For those times when the train is too crowded to keep your hands where everyone can see them.
crime (Page 47)
The Japanese government has asked the UN to retract its recent statement that claims 13 percent of girls in Japan are involved in compensated dating.
A 28-year-old man has been arrested in Kobe after allegedly hiding in a drain to take up-skirt photos of women. This is his second arrest for the same crime.
Japan’s public transportation network gets high marks for its punctuality and cleanliness. Not every ride on the rails is a pleasant one, though, because some lowlifes called chikan use the crowded conditions on commuter trains as cover to grope unsuspecting women.
Now, one high schooler and her mother have had enough, so they’ve started a crowdfunding campaign to design and distribute what ae essentially “Don’t touch!” signs for women to wear while taking the train.
Some drivers are committed to hauling as much cargo as they can in a single run, but the law usually draws the line of how much is OK to carry somewhere below the absolute limit of what’s physically possible. So when this trucker in China was warned that his container of gravel was over the limit, he had no choice but to dump some of his load…which he chose to do right on the inspector.
When it comes to celebrities and drug-use, Japan doesn’t have the same forgiving attitude that many other societies do. Last year, for example, when pop singer Aska was arrested on drug charges, the Studio Ghibli-animated video for the vocalist’s song “On Your Mark” was removed from an upcoming boxed set of Hayao Miyazaki animation.
Now there’s been another intersection of anime, music, and illegal narcotics, as idol singer and voice actress Ai Takabe has been arrested for drug possession, and the anime she most recently performed in has been pulled from online streaming as producers scrub her name from the cast.
When we’ve got a lot on our plate and not a lot of time to do it in, many of us turn to multitasking. The amount of time you save by multitasking—if you save any at all—depends on the person and the tasks at hand, but some things like driving deserve 100 percent of our attention.
Over the years more and more countries are enacting laws against things like talking on the phone or texting while driving, but I’m sure many of us still catch the occasional person running an electric razor over their chin or doing their make-up in the car.
That’s nothing, though, compared to this young man in Taiwan, who made headlines last week for getting his hair shampooed while driving a scooter.
As popular as Japanese animation is, some critics argue that it can have negative psychological effects on audiences. After watching anime martial artists solve their problems with their fists, will fans try to resolve their own conflicts in similarly violent ways? Isn’t is possible that witnessing lewd acts in animated form will cause impressionable viewers to become more sexually aggressive in real life?
We don’t know about those scenarios, but one recently arrested man was led down the path of crime by his love of anime, and the unlikely corrupter was Studio Ghibli’s Totoro.
After a vague yet indiscreet falling out with video game publisher Konami, it seems likely that Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear franchise, won’t be working at the company for much longer. As one of the most famous and respected names in the industry, though, we’re sure Kojima will be able to find employment at one of Konami’s many rivals who are licking their lips in anticipation of landing such a prized free agent.
However, we’re not so sure about the future financial well-being of the characters Kojima has created. This video seems to suggest that Metal Gear protagonist Snake has resorted to a life of crime, as multiple burglaries have taken place in Korea with the culprit using Snake’s trademark infiltration technique of disguising himself with a cardboard box.
Upon arriving in Japan, one of the first things you’ll probably notice is the large army of characters being used to sell anything from services to stationary to automobiles, or giving tips on being a good citizen like when it comes to separating your trash or picking up your dog’s poop after it finishes doing its duty. Most of them are cute, but some are downright scary.
In recent years, yurukyara, literally “weaker mascot characters”, have slowly been taking over the country, with more and more cities and businesses allocating funds to coming up with the prefect representative character costume each year. Aside from being hot and stuffy inside, being a yurukyara seems like a pretty awesome job. Kids are happy to see you, people are clamoring to get a picture of you, and generally everyone loves you…
Or at least that’s the impression we got until news of a mascot character in a small Ehime Prefecture town getting attacked.
Although my wife and I have taken several trips together since getting married, we still haven’t gone on an official honeymoon. My old job required me to work weekends and I couldn’t take any time off around the date of our wedding ceremony, so I was back in the office two days after saying “I do.”
As such, my wife and I didn’t get to do the typical newlywed travel activities. You know, things like toasting each other with champagne every night for a week, lounging on the beach and giggling as we call each other Mr. and Mrs. Baseel, or beating the hell out of a convenience store clerk, like the Chinese newlyweds who are not only just married, but were also just arrested in Japan.
