tonttu2012 comments

Our way of thinking: We must tighten gun control in order to protect ourselves from guns. American way of thinking: We must loosen gun control in order to protect ourselves with guns.

Japan should have dumped "Kimigayo" together with the Meiji Constitution in the wake of the disastrous war. In addition to its lyrics being a linguistic anachronism indecipherable even to educated Japanese, it is hopelessly 'dasai' as a tune. I wish Japan had had created a national anthem that everyone could sing with a national pride.

My most serious concern: How many of the applications running currently on my Win 7 machines are going to be compatible with Win 10?

It's time Taiji fishermen understood that the world is not against them catching and killing dolphins IN GENERAL, but they are urged to do so HUMANELY. So gentlemen, be wise :-)

I think the cashier must prove that she really handed that amount of money to the customer. All the stores in Japan have a policy according to which they are not responsible for any incident of a customer being shortchanged unless the claim is made on the spot. The opposite should apply to this case. You know how often we get shortchanged.

How about the other half of the same problem? The majority of the homeless are men.

A front-page editorial in the official People’s Daily on Sunday praised German leaders for facing up to war crimes committed during World War Two, saying it stands in contrast to Japan’s failure to reflect on its past.

I agree. German leaders do not "worship" war criminals the way Japanese ministers visit Yasukuni.

I am anxious to read a transcript of his speech in (official) English translation. Is it going to be published somewhere?

If your supermarket is open till 11 pm, visit its meat and fish stores before 9 pm. Otherwise you will find empty shelves.

Interesting. If I am allowed to ask one question, I would like to know which is legally more "equal" in Shibuya: being a common-law couple or a gay couple?

Urban cyclists are a scary species. They dash past pestrians through narrow sidewalks. I don't care whether they end up getting themselves killed, but I do hope they are not going to kill us.

the number of Thai nationals visiting Japan in 2014 surged by 43% over the year before, reaching 681,743. A less happy figure was 4,391. That was the number of Thais in detention, as of Jan 1, 2014, for overstaying their visas. The figure, up by 23% over 2013, ...

43% vs. 23% - The number of overstayers did not increase proportionally. So what's the problem?

Internal Affairs Minister Sanae Takaichi said there was no legal problem if the politician was unaware of the subsidies at the time.

Interesting logic. How can you possibly prove that you were unaware of something at a particular moment in the past?

OK, I agree that a large majority of Japanese including myself eat sashimi the wrong way, but as the Romans have pointed out, the proper way to do something is do as the local people actually do.

How come we see so few electric cars in Japan then, I wonder. I haven't seen a charging station in Japan yet.

It is one thing when some private citizens express their revisionist views on Japan's history, but it's another when the prime minister publicly supports such a view. As a taxpayer I am against Abe & co. spending a lot of money to disseminate their personal credo that is historically mistaken.

It's good that Abe seems to have learned some lesson. He is yet to reap what he sowed, though. By the way, there is a serious error in the first sentence of this article: it should read "Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday said that HE did not intend to join the U.S.-led military operation against Islamic State, but wanted to continue to provide humanitarian aid." Many Japanese, myself included, have never supported him.

I had "skim milk" all through my school years (1959-1968), but at home my parents gave us unprocessed milk every morning. Nobody liked skim milk, and the English "skim" was rendered into "suki-mu" (like-none), so the kyushoku milk was called "suki-mu miruku" or "milk loved by nobody." We knew that skim milk was something for cattle and swine in the U.S.

They have created a hero out of Mr Y who allegedly prevented a larger disaster from happening. Actually the guy was partly responsible for the disaster: he had been instrumental in the construction of the nuclear plant. As the director of the power station, he could have done much better before 3/11.

You had better watch out for LDP statesmen of that age. They used to behave like a king at overseas embassies.

I am a non-smoker. It is not a just society if you can't visit a pub without breathing smoke. I stop breathing for a few minutes when I see a smoking passerby coming toward me on the sidewalk, and start breathing when he is meters past me. It's a pity that some smokers seem to feel "harassed" when they are told to stop smoking in the presence of a non-smoker when the situation is the other way around.. Things are much better nowadays than back in the 1980s. In those days, if you complained about the smoke in the atmosphere, you were often asked to leave the cafe. So no caricature of smoke haters, please. We have suffered a lot.

My guess is that the Japanese-language news media have remained virtualy silent because North Korea is allegedly involved in this issue. They keep themselves away from this issue to protect themselves.

Why not? Prime Minister Abe has guaranteed to the whole world that everything will be OK in Fukushima by 2020. "F One" will likely be on the Unesco World Heritage List and attracting busloads of foreign tourists in 2020.

Whatever the thieves say, these crimes have nothing to do with history or culture. You folks, do not try to use such news to inflame the current tense situation between the two countries.

I would very much like to know a more detailed breakdown, say, ages 15-18 (high school ), 19-22 (college), 23-29, and 30-34.

Hopefully this means Tokyo's cafes will soon stop reserving their best tables to smokers.

The total number says very little, but a breakdown in terms of how they died is more informative.

Personally I am weary as well as ashamed of ugly propaganda wars the three governments are waging in North America and Europe on such issues as Senkaku, comfort women, etc. These are issues we have to settle here.

Why a fuss about such a petty "crime"? What's so wrong with just buying too many diapers?

One should be reminded of the fact that Japanese publishers enjoy, and are protected by, the "resale price maintenance system," by means of which they fix and regulate the priceces of new books. Only secondhand books can be sold without regard for the prices fixed by the publisher. Though this system applies to printed books only, the publishers have applied the practice to e-books, too. This issue is not discussed publicly in the media, because media companies are publishers after all.