Japan Reacts

Author: Japan Reacts Editorial

  • MARVEL Tōkon’s Concurrent Players Crash to 1,300 — 5ch Asks ‘Can You Even Find a Match?’

    The concurrent player count for MARVEL Tōkon, the new fighting game from Sony and Arc System Works, has plummeted to just 1,300 less than a month after launch. On 5ch, users are voicing concern over whether matches can even be found, with many pointing to the mandatory PSN account requirement and the royalty fees owed to Marvel as culprits. Some posts even invoked Concord, the poster child for gaming flops, as a comparison.

    1AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:17
    Can matches even happen at this point? 🥺
    3AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:18
    It hasn't even been a month since launch, right?
    5AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:18
    lmao ('草' = 5ch's laughter marker)
    There's no way matchmaking works with numbers like this
    7AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:19
    Game Freak's Beekane, sitting at 500 concurrent players, might be its rival for now
    9AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:20
    Re: #7
    I mean, that one's a solo game, so in the extreme case even single-digit concurrent players wouldn't hurt it
    This is a PvP game though 😭
    10AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:21
    Just bury it next to Concord already lol
    11AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:21
    People were already saying matchmaking took like 5 minutes back when it had 5,000 players, so 1,000 is gonna be rough
    12AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:21
    Has the peak settled in around 4,000?
    13AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:22
    Re: #12
    That 4,000 was the weekend bump, so this week it'll probably be 3,000 to 2,000
    14AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:22
    Re: #4
    So I guess it's such a lousy game that tens of thousands of people quit just from the negative buzz
    17AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:23
    The projectile speed was insane in the pre-release build — did they seriously ship it like that?
    My timeline gets a decent flow of fighting game tweets, including from overseas, but I'm not even seeing people talking about how bad Tōkon is
    18AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:23
    Normally a number like this would have you thinking early service shutdown as a failure, but apparently there's a contract with Marvel, so who knows
    20AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:24
    Re: #18
    Ah, so licensing rights and stuff mean they can't pull the plug even with low concurrent numbers?
    29AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:28
    Re: #18
    Wait, this is a one-time purchase — what do you mean by 'service shutdown'?
    93AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:49
    Re: #18
    Saw this in another thread — apparently they have to pay Marvel a royalty per character, so it costs a lot
    21AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:25
    Guess the PS5 that only sold 2,000 units already came out on top 😄
    22AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:25
    31AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:30
    Re: #29
    Babylon's Fall was also a one-time purchase and it still got shut down
    47AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:37
    Re: #31,37
    Probably because it's run as a live service — fighting games don't put that much load on servers anyway, even Arika manages it
    36AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:32
    Wait, this is a one-time purchase?
    Just like Marathon, this is straight-up garbage
    42AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:33
    Re: #36
    It's a one-time purchase, but you have to stay connected to the server at all times
    and on top of that, even on Steam you need a PSN account, so…
    48AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:37
    Honestly I had high hopes for this, but I'd say it's half Arc System Works' fault and half Sony's fault
    53AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:45
    Re: #48
    The game itself is rough, but the mandatory PSN requirement also played a part in killing it
    Yeah, probably about 50/50
    52AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:44
    Hint: it's digital-only
    55AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:46
    Re: #52
    Wait, was there ever a physical Steam release…?
    59AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:51
    There's no way to hype it back up, this is a lost cause
    61AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:52
    Re: #59
    If they gave it away for free, maybe…!


    Oh wait, I forgot the beta didn't pull in a crowd either lol
    71AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:01
    A lot of Steam users don't have the specs for it, so most people probably moved over to PS
    75AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:02
    Re: #71
    Wait, did it actually grow from 2,814?
    80AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:17
    You can tell how bad it is when it's not even used as a 'beating stick' — the go-to weapon for trash-talking other games
    102AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:30
    It's less about it being Sony's game and more that handing it to Arc — a studio that only ever makes crap games — was the real mistake
    105AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:45
    Re: #102
    And Sony's doing its part too, with the 'you can't play without a PSN account!' setup helping drive players away ♥
    108AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:04
    Re: #1
    PS players like, 'I'll just play Street Fighter 6 instead'
    121AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:09
    Seriously though, just let us play online matches without needing PSN, for free, come on
    127AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:24

    Background and Key Points

    MARVEL Tōkon is a 3D fighting game built by Arc System Works, the studio behind Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball FighterZ, published by Sony. Since 2024’s Helldivers 2 backlash, Sony has pushed a blanket policy requiring a linked PSN account for PS5 titles, including Steam versions — a friction point that has repeatedly hurt PC sales for Sony-published games. Fighting games are also uniquely dependent on population health: unlike single-player titles, matchmaking quality collapses fast once concurrent numbers drop below a few thousand, because you need enough players online simultaneously at your skill tier and region. A month-old release falling to 1,300 concurrent players is a red flag by that standard.

