smithinjapan comments

Look at that! They still have the cute little kissha sign up, too!

Seriously, the company that killed the little girl needs to be sued for MILLIONS. But my guess is they'll just offer about ¥100,000 yen to the family, with a few sincere bows and vows for transparency.

I live in a small city. It most certainly has gates that go down when trains come, and alarms. And yet, while walking the other day, and I will admit I was not paying attention, I thought I had stopped before the gate and was shocked when the train passed less than half a meter in front of me. No alarm as I had passed in front of the gate, no horn from the train, no alarm that I was practically standing on the tracks.... I was listening to music, but my earphones suck and I can hear everything else, so something went wrong besides me being stupid. Thought for a minute I'd be the story on JT. Sure enough, construction on the site the next day after I had complained to the station head. Be careful peeps.

I did, but not a lot. I tried to keep showers to a minimum (time-wise), didn't run water while brushing my teeth, turned off lights in rooms I wasn't using, didn't pollute (and cleaned up discarded waste sometimes), but that might be about it.

wallace: "The ruling is discrimination but not racist since it involves all non-Japanese, including other Asians."

Nope. It's racist. Doesn't matter how you want to try and defend it, bud. It excludes people based on race, and therefore is racism.

So, make all Japanese nationals banned from the world championships. Easy.

And in May the government will chuffaw and wonder why there is so much less spending, and more articles about how Japanese are feeling the pinch will increase. But hey, tourists are happy, so who cares about the suffering of locals?

"The partial lifting of a ban on ride-hailing services permits drivers with a standard license to offer taxi services on specified days and hours using their own private vehicle, provided they are under the management of a local taxi company."

Still have to pay the yaks. They've not just tapped in to a huge new source of sub-contracting revenue. When the government gets the envelopes from the taxi services after those companies profit massively from it, it'll become completely "open" nationwide. These clowns are so Ayn Rand it makes me laugh.

I really don't understand this matchup. Godzilla, with his fire breath or whatever it is alone, would toast Kong in moments.

Tamarama: "Korea needs to be take control of this, it's a joke."

It's not much different in Japan, as you may have forgotten. Johnny's basically had a dating ban on idols until they reached their 30s, and women in particular have had to apologize and even quit the bands if they were caught dating.

If you are truly unhappy, quit. The music world and otherwise will be all the worse off for it, but we don't deserve you if all we can do is lie and make comments about your looks instead of what you create.

I'd have a bit more respect if he didn't speed off in a car, but perhaps he stole that too. :)

/dev/random: “Is that supposed to be disgusting? All gelatin is animal collagen.”

a whoooooole lot of people don’t realize that their candy is made using pork fat or fish drippings that you usually throw away.

I honestly think the biggest thing she needs to do is stop the plastic surgeries.

"claim that the abduction issue has already been resolved is totally unacceptable".

Koreans, North and South, feel Japan's stance on history is totally unacceptable. So, what are you going to do about it? Japan won't even admit they forced labor or kidnapped Koreans, saying that "since Korea was part of Japan at the time, they could not possibly have been spirited away by a foreign nation" or something like that while recognizing atrocities against former POWs.

"How was Mizuhara able to access Ohtani's bank account to transfer vast sums? How did no-one in Ohtani's entourage notice $4.5 million go missing?"

And did anyone check Ippei's accounts just after he reversed his story? Sorry, but it seems like Ohtani knew. Maybe he was giving the money and wasn't betting himself, but it's impossible to believe such an all-around superstar simply gave up all his banking info to an interpreter and then didn't notice all the money going missing. Unless people are suggesting he is flat-out stupid.

So.... 9 p.m. and no one noticed or did anything to help the poor old guy? And what were station staff doing until they realized what was going on?

There is no stopping it. Period. They can "intervene" and that might bump up the yen for a couple of days, but then the slide will continue, especially if other nations decide to "intervene" as well to keep the yen weak. They can act, but Japan can do nothing if they do. There is no big economic boom going on here, no workforce that's going to solve any problems, other nations are taking over car and electronics markets, so what's Japan ACTUALLY going to do to counter this? Nothing.

As people have been saying for a year now, if not longer, it'll be 200 yen to the dollar before long, and Japan will be the fifth economy before the end of the year, and likely not even in the top 10 by 2030.

Sorry, but at this point if you're getting hacked, it's your fault. Yeah, China's doing the hacking, or someone else. But you're letting it happen one way or another.

“I never bet on sports or have willfully sent money to the bookmaker.”

Could have just said, "I was drunk and don't remember". Excuses are the same -- excuses. He knew, and he bet.

"The company will consider compensation for those companies that have been asked to conduct voluntary recalls."

Oh yeah? So how about the person who died and those who have been hospitalized? Will they receive compensation (or those who have survived them)?

Well, as long as you know Hi-Chew's products are made with pork gelatin, then good on you for enjoying them.

This is why you don't sell out to anything and everything, and why you vet something before you agree to it.

What's Kishida going to do? He's no Koizumi, for starters. Second, he's only doing this because of his collapse in popularity.

BertieWooster: "Thank you JT, for not calling them "bathrooms.""

So, call them "washrooms" instead. Or do you prefer an entire room being your personal toilet?

Mr. Kipling: "Loitering around public toilets, taking photos... I m sure it will attract a certain clientele.."

My thoughts exactly. We read about the "tourism" of toilets all the time here, it's just usually in the crime section and involves cameras in junior high schools.

Well done. It's great to see so many quality skaters from Japan (and elsewhere) in there, as well as up and coming.

Read the book about 30 years ago and have forgotten a lot of the content, and of course a lot of the character names, but so far the show is not bad. Great actors in it, especially Sanada, Asano, and Jarvis, and I think the set pieces are pretty fantastic. I also like that a lot of the cast are actually Japanese (or of Japanese descent) and speak the language fluently (of course) and without accent. I don't care if they are not Japanese, of course, as long as they can act, but it's funny to hear characters who are supposedly Japanese speak worse than I do.

I think my company is actually talking about another 2-5 yen increase per hour! Might see an extra couple thousand yen a year. That might be a whole bag of onions at the inflated costs, or even cover the costs of the rise in prices on one 8th of a tank of gas. Oh, rejoice! This justifies all the BOJ has done and continues to do for the people.

"The widespread use of smartphones has led to greater exposure to incorrect information about marijuana, potentially reducing the psychological barriers to its use,"

Yup! They should stick to the 1950s Panic video on the subject and realize that marijuana is the same as cocaine or heroine. They should instead indulge in safe things like Asahi Superdry.

They are definitely sore losers. But, so are other teams when they lose, too, so it's not a sole NK thing. Besides, Japan deserved to win.

Mitsuo Matsuyama: "There are a lot of anti-Japanese people who claim to be Japanese."

And there are a lot of Japanese who claim to be Japanese, too. Point is moot until we know more. And, sorry, this is the MO of Japanese, albeit the reason seems a bit different this time. How often do you hear about threats of this or that here? Pretty often if you pay attention. BUT, how often has that resulted in a bomb or crime actualizing, almost never. If it were truly South Korean in nature and in anger, we'd see something in all probability.

Was it worth it? I have familiy in Hawaii and when they took me to see the Halona Blowhole they said that every year people ignore the signs and go close to get photos, and sure enough, people die. More often than not, they said, it's a Japanese tourist.