Nipponica

In 1998, a Japanese man was stripped naked and left alone in an almost-empty apartment as part of a challenge for a reality TV show.

Tomoaki Hamatsu, known as Nasubi, was left with only a pen, some blank postcards, a telephone and rack full of magazines. But he was not there to read. The concept of the show was to see if a human being could survive on competition prizes alone. In order to win the challenge, the value of the prizes he won had to reach a certain financial threshold - 1m yen, around £6,000 at the time.

He would not emerge for 15 months, following a gradual descent into depression and mania, driven by hunger and isolation. Nearly three decades later, Nasubi's ordeal is being revisited as part of a new film that has just screened at the Sheffield Documentary Festival.

I just got a chance to watch this last night and it was a thoughtfully produced story covering many issues in Japanese society include school bullying, mental illness, and the exploitative entertainment industry. Nasubi tells his story well and eloquently explains the suffering that he endured. A great watch and a good historical document for those that never got to see 電波少年 in person.

"Japan and Britain are important partners sharing values and principles. We will further promote the bilateral relationship with the new administration," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a regular press conference.

The aim is to utilize the know-how of Japan and the Southeast Asian country in removing mines and help other nations struggling with the issue, including Ukraine.

Partnerships like this are a great way to move forward to use the mistakes and wars of the past to help alleviate suffering in the conflicts of today. Cambodia had a dark history with landmines and now has a large share of knowledge of the damage they cause and how to eliminate them.

The SDF has acknowledged that the force's Sapporo Provincial Cooperation Office was involved in such activities, describing them as being "unique to Sapporo." Children's cafeterias are eateries or facilities that provide free meals to kids including those from families that have trouble putting food on the table.

Under an April 2003 notice from the vice defense minister, the then Defense Agency (now the Defense Ministry) stated that recruitment activities targeting junior high school students were to be carried out through their parents or school officials in charge of career guidance. One expert who spoke with the Mainichi Shimbun pointed out that if the Sapporo office were recruiting children directly, they may be running afoul of the notice.

The SDF is really taking this strategy from the US military in American schools. Can think of several shadow recruitment events that occurred in my schools in the past.

Starting this month, the large machine with enormous arms, a crude, disproportionately small Wall-E-like head and coke-bottle eyes mounted on a truck – which can drive on rails – will be put to use for maintenance work on the company’s network.

Sometimes living in Japan feels like living back in the 1980s. In this case, and basically any time robotics in involved, this is the FUTURE I was promised. Keep being weird, JR.

In the space of just a few years, the stand-up comic went from celebrated to shunned. Woman Rush Hour — his manzai comedy duo with Paradise Nakagawa — saw their annual TV appearances plummet from 250 to just one.

The reason wasn’t too hard to deduce. In 2017, Muramoto had a political awakening during a trip to an area hit by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. Suddenly, his routines became consciousness-raising tirades, exploring and exploding social taboos and scandals du jour while occasionally remembering to throw in a good gag.

Really curious to see this as I am not too versed in Japanese comedy. The review paints Nakagawa as a genuine guy that is just trying to help people think about issues using comedy as a tool, much like Carlin et. al. in the western context. And doing so in good faith, unlike some.

Japan will need 970,000 more foreign workers than it will have in 2040 to meet the nation's economic growth target, a new estimate shows, highlighting the country's challenges in attracting and retaining overseas talent.

The cultural and monetary barriers in place that keep workers from coming to Japan are working. Incentivizing pregnancies isn't working so Japan either needs to make the country more welcoming for immigrants or double down on robotification and hope Snatcher isn't brought to real life.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference it was "regrettable" that China has set up a small buoy in the waters off Japan's western main island of Shikoku and north of the southernmost Okinotori Island "without explaining its purpose and other details."

The article later says that the alleged purpose of the buoy is for tsunami monitoring but an email or two to Tokyo would have been a nice gesture. A similar buoy was installed around the Senkakus last year.

