Leigh Ivan Quintellio Wighton comments

Non-existent rainy season? I remember the first week or so being pretty sunny and dry, but pretty wet after that. Still, I'm not disputing the measurements. It's not like I have a measuring stick out there myself. Coming from a country where forest fires are a danger every summer, I can't see it happening here by a long shot. Japan has to be the wettest country I've ever lived in. The hills and mountains in and around kanto are still very lush and green. It'd take absolutely no rain at all for an extended period of time for it to be a fire risk.

The Okinawan longevity study showed that genetics didn't play a large part. They studied Japanese who went to Hawaii and Brazil and adopted a local diet. Note that if it had been DNA that protected them, the diet would not have affected them, but it did. First gen in any country were fine. Fit and trim because they cooked and ate similarly to the way they did in Japan. Their kids however adopted more and more of the local diet and as generations went on got progressively sicker.

You bloom where you are planted, and the Hara Hachi Bu 80% full Okinawan predominately plant based style of eating is a real longevity maker. The nice thing is that anyone can try it.

Look for The Okinawan Diet by Drs Wilcox brothers and Dr Suzuki

Didn't read the story, did you?

Some comments really irk me. If you are in Japan, of course they are going to focus on the Japanese teams ! Suck it up guys !

Yep, I get sick of this complaint. It's the same in every country. Usually, it's only hard-core sports fans want to see what other countries' athletes are doing in a range of events.

Funny how Okinawa has a reputation for being sunny. On the whole, it has less annual average sunshine and sunny days per year than Tokyo. https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Japan/sunshine-annual-average.php

But then again, connectedness isn't Tokyo's strong suit so that extra sunshine doesn't seem to help the average Tokyoite. I'd like to see some stats on which areas in Japan have the highest rates of stress-related illnesses. I'd put 500 yen on it that it's not Okinawa.

That and to lessen the risk of going brain-dead at the same time.

It may be good and economical for those who are not blessed with good health, otherwise it is too expensive ( lifetime mandatory monthly medical premium and subsequent medical cost per visit).

Yeah, 10% of one's income is pretty high. I know we all tend to need more medical care as we age, but why can't they run the system like any other health insurance agency where if you make no claims you get a discount on premiums, and as you age, premiums go up slightly? 20 years from now may be a different story, but up until now I have never needed hundreds of dollars worth of medical insurance a month. Fingers crossed I stay that way, but like everyone else, I find myself going to clinics for things that aren't that serious just so I feel I get something out of the system. Problem is, loads of people in Japan do this so clinics are packed and going to the doctor takes a chunk out of your day.

Just include the premiums in income tax like some other countries with a public healthcare system do. The current system is as clear as mud when it comes to finding out how much your premiums are. Having it as a separate entity allows some people to avoid paying into it also. Then there's the whole back-payment disaster that some people get stung with and how it's based on your previous year's income, which makes it problematic for people with irregular work or those who have lost their job.

There has been quite a few false alarms from these earthquake early warning systems. And, on the other hand, they rarely seem to go off when there is an earthquake. There has been three or four strong quakes in the Tokyo region in recent weeks, but no alarms went off prior to them. I've also had them go off four or five seconds after the quake has started. This makes it very hard to have any confidence in these systems.

I got blasted on this site for expressing similar sentiments almost exactly two years ago when suddenly at around 4:30 am on a Saturday, city-wide ( Tokyo ) emergency announcements blasted over the public PA system for a "Jishin desu." Nothing happened. How are we supposed to trust these systems when they go off for nothing? Every false alarm only makes people potentially complacent towards these warning systems.

I find it laughable that adult circumcision is a thing here and that men are being somehow convinced they need the chop. Seriously? It's a procedure that's been on the decline in developed countries for decades now. I mean, if it ain't broke...Although sounds like some Japanese guys are thinking, "If it ain't broke, let's break it!"

This article is very misleading and vague. From what I can tell they are talking about the J401k. It is absolutely not a pension plan. It's a tax-free savings investment account that was modelled on the UK's ISA account. You can choose from a series of managed funds to invest up to something like 1.2 million yen a year in, and your gains are tax free, but for only 5 years. The UK ISA system has better yearly limits and I think the tax free gains are unlimited whereas the Japanese version is only good for 5 years. In any case, it's not a pension plan and you don't have the option to stop paying the national pension plan and just do this.

Just stop remaking Spiderman! It got remade after a lengthy period off screens in the early 2000's. I think there were three movies with Toby Maguire with the last one in 2007. Then only three years later the studio decided they were going to remake Spiderman again, only this time they realised the stupidity of "remaking" something that's less than a decade old so they called it a "reboot." So since 2010 we've had two more "rebooted" Spiderman movies, the last of which being so bad that plans for a third have been scrapped and Spiderman has been relegated to bit parts in other Marvel films. An example of killing the goose that laid the golden egg perhaps.

