Kirin and Suntory merge

Kirin and Suntory, two of Japan's biggest beverage players are going to merge giving the companies a whopping 50 per cent share in the Japanese drinks market. Read more here.

SMAP in naked shame

Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, long-standing member of boy band SMAP, has been arrested for cavorting around a park in central Tokyo totally nude. For anyone who doesn't know, SMAP are huge in Japan, they've been famous forever and constantly appear on TV. Apparently as Kusanagi is now in custody, many TV shows are scrabbling to fill his slot.
When arrested Kusanagi called out "What's wrong with being naked?". What indeed. Personally I think this will blow over in six months or so. Anyone taking a train at night can see drunken businessmen behaving badly and for the most part they don't face serious repercussions. Plus the Japanese are not really that uptight about nudity. He'll apologise on TV, keep a low profile for awhile and then be accepted back no questions asked. The Japanese entertainment industry would implode without SMAP. From The Times.

Dangerous voting habits

The above poster which has appeared on trains recently reads "Are you a dangerous young person". My reading skills being rather poor I assumed it was berating young people for looking scary to older people but actually it is a campaign to encourage people to vote. Pointing out that while 76 per cent of 60 year olds vote, only 36 per cent of 20 year olds bother. Overall only 58 per cent of the population vote. "Don't you think this figure is a little dangerous?" the advert adds. As Aso's outdated and incompetent government shows, it's really time for young people in Japan to get interested in politics.

Asahi Shimbun employee in discriminatory comment shame

The Daily Yomiuri reports that an Asahi Shimbun employee has been posting discriminatory remarks on an internet bulletin board about marginalized communities and mentally ill people. Japan Probe interprets marginalized communities to mean the Burakumin who traditionally held 'impure' jobs (executioners, undertakers, leather workers) that made them outcasts. I was unaware of the existence of Burakumin until I went on an anti-war march (before the Iraq invasion) where a group of them attended. Sick of being dumped on by most of Japanese society, they've become pretty militant and are often speak out against political injustice.
The other group the employee slagged off were the mentally ill who also get a rough deal in Japanese society. A recent feature in Metropolis painted a pretty grim picture of how these groups are treated. The stigma is huge. The feature was about a documentary film on the subject that has been made by director Kazuhiro Soda, since the making of the film three of the participants had committed suicide.
It's unclear whether this employee will face any disciplinary punishment but at least it's good his behaviour came to light and was not seen as acceptable.Jiichiro Matsumoto 'the father of Buraku liberation'

Bizarre detection methods

Ichihashi
by takatosh2

It's now been two years since Lyndsay Ann Hawker's murder and police have yet to catch the main suspect Tatsuya Ichihashi. A new officer is now in charge of the case and has decided to put five life-size cardboard cut outs of Ichihashi out on the streets around Chiba. If you press the button on his chest, you can even hear his voice. It's good they're trying to do something but I think the killer will be far from Chiba by now. This guy looks seriously scary and I think he's going to freak quite a few people out. Of course if the police hadn't allowed him to give them the slip in the first place... via Japan Probe.

Happoshu sales rise

This via Japan Probe, CNN reports that Happoshu (synthetic beer) sales have risen strongly despite or rather because of the poor economy. Happoshu is taxed at a lower rate than normal beers because it contains less than 25 percent malt and is classed as a liquor. CNN's take is that it's almost the same as beer. Did they actually taste this stuff? It tastes really watery and synthetic and gives you one hell of an evil hangover. At a party I went to recently someone nabbed my can of lovely Sapporo beer and tried to give me Happoshu in exchange, the cheek of it! I went straight to the convenience store to buy myself real beer.

Obama Japan celebrates

CNN just ran a piece on how the people of the town of Obama in Japan have gone wild for the new president.

Monkey on the loose in Tokyo

Yesterday morning commuters in Shibuya station were amazed to see a monkey perched atop a departure board. Many people gathered to take a snap of the little tyke before the police turned up with nets. They were unsuccessful in their attempts to snare it and the monkey ran off in the direction of Yoyogi. To date the monkey is still at large! BTW it is extremely unusual to see monkeys in town but this may be a result of a recent rise in the native monkey population.

Schoolgirl disguise case gets ickier

See the previous post. Japan Today further reports that the man was wearing a pink bra, make up but no underwear having been 'showing himself' to the students from a car outside the school. As they say over here. Kimochi warui!!!!! Translated roughly as eeeeeewwwwww!

Schoolgirl disguise caper

Reuters reports that a 37 year old man's 'cunning' schoolgirl disguise was foiled by actual Saitama schoolgirls as he was taking an oh-so-casual walk in a park by the school gates. When the girls screamed, he tried to run into the crowd of teens for camouflage, causing even more hysteria. The man was forced to flee the scene, losing his wig in the process before being caught by a school clerk. He'd bought the outfit on the internet, and as everyone knows, those flimsy polyester things, made to satisfy the jaded appetites of impotent businessmen, look so fake. However, it was probably more the sight of his puffy skin and hairy calves that gave the game away. Okay guys unless you magically manage to henshin into the body of an actual teenage girl, you can forget about cuddling up with a bunch of classmates. Forget the disguise route, you'll be found out in about ten seconds. Please keep trying though, your amateur efforts at drag are pretty hilarious for us all.