On March 26 at around 2:30 p.m, the two suspects reportedly told their coworker, a 50-year-old man with an intellectual disability, "You stink! Get in the washing machine."

They allegedly proceeded to force him into the machine and turn it on, resulting in injuries that required two weeks to heal.

Besides the usual comments about harassment in Japanese working culture, I must also make note that this is also harassment of those with intellectual impairments. We all just need to love each other regardless of our differences and get along. This story is so sad.

Japan's capsule toy industry has come a long way from the corner of the supermarket, as it enjoys a new boom at home that is spurring multiple market players to set their sights on overseas expansion.

The whole Gacha Industrial Complex is fun on one hand but it is a kind of warm-and-fuzzy introduction to gambling for kids and adults. You get a prize every time but rarely the one you actually wanted, which encourages you to take another chance.

The old man will now leave the room and let joy return.

It had been raining since the morning, but the rain stopped occasionally during the parade. Sensing that the guests were losing energy in the heat, Baymax stopped the floats and splashed water on them. The guests cheered loudly.

Baymax for PM.

An entire set of Hiroshige’s colorful depictions of his native city was bound into a book, donated to the Brooklyn Museum and left in storage for 40 years before being unbound in the 1970s. Because it was probably intended especially for such a collection, this particular set was also a kind of luxury edition, made with extra care and details, like the use of reflective metallic dust, that ordinary consumer-grade prints, for all their intricacy, didn’t have.

Bit of a drive from Asia but if you are in the New York area, it is a must-see.

The poll also revealed 10 per cent of Japanese have set out to “tolerate” the heat no matter what in the coming months, while a further 33 per cent said they would try not to use the cooling device – but expected to relent if the temperatures become unbearable.

Alarmingly, most those saying they would attempt to get through the summer without air conditioning were elderly who live on pensions and savings, leaving them highly vulnerable to heatstroke.

This is more than just a climate crisis, it is now going to be a health and economic crisis.

SkyDrive sought to develop a flying taxi that can carry up to three people to showcase its technology at the expo as one of the event's main attractions, but it decided last month to withdraw the plan and only perform demo flights without passengers.

Taiwan Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu on Wednesday called for stronger relations between the island and Japan during his meeting with a group of Japanese parliamentarians in Taipei, emphasizing that lawmakers on both sides have the "responsibility" to maintain exchanges.

An official of the prefectural government in charge of the issue responded to the question, saying, “Indeed, as you have pointed out, I feel it is very difficult to convey the message of how serious the harm is with the poster. I will consider fixing the matter.”

Click through to see the curious looking bear that does seem too tame to maul you. Good boy.

The Nikkei Stock Average hit an all-time closing high on Thursday, on the back of a rally in Japanese tech stocks that tracked the artificial intelligence frenzy in the U.S.

Molestation cases that occurred in a railway-related setting accounted for 70.0% of the total, including 62.8% that happened on trains. Cases on the streets made up 13%.

Absolutely disgraceful.

In the lawsuit, the man argued that his fear of persecution could be sufficiently recognized, and that he couldn't hope for protection in his home country. The government denied the credibility of his claim, and stated, "It cannot be accepted that there are fears he would be persecuted immediately," and called for his case to be dismissed.

While I am happy for this person for winning his safety in court, it is frustrating that the government, who is trying to boost immigration, fought so hard to send him back to his country of origin. While it is never cited which country he is from, homosexuality in many African countries is illegal and punishable by prison time or worse. Japan should be a beacon for the oppressed, not a wall to climb over.

A recent global survey conducted by Gallup on employee engagement, including job motivation and willingness to contribute to an organization, found that the percentage of employees in Japan who are motivated by and actively engaged in their work was just 6% in 2023, which was among the lowest levels in the world. The result for Japan stands out in contrast to the average of 23% worldwide and 18% in East Asia. Mongolia was the East Asian country with the highest proportion of motivated and engaged employees, at 41%.

Tracks with what I see in my everyday office life.