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The story
Rapper Ryofu Karuma wrote a piece for Yahoo! News tackling the “card shop stench problem” that’s been making the rounds on social media for years. He described how some shops, fed up with the pungent odor given off by players crowding card shops and dueling spaces, have taken to posting signs urging customers to mind their smell — and dug into just why players end up smelling so bad. On 5ch, commenters offered theories ranging from unwashed clothes (rather than body odor itself) to sweaty palms from gripping cards during matches, with opinions split on just how serious the problem really is.
Thu, Sep 3, 17:32
The card shop stench problem has been a recurring topic on parts of social media for several years now. Fed up with the pungent odor coming off the card players (not sure if that’s even the right term for them) gathering in card shops and dueling spaces, some stores have started putting up signs — or posting mentions online — urging customers to be mindful of their smell.
For someone like me who hasn’t touched a card game since collecting SD Gundam Carddass as a kid, this whole thing was a mystery — the kind of morbid curiosity where, instead of wanting to look at something scary, I wanted to sniff out something smelly. But it never went beyond speculation.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
If I'm #3, then #2 is just flab
Shows how into it they are.
Still a nuisance though.
Is there even such a thing as a rap with deep substance?
No idea about Yugi, but Kaiba's a company president, so he'd probably take way more care of his grooming than the average guy lol
– Wears the same clothes forever
– Does laundry wrong
– Middle-aged guy whose body odor was already bad to begin with
It's not the person — it's their clothes that stink.
In summer, the smell comes from the clothes, not the body.
it's the stench of unwashed clothes.
That's why they end up reeking.
and the breeze off his fan-cooled work jacket…
it was intense.
Guess they do more than just drop dad jokes on stage.
The other 20% comes down to diet and exercise habits.
Worse than a smelly guy on the train, honestly. Stink is just a dealbreaker.
So it must be the clothes.
Just take a bath already.
Are hardcore card gamers even worse?
Props to Matsuzaka Tori for being able to duel those guys.
Using the media to attack someone is basically like clubbing them over the head with a weapon.
> That smell might even become part of their character, something to admire like a judoka's or wrestler's cauliflower ear.
Yeah, no way lol
Gamers who never leave home just don't get smelled by anyone — their stink potential is probably even higher, letting hair and beard go completely untended.
If they don't go outside, they're not bothering anyone else — it's their own problem, so who cares?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The card shop “stench problem” has repeatedly surfaced on social media for several years now, and stories of people avoiding tournament venues or corners of big-box stores because of the smell aren’t rare. It’s hard to pin down whether the cause is poor ventilation on the shops’ part or players’ personal habits, and even Ryofu Karuma’s own article never gets past speculation. On the thread, the theory that kept getting the most support was that the smell comes not from body odor itself but from bacterial funk built up by rewearing sweaty clothes without washing them — an explanation that outweighed the simpler “they just don’t bathe” theory. Meanwhile, the original article’s framing of the smell as a badge of honor for total dedication to the game drew plenty of cold reactions along the lines of “yeah right” — a clear gap between the writer’s tone and readers’ actual experience.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Why Do Card Gamers Smell So Bad? Part of the Reason Rapper Ryofu Karuma Noticed.”
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