Middle Schoolers’ Bad Behavior at Iwate Supermarket Leads to Ban on Solo Entry

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The story

It has come to light that at the Esuka shopping center in Oshu City, Iwate Prefecture, middle school students have repeatedly engaged in disruptive behavior — playing dangerous games on the escalators, charging their phones without permission, leaving half-eaten food trash lying around, and loudly filming videos for social media. In one case a student even hurled abuse at a customer who told them to stop. The store has now taken the step of banning middle schoolers from entering alone. On a 5channel thread, opinions split over whether responsibility for discipline lies with the school or the parents, and many pointed out how hard it is to curb this kind of misbehavior now that corporal punishment is banned.

Escalators run amok, unauthorized phone charging, half-eaten trash left behind, loud filming for social media… abuse hurled at customers who spoke up — after repeated nuisance behavior, store bans middle schoolers from entering alone — Oshu City, Iwate

Thu, 9/10, 6:00 AM JST

IBC Iwate Broadcasting

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here

What people said

8AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:03
It's entirely on the generation that raised them, yet here comes the 'blame Gen Z-' noise (garbled meme-speak)…
No wonder Japan is falling apart.
141AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:37
Re: #8
Blame the Baby Boomer Juniors (Japan's second baby-boom generation, born early '70s).
11AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:03
What are the school teachers even doing?
170AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:52
Re: #11
They're just there to teach subjects.
They're not obligated to handle life guidance too.
Whether the kids actually learn anything or not is on them personally.
232AnonymousSep 10, 2026 20:26
Re: #11
Teachers get two days off a week.
14AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:04
Do people really abbreviate it 'Esca'?
42AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:12
Re: #14
The one in Enoshima is called 'Escar.'
46AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:14
The root of all this is the kid-coddling that started with 'yutori' (relaxed) education. In other words, it's not the kids who are at fault — it's the idiot adults.
18AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:05
This happens in Tokyo too.
Kids who look like a mixed-nationality group sit right down on the sidewalk outside a department store, scarf down food, and leave the trash behind.
There's a security camera right above them, and I thought 'seriously?'… but then it turned out the guard just picks up the trash after they've left.
Apparently if you say something to them you get assaulted, so cleanup only happens once they're gone.
Same thing on trains — people flying into a rage when called out.
169AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:52
Re: #18
At least the guard's decent enough to pick up the trash after they leave.
25AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:07
Smartphone cameras really are the devil's invention.
Back in the day you could just beat some sense into them and toss them out of the store.
90AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:25
Re: #25
These days it's the opposite — the person who says something gets beaten up and it ends up streamed online.
36AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:11
Huh, so there's an Esca in Iwate too.
https://www.esca-sc.com/access/img/parking/img_01.jpg?20250801
39AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:12
Wait, people abbreviate 'escalator' as 'Esca'?
Is an elevator an 'Ereve' then?
88AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:24
Re: #39
When you say 'Esca,' it's gotta be Escaflowne.
44AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:13
While city kids are busy studying at cram school, country kids are running wild.
58AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:17
Out in the countryside, once you finish high school it's construction work or farming — nothing else.
80AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:21
Re: #58
There's also caregiving work, I guess.
91AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:25
Call the police, take them in for guidance, summon the parents, and report it to the school.
Just doing that would leave these little punks with nowhere to hide starting the next day.
Why isn't anyone doing that?
95AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:26
Re: #91
Realistically, the only thing here that's actually a crime is stealing electricity, no?
147AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:41
Re: #91
It looks like it says the police are cooperating on patrols, though?
97AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:26
Seeing responses like this just proves Japan is losing its tolerance.
They're middle schoolers — a bit of rowdiness like this should be fine.
105AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:28
Re: #97
Why don't you have them rampage in front of your house every day, then?
120AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:31
Re: #97
This is way past 'tolerance,' lol.
'They're middle schoolers' really tells me everything about how your brain works, lol.
151AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:43
Re: #97
Back in the day the scary old guy from the neighborhood would've chewed them out something fierce.
100AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:27
In the Showa era, brats like this got smacked into shape.
Now that corporal punishment is banned, it's tough to know how to handle them.
119AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:30
Re: #100
The PE teacher used to patrol around, and if he found troublemakers he'd smack them straight, no questions asked.
106AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:28
I thought it meant Escha from the Atelier series had gone on a rampage.
123AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:31
Re: #106
Ash: "Yeah, fair."
Shallie A: "Yeah, fair."
Shallie B: "Yeah, fair."
Wilbell: "Meteor!"
(Characters from the Atelier video game series; "yeah, fair" renders their Kansai-dialect agreement, and "Meteor" is Wilbell's signature spell.)
174AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:53
The school's the worst offender, but really it's a problem with the whole community.
What was the PTA doing? Was anything reported to the board of education?
If monkeys wander into human territory, of course you chase them off —
if nobody does, well, then it's just a monkey mountain.
181AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:55
Re: #174
Isn't it obviously the parents who are the worst here?
You don't even need to imagine what kind of people raised kids like this.
185AnonymousSep 10, 2026 19:59
Re: #181
Well, telling parents who let their kids leave trash everywhere isn't going to fix anything.
When it comes to actually dealing with the problem, nothing changes unless the school takes action.
210AnonymousSep 10, 2026 20:11
Re: #181
So it's basically a 'Buy-Now-Pay-Later (Shoplifters) Family,' huh, lol? (a pun combining "zan-kure" installment car loans with the film "Shoplifters," implying a family living beyond its means)
199AnonymousSep 10, 2026 20:04
Iwate used to have the best 'public civility,' as people call it today, in all of Japan —
at least up until the end of the Showa era.
220AnonymousSep 10, 2026 20:18
Re: #199
See, conscientiousness score is low, right?
https://media-lab-brains.as-1.co.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/19144934/kenminsei_img2.jpg

Background and Key Talking Points

Cases of commercial facilities imposing measures like banning middle schoolers from entering alone have been reported in various places in recent years, typically used when staff warnings alone fail to curb disruptive behavior. This article doesn’t say whether the store consulted the school or parents beforehand, or how many students were involved. Where the thread’s opinions split was mainly over where responsibility for discipline lies — some argued schools have a duty to provide life guidance, while others countered that a school’s role is limited to teaching academics. Many also pointed out that with corporal punishment now banned, adults have few tools left to stop bad behavior on the spot — though this reads less like a call to bring back corporal punishment and more like frustration at the lack of alternatives. There was also discussion of the gap between urban and rural educational environments, though none of it identified specific students or stores.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Breaking News+) thread ‘[Iwate] Escalators run amok, unauthorized phone charging, half-eaten trash left behind, loud filming for social media… abuse hurled at customers who spoke up — store bans middle schoolers from entering alone.’

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