King Minus comments

ebisenToday  08:00 am JST

Can the "anti" people explain how anything BUT the death penalty would be appropriate justice for this subhuman here? He killed a group of immensely talented people - each and every one of them contributing to the society infinitely more than he's every done:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20241002/p2g/00m/0na/024000c

Is it "justice" we want, or "vengeance"? The hard thing to get one's head around is the possibility that there is no hope of real "justice" done by any punishment. Quickly snuffing out the consciousness of this profoundly disturbed wretch seems merciful in comparison to allowing him to ruminate in solitude for years on end. Regardless of which one feels more appropriate, neither rights the wrong or satisfies most of our understanding of "justice".

Jonathan PrinToday  04:45 pm JST

This number is limited but with time Japan may have a problem if foreign mafia appears.

"Foreign mafias" often originate amongst groups that are excluded from the mainstream society/economy/job market. Add the inevitable bitterness and resentment arising from these circumstances, and you have the perfect recipe for a criminal underclass.

We'd be smart to give these kids any chance we can to successfully integrate.

I believe it is just a way to fight demography's trend.

Sadly, you might be right about this part.

factcheckerToday  08:00 am JST

You should be like us.

No one should aim to be like the US. No one.

The poster was obviously joking.

Hey Fighto!

Gene Hennigh - 

Too bad, Japan. Here in the US, nothing like this ever happens. There are no hoarders no matter how bad the situation is. It's never, ever, even once happened here. You should be like us.

So very incorrect, I don't even know where to start. 

Hoarding is universal. Stores/governments need to set limits early to minimise people missing out.

Look at his wording. I'm pretty certain he was being facetious.

One monoculture proving to be a blight on another monoculture... is there a metaphor here?

Just the latest in a growing lineup of doucheTubers getting caught doing dumb stuff in Japan. The fact that he's Chinese is of little relevance. Considering that there are over a billion more people where he came from, one could argue they are, if anything, underrepresented in this field.

As obsessed as people over here seem to be with all things "safety", I'm often surprised how that doesn't seem to apply to passengers in a moving vehicle.

The cost of childbirth is just an amuse bouche before all the real expenses begin. Here's an idea – how about making K-12 public education an attractive and completely accessible option, so that families of any income bracket can give their children a decent education without having to throw huge amounts of money at the cram school/private education racket?

Paper straws are inferior to plastic quite simply, and I'm not sure metal ones are too great either.

Sure, but given that plastic ones can take up to 200 years to decompose, a slight inconvenience is a small price to pay. I almost never use straws anymore, and it hasn't exactly ruined my life.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Japan the world's largest consumer of this... stuff?

As alluded to by other posters, the real story here is the culture of silence and collusion by much of the industry and associated advertisers. Kitagawa's crimes have been an "open secret" for a long time.

The same old Mery Go Around and it will never change until the old men and their family members are removed from office. Nepotism is alive and well in this country, and especially in the Japanese government and the people here just say "shoganai" meaning "it cannot be helped.

I never see this changing in my lifetime and maybe not even in a hundred years from now and so I guess I am in the club of "shoganis."

But, it can be helped. For too many things, "shoganai" is code for "I can't be bothered."

It seems that voters here either value consistency over progress, or feel that politics are none of their business. For a "modern democracy", the Japanese deference to power is rivaled only by that of the English.

Peter NeilToday  06:58 am JST

I don’t think the guitar shops in Ochanomizu are too happy about it.

I doubt it will matter to them. This looks like a branding exercise, not a serious music shop.

I believe the elephant in the room here is "pressure" from extreme rightist groups. There seems to be an outsize fear here of these fringe elements, despite their low numbers and buffoonish presentation.

After his weird, out-of-touch comments on same-sex marriage, depicting homosexuality among samurai seems like some sort of progress.

Mr. MidnightToday  07:10 pm JST

Death penalty seems to be a pretty good deterent in Adian countries. Far less violent crime than western countries where animals get a light sentence, go to prison to be further hardened into crime, come out and commit more. US has the most incarceration among the OECD countries but violent crime is still the highest. While Japan is the safest.

Considering the high suicide rate in this and other "Asian countries", and the manic nature of a lot of these crimes, I doubt that the death penalty is the deterrent you believe it to be. In this country, I would suggest that shame is a far more powerful implement of control.

Westerners need to fix their society before criticizing others.

Whataboutism is a much better way to stop a conversation than solve a problem.

If Japan was truly a liberal democratic state under the global rules based order it would welcome millions of refugees and migrants following the sterling examples of the US, Canada, France, Germany and others, and fully integrate them into Japanese society regardless of cost and social disruptions. This would also solve the problem of Japan’s declining birth rate…

Yeah, but it's not. It's an ethnostate, where a baby boom that included a large number of non-Japanese would likely be seen as a problem, rather than a solution. As for the countries you've listed above, many of their track records with respect to integration have, unfortunately, been less than "sterling".

The sad thing is, if you took a random poll here in Japan, I suspect that an overwhelming majority of respondents would be indifferent at best to the issue of prisoner abuse. This society seems to have a baked-in lack of empathy for those "unlike us", often relying on rules and regulations to obscure or justify this tendency.

The pandemic enabled an already widespread hypochondria in Japan. I predict the masks will never go away, and we'll see more of this eco-absurdity as companies feel emboldened to exploit people's fears (and hopeless addiction to "convenience").

A 2019 global poll by Pew Research indicated that 68 percent of Japan residents agreed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, nearly equaling the 72% recorded in the U.S. And likely the 30% of Japanese that don’t agree that homosexuality should be accepted by society will gradually die off over the next decade.

Yes, but since when has government here cared much about the feelings and needs of that 68%, when the 30% has proved such a reliable, predictable voting block?

NO Problem, Come and take your brothers and sister to South Korea, Japan has NO PLACE for Cults.

Oh, if only that were true. Japan seems to love a good cult as much as anywhere.

Aw, poor babies.

One less chance for kids to exercise judgement and develop their own moral compass.

Ah, Japan, sweeping the genkan while the house burns...

Women mature earlier than men and therefore they do better at college entrance exams. Some kind of adjustment can be justified at medical schools or we will be seeing more dermatologists and ophthalmologist and fewer surgeons and ER doctors.

Perhaps that's because girls here are largely raised to be "sensible", while boys tend to be pampered and get all the attention. I'm generalizing, of course, but as a parent, and having worked in the school system, I've observed this trend again and again.

"Boys, be ambitious! Girls, B minus!"

One of my friends mentioned to me that Japan has the highest police to citizen per capita in the world, with Tokyo being exceptionally high. Didn't check the stats but I can easily believe him.

Personally, I'm sure I have noticed a significant increase in their numbers over the past year or so, at least in central Tokyo.

Hasn't the Tokyo Metro PD been in a state of "high alert" for...like... the past 10 years?

While I have no objection to keeping my home power consumption as low as possible, for the sake of both the environment and my utility bill, I resent the onus being put on the individual. Japan in general, and Tokyo in particular, is easily the most over-lit place I have ever encountered. According to the season, either heat or air conditioning blast out of open shopfronts, benefitting no-one. Train cars, packed with commuters in winter coats, are heated to the perspiration point.

The responsibility needs to start with the public and commercial sphere, who are both clearly the main offenders and very effective at setting the "tone" for the citizenry.

Hopefully the Japanese online troll army doesn't drive her to suicide.

Why was this "news" in the first place?

I know the initial costs are high, but is there any other reason that Japan is not exploiting its geothermal energy?

I admit I don't know much about it, but it would appear to the lay observer that this country is (literally, in some cases) bursting with it.