A colleague of mine was telling me recently that Japan is one of the few places in the world where TV ad revenues are in an upswing. I believed him. TV in Japan has a completely captive audience. Japanese is only spoken in Japan so the networks here don't have to contend with content produced overseas. Interest in foreign movies is minimal, and interest in foreign TV is almost non existent. This results in an endless stream of cheaply produced crap that will always have an audience. The majority of programming in Japan really is bare minimum in budget and production. I've worked on sets here in the past. High-school productions with expensive cameras is a description that comes to mind. As more and more viewers worldwide are turning away from terrestrial and cable TV for on demand services, this cheapening of traditional TV is a common problem everywhere. Thing is though, with the ad revenues increasing in the Japanese TV industry, I'd like to know why the networks and studios here continue to produce the cheapest, poorest quality junk day in day out.

She should feel lucky that the person didn't do anything more serious to her. That should be a good lesson for her to wake up and figure out that there are other ways of getting things, and selling yourself to a high bidder is probably not the best way.

I agree with Aplphaape. I've heard of many so called "dates" where the woman was ordering the most expensive things on the menu all in the assumption that the guy will pay for all of it. Back when I was single I had a few of these"dates" where the girl was clearly just looking for a total meal ticket. I didn't get burned too badly but I remember reading someone's advice of, "when at a restaurant, cafe or wherever, always keep your phone, wallet etc on your person. That way if it becomes clear that your date is just out for free drinks and dinner, excuse yourself to the bathroom and don't return." Pretty good advice, I think. Sure, some women may be low paid, but expecting something for nothing is hardly an attractive trait. I think the girl who had to pay the 30,000 yen bill got off lightly.

I recently bought a bicycle for the first time is years, but I remember why I stopped cycling around Tokyo for so long. Other cyclists are just dangerous idiots. Cycling with a phone, umbrella and even a book in one hand. I can't stand it. Then there's the motorists..

I've caught bits of this show before. Like a lot of scripted J-Tv they mix genres. It'll go from deadly serious one minute to an almost slapstick scene the next. Which is it? Mixing genres is very jarring and confusing. I think I'd rather just look at my powered down TV than watch this.

This'll be interesting. Goromaru himself would probably admit he made the wrong decision signing for the Reds this season. He could've increased his stock even further had he signed for the Sunwolves. I'm sure his Reds contract pays well though, but the Reds suck this year and Goromaru has been exposed a few times in his limited appearances for them. In any case, he's off to Toulon this year where he'll earn a fortune while closing out his career.

Or another way of looking at it is that Kojima s famous for OTT, long-winded, confusing endings. The recent Metal Gear was a great example of this. A game that was great in gameplay, but a hot mess of a story. And that ending...

Prince's death came directly after former pro-wrestler, Joanie Laurer, aka "Chyna" was reported dead at the age of 45. I had known about her rather sad state since being more or less thrown out of the business 15 years ago. Hearing of her death was a brutal full-stop to an already sad story. The next morning I was looking through the news sites to see if there was any light on her cause of death and a link to Prince's death was on the same page. I thought it was a joke at first. Unfortunately not. I'm one of those gen-Xers the story talks about and I can honestly say I was a bit deflated and saddened just before I had to go into work. Not that I'm going to break down over people I've never met before, but the double whammy in consecutive days certainly had an effect on me for a bit. But yeah, these aren't people I knew personally so I'm not going to let it ruin my day.

I feel bad for the homeroom teacher ( not to mention the kid too). He or she is gonna get dragged over the coals no doubt. Teachers can't be everywhere at all times. I just hope the homeroom teacher doesn't become the scapegoat here.

Newsflash! Teenager complains about school!

After discussing this story with a friend it became clear to me that McDonald's gradual decline here is somewhat representative of Japan's entire post-bubble era economy. McDonald's promise to boost quality, service and cleanliness isn't necessarily a bad idea, it's just not the root of the problem. Essentially they're saying they're going to work harder. I'm no economist, but if my time in this country has taught me anything, it's that when faced with a problem the promise to work harder and throw more man-hours at it is the most popular response from Japanese companies and organisations. If working hard was the legitimate answer to all economic problems, Japan ( and McDonald's here ) wouldn't continue to see their economy slip in world rankings. It's going to take a new approach and innovation for McD's to get out of their funk, but that's not something I've seen a lot of from businesses in my 13 years here.