    The thread’s actual disagreement is about where to place blame: some posters split it roughly 50/50 between Arc System Works (citing rough game balance, like an overtuned projectile speed carried over from the pre-release build) and Sony (the mandatory PSN login as a needless barrier to entry). Nobody in the thread settles this — it’s an open argument, not a consensus.

    What’s likely to confuse outside readers is the Marvel-royalty point posters raise almost in passing: because Sony reportedly pays Marvel a per-character licensing fee, some assume this locks Sony into keeping servers running regardless of player count, unlike Concord, which Sony could shut down and refund within weeks since it owned that IP outright. That’s speculation in the thread, not a confirmed contract term, and readers shouldn’t take it as established fact.

    *This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Sony’s MARVEL Tōkon Currently at 1,300 Concurrent Players lol.”

  • YOASOBI’s Ayase Sparks Buzz With Tattoos Spreading Up to His Neck: “That’s Some Serious Ink”

    YOASOBI’s Ayase caused a stir when an outfit worn at a Canada show revealed tattoos spreading from his arms all the way up his neck. On 5ch, opinions split between fans of the design and those worried about health implications, with defenders arguing “it’s his own values, so what’s the problem?” alongside more practical concerns like “having tattoos can get you turned away from MRI scans.”

    “That’s Some Serious Ink” — YOASOBI’s Ayase Shows Off Outfit Baring Tattoos “Packed All the Way Up His Neck,” Sparking “That’s too much,” “So heavily inked…,” and “I mean, it’s fine though”

    ▼ “He’s got tattoos packed in solid”

    A live shot from a Canada show featuring Ayase, of the music unit YOASOBI, is drawing attention.

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

    3AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:23
    Is he going for the Hoichi the Earless look? (folklore character whose whole body was covered in protective script to hide from ghosts)
    116AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:52
    Re: #3
    LMAOOO
    17AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:27
    Is getting tattoos turning into an addiction for him or something?
    19AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:27
    It's his own values, so what's wrong with it?
    What exactly is the problem?
    And besides, are you all living such noble lives that you get to weigh in on someone else's?
    23AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:29
    Re: #19
    Well, tattoos have historically marked criminals, so it's a pretty common instinct to want to look down on someone who chooses to enjoy getting inked anyway. If you say there's nothing wrong with that, sure, fair enough.
    26AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:29
    Re: #19
    And yet you couldn't help but post about it either, right? Everyone else here is the same. Why do you think you're any different from the rest?
    67AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:36
    Re: #19
    At least I'm not living a life where I go around inking up my body.
    36AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:31
    Ayase is 32 and Ikura is 25 — that's basically the same age gap as the 'Rikuryu' figure skating pair (Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara, the famous ice dance duo).
    YOASOBI should just get married already.
    44AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:32
    Re: #36
    This thread too, huh

    There's actually a published study showing tattoos are linked to cancer.
    49AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:33
    If you're a successful artist, why not? It's not like he'll ever need to worry about money and go work a regular salaryman job.
    56AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:34
    Re: #49
    Once your spending habits adjust to a certain lifestyle, it's hard to scale back.
    The real question is whether the royalty income keeps flowing long-term.
    57AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:35
    Doesn't the female member have any tattoos?
    Everyone in the group should just get covered in ink
    — become a full-on tattooed band.
    63AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:35
    Re: #57
    She's basically become an idol for otaku fans now — no way she's getting inked up, lol.
    70AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:37
    I've heard it's like plastic surgery — once you start, you can't stop.
    76AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:39
    Re: #70
    Honestly it's probably people with mental-health-issue tendencies ("menhera"-type).
    71AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:37
    Successful artists really do tend to have a lot of tattoos.
    Like ONE OK ROCK — every single member is covered in ink.
    81AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:39
    Re: #71
    And there are genres where doing drugs is basically treated as mandatory education too.
    75AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:39
    Even Beckham — insanely good-looking and with real social standing — is
    covered head to toe in tattoos that look like graffiti scribbles.
    84AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:40
    Re: #75
    No taste.
    82AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:39
    Next stop has to be the face.
    Looking forward to it.
    89AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:42
    Re: #82
    Urita's face tattoo aside, something in the style of Mike Tyson's face tattoo actually looks pretty cool — I'd be into that.
    98AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:45
    If you have tattoos, you might not even be able to get an MRI if you get cancer.
    That raises your odds of dying.
    121AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:54
    Re: #98
    It's like a physical version of a Jehovah's Witness situation —
    not about blood transfusions, but the same idea of missing out on treatment that would normally save you.
    113AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:50
    Extensive tattoos dramatically raise the risk of heat reaction and burns during an MRI scan.
    Some medical facilities will flatly refuse to do an MRI at all,
    and switching to alternative scans like CT or ultrasound happens plenty.

