Yohan comments

I always accept receipts in stores, even in case of small amounts, and throw them away after arriving at home.

This helps to prevent being accused unintentionally of shoplifting.

u_s__reamerJuly 28 06:56 pm JST

The death penalty is no deterrent...

I am not so sure about this - compare some streets in the US full with drug junkies with some streets in Singapore...

Luckily not all Japan is like Tokyo. After my retirement my Japanese wife and I hurried to move away from crowded Tokyo 6 years ago and we bought a condominium unit (not new, but in a 5 year old building in excellent condition) in Okayama City. The best decision we ever made.

We paid about 25 percent of the price of a similar condominium in overpriced Tokyo area. We have 70 m2 condo + 30 m2 balcony with roof in the upper floors, corner unit with nice open view to north, west and south. Located next to a river and a forest, there is also a regular bus to the city center/Shinkansen railway station/the very large AEON shopping mall 5km away, half fare for seniors only yen 80,-. Next to our condo unit along the main road there are plenty of shops, restaurants, various medical clinics, car services etc. all within a few minutes of walking distance. Nothing missing, all is available.

We pay about yen 25.000,- maintenance fee per month, which includes also the rent of a parking space in the garage of the building for 2 cars.

We decided to move out of Tokyo after my retirement and moved to Okayama/Kurashiki between Osaka and Hiroshima 5 years ago. Best decision we ever made. What a big difference, plenty of greenery around, river and forest, very clean air and water, buying our home was 4 times cheaper than in Tokyo, far less people and traffic, half price for city-bus fare for all elderly Okayama citizens and everything you need for your daily needs is available here, same as in Tokyo.

Everybody in my family has 5 vaccinations, I was travelling outside of Japan too for several weeks and nobody of us got covid, except our 2 grandchildren, who were too young for vaccination (3 and 5 years old) and they suffered about 1 week with fever and other symptoms.

About vaccination, we all got Pfizer 3 times, no side effects noticed and 2 times Moderna and we were surprised how strong this vaccine affected us with fever, headache, feeling cold etc., but any discomfort disappeared within 2 days.

It seems, vaccines are not all the same, people react differently to them.

I cannot comment about covid - nobody of us fully vaccinated adults got it, only our unvaccinated 2 grandchildren, but they fully recovered within one week.

 just three households made up of seven total people have applied for overnight stays

You cannot expect that people who were forced to leave more than ten years ago will come back quickly.

If you are living such a long time away from your home you might already found another permanent place to live, another job to do...

This woman needs a psychiatrist. Deliberate false police reports are an annoyance. Police has much other more important work to do but to investigate crimes which exist only in the sick fantasy of a crazy woman.

This man is an idiot. There is no shortage of girls, Japanese and foreign, 18+ everywhere in Japan in clubs, bars and online willing to offer sexual favors to men against cash money.

About this girls, I do not consider her to be an innocent victim and I see no reason why only this man should be blamed.

This girl who is 16 was signing up with social media, was online in contact with this man and agreed to meet him in person in a hotel offering him sex in return of money. She was clearly understanding what she is doing and police should questioning her if she was acting alone or together with some of her girlfriends and if this is the first time she is doing this.

This happened 2011 and now is 2023. Of course if you are forced to move away for such a long time you have no other choice but to settle down somewhere else, do some other job...

I guess only older people who are already retired will slowly come back and see how their homes look like after 12 years without maintenance. Even now some areas are still off-limits, unfit for living.

The problems with mobility scooters is the same as with all electric vehicles. Where to charge them if you are living in a condominium building? You cannot bring them up to your condo-unit, they are too large, and there are no electric outlets outside of the building you are allowed to use overnight.

A mobility scooter has already rather heavy batteries and you cannot always disconnect them and carry them up to your home, to charge them and after to bring them down again and to connect them with the mobility scooter. That's really a problem for elderly people - you can only buy one if you own your house with a parking space for these very useful electric vehicles. They help elderly people a lot, but they are also unfortunately not cheap at all.

toraToday 09:44 pm JST

Women did 80% of the cooking, compared to 8% of men

So who cooked for the other 12% of the time?

Not every woman and not every man is cooking.

There is plenty of take-out food, ready to eat food you need only to put in the microwave - and I would not call this to be cooking...

Maybe these 12 percent do not cook at all - just go to restaurants or buy some bento to take home from a supermarket?

The owner of this facility should face a huge fine and ordered to close down the entire ryokan for three months to clean up this dirty place. I cannot imagine that the problem is only the hot water pool.

HercolobusToday 05:59 am JST

Divorced women really need to think about it twice, before leaving their children at the hands of these losers.

It is nowhere mentioned that this mother is a divorcee, only said she she was living with her boyfriend who is not the father of this child. She did nothing to help her daughter, it was the school which reported visible injuries of the girl to the Child Welfare Center.

This mother should also be investigated for willful negligence and of course her boyfriend should be sent to jail.

I cannot help to say women, especially mothers with children, should choose their boyfriends more carefully.

There is no shortage of honest men around everywhere in Japan who are lonely and not violent and would accept anytime a mother with a child to create a family anytime.

I don't understand why women waste their time with such violent losers.

To steal woman's underwear is sick but not dangerous, however to set a fire is a very different matter - arson is a serious felony. This crazy guy should be sent to a secure mental ward or to jail for long time. Something must be wrong with his brain.

This is just crazy. If you have serious problems with your partner, the only way to solve the issue is to leave and to look for somebody else. No excuse for killing your partner and to commit suicide.

This crime does not make sense, maybe this man is a case for the psychiatrist.

It's however a general warning to be careful with unknown people showing up at your door.

Do not make it easy for them to enter your rooms.

