Screenwriter Koki Mitani, appearing on TBS’s “Johou 7 Days News Caster” on October 17, remarked while discussing the recent wave of corporate personal information leaks, “I don’t own a single credit card.” On 5ch’s Geinou/Sports Breaking News+ (Geisoku) thread, the comment drew a wide range of reactions — from astonishment (“Can you really live without even one card?”) to speculation about how he pays for online purchases or covers expenses on overseas trips, with some suggesting he simply uses his wife’s card. Meanwhile, cooler heads pointed out that having a debit card or even just a bank account doesn’t bring the risk of a data leak down to zero, with several commenters questioning the very premise that “not having a credit card” equals peace of mind.
Koki Mitani, on the topic of personal information leaks: “I don’t own a single credit card”
Screenwriter Koki Mitani appeared on TBS’s “Johou 7 Days News Caster” on the 17th.
The program covered the recent string of corporate personal information leaks.
Does he pay for things like Netflix with a prepaid card or something? Sounds inconvenient.
4AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:17
Re: #3
…WebMoney (said quietly)
10AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:22
Re: #3
He's got a wife, right? It's just Mitani himself who doesn't carry a card.
40AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:48
Re: #3
So he's riding on his wife's account? Or maybe he just goes out of his way to buy prepaid cards at the convenience store.
7AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:19
Not having a single card sounds inconvenient, doesn't it?
9AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:22
Cash is fine, but how does he handle subscriptions and contracts for various services? As long as it's something that supports direct bank debit, I guess it's okay…
12AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:22
Impressive. I wonder how he handles moderately pricey stuff like smartphones.
13AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:23
This just reads as a "look, I'm rich" flex — it's only going to rub people the wrong way.
15AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:24
Re: #1
He probably has the debit card that comes attached to his bank cash card, though.
35AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:44
Re: #15
That thing is really annoying, honestly. If you've already got a credit card, you don't need that, right?
16AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:24
Even the creator of "Naniwa Kinyuudou" (a famous manga about loan sharks and finance) said it's better not to have one because checking statements is such a hassle.
19AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:27
Re: #16
Well, that was back in Mr. Aoki's era…
61AnonymousOct 18, 2026 01:27
Re: #16
He also said that when it comes to novels, you should read Dostoevsky — that reading any amount of mediocre stuff is pointless, and you should read first-rate work instead.
17AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:25
He surely has bank savings, so from a security standpoint, not having a credit card doesn't really accomplish much.
20AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:27
But if he got hacked and someone rewrote his bank balance, that'd be game over, right?
23AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:34
Re: #20
Apparently banks keep multiple layers of backups, and rewriting the numbers would break the overall data integrity, triggering an immediate error that exposes it. Also, hackers don't actually profit from just rewriting a balance, so they wouldn't bother.
21AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:29
Honestly, it's better not to trust digital stuff anymore. As someone on the cutting edge, I don't even own a smartphone. A smartphone is basically a bugging device and a brainwashing weapon. You should be able to tell from all those weird YouTube videos how young people have come to despise their elders. Carrying as little smartphone as possible is going to be the trend from here on. Throw away your smartphone — pick up a book instead. (A twist on Shuji Terayama's famous line "Throw away your books, go out into the streets.")
25AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:36
Someone who can only think about himself isn't really cut out to be a TV commentator, is he?
26AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:36
Yeah, show business really does have its eccentrics. You'd have to stubbornly refuse it like some kind of religious conviction — if you just live a normal life, you end up with a few cards anyway lol
27AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:36
But the whole point of the discussion was that someone could use your driver's license data to make a credit card in your name — that's the actual problem.
28AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:37
So Mitani's a cash guy. He does seem like he'd have kind of a fussy personality, lol
29AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:40
The people around him probably carry cards for him — leaving it to his wife, who's something like 20 years younger, for instance. Doesn't seem like he even browses the internet himself.
33AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:44
Re: #29
I'd guess he's had quite a life to get where he is. That's still impressive, lol
30AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:41
Coming from someone so far removed from ordinary life, a comment like that doesn't really land.
31AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:42
Guess it really is better to convert everything to gold and bury it in the ground, huh?
32AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:43
Point cards are embarrassing since they reveal exactly where and what you bought.
37AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:46
Even if Mitani himself doesn't carry one, isn't the issue that someone else could go shopping using a card issued in his name?
41AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:50
Re: #37
If it's his wife's card, that makes sense. But if it's issued in Mitani's own name, this whole context falls apart. If that's the case, he'd be a failure as a writer, lol
38AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:48
He must travel overseas sometimes — going without a card at all seems impossible.
42AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:51
Re: #1
Isn't it not just personal data but corporate data too that's getting cleaned out entirely?
44AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:55
Even someone like Koki Mitani might get flagged as a "super white" (someone with zero credit history) — if he actually tried to apply for a card now, would he even be able to get one!?
46AnonymousOct 18, 2026 00:57
Re: #44
They'd obviously issue him a card with a 10-million-yen limit on the spot.
65AnonymousOct 18, 2026 01:42
Re: #44,46
No chance. Celebrity or not, even with proof of a huge income, you'd get rejected over your credit history ("kure-hisu"). Conversely, as long as you have credit history, even someone with zero income and no job can get a card if they pick the right credit company. It's a warped world where credit history is king above everything else.
48AnonymousOct 18, 2026 01:01
This generation and their kids are the ones who really get stuck. They grew up being taught "credit card equals debt," so they never get a single card, and by old age they're stuck as "super whites" with no credit history. Their kids, too — told by their parents that credit cards are debt and not to get one — honestly followed that advice and ended up as super whites in their 30s and 40s. For the elderly it's fine at this point, but if you're in your 40s, not having at least one credit card makes everyday life these days really difficult.
54AnonymousOct 18, 2026 01:07
Re: #48
These days PayPay covers pretty much everywhere, though.
59AnonymousOct 18, 2026 01:19
Does he actually think not having a credit card makes him safe?
72AnonymousOct 18, 2026 02:13
Re: #59
He's got a debit card, so isn't that fine anyway? When I paid hospital admission fees with a debit card, the staff seemed genuinely happy about it. In the US, people use debit cards at places like supermarkets all the time. Credit is more about creditworthiness, I guess. This time around, some company apparently had its customers' entire credit card information stolen outright. It's scary. I actually had an experience once where I bought a PC at a certain electronics store, and right after that my card was used fraudulently and the card company called me about it. It seems like that kind of thing has become so common now that I just stopped using credit cards altogether.
Background and key points of this discussion
In Japan’s credit information system, people with no credit card usage history (“kure-hisu”) are labeled “super white,” and the older someone is, the more it tends to work against them when applying for a new card. As pointed out in the thread, many older people cut ties with credit cards early on under the belief that “credit card equals debt,” and that mindset has been passed down to their children as well, leading to known cases of people in their 30s and 40s also ending up as “super white.” It’s also worth noting that not carrying a credit card doesn’t make someone immune to the risk of personal data leaks — the possibility of information leaking via bank deposits, debit cards, or various point cards still remains. Opinions in the thread split between those who took Mitani’s “cash-only” declaration simply as a personal lifestyle choice, and those who questioned how effective it really is as a countermeasure against data leaks.
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