Shikisai comments

They can follow Kyoto and the rest and introduce their own form of lodging tax to promote tourism just call it toilet paper tax. Voila!

kohakuebisu

MariCar is unauthorized commercial use of Nintendo's creations. It has nothing to do with dressing up for Halloween.

I was making comparisons. Both have to do with using the 3d party made costumes-in business or private. In case the costume maker followed IP rules,does this ruling mean Nintendo can interfere when other people use similar costumes for their businesses or entertainment (including Halloween)?

The video gaming giant said the ruling blocks the MariCAR go-kart service from lending Mario and other characters' costumes to its customers.

Lending those costumes-not even changing the company name- was the only ruling NIntendo got from the case. In case the costumes were made by an authorized maker and Nintendo was getting royalties for that-they couldn't ban it.

My guess is that those were made in China costumes without proper authorization, and they broke the Japanese IP law (its prohibited to sell such stuff in Japan). Another issue is how much consumer is responsible for maker's obtaining such manufacturing rights.

Mario cart can just switch to using some other kigurumi costumes-like random animals etc. (I am not talking here about the safety of these vehicles etc)

I didn't quite get it. So if I buy Mario costume for Halloween, should I ask Nintendo's permission to wear it? I always thought its the maker company who is in charge of obtaining legal rights to make such costumes in the first place. People who buy the costumes have full rights to use those as they please, unless they misrepresent themselves as part of Nintendo's business.

Isn't it strange that the whole country is now accused of racism for a caricature drawn by one person? (Not that he intended to be racist, just wanted to show how even superstars can't lose with grace).

The morals-don't laugh at American superheroes. No one would care if a caricature was about an Indian, Russian or Chinese. Pretty sure, lots of people would find it funny and not offensive at all, and point out that exaggeration of body and face features is caricature's most recognizable method.

@Madverts

Just a reminder

http://www.moj.go.jp/JINKEN/jinken04_00108.html

Again,an example of great logic in Japan. [We are not gonna break our commitments, instead we will trouble a whole population of the country-127 million people- for 2 years to conduct 2 big events].

This also shows a common attitude from country's leadership expecting everyone to gamabru and tolerate the inconvenience without complaining. Instead of just changing the dates.

Well, NATO had a drill nearby Russian borders in June so why can't Russia have its war games? (apart from using these money in some better way)

[ Major U.S.-led military exercise with 18,000 soldiers from 19 primarily NATO countries has kicked off in the alliance’s eastern flank involving Poland and the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania]

Well, the US says they ll quit WTO when faced with trials for breaking rules of the organization.There was something about the UN,too. Now they do not recognize Criminal Court..

Since many international organizations were established using lots of the US funding after the WW2, maybe its the time for the world to rebuild those organizations to be really independent and representative of the nations? So no one could use the strategy'Vote as I told you or I ll cut your funding'.

Japan is all about safety so I hope the government takes notes from these disasters to prepare for the following big events in the country. We can not know whether there will be a big quake, heat wave or typhoons during the summit next year or during the Olympics2020, but I hope they get prepared.

These stranded tourists can give some clues of the possible hardships foreigners might face looking for help in Japan during such events. Maybe there should be an emergency line? Not being able to speak the language and not knowing how everything works during disasters adds a whole new horror dimension. There should be some service of this kind due to rising number of tourists, and especially during the international events.

Assuming the power supply won't fail like in Hokkaido's case, tourists should also have an emergency information service.

The only "new" thing about this test is that they made the passengers participating in the test pay for that. Usually such vehicles will operate for free-well, because they are being tested))

"Passengers solicited in advance" had to subscribe for this like in June or July,so don't assume anyone can just hop in this taxi.

OMG, this monstrous logic: 'we now killed 177 whales to ' to study the number, eating patterns, and biology of whales that Japan wants to analyse to support its claim that certain whales are not endangered and could be caught for consumption.'

We are killing now to get the proof they can be killed.

Having worked and dined with many Japanese,I have never seen whale meat ordered at a party. There was even a horse meat once, but never whale.

Its not something people crave to eat anymore because there are so many options,what is the purpose of killing? What's so nostalgic about eating whale meat remembering how you were oppressed and poor?