We are living in a condominium building with camera security system but we do not open our door in case of unknown visitors without using the door-chain between them and us.

The person who did this must know this old woman and her grandson very well, to impersonate another person, who is a relative of the victim even by phone is not so easy - also it seems he knew that she had a lot of money. This crime was not done by an outsider.

It this is all true what is written here about him then it is really very bad. A jail sentence cannot be avoided.

Some men do not understand if a woman does not want him and left him it is nothing what he can do about it.

The only way what to do is to forget her and to look for somebody else. I understand this is not so easy and some men are very disappointed or even angry, but there is no other way but to remain calm and look out for another female friend.

It is not explained what was written in those emails to her, If he writes only something like if you want to reconsider and be with me again or something like that, I wonder if this justifies an arrest.

If these 36 emails contain some threatening or insulting context, this is another matter of course.

Whatever, he should have stopped to contact her again after police issued a warning to him.

This man is an idiot. He is an annoyance, harassing women by phone. You cannot do something like that.

No excuse for what he did. However why I am not surprised...

It is nowadays really difficult for a man in Japan to find a female friend, the dating scene is totally broken. There is a huge number of young men, who rent a small room, live alone, doing only some occasional job, which is enough for their basic life-style.

Japan is becoming more and more a depressive society for men whose 'personal' conversation is only with 'digital friends' while using a computer.

Mr KiplingNov. 10 10:36 pm JST

As I said, not a crime in Europe. Report says high school so in November the "victim" would be at least 16 (above the age of consent) and prostitution is not a crime.

This is correct, in Europe age of consent in many countries is 14 or 15 years.

I see no reason why to blame only this man - the mother of this girl should better teach her daughter not to offer sex against payment from men and flatly to refuse to meet men in a hotel room. A 16 y/o girl is not a helpless victim.

starpunkNov. 10 01:34 pm JST

Mr KiplingToday 12:49 pm JST

23 and 17..... 

That's still underage and maybe she was younger. Nonetheless, he paid her to do these tricks. It's prostitution, plain and simple. And it's a crime.

I fail to see how this is prostitution. This high school girl is not a prostitute.

He gave her only yen 15.000, this is merely a tip. He is earning a salary, but the girl has no income.

This amount is far below to what a woman who is working as a prostitute will charge her customers.

As said above, 23 and 17 - I don't know how many men and women of that age have sexual acts with each other, but I suppose not so few.

Ikari told the high court she had filed the appeal "in the slim hope" that she could rejoin her other children sooner.

This woman should never be allowed to be near to children - including her own ones after her release.

Strange justice indeed, I see no reason why one woman got 15 years and the other only 5 years.

To claim mind control is no justification or excuse to allow your own child die of hunger.

PaulToday 02:08 pm JST

... jumping bail is not a crime in Japan.

In general this is correct, but only as long as the fugitive person remains in Japan.

However his bail conditions made it clear that Ghosn was not allowed to leave the country while awaiting trial and had to surrender all his passports. Nevertheless he left Japan illegally. As a result his bail of USD 14 million is now forfeited and he is considered as an international fugitive.

Michael Machida Today 08:17 am JST

It's so funny how Ghosn was able to get out of Japan so easily ...

Police were not watching him while he was out on bail? ....

As far as I remember this case, only cameras were installed to monitor when he is leaving and coming back to his home in Tokyo. He also as requested, paid USD 14 million as bail money - a huge amount - and his lawyer was obliged to keep all his passports to prevent him to leave Japan.

Japanese authorities trusted him as it is not easy to leave Japan legally under such circumstances.

Ghosn was however lying, he had one more than those passports he gave to his lawyer and with this Lebanese passport he was able to enter Lebanon as an Lebanese citizen.

It was not such an easy escape, very risky and scary, USD 14 million forfeited and he had to pay additional much money for all people who arranged his escape and now he is in Lebanon but nowhere to go.

Was it really worth it is the question.

Padraig BohannanToday 10:00 am JST

Whatever the circumstances you should be innocent until proven guilty. It should be the job of the accuser to prove the crime, not the other way around.

Innocent? In Japan by jumping bail Ghosn has committed a clear crime and can never return without going to jail.

Ghosn had paid USD 14 million on two separate instances to get out of detention. This huge amount of bail money is forfeited. USD 14 million and Ghosn gone was not a bad business for Japan if you ask me.

Ghosn paid also USD 1 million out of his wallet to US regulators to get away from being indicted in the States.

It's not only about Japan, he still has legal problems in France and in the Netherlands.

Prosecutors in France issued an international arrest warrant for Ghosn who is accused to misappropriate millions of euros from Renault.

So far French tax authorities have seized Euro 13 million of property and other assets from Carlos Ghosn.

Religion means to believe in something. True or not, nobody knows. I see no problem with it as long as those followers do not approach me personally and do not try to force me to join them.

About religious associations of any kind including charities, I think they should be considered as a kind of business and obliged to keep a transparent bookkeeping and their income should be taxed.

Some of those organizations are very rich, own land and buildings and I see no reason why they should be tax-exempt.

wallace Today 10:54 am JST

OGIUE Chiki, (Founder & Chief Director, Social Research Action CHIKI LAB). Can not find a website.

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/荻上チキ

There is a wikipedia article about him.

Tateno lives with his wife and other family members. 

Father, mother and all the other family members should be investigated. Nobody was missing this 4-year old child? What kind of irresponsible people are they?

Sh1mon M4sadaToday 04:52 pm JST

Traitor - end of story.

Teh term 'traitor' is plainly wrong.

Assange is Australian citizen and not US-citizen.

You can be only a traitor of your own country.

UK should send him back to Australia.