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The story
On 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board, a thread emerged questioning the common claim that “Japan hit the jackpot in the country gacha” (a popular slang term comparing one’s country of birth to a random lottery/loot-box draw). The thread’s creator argued that while the service you get as a customer is comfortable, it’s closer to “hell” for workers, citing long hours and the harsh, seniority-driven “sports-club” culture of Japanese workplaces. Replies were split: some pointed to countries like Germany, the Nordic nations, and Singapore as having better working conditions, while others defended Japan by citing its public safety, job security, and low rate of death by starvation. The debate ultimately hinged on whether you’re judging Japan from a “customer’s perspective” or a “worker’s perspective.”
What people said
Blue-collar workers especially put in longer hours than in the West, and the harsh, seniority-based "sports club" hierarchy doesn't help either…
And since Japanese blue-collar workplaces aren't very credential-focused (outside top-tier companies like Toyota), even managers are often just high school graduates (especially from technical/vocational high schools), which also means they tend to be clueless about compliance…
By the way, here's apparently the latest "country gacha" tier ranking.
Japan feels ranked a bit too high, but I pretty much agree with the rest.
But on average, I'd say Germany, the Nordics, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and Hong Kong are all better than Japan.
How many countries in Africa or South America are actually better than Japan?
I won't deny that, but comparing yourself to third-rate countries in the first place is kind of a red flag.
Setting aside Africa, which is basically a lost cause except for Mauritius, even in Latin America, Chile (relatively decent) has per-capita economic output almost on par with Japan.
Chile's average life expectancy is even longer than some underperforming developed countries, like the US, UK, and Taiwan.
Then you should be playing the "developed-country gacha," not the "country gacha."
"Country gacha" is supposed to lump all of that together. "Country gacha (excluding underdeveloped countries)" would be a joke.
That alone makes it a jackpot.
Depends on the person. There are tons of kids struggling with food insecurity — that's exactly why "kids' cafeterias" (free or low-cost community meal programs) exist.
There can't be that many kids who are actually that badly off.
According to a Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare survey, Japan's child poverty rate for those 17 and under was 11.5% (2021) — meaning roughly 1 in 8.7 children are said to live in poverty.
It's not as bad as the US or UK, sure, but Japan's relative poverty rate (basically a stand-in for inequality) is actually on the higher end among developed countries…
Though to be fair, Japan has the second-largest population among developed nations after the US, so that's partly unavoidable…
Germany and France, for instance, have populations way smaller than Japan's.
Setting aside the US, UK, and China, countries like Germany, the Nordics, and Australia clearly have less inequality than Japan.
You can't ignore the differences in each country's systems, infrastructure, and economic conditions.
The reason Japanese people never get to a conversational level in other languages is that they simply don't need to go abroad.
Honestly, Japanese people are just bad at English to begin with…
Countries like South Korea and Taiwan study English seriously, and lots of people go study abroad.
Too many Japanese people are "frogs in a well" (naive about the outside world)…😅
There's hardly any other country this peaceful.
In Mexico, getting shot is basically the default risk.
What about Germany and the Nordic countries?!
Switzerland, Iceland, Singapore — those are easily bigger jackpots than Japan, you know.
It's pretty cringe when people mistakenly think Japan is number one in the world.
Well, I won't say Japan is a dud, but it's not the top either.
Also, Hiroyuki Nishimura said Japan is in the top 3 of the country gacha (with Singapore and Iceland as the top two), but honestly, I don't buy it.
I don't know about number one in the world, but it's definitely one of the most livable places out there.
People say this a lot, but Japan's firing regulations actually aren't that strict by global standards.
Sure, Japan's stricter than the US or UK, but France and Germany actually have tougher firing regulations than Japan…
Among developed countries, Japan is actually on the easier-to-fire-you side.
In the West, it's totally normal to get fired the same day your department gets cut.
It's a country where happy people convince themselves they're miserable after seeing the lifestyles of the "elite class" online.
Including the fact that once you're born into the elite class, you're set for life unless you really screw up — it's a country that's kind to the incompetent.
I think so too. You almost never hear news about people starving to death here.
There are some men who starve to death but it doesn't always make the news, so that's a factor — but it's still true that starvation deaths are rare by global standards.
Hiroyuki Nishimura also said "it's rare for people to starve to death in Japan," but it's definitely not zero.
Even back in the bubble economy era, when things were way better than now, there were still people who died of starvation…
Being able to get by somehow without studying just shows Japan is an easy-mode game.
This is true.
Among East Asian countries at least (South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore), Japanese people study by far the least.
For what it's worth, the West (especially the US, UK, and France) is an even more extreme credentialist society than Japan.
Even Germany, which has an image of valuing skilled tradespeople, requires a Meister qualification (roughly equivalent to a university degree) to climb the ladder.
I think Japan is the developed country where educational credentials matter the least.
It's a problem with Japan's HR system.
In America, there's no reassignment or promotion ladder like that — if a position opens up, they just fill that same slot.
In Japan, they shuffle everyone around like a puzzle to free up entry-level slots for new graduates, which is why mid-career job-hopping never really caught on.
Then which country actually is the country gacha jackpot?
Calling it a "country gacha" just because the systems are different is dumb.
Every country requires effort no matter where you are.
So basically, everyone here is an idiot, huh.
Seems like what effort actually gets you is different depending on where you are.
The people whining about "gacha" probably just want to live a life of leisure.
Background and key points of this discussion
“Country gacha” is slang that compares one’s country of birth to a random lottery draw, typically used to debate whether your home country is a “win” or a “loss” compared to others based on factors like public safety, healthcare, and wage levels. The thread’s starting point was the argument that “the quality of service you receive as a customer” and “your treatment as a worker” should be evaluated separately — and the debate split largely along which lens people chose. On firing regulations, as some replies pointed out, Japan has a strong image as a country where it’s “hard to fire full-time employees,” but in reality, major European countries like France and Germany have stricter regulations — a case where the image and the reality tend to diverge, worth keeping in mind. It’s also worth noting — something not obvious from the thread itself — that the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s child poverty figures represent the “relative poverty rate,” calculated against median income, which is different from an absolute measure of how many people are in dire living conditions.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Nandemo Jikkyo G”) thread “[Sad News] Honestly, isn’t “Japan hit the jackpot in the country gacha” a lie? It’s hell for workers…“.
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