McD's in Japan is stuck in the 80s. The interiors look so disheveled and tired and the selection on the menu is pretty limited. I stopped off at my local McD's in my hometown a few years ago and immediately saw why it's failing in Japan. The interior was very different. It resembled an inner city cafe more than a standard McD's. The menu had changed a lot too. For better or worse McD's overseas have tried to add more "quality" options with the Angus burger and the like. I remember McD's were having a bit of an identity crisis in the early 2000s before I came to Japan and it looks as if they've tried hard to address that overseas, whereas McD's Japan clearly hasn't. Also, drop the ridiculous gimmick burgers McD's Japan! They look and sound foul most of the time.

Crossover stories like this are a great idea.......WHEN YOU'RE 8 YEARS OLD. Alien vs Predator, Superman vs Batman, Robocop vs Terminator all sound great on the playground, but studio execs who greenlight crossover fiction should be utterly embarrassed. I can't think of a single crossover story product that received acclaim of any sort.

And I for one welcome our new robot overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground factories.

English text books ( and rigid adherence to them ) have a lot to answer for at times. There are several terms, expressions, phrases and idioms I hear constantly from Japanese learners of English that you might only hear, occasionally or once in a blue moon among native speakers. Things like, "I like.... very much," or adding the same question to statements all the time like "I ate kitsune udon. Do you know kitsune udon?" More advanced ones would be, "at the time/in this time," and "in my image" ( just completely misunderstood ). "Frankly speaking" was something I'd hear almost all my Korean students begin sentences with, which was made funnier given their problems pronouncing "f".

I don't want to fault people for trying to use another language, but the education system teaches some daft stuff that all too easily become linguistic crutches. In a best case scenario these get boring, in a worst case scenario they are wrong or unacceptable.

I feel like the term "western-style" gets overused enough already, and applying it now to parties is a bit much in my opinion. A party by definition should be relaxed with a certain degree of informality. To me people mixing freely in a space over drinks is a party. The enkai system? I'm not sure I'd call them a party. More like a meeting with drinks. If Japanese people say they don't like "western-style parties," then to me it sounds as if they don't really like parties/mixing socially. I mean, let's face it, at an enkai you don't do a heck of a lot of mixing. you're stuck in your seat with others from your department. Again, to me that's just another kind of meeting. Nijikais are usually a lot better. The people who like each other want to go out and have a good time and can do so.

It's called "hallowing-out".

The country is becoming holier and more sacred?

Moderating comment sections is a great idea in theory, but it's very rare to find a site that's moderated well. More often than not moderators are quite over-zealous to the point where it's ridiculous in some sites.

There's something very chuutohanpa about Shinagawa, with the station suggesting much more than the sum of the immediate vicinity's parts.

Agreed. It's a funny old place. All the development that's happened in that area the last 30 years or so gives you the impression that it's a large happening place, when in reality it's mostly office space and amenities catering to those offices. The station is a hot mess too. Like someone else mentioned, I also get lost if I have to use Shinagawa despite having lived here 13 years. It's very hard to find the actual exit sometimes. Sometimes I find that I've gone through a ticket gate into another platform area. The signage there is painfully inadequate. With it's proximity to Haneda, I hope they give Shinagawa station a massive refit before the Olympics. I can imagine quite a few tourists getting bogged down in that place.

I hate these red-meat cancer studies that pop up every now and then. There are just so many variables to consider in such studies. Like for instance, vegetarians and vegans tend to be more health-conscious people in general anyway. Any smaller rate of bowel/colon cancer in them could be due to a dozen other or so reasons other than "they don't eat meat so..."

Then there are the arguments for groups like paleo eaters who eat plenty of meat, but none of it processed, and are themselves quite healthy and strong. Or the inuit who traditionally ate an almost exclusively animal based diet which proved to be great for their health and well-being. Clearly there are so many other factors that cause cancer.

The processed meat correlation with cancer probably does have a lot going for it, and it's nothing new. Even advocates of meat-heavy diets have been saying this for years. Actually, processed food of any sort is going to have far more detriments than benefits over the long-term, but really, refined sugars and carbohydrates seem to do a lot more harm to the body than even lightly processed meats. I honestly believe these are the greatest evil doers in today's food supply.

Finally, as with all these studies, it's wrong to lump unprocessed meats in with processed ones. Processed hot-dogs and a lamb cutlet are not the same at all. One is filled with artificial coloring, preservatives and emulsifiers, not much actual meat and is nutritionally very poor. The other is the flesh of a grass-fed animal which yields a high nutritional content. At least this study kind of separates them somewhat. In the end though it should be of no surprise to anyone that eating cheap hot dogs and bacon is going to lead to some ill effects. Personally, I don't go for a lot of processed meat except for some ham and pastrami here and there. I'll continue to eat unprocessed ( grass fed as much as possible ) meat and try to skip processed foods of any sort ( I'm only human though. I do like a snack from time to time.)