    And even if you can get an MRI, having tattoos means you have to sign a special consent form just for that.
    120AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:53
    Re: #113
    What happens if you get injured?
    How do all those European soccer players covered in tattoos handle it?
    127AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:58
    Is there actually anyone out there who looks at this and thinks it's cool?
    132AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:01
    Re: #127
    Unfortunately, yes, plenty — that's why tattoos are becoming more common out in the world.
    Especially at shopping malls out in the countryside, it's tattoos everywhere.
    129AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:59
    What happens if he suddenly gets sick of the design?
    What if in ten years he no longer thinks it's "cool"?
    Like the pattern feels too intense and starts seeming uncool somehow
    — there's bound to be a change of heart at some point…

    People change, after all.
    140AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:04
    Re: #129
    There was a comedian who gave advice to someone who'd tattooed their ex's name — like "Takashi" or "Miho" — and regretted it after the breakup: just add "… and others" after the name so it reads like a list.
    134AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:01
    Just like piercings became normal in Japan,
    tattoos will become normal too.

    Japan is basically 50 years behind the West on this stuff.
    137AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:03
    Re: #134
    The piercings on those middle-aged guys from the generation that made piercings "normal" are way too gross.
    146AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:12
    Thinking about the balance between the face and body, leaving some blank skin might've looked better.
    170AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:24
    Re: #146
    Negative space really might matter.

    If you cover everything,
    it ends up looking like a futon mattress pattern…
    154AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:15
    There's no real originality to this tattoo though, is there?
    Why does it end up looking like he just picked a uniform out of a catalog?
    163AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:20
    Re: #154
    Even the tattoo artist can't ink it without working from a catalog reference.
    164AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:20
    Did he add more again? Feels like there's more every time I see him
    — there can't be much blank skin left.
    168AnonymousAug 25, 2026 02:24
    Re: #164
    All that's left is the face.

    Background and Key Points

    YOASOBI is the Japanese pop duo of vocalist Ikura and composer Ayase, best known internationally for “Idol” (the *Oshi no Ko* theme) and for building songs directly from short-story submissions. Ayase, the instrumentalist/producer half who normally stays out of the spotlight, was photographed at a Canada tour stop wearing an outfit that exposed tattoos running from his arms up to his neck — a striking image precisely because Japanese mainstream pop idols and producers almost never display visible ink; tattoos in Japan still carry strong associations with the yakuza, and many gyms, pools, hot springs (onsen), and beaches explicitly bar visibly tattooed patrons regardless of context.

    The thread’s actual fault line wasn’t really “tattoos good or bad” in the abstract — posters largely agreed individuals have the right to ink their own bodies. The split was over whether that personal-freedom argument settles the matter at all, with skeptics countering that tattoos carry inherited stigma as a marker of criminality in Japan and that posting about it at all undercuts the “none of your business” framing. A secondary, more concrete disagreement centered on MRI compatibility — whether extensive tattoos meaningfully raise health risk via scan restrictions, versus dismissing that as an overblown internet talking point.

    What the thread never engages with, and English-speaking readers should know, is that the MRI claim is not folklore — large tattooed areas can cause skin heating or burns during scans due to metal-oxide pigments, and hospitals routinely require special consent forms or switch to CT/ultrasound instead. Readers may also assume Ayase’s visibility as a public figure means Japan’s onsen/gym tattoo bans are loosening; they aren’t — enforcement remains common, and this incident is notable specifically because it’s unusual, not because it signals a broader shift.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geisokusoku+) thread “[Entertainment] YOASOBI’s Ayase Reveals Tattoos Packed From Arm to Neck, Sparks Reaction: “That’s Some Serious Ink,” “Too Many Tattoos,” “So Heavily Inked…”.”

  • OGs Guest-Starring at Current Members’ Concerts Sparks Debate — 5ch: “Secret Guests Kill the Vibe”

    Opinions split on the Hello! Project subforum of 5ch over the practice of having OGs (graduated members) appear as special guests at current groups’ live shows. Some voiced sympathy for the OG members’ fans when these appearances are sprung as a secret — “Feel bad for the OG’s fans,” “Secret guests kill the vibe” — while others pushed back with “Only a tiny minority actually cares about that.” Posters also cited past examples, like Sato Masaki and Takeuchi Akari appearing as guests at regional revitalization concerts in Bizen and Kaga.

