Nihon Tora comments

Farage’s party/company ended up with the same number of seats as the Greens.

And attracted double the number of votes. Also got more votes than the lib dems who got 71 seats. the DUP got 5 seats with a little over 170000 votes compared to the 4 seats for Reform who attracted over 4 million votes - it's close to half of what Labour got.

Labour hardly increased their vote share from 2019 - they didn't win the election the Tories lost it - many voters ditched them for Reform and the Lib dems and to a lesser extend others. For many, it was just anyone but the Tories, many others just stayed at home and didn't bother. Hardly surprising as the Tories have overseen the worst 14 years of government in living memory.

A lot of news outlets refer to Reform UK as far right or France’s RN as far right, but I never see any of them referring to Japans LDP as far right, yet most of the controversial policies of RN and Reform are already implemented here in Japan, often to a more extreme extent than those parties propose. Seems quite hypocritical to me.

Good to see the tories kicked out, they have been disastrous, but I’m not sure that Labour will make much difference. They need to get a control on immigration, which is something that doesn’t seem to be in their DNA, and the massive transfers of wealth from the public purse to the wealthiest during the banking crisis and then again during Covid, that needs to be transferred right back again. The focus should be on expanding the middle class and improving access to it to anyone prepared to work for it.

The design of the roads has a huge influence on the speed at which people feel comfortable driving on them. If you have a wide, straight, open road people feel more comfortable driving at high speed than they do on a road with narrower sections, trees at the side and so on. Changing the road design - introducing traffic calming measures is going to be more effective than just reducing speed limits that many people don't follow anyway if they feel they can get away with it.

I'm not sure what surprises me most - the fact that they are going to take it down, or the fact that it costs 70-80 million yen for a condo way out in Kunitachi!

It is getting to be very expensive these days - especially now that you have to pay extra for the fast passes, premier access, etc. - it really feels like they are penny pinching with stuff like that.

Having said that, they really do know how to make a great experience for families. Sure, it is going to be a bit lame for older teenagers or younger adults, but then that's not really who its aimed at. Last year I took my family to both Fuji-ku and Disneyland. There was simply no comparison - Disneyland doesn't have the big rides that fuji-ku does, but overall, it was vastly the superior experience. Fuji-ku many attractions were closed, and the place seemed very understaffed so there were huge queues everywhere despite the place seeming to be half empty.

If they were serious about stopping speeding on the highway then they would monitor what time you enter and exit the highway but then most people wouldn't use the highways which are technically privately owned.

Every time I use the highway (typically weekends and holidays) I always end up in a massive traffic jam at some point, so even if I went 150 for most of the way, I'd still end up having averaged 60 because I spent an hour in stop-start traffic!

Can’t see English football fans allowing it - there will be huge opposition to it much like there was to the planned European super league - another stupid money making plan that was scuppered because fans hated the idea.

Could be more yet - the large sunspot group from where these flares are coming is now on the other side of the sun, but in a couple of weeks from now it will have come round to face earth again assuming it lasts that long.

The yen is very weak right now so tourists have a lot more spending power, I guess that’s the justification. However, it wasn’t very long ago that the yen was very strong and tourists had a lot less to spend here - were a restaurants at that time offering discount prices to tourists? I don’t think so…

It’s the same solution to any change that occurs in Japan that isn’t completely without some issues - instead of trying to adapt to it in a creative way, they simply ban it. They banned the Shibuya Halloween and NYE festivities - every other major city in the world manages to cope with similar in a safe manner but not Japan. And it is always when the problem is seen as caused by foreigners. Fireworks festivals attracting 1 million Japanese are OK. The millions of Japanese tourists all over Japan during the bubble resulting in unsightly buildings dumped all over Japans pristine locations were ok, but a few foreigners taking snaps outside of a combini they want to put up a huge screen to block the view. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

Many comments saying it’s better in the Inaka or regional capitals etc. and that people should live there instead of Tokyo. But most people are not moving to Tokyo out of choice, they are moving there because that’s where their job is.

In these days of high speed trains, internet etc. there really is no need for many industries to be in Tokyo - the government should provide more incentives for those companies to relocate jobs to the regional capitals - it should be better for the companies too - cheaper building rents and lower salary requirements for their employees.