Microsoft didn't offer any further description of the fake sites.

Sounds like another 'FCC hack' story.

@Strangerland

Nope. Facebook uses end-to-end encryption for messages, meaning it's encrypted on your device, and decrypted on the recipient's device, with only those devices holding the decryption key. This means that while your messages can be intercepted in between, they cannot be decrypted since no one in-between will have the decryption key.

Governments hate this.

Thanks, but I kinda know what encryption is.

Thing is, the end-to-end encryption on messenger was rolled out only in 2016.

Meaning, all the time before that it was quite easy to get access to people's private messages.

Yeah,well, I honestly thought that the interested agencies already have the access to FB messages. This step will just make it more widely known and make such encroaches to privacy legal.

I mean not long ago same was happening with Telegram in Russia, now its happening with Messenger only coz both are encrypted. But the governments have been rummaging in all social media that has lower security levels for years.

This was the recent government idea aimed at everyone applying for the US visa:

'The government’s latest bright idea is to ask basically everyone who wants to enter America for five years’ worth of their social media history.'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/31/us-visa-social-media-tourism

One of the best professors I had when in Japanese university was an ex-hikikomori. Despite this,he was great communicating with foreigners maybe because there are less rules and one can be more real. He is doing great now, so finding the place and communicating with the right people is the key, as well as learning to build connections.

I was discussing with my colleague the other day how many people in this society are neurotic due to too much pressure but the mental health support is insufficient and has a bad image (consulting a psychologist makes one 'that mental person') There should be some changes in this direction.

@Netgrump

You missed the news as Japan led by Mr Abe is aligning with the PRC.

No,I didn't, I just don't think that counts as a news. 'China may try to join hands with Japan'- is that a news? Any country might join hands with any other country-based on economical or political situation.

Voicing hopes for improving the relationships is not same as building some joint strategy. That article is aimed mostly at the US who see China-Japan alliance as a threat, because of course everyone in the world builds relationships to 'challenge US'. What a self-centered thinking. Plus, Japanese government has no backbone to build any relationships without looking back at the US, so I don't think its happening any time soon.

Maybe you should ask by yourself why Japans old ally Germany isn't asked for apologies anymore by victim countries after 70 years...

Yeah, only the difference is that whatever the J government does 70 years later it will be too little too late. Still it would be good if some politicians stopped their denial of what was happening.

I think these issues will stay as a grudge for a very long time because they were not dealt with at once. And politicians will keep reminding of them to the citizens in case of any political issue with Japan.

In 1995, the Japanese government set up the Asian Women's Fund and offered atonement money and a letter of apology from the prime minister to victims from South Korea, Taiwan and other nations.

The project continued until 2002 for Taiwanese victims, but many refused to accept payment on the grounds that the Japanese government's legal responsibility remained unaddressed.

Despite all the bad history, I think its a very strange timing for this protest and a memorial. Who would be interested in worsening the Taiwan-Japan connections now? It would make sense for Chinese government to alienate Taiwan from Japan, and put a pressure to align with mainland.

On the other hand,I remember my Asian fellow students being angry about 'no official apology from Japan' for what was done. But it looks like the apology was made in 1995-and no one of them knew this fact. Looks like an apology alone is not enough for these kind of matters. Meanwhile, I don't understand how current government should be responsible for the wrongdoings of the government in charge over 70 years ago.

I wouldn't take this study seriously because:

Tokyo topped a list of the world's most innovative cities 

'A list'-is the key word here,almost every market research/consulting/PR company makes up their own list, often based on 'potential' of the city as opposed to whats really done.

There was a trend to create a universal Smart city index to compare development of smart cities, but still the data every "study" is based on varies greatly.

I've never heard of the company that published this study and their list of indicators measuring innovation looks ..hm..interesting..

https://www.innovation-cities.com/162-standard-indicators/6365/

Cities use it as a chance to advertise and attract innovative companies, and PR companies are just making money.

@Netgrump

Sorry to hurt your fan feelings XD

A Iphone that gets slow and a Mac that crashes after updates sounds more like that you've no clue how to work with those devices :)

Yeah, I definitely have no clue how to make my own software updates for Apple's hardware-so had to use what they offered. And what they offered was crap. Any clues from an experienced guy like yourself?