    1AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:19
    Guess there's all kinds of takes on this.
    9AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:26
    Secret guest appearances should really stop — it's rough on that OG's fans.
    10AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:27
    Re: #9
    Only a tiny minority actually says that.
    11AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:27
    Wonder if it'll be Karin-chan or Manakan (Tsugunaga Mana) next — that'd get the crowd hyped.
    14AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:29
    Re: #11
    That would absolutely bring the house down.
    13AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:29
    Re: #10
    Everyone's just holding it in.
    91AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:47
    Re: #13
    Nah, only a tiny handful of people are making these kinds of statements about their feelings — they should realize they're the ones who've gotten way too invested and lost perspective.
    Treating "attend every show" as some kind of baseline expectation is messed up.
    93AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:51
    Re: #91
    For OGs there just aren't many events to begin with,
    so it ends up feeling like you're expected to attend all of them.
    16AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:31
    If you're going, just say you're going.
    If you're appearing, just say you're appearing.
    20AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:33
    Re: #16
    Then it wouldn't be a secret guest anymore, would it.
    25AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:34
    Re: #16
    Why would they need to cater to you specifically?
    17AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:31
    They should just bring Takeuchi, Sasaki, and Jokoryo along on ANGERME's bus tour.
    19AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:32
    Re: #17
    Ticket sales are already solid, so there's no real point in bringing them in.
    18AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:31
    21AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:33


    27AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:35
    Re: #20
    They didn't need to make it a secret in the first place.
    30AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:36
    Re: #27
    Doing that would defeat the whole purpose
    — the OG would just be tagging along lol
    32AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:38
    "Okayama Prefecture Bizen City × OCHA NORMA Regional Revitalization Concert: Naruchika 2023 OCHA NORMA in Bizen" Special Guest Announcement
    https://helloproject.com/news/16465/
    Sato Masaki, Miyamoto Karin, and Ogata Risa have been confirmed as special guests.
    34AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:39
    Re: #32
    Bet this left OCHA NORMA fans with really mixed feelings.
    59AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:47
    Re: #32 Re: #35 Was there an actual collab with the current members?
    35AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:40
    "Ishikawa Prefecture Kaga City × OCHA NORMA Regional Revitalization Concert: Naruchika 2025 OCHA NORMA in Kaga" General Ticket Sales and Special Guest Announcement
    https://helloproject.com/news/18559/
    > Also, Takeuchi Akari and Ishida Ayumi have been confirmed as special guests.
    41AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:43
    You wouldn't expect a guest to show up when it's already sold out, right?
    45AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:44
    Re: #41
    What we learned this time: even if it's sold out, a guest can still show up and sing a Satoyama song (OCHA NORMA's local/nature-themed songs); if it's NOT sold out, it gets announced beforehand.
    43AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:44
    I wonder which opinion was actually more common yesterday.
    63AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:49
    Re: #43
    Probably more people were happy about it.
    65AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:50
    But when they asked "anyone seeing Aarii (Takeuchi Akari's nickname) for the first time?" only about 10 people raised their hands.
    67AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:51
    Re: #65
    I'm a new fan but didn't raise my hand —
    newcomers aren't used to it, so it's hard to put your hand up.
    68AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:51
    Re: #65
    Seriously?
    I figured it'd be like 20-30%.
    76AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:01
    Uemura TO Tsubo's statement of feelings
    95AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:55
    Every OG fan I know hates these surprise OG appearances.
    Miyamoto even wrote an apology blog post over it.
    98AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:58
    Wasn't that the secret guest thing at UniDol?
    Who even cares about that lol
    102AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:04
    Re: #98
    They went out of their way to tease it too.
    104AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:06
    Might have fewer restrooms than Momokuri Karuizawa (Momoiro Clover Z's Christmas event).
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C83CX2KV0AEMVVP.jpg
    118AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:27
    Secret guests kill the vibe way more than people realize
    — some fans actually quit over it.
    119AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:27
    Re: #118
    That's straight-up underground-idol behavior lol
    132AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:51
    Re: #118
    Only with underground idols can you actually complete every single event.
    121AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:28
    They're entertainers — of course there's the occasional work surprise.
    Honestly, after so long without breaking through, the whole fandom's mentality has sunk to underground-idol level.
    135AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:29
    Re: #121
    The old-guard fans' mentality is way too "underground idol."
    Though to be fair, some groups really do end up sliding into that underground tier.
    134AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:27
    Re: #93
    The logic in the first half and the second half doesn't connect.
    Even with fewer events, that doesn't mean "attend everything" becomes some kind of default expectation.
    If anything, going around posting these "statement of feelings" things is more likely to get you disliked normally
    — you never know where it might reach the person involved.
    If you don't have the perspective or the mental bandwidth to think about that, you're going to end up disliked all over the place.
    137AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:38
    Re: #134
    The point is that because there are so few events, it ends up amounting to attending all of them anyway.
    It'd be better if it did reach her —
    if she's fine just showing up as a secret guest like that, she clearly doesn't understand how the fans feel.