But anyone wearing one of those hideous colored shirts with a white collar.... No way!

On "Better call Saul", Howard Hamilin almost always wore a coloured shirt with a white collar and I thought he usually looked pretty smart, although I wasn't a huge fan of the pin-through collars.

Black suit shouldn't be worn with brown shoes, of course. I know its a popular colour for a recruit suit in Japan, but I think black suits should be worn for funerals, lighten up just a little bit for a job interview.

Time and expense for what? What jobs out there really require a PhD? University professor? For every academic position advertised, there will be over 100 applicants - most of them excellent, even for low level universities. There are too many PhDs! Japan's universities are doing the right thing by getting most of their students out of their bachelors or masters courses and into the workplace. A handful of PhDs from the top universities is plenty until such a time as the job market demands otherwise.

I think a lot of Japanese whiskies are overpriced now - you can buy a bottle of Ledaig 10 for around 5k - I heard Suntory are putting up the price of AO to 6000, and that's just a blend of mostly non-Japanese whiskies with no age statement - it was overpriced before the price increase. Lagavulin 16 for around 10k, where Yamazaki and Hakushu 12's are going up to 15k. I'd much rather drink those scotch whiskies at a lower price with a longer age statement and more interesting flavour to my palate.

The practice is inhumane, and the argument for deterrence is unconvincing. It seems illogical to expect that an individual capable of committing such heinous crimes would be deterred by the threat of the death penalty rather than a life sentence in prison. Clearly, they are not considering the potential repercussions.

As a society, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard than the most reprehensible among us. We should aspire to be better. A sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is enough.

Awful. Hope she makes a full recovery very soon.

I always wear a helmet when I go and my daughter wore one when I took her too. I really smacked my head one time years ago before I used to wear a helmet - wasn't pleasant. Also once had a large icicle fall from the ski lift onto my helmet and have clattered into numerous tree branches while wearing a helmet - sure none of those things would have killed me, but some of them might have ruined my day!

Until it is reported, we have no idea whether or not the girl in question was wearing a helmet - as far as I can tell, most kids do - a helmet will provide some protection but even when wearing one, it is still very possible to suffer a serious head injury after colliding with a solid object at even moderate skiing speeds.

Most of the UK gets a similar amount of snow to Tokyo - basically, hardly any, but whenever snow or ice is forecast, there will be gritters out all over the place and if there is a significant accumulation of a few inches or more, snowplows will also be out to clear the main roads,

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gritter or snowplow in or around the Tokyo area. The motorways closing because of 2 inches of slush is ridiculous.

It’s quite bizarre that Japanese people get so annoyed about people talking or using mobile phones on the train - an inherently noisy environment anyway, yet they are perfectly ok with those loudspeaker vans driving around quiet residential neighborhoods blasting their 110 decibel announcements directly into their living rooms and bedrooms.

Bring him to Japan justice..

ASAP..

Remember the last time the French and Japanese got together to deal jointly with a convicted murderer/cannibal/necrophiliac? The Japanese ended up releasing him unconditionally only for him to go on to gain some kind of macabre celebrity status in Japan being invited as a speaker, commentator, author etc.

Probably just best to let the French deal with it.

I'd like to see the evidence instead of convicting someone just because the girl's body can't be found.

Just pull up the Wikipedia page about the case and read it.

If that doesn't convince you then just consider the fact that he was found guilty in a trial in a country with a respectable, modern legal system in which he was defended by one of the best lawyers in the whole country.

I remember this girl from Tsukuba where I think she went to the uni.

Just because no body was found, it doesn't mean that there isn't enough evidence there to convict this guy. He was obviously involved in her disappearance and there was abundant evidence for it - he's a jealous, possessive, manipulative psychopath. His 28 year term should be upgraded to life with no possibility of parole until he admits what he's done and reveals where her body is so her family can get some closure.

For cases like this, the punishment should not be about rehabilitation, it should be about retribution and sending a clear message that society does not tolerate this behavior. These people should be spending the remainder of their lives in prison. To hell with trying to turn them into functioning citizens.

