idir13013 comments

@OssanAmerica. First of all, thanks for the link, always better discussing as adults than punding the keyboard with no apparent goal.

The documents you are referring to are all saying the same thing basically. That there were not many Japanese documents discovered, whether it is the comfort women issue, Unit 731 and a whole lot of other things. But this is not surprising at all since the Japanese destroyed as much evidence as they could. Just look at " Directive by Imperial Household Ministry to destroy wartime documents" and you will find info about this (uncovered two years ago).

As for American documents, it is also clearly stated that they were at the time focusing on finding out the truth about American interests, such as about the Pearl Harbor attack and POWs.

That is why the actual witnesses, soldiers or victims, all saying the same thing, and all covered by media through the years, are vital. There are women in many different countries all saying the same thing, but this is not enough? Even Japanese imperial soldiers have come out and acknowledged the system, but this is not enough?

And finally, and this is where your whole argumentation is really hard to understand: Japan itself acknowledges the system. The PM in 1993 did it clearly in a famous statement, and even Shinzo Abe (though it is hurting him to do so) just set up a special fund TODAY to provide money to women that were forced to be sex slaves in Korea, as well as written apologies from Abe himself. When even the most hardcore nationalist that Shinzo Abe finally recognizes the system and is not denying anything anymore (except possibly the exact magnitude of things), isn't it time to understand that there is no conspiracy, only the true history that has been told by most people for decades?

@tinawatanabe With "if", you could put Paris in a bottle as they say in French. Let's see Japan actually doing something about it, settling it for good the proper way. After that, if South Korea wants to bash Japan for another reason not yet spoken, it will be as you say and everybody will agree. But if not and things go back to some kind of normal, everybody will see that the "no point" argument was a poor excuse.

@OssanAmerica Come on, there are thousands of witnesses (victims or the soldiers that delivered them), historians, documents, even physical sites of the comfort women system. And to all that, you oppose what a single guy has supposedly found out? A guy that is even claiming that nothing at all happened in Nankin, or that Unit 731 is a myth? This is just way beyond reason.

Insane. Once you realize that the Prime Minister and a majority of the people in his party belong to the Nippon Kaigi lobby, who has made its views on those matters very clear, you understand that they have already decided what the outcome of those "reviews" will be: the exact same as those of Nippon Kaigi (I invite everybody to research that lobby to see for themselves the direction Japan is now officially taking with its history).

If Australia is such a good friend of Japan, they should organize an "intervention" with all the other friends they share. Like for any addicted person in denial, Japan needs a wake up call and faces its own lies and the consequences of its actions. Doing anything else is not being a friend, it is being afraid of telling the truth (for whatever bad reason).

And there is no difference of opinion, there is one law and there is what is not that law. Violating the law is not having a difference of opinion. The International Court of Justice has made it more than clear what is legal or not. Everything else, "difference of opinion", "objection", "mutual understanding" is just non-sense and pathetic excuses, and should be condemned and punished.

Are people commenting here going insane?

1- JAL continued to operate until now, meaning a whole month after the attacks. So when it comes to showing solidarity and not getting scared beyond reason, they have showed plenty of that already.

2- The JAL Narita-Paris route suffered a 60% demand drop, and the JAL Haneda-Paris a 40% demand drop as stated in the article. Let's call the demand for each route "D" (I assume it is basically the same for Narita and for Haneda, as they both were operated every day). Previously, the total demand was D (Narita) + D (Haneda) = 2D. Right now, the demand is 0.4 x D + 0.6 x D = D. So only one D, and only one route to operate! Makes perfect sense, this is business 101. How good is it for anybody to have double the capacity compared to the demand? Bad for business, bad for the environment.

3- It is only until March. Just let things rest for a while, cheaper flights and low season might help reboot the whole thing, and it will get back to normal in no time.

Enough with the guilt trip already.

Any real step towards progress would have been to allow women to actually do something improving their everyday life. Among others: driving their own car, entering universities and educate themselves without the need of a man to approve, travel freely, etc...

That sentence says it all: "While the municipal councils do not have legislative powers, they oversee a range of community issues, such as budgets for maintaining and improving public facilities. All major decision-making powers rest solely in the hands of King Salman and the all-male Cabinet of ministers."

So even if only women showed up to vote, and only women were elected, it would not change ANYTHING. That says it all about the current "major step" we are witnessing.

You are welcome, Maria! Totally understand you about the gelatin. Maybe some other manufacturer will soon pick up on this very interesting concept and offer choices that could fit many more people :-)

@Maria I was wondering the same thing. The alcohol content is enough for them to put a warning message aimed at children and driving people! That is really odd, even though I am sure they had their reason for it, and it is well displayed on the front of the packaging, so hopefully it will be enough for only the "right" people to eat it (probably not though, nobody can guess what is inside once offered on a piece of bread for instance).

