A thread on 5ch’s “Morning Musume” board (which in practice tends to attract general chit-chat threads with nothing to do with the idol group) sparked discussion about the stark “gap” in life outcomes among people in their 40s. It started with a post noting that some people marry, build families, and live steady lives, while others stay single, still absorbed in their hobbies — and replies poured in citing hard numbers, like “My assets hit 800 million yen and it still feels empty” and “I’m a full-time employee but only take home 110,000 yen a month.” The discussion eventually spiraled into a clash over whether having a family counts as “stability” or a “liability,” and into the social backdrop facing Japan’s “employment ice age” generation.
What people said
1AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:17
Some guys are cruising through their 40s just fine — married, bought a house, raising kids — while others are still basically middle schoolers who do nothing but play games, watch anime, and jerk off. It's a brutal age for comparing notes.
4AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:18
Up until a little over a hundred years ago, lifelong singlehood was the norm anyway. We're just reverting to the mean.
5AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:19
Whether you actually bust your ass job-hunting and land full-time employment makes a way bigger difference in life than which university you got into. A lot of college students don't get that.
6AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:20
Finally got my assets up to 800 million yen… and somehow it feels empty.
56AnonymousSep 6, 2026 12:42
Re: #6
You're probably great at making money but bad at spending it.
12AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:25
Still grinding affiliate marketing even as an old man.
13AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:29
① Married, has a family, decent savings, life feels fulfilling.
② Married, has a family, but broke and struggling to get by.
③ Single with money, but life somehow feels empty.
④ Single and broke, but at least the otaku hobbies are fun for now.
14AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:33
Guys like that were probably in the uncool crowd back in school too. They dodged tough club activities and ran from anything hard, that's how you end up like this.
15AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:37
A house with a mortgage still on it, a family — that's nothing but a liability.
16AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:37
Is that really 'going well'? I'm doing just fine living single too, you know.
17AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:38
If you lose at the 'wife gacha' or 'kid gacha' (gacha = the random-draw lottery slang for 'luck of the draw'), it's way worse than being single.
19AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:40
Re: #17
There's barely any winning outcome in that draw to begin with — if you're lacking in ability yourself, it's a lottery stocked with nothing but losing 'punishment game' tickets.
22AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:42
Re: #17
Yeah, it just turns into a liability.
18AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:39
Not carrying liabilities is the trick to enjoying life. Having a family is like being a pachinko addict buried in debt to multiple lenders, stuck for life. You need to actually understand what 'risk' means and think ahead.
20AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:41
'For the sake of my family' is just the phrase people hide behind to avoid looking at the irreversible disaster their life turned into.
23AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:42
The Buddha owned nothing, you know.
24AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:44
Once you've got a family, and then caring for your parents gets added on top, you probably can't save any money at all.
25AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:44
My son just started his job in April and turned into a NEET in under six months. It's rough.
26AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:46
My son's basically a NEET too, honestly.
27AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:47
Kids these days probably cost a fortune with smartphones and everything else.
28AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:49
The 'parent gacha' (slang for the luck of which family you're born into) is brutal, isn't it. Way too much inequality.
29AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:53
Isn't it more of a 'gene gacha' than a 'parent gacha'? Looks, intelligence, personality — about two-thirds of it comes down to genetics. And disease risk too, of course.
36AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:59
"I couldn't get married because politics is broken" lol… wait, are you being serious right now?
37AnonymousSep 6, 2026 11:59
Re: #34
A kid with a flashy 'kirakira' name (an unconventional, showy given name) who's every bit as much of a failure as their parents and is basically guaranteed to end up a kodo-oji (an adult man still living at home with his parents) — that's a real drain on the nation.
39AnonymousSep 6, 2026 12:08
Anyone here single in their 40s who's 'upper mass' or 'quasi-wealthy' class? (Japanese wealth-tier terms for upper-middle and near-affluent asset brackets)
42AnonymousSep 6, 2026 12:14
Once your dick stops getting hard, that's when it really hits you that your whole life was a waste.
50AnonymousSep 6, 2026 12:26
Re: #42
In an age where nobody dates anymore, if you've got the cash, go to a nice soapland or some other sex-work spot with a good-looking girl and screw yourself silly — you'll get sick of it eventually. Everyone's babbling about late-life divorce, being single, 'time-performance,' 'cost-performance' — Gen Z in the Reiwa era has it all jumbled together. Calling it a waste? Then spend the money and go wild. These days, for the Reiwa generation, romance is just another form of entertainment. If you've got no money, just give up.
45AnonymousSep 6, 2026 12:17
The future belongs to minimalists. Or so I hear, who knows.
51AnonymousSep 6, 2026 12:27
The era where Showa-era values were the only correct answer is over, y'know.
53AnonymousSep 6, 2026 12:31
Re: #51
Times go in cycles, so it'll swing right back to the same thing eventually.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Despite its name, the “Morning Musume” board is mostly used for late-night chit-chat threads that have nothing to do with the idol group, and this thread was no exception, unfolding as a discussion on life philosophy unrelated to any specific idol. The “employment ice age generation” mentioned in the thread refers to the cohort that entered the job market from the late 1990s through the early 2000s, when new-graduate hiring collapsed — a group still said to be affected today through higher rates of non-regular employment. Some posts pointed to labor market reforms as a contributing factor, but that reflects individual opinions from a handful of posts rather than an established causal fact. The discussion tends to get framed around a “family: liability or stability?” divide, but the replies also raised cases of married people struggling financially and single people with assets who still feel empty — suggesting the reality can’t be fully explained by a simple married/single binary.
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