Idol singers exist in an extremely specialized, and often contradictory, corner of the already specialized Japanese pop music industry. Successful idols are expected to walk the fine line between having a polished, attractive appearance and an approachable, unassuming aura. Even more ironic is that while their songs’ lyrics are often focused on love and devotion, it’s practically unheard of for an active idol to openly be in a romantic relationship.
Every now and again, though, word gets out that an idol secretly has a boyfriend, or had an illicit liaison with a guy. The revelation is usually followed by a solemn apology to fans, and often the offending member being removed from the group. But this time the story of an idol’s amorous activities coming to light has something we’ve never heard about before: a court-ordered fine equivalent to several thousand dollars for breach of contract.
A while back, we talked about how it’s common in Japan for people to place dropped property in a place where it’ll be easy to spot when the owner retraces his steps looking for it. There’s hardly any fear that anyone else will take it, whether the item in question is as cheap as a mitten or something much more valuable.
But such admirable conduct isn’t limited to private citizens’ interactions with one another. A recently tweeted snapshot of a train station ticket gate has been getting laughs in Japan for its unusual design, and while it is kind of funny-looking, it also shows the extremely honest character of Japanese society.
At some point in life, someone is going to ask you a question that makes you feel uncomfortable. How much money do you make? How many people have you slept with? Just what did happen to all of your political rivals from the junior high student body president election?
Quite often, though, you can get out of answering by asking in return “Why do you want to know?” As a matter of fact, the question “Why?” is so disarming it can even prevent armed robbery, as one foreigner working in Tokyo just found out.
Among the many superstitions that exist in Japan, fortune telling based on blood type still remains popular. Most profiles of anime and manga characters or celebrities include blood type, and it’s not uncommon for some Japanese to attempt to predict the behavior of others based what kind of blood is coursing through their veins.
But with only four personality types to choose from, that doesn’t leave very much room for variation. That may be one reason why over the years Japan has seen a boom in Western astrology, with many fashion magazines, books, and character items catering to those interested in finding out or showing off what their zodiac sign purportedly says about their personality. In fact, considering the recent release of driving horoscopes by one prefecture’s police department, it seems even government officials are now in on the craze.
From how often we talk about food and hot springs here on RocketNews24, you’ve probably surmised that, as a nation, Japan is pretty into bathing and dining. Those passions aren’t exclusive to law-abiding members of Japanese society, either, as a recent survey of inmate complaints at prisons in Japan found several focused on meals and baths, with requests for better curry and longer soaks in the tub.
On the afternoon of 3 September, a 59-year-old man walked into a shopping mall in Higashi Ward, Nagoya. He then grabbed two packs of roast pork from a supermarket and concealed them as he began to leave the premises without paying. A security guard had noticed the act of petty shoplifting, however, and a chase quickly ensued.
The perpetrator was no match for the younger and more agile guard, who managed to catch the man before escaping out the parking garage. However, just as the security guard grabbed the man’s shoulder to turn him around, he was struck by an unexpected counter-attack of the most smelly kind.
A Yokohama area immigration office has apologized for mistakenly serving a Muslim man, who is interned there for unknown reasons, a meal that included pork, the consumption of which is forbidden by Islamic law.
For its part, the Yokohama immigration office says it attempted to accommodate the man’s requests for pork-free meals, but unknowingly served him a salad spiked with bacon pieces in an administrative foul-up.
One of the most infamous aspects of Japanese society are chikan, the men who surreptitiously grope women on crowded trains. One Japanese security company, though, has tweeted about what it says is a new breed of chikan: men who encroach on a woman’s personal space to sniff her scent.
It stands to reason that, upon reaching the age of 60 years, a man will find himself in possession of knowledge that he wants to share with younger generations. As a matter of fact, he may even feel compelled to do so, especially if his vocation is one that involves the dissemination of important lessons.
That might have been a factor in the decisions made by Shoden Yamazaki, former head priest of the Choshoji Buddhist temple in Akita Prefecture. And, truth be told, the lesson he claims he wanted to spread, “If you’re not careful, people might steal your lingerie,” is a valuable one.
However, being a good teacher is as much about how you deliver the message as it is the message itself. While it drives the point home, warning people about underwear security by dressing up in a skirt and high heels, then stealing their bras and panties, probably isn’t the best, or even really legal, methodology, which is why Yamazaki now finds himself on trial for lingerie theft.
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