Here are the main nutritional facts I could find (you can Google translate it), it all sounds standard without any chemical-like ingredient. It actually has very few ingredients, and I am myself looking forward to tasting it :-) 原産国 : 日本 原材料 : 砂糖、カカオマス、全粉乳、クリーム（乳成分を含む）、乳糖、洋酒、酒精、糊料（ゼラチン）、乳化剤（大豆由来）、香料 栄養成分 : 1枚（標準18g)当り　エネルギー87kcal　たんぱく質1.3g　脂質5.7g　炭水化物7.7g　ナトリウム12mg　食塩相当量0.03g アレルギー表示 :乳、大豆、ゼラチン

@John-San Without knowing if your assertions are true (steel can be, but doubtful about the energy considering Japan still has to import a lot of it due to nuclear reactors being shut down right now), you cannot take a look a the huge drop in prices right now and think it will hold over five years. It could (and certainly will) get back to more expensive prices.

And there is one thing you are not realizing, it is that the most recent estimate for the previous design (the one that made the whole thing collapse) was done as late as June this year, when all those material costs were so low according to you. And still a sharp increase in the final price.

Again, all those estimations do not take into account the extras that will be necessary when everybody is rushing and everything costs more. And there will be no time to find cheaper option when the deadline is coming, everybody will be just "we don't care about the costs, just get it done". And people will use this to take even more money. This is so everywhere in the world, Japan will not be any exception.

The issue is not about showing how beautiful Japan is to the world. It sure is, and tourism is improving a lot and will continue to, as it is such a pleasant country.

The issue is much bigger, and is double.

First the corruption of politicians that has lead to the whole mess, and will continue even with a new stadium. The only reason the first estimate cost was so high is that everybody is taking its share along the way, and everybody else closes their eyes. And this will continue, there is absolutely no real ground to why the stadium will cost 3 or 4 times more what it would have cost in any other developped country. Japan is not 3 or 4 times more developped, and the prices for materials are set worldwide, things do not get 3 or 4 times more expensive just because of "Made in Japan".

Second, the fact that Japan is facing huge troubles right now: aging and decreasing population being the most urgent now. And that all those extra billions of Yen should be put right now into the society to help people have more time for themselves and less burden (time or financial) to make children.

Already now, retired people do not get enough money to enjoy their retirement, and most of them must continue to work quite late. Also, the tax burden is too high on most households, there is no school for young children forcing their mothers to stay home and never really going back to work, and it is already getting worse as old people are more now than ever, and there are not enough young people to keep up with what will be necessary to pay healthcare and retirement for everybody.

I rather see Japan face its problems now once and for all, take all that insane amount of money and invest in the society, than focus like in some kind of fantasy world on a big project in five years that will bring nothing more to the society than a few years work for some, and a slight increase in tourism. This nation will need much more than a nice image to be able to survive in 50 years from now. And with a million less Japanese between 2010 and 2014, it is already happening (projections for the year 2020 will be 2 million less Japanese).

The real sad part is that the final stadium will almost certainly end up costing more than the cost of the original stadium that was already way too high and that people massively rejected.

With the need to accelerate things, definitely possible without any compromise on quality (this is what Japan does best), costs will increase gradually when "emergency things" having to be dealt with as the deadline approaches. Exactly like when you order prints on the web, and can get them in one day instead of five by paying an extra 30% or so.

Up to now, evey single major event ended up costing much more than the estimation, with major surges during the last year. London 2012, Sochi 2014. Rio 2016 is experiencing it as we speak.

So in the end, everybody in Japan except a handful of greedy investors and corrupted governments will end up losing big time. Especially when the country faces huge financial problems on all fronts basically, and there is already a big tax burden on people just to get basic and usually insufficient services back.

What is truly interesting here is not the story itself I think. Just one tweet that nobody can even check and with far too many uncertainties is not news.

It is the fact that this article is (and by far) one of the most commented articles on JapanToday. Some people here are blaming Daniel for his silly act, or the bad way Japanese humor works by laughing at a foreigner "clown". But those same people are the ones taking time to comment, thinking about it, and overlooking other matters much more important in Japan.

To me, that says one important thing: Those people criticize Japan and the Japanese for doing being shallow and narrow-minded, but are doing exactly the same thing!

They should read more about the new immigration law that is being passed with some possible very bad consequences for everybody (the Japanese society as well). Or almost any other policy that is being enforced for that matter. Most of them (in my view) right now go against what would better Japan even more, for the Japanese, for the foreigners living here. Even for people outside through the way governments work with each other.

Just change "Jason" with "Kardashian" and you will get to see how ridiculous the whole thing is. Nobody should even care, they are entertainers and their goal is not making anything serious better.

And to people wanting to say "but aren't you doing the same thing, wasting time on that exact matter?". Please don't even try, it cannot compare. It would be the same as saying that a demonstration is as pointless as the thing it is demonstrating against. If you think so, then you have lost grip of how a constructed dialogue between reasonable people works. And your answer is not something I look forward to.