Apple was THE smartphone company 5-6 years ago, when it did really make sense to pay extra for their product. Now with each year the gap in quality is getting smaller, and if someone is neither really Apple's fan nor is into spending more money than something costs, he has plenty of choice. Now its time of the cheap smartphones.

PS But you can still be proud of your IPhone))

I hope they reform the whole organization,too, because where else-but in Japan-have you seen a 'life-time president of a Boxing federation' ? (that's how his title translates)

Times change, even 'life-time presidents' can't go unpunished for what they do.

Good riddance!

Mostly it is people who want an iPhone, but they can't afford it. 

Well,I changed my Iphone to Huawei when I compared the camera quality of my iphone 5 with my friend's Chinese phone she got 2 years ago. And iphone was embarrassingly worse. So when Iphone got slow-which was done on purpose by the company-I decided not to invest 1000 USD in a phone that will crash soon again,and got Huawei for 1/3 of the price. It's not that I couldn't afford it-I did not want it(even despite being used to ioS by that time).

After my Mac crashed from May software updates and it took them a month to release working updates I decided I am not getting anything from Apple again.

When this guy's yakuza-like barking and bragging about gifts and his charisma brought no results he started whining like a puppy.

I personally think that ojisans talking about themselves in the 3d person like he does 'Yamane wa rekishi ga aru otoko da!' etc really lost connection with reality and live in their imaginary world where they do whatever they please.

He finally is getting a reality check. I hope Japan gets away with more of these ojisan and ossan bunka in general that stifles the whole country.

Capt USA

I think you contradict yourself here:

And those Japanese officials who had the idea of approaching Stalin to ask if he would set up a negotiation were not the people who controlled Japan,

and then:

It is completely baseless to say Japan intended to surrender.

Doesn't look so baseless, does it?

I think from the Japanese point of view, it made more sense to strike peace with the Soviets, just because they didn't have a direct fight on each other's territory as opposed to someone they directly attacked in Pearl Harbour?

Let's wait for 30 more years to know, they might declassify these documents one day..

Disillusioned

At the time of the bombings there were over 1 million Russian troops lined up on the eastern shores with orders to invade Japan and kill everybody and everything. In a cruel and twisted way, the US actually did Japan a favor by forcing their surrender.

Well,one day Japan might return that favor-in a cruel and twisted way-who knows.

I'm quite sure the Russians would not have been so flexible and generous in their treaty negotiations.

It was the Soviet troops. Check the difference.

If you watch 'The untold history of the United states' by Oliver Stone, you'll find out that the US command decided to bomb Japan to get the peace treaty on their conditions-because Japan reached out to the Soviets for the peace treaty first. The US displayed the best of the flexibility bombing the country and getting what they wanted.

Yep, with 6-7% of foreigners in the country they ll definitely change the forms just to make the gaijins happy XD

I know several Japanese friends who forgot to renew the licences on time because they didn't convert Heisei dates correctly. To me, this sounds like a more probable reason for the changes. This is exactly why the birth dates stayed the way they were-you don't need to convert them every time not to miss the deadlines.

'Aspiring cosplayer' working as a waitress and 'fuzoku worker'. .

the latter referring to the adult-oriented service sector, including jobs ranging from bar hostess to topless dancer and erotic masseuse.

This is a very lightly put explanation. Ask someone Japanese what fuzoku is, its none of the above.

After watching the TV news, I was wondering how such an unattractive woman can be married AND have a lover 20 years younger than herself. The TV news forgot to mention she's the OWNER of a bar.

Makes things so clear, and she behaves the same as the old rich men in this country. Got tired of her 4th toy boy-got rid of him.

@Fendy

Olympics is a PR event, so they ll put whatever buzz words including ride-sharing and advanced to try sell it abroad.

They've been talking about the autonomous cars presentation at the Olympics since 2016, so I really hope the cars are properly tested, even though they will be used- most probably-in quite restricted areas (in the Olympic village etc).

OMG finally!So common sense!

I thought the government will keep kicking the 'we need to support traditional industry' bullsh"" forever,and end up destroying its autonomous industry producing something no one needs anymore.