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The story
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Yohei Matsumoto criticized online videos that mock Fukushima University over its low “hensachi” (a standardized deviation score used in Japan to rank how hard it is to get into a given university), saying at a September 4 post-cabinet press conference that “judging research capability by hensachi alone is inappropriate,” according to the Mainichi Shimbun. The comment comes amid a growing wave of video content that ranks and stirs controversy over universities based on hensachi. On 5ch, users debated the tendency to conflate hensachi with research strength, the responsibility of the people who make such videos, the business model of cram schools that fuel the ranking frenzy, and what actual research-output data say about universities.
Education Minister criticizes videos mocking Fukushima University: “Judging research strength by hensachi is inappropriate” | Mainichi Shimbun
September 4, 2026, 12:43 PM (last updated 9/4, 12:44 PM)
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Yohei Matsumoto at a post-cabinet press conference, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, 10:50 a.m., September 4, 2026. Photo by Kanami Igawa.
Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here
What people said
But people who "merely attended" a university don't get that, so it can't be helped.
The fake Hezuma is literally "the guy who only attended Kyoto University (but never actually graduated)" lol (Hezuma Ryu is a notorious Japanese troll YouTuber.)
They're the ones who created hensachi-obsessed idiots.
○ (as usually said): "They created hensachi-obsessed idiots"
◎ (more accurate): "It's the idiots who won't shut up about hensachi"
Private universities don't even publish the hensachi of their enrolled students.
Maybe that's exactly why people cling to hensachi — because they're desperate for something, anything, to point to as evidence?
However you get in, if you graduate without repeating a year, that makes you a student at that university's level.
Someone who stays enrolled for six years, only manages to advance twice, and then drops out — that's not really a "student."
For Takeda Juku (a major cram school chain), a student who gets in via recommendation and quits the school in the fall is less profitable than one who takes the general entrance exam and stays enrolled through March.
So they just keep hyping "take the general exam, not recommendation" because it makes them more money.
The hensachi-baiting is probably the same story.
Makes sense.
It's all about money after all.
Not something the minister needs to make a fuss about.
Japan got completely wrecked by people who were merely academically high-achieving, though…
Over 30 years of negative growth — that's a more miserable result than some countries in the middle of a civil war, lol
What do you think about the fact that this "academic ability" you keep citing isn't even a valid yardstick?
Though I bet you'll just come back with more sophistry, lol
Harmful content should be treated as harmful; the people making it and watching it should put it out there and consume it without hiding behind self-justification, that's how it should be.
There are way too many people who do something socially harmful and then scramble to cover themselves.
Stuff like that is supposed to be enjoyed with the understanding that it's harmful content in the first place.
So should Hezuma Ryu also be enjoyed as "harmful content" then?
That's different, isn't it?
Hezuma and Tachibana are on a different level, since they incite harassment and attacks against specific individuals.
That's not just tasteless, harmful content anymore — it crosses into legal territory.
Engaging with it at all means you've already lost, yet it's nothing but idiots doing it.
Exactly this.
With all this fuss being made, they must be thrilled.
Since the early days of the internet, the rule has always been: ignore the trolls.
"Tch! Some Waseda Education Department nobody, talking back to Kyoto University Econ?! ♪ Keio, King of the Land~!" (a line from Keio University's famous fight song)
Well, sorry to say it, but Kyoto University Econ > Keio Econ.
…and there I go putting on my own smug "well, actually" face too, lol
Controversy-farming for views by saying extreme things eventually crosses a line, draws backlash from a huge number of people, and turns you into public enemy number one.
There's stuff like specializing in a particular field, or having strong ties with companies, and so on.
Nature Index 2026
(World ranking of research institutions)
#1: Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (China) 3,655.10
#2: Zhejiang University (ZJU) (China) 1,276.85
#3: Harvard University (USA) 1,259.01
#4: Tsinghua University (China) 1,213.59
#5: Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) (China) 1,191.47
#6: University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) (China) 1,128.58
#7: Peking University (PKU) (China) 1,066.49
#8: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) (China) 1,055.67
#9: Nanjing University (NJU) (China) 952.65
#10: Sichuan University (SCU) (China) 880.93
China has 9 of the top 10.
Japan doesn't get its 9th entry until #209 (Kyushu University).
When it comes to research capability, Waseda and Keio are beyond beyond out of the running.
Waseda and Keio aren't universities — they're just glorified job-hunting prep schools.
What about the size of the university (number of professors)?
Globally, credential inflation has advanced to the point where you can't even claim to be elite without at least a master's degree.
But Japan still has this whole dynamic of deciding social rank based on which university you got into.
Well, that's because the employment system is different.
Even I was surprised it had dropped this far.
We shouldn't look away from the reality that the academic ability of regional university students is rapidly declining.
It's not really about being "regional" — the weaker national universities ("zakoku," slang for low-tier national schools) have always been at this level.
THE definition of overrated.
Your opinion here would probably change once you actually look at the Common Test (Japan's standardized university entrance exam) percentage scores, lol
Just like you're free to choose Watami (a restaurant chain infamous in Japan for grueling "black company" working conditions) as your employer,
choosing Fukushima University as where to go to school was that person's own decision.
If it's fair game to make fun of Watami, isn't it also fair game to make fun of Fukushima University?
Fukushima is a taboo subject for Tokyo, you know.
Tokyo can't just stay quiet when Fukushima gets dissed over the nuclear plant issue.
University of Tokyo: #26
Kyoto University: #60
Osaka University: #117
Tohoku University: #125
Institute of Science Tokyo: #168
RIKEN: #169
Nagoya University: #185
NIMS (National Institute for Materials Science): #203
Kyushu University: #209
Hokkaido University: #212
University of Tsukuba: #428
AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology): #449
Keio University: #472
The list only went up to #500, but Japan had the 13 institutions listed above.
China had 198 institutions in the top 500!
Correction: University of Tokyo is actually #27, not #26.
The Nature Index is essentially just a ranking of the medicine/physiology field.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
It’s unusual for Japan’s Ministry of Education to comment on a specific online video, and the remarks come against the backdrop of a growing wave of YouTube-style content that ranks universities by hensachi to stir controversy. Hensachi, strictly speaking, measures how difficult it is to be admitted to a school — fundamentally different from “research capability,” which is measured by things like paper citation counts — but the two are easily conflated in public perception. Within the thread, there was broad agreement in criticizing the tendency to judge universities by hensachi alone, but opinions diverged over who bears more responsibility (video creators or viewers), whether the cram-school industry’s marketing tactics fuel the hensachi-baiting, and how to interpret actual university rankings like the Nature Index. It’s also worth noting that the Nature Index cited in the thread is a metric centered mainly on paper data from the medicine and physiology fields, and is not a figure that reflects a university’s overall strength.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “Education Minister criticizes videos mocking Fukushima University: “Judging research strength by hensachi is inappropriate”.”
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