heretoolong comments

He is a LEGEND!!! Congratulations Mr. Miura!!

One of the more enjoyable articles I've read. Good on those boys for having a great adventure!!

I was most surprised to have a business trip to Hiroshima many years back, and got into a cab and it was a gaijin!! Very surprising, but cool experience!

I agree that the major cities are already 24 hour cities, but not in the same sense as N. America and Europe are. I heard before that it's the hotels and taxi companies paying kickbacks to the train companies to not run 24/7 so that many people are either forced to take a taxi or stay in a hotel. Can anybody shed any light on that? I'm not sure if a story like that has been run before on JT.

By the way, doesn't this go against Article 99 of the Japanese constitution???

I fail to see how this is a "lack of sensitivity to U.S. perception of prostitution." Do these kinds of "apologies" really work in this country? I guess so if all you have to do is go before a horde of cameras and video cameras and kowtow before the public saying sorry like we so often see. But his comments have nothing to do with Japan's forced prostitution of some 200,000 women who were brutally raped throughout their service to the Empire of Japan. Hashimoto just proves again what an ignorant fool he is, and shows his (obvious) lack of understanding of Japanese history.

"Japan’s far-right politicians have lost their minds,” South Korea’s JoongAng Daily...now I can say I finally disagree with some of the sentiments coming from Korea regarding Japanese politics: I don't think they have ever had a sound mind in the first place. Hashimoto teaming up with Ishihara, what did you expect?

Of course the link that Sensato posted with Abe in the fighter jet with the 731 number on it, you know they will advocate that it never existed, and all the experiments with the bubonic plague, anthrax, vivisections, frost bite, gas chambers etc carried out by Shiro Ishii, and in which the remaining data that wasn't destroyed when Japan got out of Harbin, China and handed over the US in exchange for immunity for the members of Unit 731, you know that it never took place, right? It's all fabrications by the international community because they hate Japan...Right. Just like the Rape of Nanking never happened and is a fabrication by the Chinese, right?

What is wrong with a nation that can be this ignorant of it's history and still elect politicians like this over and over?

AKBfan, I got a scholarship to play Division 1 sports in the US, and never, ever heard of this in my sport, nor in any other sports at my university.

Glad those boys could stand up for themselves. They shouldn't have had to be in that position in the first place, but bullying really is rampant in this society isn't it? I fear for my kids when they enter JHS/HS, too.

I'm am so sick and tired of dodging people who are not looking where they're walking because their eyes are glued to their phones and they can't see 10cm in front of their faces. Now, I just let them bang into my shoulder if they don't have the wherewith all to pay attention and look where they walk.

As with everybody else, this article used very poor examples to prove a lack of street smarts. I do agree with the premise, but very poorly chosen examples.

Furthermore, what do you expect from people who are lead around like sheep, told when to cross, told when to walk, have guides holding flags explaining things while nobody looks where they walk, and then you wonder why Japanese have problems when they go abroad?

I realize that this isn't representative of everybody in this country, and could be representative of people from any country, but the fact is that Japan is, typically, very very safe, and people here don't pay attention, and don't look out for themselves; that is somebody elses job, right? Thus, they often do run into trouble when traveling overseas.

What could have taken the police 16 months to charge this idiots? Seriously? Were they asking for a higher kickback to look the other way and didn't get enough? Snails can move faster than the police in this country, but if they had all been Gaijin, you know they would have been charged within a week.

You can do Nyotaimori (女体盛り) if you know where to go!!

My heart goes out to those who are still in makeshift housing due to the ineptness of the Japanese gov't. It's amazing when they want to build something it goes up in a month, but when they want to take their sweet ass time, it takes a decade. Unreal. I understand the cleanup process has taken an immense amount of time, but 2 years later and people still don't have a place of their own to live seems just absurd to me. Stay strong Tohoku!!!

What an outstanding man in a horrendous situation. He made the ultimate sacrifice for his daughter and probably did what he thought was the best thing, we can all be armchair quarterbacks and say this and that, but dying to protect his daughter brought a tear to my eye. RIP dad.

I hope somebody gives his daughter the life she deserves.

With everybody else on this. My best mate had a pitbull which was among the sweetest, most friendly dogs I have ever interacted with. It's the owners responsibility to train it and control it.

Turning to an exorcist is considered acceptable, while getting psychiatric treatment is ostracized here - go figure. Why aren't counselors being dispatched by the gov't to help with their, greatly understandable, stress that I imagine many are suffering from.

Sounds like something from Spies Like us!!! Go figure!