Beer bottle beatings in sumo land

Sumo training is more that just being made to eat a vast quantity of pies daily. Back in June last year a young sumo wrestler died from beatings he received which were supposed to be part of his training. Most disturbingly, the instrument used to beat him the day before his death was, bizarrely, a beer bottle. On the day he died, according to the Japan Times, he was denied breakfast. The distressed trainee then ran away from the sumo stable only to be brought back by "kindly" local officers who found him in a local convenience shop. He received further beatings and was forced to engage senior wrestlers in bouts, all without having eaten the entire day.
This story reveals a really frightening side to sumo. The sumo stables are a closed world, so for all we know, this kind of nastiness might be common. The fact that the police brought this poor boy back to be beaten to death leaves a very unpleasant aftertaste. Bring back the pies.

Heartbroken employees get time to tend their wounds

Reuters reports that a small Japanese firm, Tokyo based Hime & Company, is offering paid time off to female employees recovering from break-ups. Those 24 years or younger get one day off a year, those between 25-29 get two days and those over 30 get a whole three days to wallow in self-pity - the reasoning being, the older you are, the harder you fall.
It's already possible for Japanese women to take paid time off when they have their periods, so I guess this is going one step further. But doesn't this kind of move panders to the male view that women are emotionally and physically fragile, incapable of ploughing through? Luckily though Hime & Co are a strictly female outfit so they don't have to keep up a tough front at work, but many Japanese women don't take time off for periods because they are afraid of appearing weaker and losing out for promotion.
My view is that this is a splendid idea, it's really tough going to work with a broken heart, whether you're a man or a woman.

Homeless woman left to die in street

Mainichi reports that a starving homeless woman who was taken to city hall to get food, died in the street before she was able to eat what was given to her - a packet of dried rice that needed hot water added to it. This is the kind of story that really disgusts me in relation to attitudes to the homeless here. Firstly, didn't the ambulance men have the decency to buy her a sandwich? Secondly, you don't give a starving person a meal they have to prepare, especially if they are too weak to prepare it. Thirdly someone should have invited her inside to eat it, not left her lying outside with not even a blanket for cover.
Homeless people get little or no support from the government or charities and are expected to fend for themselves collecting old comic books to sell or cardboard to recycle. However even these paltry sources of income are under threat. Stations have taken to putting locks on recycle bins and local councils have now started fining people who take away cardboard boxes, see Daily Yomiuri
The tragedy is that councils manage to make a loss on their paper recycling enterprises but the private companies who pay the homeless for their efforts make a profit. Soon this kind of sight may be a thing of the past:

Too many dentists not enough doctors

It seems that not a week goes by without some new story of people being turned away from hospitals for treatment, due to a lack of trained physicians, and dying as a result, as per this article in Mainichi. Imagine my surprise then to find out that Japan has a surplus of dentists. According to Japan Times, there are more dentists in Japan than convenience stores and many are in dire straights financially. In most countries dentistry is a cushy high-earning job. Wonder if all too many of these dentists fell for this dream instead of the more humanitarian goal of saving lives.

Prime minister's YouTube address falls on deaf ears

Japan's new prime minister Fukuda Yasuo has posted a New Year's speech in English on YouTube. In it he puts world peace and cleaning up the environment high on the agenda. However, his dour face (never once cracking a smile) and staccato delivery hasn't gained much of a global audience, at the time of writing he'd only been viewed 609 times and nobody has yet posted a comment.

Japan officially admits that it doesn't know whether UFOs exist or not, shock

In response to the increasing numbers of people who've spotted flying objects in the skys above Japan, the government has issued a catagorical statement that they haven't confirmed the objects's existence. Luckily one brave man was willing to step forward. Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura pronounced at the press conference: "Personally, I'm convinced they exist". He further continued that "Japan has successfully fought of the threat of Godzilla and other giant monsters, so we'll be more than a match for these little green fellows." Okay that sentence was made up. For the shocking facts in full read the original story in Mainichi: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071219p2a00m0na019000c.html

Immitation samurai sword ban

The UK has now followed in the footsteps of the Emporer Meiji in banning samurai swords. While Meiji banned the wearing of swords in public, thus rendering samurai defunct, modern UK has trod a more diplomatic line by only banning cheap knock-off swords in order to spare the feelings of martial arts enthusiasts. The ban follows a few high profile incidents, including the case of a man seeking vengance for what he thought to be the attempted rape of his wife by brutally murdered a passerby.
One wonders if the success of Kill Bill had anything to these lone wolves taking justice into their own hands. I knew a guy who used to prowl round his house in the middle of the night with his sword when he thought there was a burglar abroad. Needless to say it was an immitation, those with the cash to pay for real swords crafted in Japan wouldn't be so daft. Right?
To view the full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7139724.stm

Child abusers just need to see the bright side

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday that Aomori prefecture government have launched a scheme to help young parents ease their stresses with laughter therapy. Concerned over a recent rise in the rate of child abuse, they enlisted the aid of professor Kazue Takayanagi who started up program to train employees at councelling centres, medical institutions and police stations to be 'smile producers'. She claims that laughter can "change the way people mingle with others."
Wow, I never realised that solving child abuse was as simple as teaching the abusers to smile, luckily that doesn't mean we have to tackle unpleasant issues like overwork, marital problems and abuse history. Lets just gloss over those issues with a big cheesy grin. Mind you, I wish Takayanagi all the best trying to get Japanese police officers to smile. That's one tough nut to crack.

Safety first

Yokohama subways have just started a campaign to stop people walking on escalators, claiming the practise is dangerous. Motivated by a flood of complaints from customers (the most poignant that of a grandparent whose grandchild was roughly shoved aside by a busy commuter - the beast!) the subway company decided to act.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071126p2a00m0na020000c.html
Anyone who lives in Japan will be used to this kind of cossetting by private companies. My favourite is "it's dangerous so, don't put your fingers between the train doors".