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If a notebook costs 100 yen, 20 yen cheaper than a pencil case, then how much is an eraser? 

I’ve never been all that good with numbers, but word problems in particular were pretty troublesome for me. I mean, if a train leaves from Detroit at 9:45 going 80 miles per hour in a south-by-south-westerly direction and another train leaves from Nashville 570 miles away at 10:03 going 87 miles per hour, what are the chances that they will suddenly implode so I don’t have to solve for x?

At least that problem does (apparently) have an answer, but we’ve found one math problem that’s completely stumped the internet:

https://twitter.com/__zero____/status/671528177991192576

“Baffling…”

The first problem reads:

“A notebook is 100 yen, 20 yen cheaper than a pencil case. How much is an eraser?”

Japanese netizens were just as perplexed as we were, commenting:

“What madness is this?”
“There is no answer (grin)”
“Who is the genius who thought this up?”
“Market value!!( ಠωಠ)”
“This is… philosophy!”
“For a second I thought, ‘What? Too easy lol.’ I kinda wanna kill myself.”

But how about that second problem? Maybe it’s a little easier? Let’s see:

“A sandwich is 98 yen, 10 yen cheaper than an anpan (red bean bun). How much is the anpan?”

At first glance, this one seems to be a lot easier to solve, until you notice the difference in spelling between あんぱん, anpan written in all hiragana, and あんパン anpan, written half in hiragana and half in katakana, which then begs the question: “Is there a difference between あんぱん and あんパン?”

Do be sure to let us know if you have the answers!

Source: Twitter/ @__zero____ via Hamusuta Sokuhou
Top image: Twitter/ @__zero____