Why the heck hasn't Japan ever ratified it? Is it, possibly, in effect to be able to keep foreign parents from "taking" their children home when family disputes arise or divorce happens? Is it only to protect Japanese family members while screwing over foreigners from access to their own kids?

I really enjoy his books, and I hope it's better than 1Q84 - the third book was just horrendous.

Wow, two years for each person, what a joke Japanese law is! He doesn't even have a license! That lone should get him 5-8 years, then, minimum 10 years per victim giving him 45 years in prison.

JT needs to get their facts straight as others have mentioned, she WAS pregnant!!!

It's still a freaking joke that they're that expensive and take that long. Maybe that explains why I shave my head with clippers myself. Takes 20 mins and doesn't cost a thing. Must be rough being a woman here.

This is news worthy? All two of them? C'mon. Half the idiots of the Uyoku couldn't even tell you anything about their own country's past, all they do is drive around in their obnoxious black trucks singing war songs and shouting Tennnou heika!!

^^X2

I have to agree that Osaka should be on the list before Tokyo, too. Tokyo has some amazing parks and lot's of greenery. Osaka is just grey. Post-war Japan grey and ugly slabs of cement where ever you go. However, I love Osaka people - colorful, funny, always up for banter.

I love how they have phallic shapes at Temples or Shrines (I forget which) and you can't show a penis around here. But it's OK for Ossan to take a leak where ever they please, and in plain sight of everybody else. You have mixed onsen here and nobody bats an eye, but a picture of it is a sin. Are Japanese actually Muslim, because they're not allowed to have any living object depicted in art, pictures, etc...

Smoking hot time!! Congrats!

According to wiki, "The national age of consent in Japan is 13 as specified by the Japanese Penal Code Articles 176 and 177. However, prefectures can have ordinances that prohibit sexual activities with any minor under 18." So it appears that depending on the prefect that you can engage in Enko. We all know the cops are, right? Somebody must have not gotten paid and got angry.

I find it messed up that the girls are the ones being charged and not the owners/managers of the establishments. That blows my mind and I fail to see the logic - wait, you don't need logic here, you just need to wear the right uniform.

I bet if it had been a bloke, and he did the ubiquitous bow, then all would be forgotten as they would say, "meh, he's a bloke right?"

I work at a private school and am tenured, and all full-time foreigners here are required to have school positions (校務), club coaches, and either homeroom teachers or dept chairs (主任) or assistant dept chairs (副主任) of various departments like student center, Kyomu, Nyushi etc. We also have school 6 days per week, and usually club 6 days/week, sometimes 7. The idea of having Saturday classes to me just blows my mind. Among the foreign teachers, the only thing we have come to conclude is that it is because parents WANT it, and Japanese teachers think it makes our school look more illustrious. What a farce.

I argued until I was blue in the face in order to have those extra classes that we have on Saturday put on a day like Tues/Thurs or Tues/Fri. Do you know the biggest reason why we couldnt? It was due to the fact that we wouldn't be able to have club as long as we typically do!! FML. Club in this country dictates everything else, and is the root problem of many things in this country. Imperialistic Japan still exists through bukatsu, and while I think my school is bad about it, it is nowhere near as bad as your typical school where teachers berate students for performing badly, smack them upside their heads for a poor play, or not even acknowledge their existence when athletes come speak to their coaches. Sexual harassment comments towards jhs and hs girls by some male coaches has made me want to punch them right in their gut - beyond disgusting and things that I, myself, still disbelieve I heard.

The entire idea of classes 6 days per week is purely window dressing. They change the clothes, but don't change the empty mannequins. Until passive education, wrote memorization (where students forget everything the next week, and they don't have true semester exams where everything covered that semester is on it), teacher-centered classes, and teaching the pages because MONBUSHO tells you to do this pace regardless of whether or not students truly understands changes, you could teach classes 10 days/week for 10 hours per day, and NOTHING will change.

MONBUSHO, principals, teachers who were raised within the system haven't had a new idea of 70 years, and until we can escape from this style education system, it's all a big joke.

How about a class which actually teaches the rules of the road to people who ride bikes. It feels like half the people riding bikes ride against traffic! Are people here not aware of road rules? Is there no common sense? I dont think there is, but I am not worried about cyclists as much as I am drivers texting, watching tv, not stopping at stop signs and rushing to pull out in front of you so they don't have to wait for two more cars, and, sorry to say this, but the elderly drivers who, many of which, have NO BUSINESS driving - beyond reckless. It's putting a bandaid on a broken arm, they're not dealing with the real problem.