Lauren Szekely comments

Especially with the nuclear reactors down I understand Japan's need to conserve energy but they go about it horribly wrong. Here in Nagano prefecture where it gets both hot and cold during the year, necessary measures for heating and cooling are still not properly taken. In some of the more poorly built housings it gets down to -5 or worse indoors overnight (thats 23 farenheit) in the winter and there's no central heating for that. We've also got the shortest summer vacation in the country. To be fair it can't compare to places like Nagoya and Tokyo. However, I just don't see the point in watching us all melt into puddles at work. I have found over time that Japan as a society seems to have set and usually unspoken rules about everything. Unfortunately it seems often to override the most logical and best solutions. (What is ok about ambulances that don't fulfill their function so that people die before reaching the hospital all the time?).

There seems to be a side discussion appearing occasionally about why the Japanese don't just leave at 6 regardless or why they don't fight for the freedom to do so.

Reason being group harmony. They won't go before others, especially the boss, because that disrupts group dynamics- quite the sin. Harmony is the basis for most cultural practices here. Ingrained in them from a young age, it's not surprising no one objects to things. It's not "let's agree to disagree", it's "let's agree to agree so that there is no disagreeing".