However, the huge obstacle for Japanese, at the moment, is weak Yen and outrageously high price of everything in Hawaii.

Also the crazy flight prices. It almost costs as much to fly to Hawaii as it does to Europe.

Attempted murder for stabbing someone in the leg?...ok.

A stabbing in the leg could easily kill someone depending where on the leg and how deep - severing a main artery a person could bleed out quite quickly.

If someone is crazy enough to go attacking someone by stabbing them with a knife, I think it’s quite reasonable that the default charge should be attempted murder, even if they only end up slicing the little finger. They can always defend themselves and get cleared or found guilty of a lesser charge in court.

YouTubers should be banned in Japan.

Not all YouTubers are bad! There are some that produce some excellent content - Chris Broad does plenty of very good Japan-centric stuff without causing any trouble or disrespecting anyone - on the contrary, he's been a big proponent of the Tohoku region, for example. One of YouTubes biggest names, Pew Die Pie came over a while back and now makes mainly Japan vlog type videos, again without causing any trouble for anyone. I'm sure there are plenty of others... CDawgVA, Oriental Pearl, Sharmeleon, Dogen, Sundai Love are just a few of the other foreign YouTubers in Japan I've seen that seem to enjoy varying levels of success without annoying anyone.

There was another case a few years back a pretty girl stabbed her host bf. He didn’t die but was seriously injured - she had fully intended to kill him by plunging the largest knife she could find deep into his abdomen. She got something stupid like a 3 year sentence. In other words, a brutal stabbing gets a sentence in the same ball park as a recidivist shoplifter (two years, on JT the other day). Maybe if she’d been put away for a decade or two like she should have been, the girl in this report might have thought twice.

I prefer Twitter - hugely recognisable and successful brand - the name was relevant to the the function of the platform and a cute logo to go with it. X has no meaning - it is a label that relies entirely on the success of the Twitter label to gain any kind of traction or recognition. Without wanting to pass judgement on Musk as a person or on his overall running of Twitter (X), I just can't understand the logic behind this re-branding - for me it was a dumb and rather arrogant move. But then again, I'm not the richest bloke on the planet, so what do I know.

They should officially move the venue so that idiot Ken can see that there are other places than can EASILY hold a Halloween event. Saitama Shintoshin Station area comes to mind. They have a very large plaza which could easily accommodate an event of that size.

Sounds like a sensible idea, but one of the attractions of the Shibuya Halloween was that it was just basically a completely spontaneous thing and not some pre-organized event in the middle of nowhere. Not sure why they focused on the actual Halloween night - at it's peak a few years back, it always happened on the the Saturday night just before Halloween - the reason being that people went there to show off their costumes and then after go to some party in a club or bar somewhere - there is absolutely nothing else like that to do in Saitama Shintoshin.

I'm not sure why they became obsessed with stopping this event - I heard that there were a few public order issues in recent years, but even back when I used to go to it and there wasn't any trouble, they were trying to put a stop to it. In London, they have the Notting Hill carnival and every year there are several hundred arrests and half a dozen stabbings, but they don't stop the entire event! The overcrowding thing just doesn't wash with me because Japan organizes many events that attract far more people to similar urban environments with no issue - if they can organize over 1 million people around the tight streets of Asakusa for the fireworks, then I'm sure they can organize a crowd some 10 times smaller around Shibuya. My guess is that the real reason for wanting to stop the Halloween event is that it's part of a gentrification of the area - they want the young crowd out to be replaced by a more monied, young professional class more like Ebisu or Aoyama.

Israel are currently doing their best to create the next generation of Palestinian terrorists hell-bent on the destruction of Israel and every Jew within, that will be far worse than any previous generation.

It's the most thick-headed response to the events of October 7th imaginable.

 The statue of Hachiko should have been transferred to another location and close the train and subway stations and businesses tomorrow for 24 hours. Stay safe Shibuya and look after each other.

Why? Did anyone do anything to the Hachiko statue in previous years?

The way people are going on about this, you'd think it was a bunch of rioters and terrorists descending on Shibuya to smash the entire place up. While I haven't been there for a few years now, the last time I went it was just a bunch of young people milling around having fun showing off their creative Halloween costumes.