centers are idiotic, and during the time of a global pandemic is borderline criminal.

The whole process of judgment and testing should have been left to the general practitioners, leaving out any centralization in the making.

You cannot make a circular reasoning that testing is difficult because public health centers are over-stretched, and then public health-centers are over-stretched because of the number of testing, because it's just dumb and it's a logical fallacy.

Also this summarizes very well how much the average Tanakas of this country know or even care about results because:

I think he worked hard...

...said all the Tanakas and Taros who were interviewed.

But who cares if he worked hard? It boggles the mind how people in this country simply have no clue what productivity means. People also cannot dissociate busy work from effective work and results.

windfall profits that trickled down to wages and new jobs

In which universe is this true???

I think it will be timely for the residents stuck abroad to sue the Japanese government in a class-action lawsuit when they eventually return and claim for compensation for their financial and other losses.

I find it strange that people want to pass judgment over this guy at this time and place, when he stood in front of a tribunal at the right time and place in the past. That's not what this whole article is about.

I find it educational to read how the Japanese government treats their allies. It's worth remembering and keep in mind for the future. It also seems that the Japanese government is not that different today with its deep rooted xenophobia displayed so well in banning the residents to return to Japan.

These stories are very common in Japan and they are heartbreaking :(

Rest in peace poor souls :(

I am not suggesting stopping reporting about crime, but I have to agree with Mark... WTF are these news on the front page??? What did we learn from this story? Nothing. No backstory, no investigative journalism, no nothing. Just a horror story to keep the sick-minded ones entertained.

@Keisha Lei Togores I would actually much prefer the opposite. Have the entertainment section on front page, and let the sick individuals find their gruesome entertainment in the crime section if they wish to do so.

Not to mention that on other sites which actually take journalism seriously they offer help for the individuals in need in form of mental care service helplines and other contact details at the end of each such article.

Let me guess. The local and central government will sit on these initiatives for a few decades until it all blows up into their face. At which point they will blame all failure and responsibility on the Japanese superiority and the foreigners' lack of social skills.

Instead of taking a look at other countries like Germany (which actually really care about integrating the foreign population) so that they can learn from them.

Just my two cents.

I find it funny that while one commenter jumps to the conclusion of a self inflicted misery of a single mother, the others jump to the conclusion of a deadbeat father. Life is not black and white you know? These comments are equally denigrating and bad for men, especially in a country where the chances of winning custody over your children as a man is close to zero. Even if it's all the mothers fault and the kids would do much better emotionally and financially with their father.

But yes, the reality is that women in this country, especially part time workers are treated as dirt in a lot of cases. I always find sickening the Japanese labor regulations and work culture here. And this is all on the politicians and the Japanese corporate world.

To reflect on the content of the article: I cannot find anything which justifies the Japanese government's racist policies.

Japanese are allowed back in the country and those people bear the same risk as foreigners. The Japanese government is tone deaf to racism, as the NHK video showed us clearly too on Sunday.

@Yubaru You are making sweeping conjunctures and accusations. I find THAT very childish.

Also making the country responsible, or at least calling them out for a global devastating pandemic seems right to me. China really deserves a public outcry as long as the pandemic lasts.

130 trillion yen to facilitate fundraising by companies, as well as the government's fiscal investment and loan program, and investment by the private sector

In other words 130 trillion yen that the average Tanaka Taro-kun will never ever see. Or any employee for that matter.

It's easy to dodge the bullet when the healthcare system does what happened to me: first I experienced symptoms of fever as high as 39.4 ºC degrees and muscle pain + headache simultaneously. Then later came the sore throat, headache, coughing, shortness of breath for almost two weeks now and the doctor thinks it might be bacteria... During a global virus outbreak and a national state of emergency.