HappySmiles comments

Better idea:

On top of the Fuji fee, charge each of the 33 million entering visitors a ¥10,000 Japan-entry tax and use the proceeds to give each adult resident of Japan a ¥3,000 tolerance payment.

Tamaki has previously said his party members would not vote for Ishiba

Sleezy LDP revenge.

so what great policies does kamala have?

Policies are not needed against a candidate as weak and divisive as Trump.

All you need to do is remind everyone of the only other choice: Trump.

Think about it. You visit a cafe that sells two drinks: one you’ve never tried and one you don’t particularly like.

Most people have hope that the new drink is going to be better than the poor drink they’ve already sampled.

I feel so sorry for all those who cancelled travel, especially families with limited holiday time because of school schedules who were going to use this obon week to reunite with distant grandparents and relatives.

Those are memories lost.

I heard they were the most popular country in Paris.

Really? Where did you see that reported?

Great to see a truly festive opening ceremony, the first Games fans from around the world have been able to attend in person since Pyeongchang 2018.

Most people probably have the common sense to avoid these situations, but others might benefit from guidance provided by friends, mentors, schools, or public institutions.

So true. I was surprised to read on this site yesterday about the arrest of a 26-year-old police officer on suspicion of having non-consensual sex with a girl, knowing that she was under the age of 16, in a car in a parking lot.

The alleged sexual assault came to light when the girl told her family what had happened. Her family contacted police to file a complaint.

These cases are becoming too common.

Recent headlines on this site make you worry whether public servants in Japan can be trusted.

— Foreign Ministry worker arrested for trying to photograph bathing women, July 14

— Police officer arrested over sexual assault of minor whom he met online, July 13

— Ex-chief public prosecutor indicted over rape of colleague in Osaka, July 13

with nearly no one in the stands, thanks to pandemic-era restrictions in Tokyo three years ago.

And now we realize that those stands could have been filled with the paying spectators who had been issued tickets — like the stands being filled today.

By the end of the second week of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the stands were being occupied by volunteers, staff, and participating athletes, so it’s not as if those stands were completely empty.

Just a completely mismanaged, wasted opportunity.

I always assumed Empress Masako was an Inner Swifty. Final Wembley concert tonight!

The bid committee was set up in 2011, a year before Abe came to office. The decision to bid for Olympics was made well before Abe was PM.

You’re forgetting Abe’s initial term as prime minister.

The decision to bid for 2020 was connected to the decision to bid for 2016. And the bid committee for 2016 was set up in 2007. Guess who was prime minister in 2007?

Shinzo Abe.

So... why didn't you do that over the last eight years?

Nice rhetorical question.

Too busy with the Olympics no one wanted

I don’t think we can credit Koike with the failure of the Tokyo Olympics over Prime Minister Abe, who was in office when Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games was officially lodged. The initial chairman of the Tokyo 2020 Bid Committee was Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, who was later replaced by Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose. PM Abe and former PM Aso were on that committee, as was the corrupt former PM Mori, who was selected to head the committee in 2014, shortly after Tokyo was selected by the IOC to host.

Those guys and their acolytes deserve much more “credit” than Koike.

@Geeter Mckluskie

Foreigners on temporary work visas are not citizens. They've been allotted visas specifically to fill positions that Japanese can't

Japanese can work at marine product processing firms, can’t they?

In the end, [the Vietnamese workers] got paid...not for working, but for being inconvenienced

No, they got paid because the illegal activity of Chateraise was reported to authorities. The educated management at Chateraise initially chose not to pay those workers.

On this topic of discrimination against foreign workers, I have seen a clause preventing the “purchase of any form of land, private housing, or commercial property in Japan” in a 2024 employment contract of a foreign employee at a “white” Japanese company, where working conditions and benefits for employees are supposed to be better than average.

Very concerned about the path such companies are choosing to take.

Can't they just claim they are preventing a tourist hotspot from forming?

That’s an acceptable justification only when the tourists are mostly foreigners.

The language barrier was cited as the most common reason for feelings of loneliness at 31.6 percent, followed by cultural differences at 27.9 percent.

> *That’s very similar to the percentage of people inside Japan who feel the same. Some 40% of people inside Japan indicated feeling lonely at least occasionally*

Japanese living in Japan do not face language barriers or cultural differences, but apparently they’re still lonely.

Teacher arrested for kissing a junior high school girl without her consent

I wonder whether a minor in Japan can legally grant consent to an adult for a romantic kiss? Or is the minor considered to be too young to offer legal consent?

For example, would it be criminal for an 18-year-old to share a romantic kiss with a 15-year-old?

Give him the maximum of four years of prison.

I fear tossing Trump in jail might open the potential of his son Eric Trump being anointed as his father’s successor and thus being elected as the Trump base vehemently rallies to right the perceived wrong of the jailing of the senior Trump during the final months of the election.