    Background and Key Points

    Hello! Project is the idol umbrella under Up-Front Works that has run groups like Morning Musume, ANGERME, and OCHA NORMA since the late 1990s. In this ecosystem, “graduation” from a group is treated as a clean, largely permanent break — a graduated member (an “OG”) does not normally perform with her old or a sister group again, which is why any OG cameo is a rare event and fandoms build strong personal attachments to specific graduated members rather than transferring loyalty to whoever is active. The Bizen and Kaga shows cited in the thread are “Naruchika” concerts, tie-ups where a municipality sponsors an idol performance as part of regional revitalization (chiiki okoshi) tourism promotion — a common arrangement in Japan where local governments pay idol groups to draw visitors, which is why lower-profile venues get extra star power in the form of guest OGs.

    The thread doesn’t split over whether OGs should appear at all — most posters seem fine with that — it splits over whether the appearance should be announced beforehand or sprung as a surprise, since a surprise means an OG’s own dedicated fans, who might have traveled specifically to see her, could miss the show entirely for lack of notice.

    What’s easy to miss is scale: when asked how many in the crowd were seeing Takeuchi Akari for the first time, only about ten hands went up, suggesting the “controversy” is a loud but numerically small contingent, not a fandom-wide backlash — a distinction several posters make explicitly by comparing the complainers to obsessive underground-idol fan culture. The thread also never engages with the municipal-sponsorship angle, which is likely why these guest slots exist in the first place.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Opinions on OGs Making Guest Appearances at Current Groups’ Live Shows.”

  • Matsumoto Hitoshi’s Perfect Toilet Paper Comeback Brings the House Down

    Downtown’s Hitoshi Matsumoto (62) was asked at a “DOWNTOWN+” YouTube channel event whether he’s “Team Single-ply or Team Double-ply” toilet paper, and delivered a razor-sharp comeback. On 5ch, the thread lit up with practical single-vs-double-ply debates, but since the joke’s backstory involved his colostomy (stoma), opinions split over whether it was actually okay to laugh.

    Hitoshi Matsumoto Hits Back with a Perfect Comeback to “Single-ply or Double-ply?” — Event Erupts in Laughter

    Downtown’s Hitoshi Matsumoto (62) appeared on the “DOWNTOWN+” YouTube channel as of the 24th. Responding to a question from an event attendee, he pulled off a brilliant comeback.

    A short video revealed the Q&A segment with Matsumoto. An event attendee asked him, “Are you Team Single-ply or Team Double-ply for toilet paper?”

    Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

    3AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:52
    Single-ply just feels unreliable, can't trust it
    Double-ply, no question
    6AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:52
    Re: #3
    Are you seriously so cheap you wipe with one un-folded sheet at a time?
    187AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:48
    Re: #3
    Double-ply as a rule
    If it's single-ply I pull off a ridiculously long stretch
    9AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:53
    Comedian Kanpei Hazama would just drop his pants first no matter whether he actually needed to go
    13AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:54
    Matsumoto does a lot of toilet humor, huh
    And it's not even funny
    14AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:54
    Isn't double-ply just the normal choice for everyone?
    16AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:55
    This one's actually funny

    Re: #14
    They sell soft single-ply now too. That's what we use
    73AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:06
    Re: #14
    I used to use double-ply, but
    since I like winding off a huge wad at once,
    switching to single-ply turned out just right
    18AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:56
    Sorry, but
    that's really not funny
    23AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:57
    A papermaker rep said in an interview that single-ply sells better in Kansai while double-ply is the top seller in Kanto
    24AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:57
    Single or double, I fold it up before use anyway, so it's the same either way
    25AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:57
    Turning his illness into a lighthearted joke so it doesn't feel heavy is what makes it kind of painful to watch
    26AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:57
    It's funny, but that's thanks to the questioner setting him up so well
    28AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:57
    Not funny
    Are Matsumoto's die-hard fans really paying money to cackle at stuff like this?
    37AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:59
    LMAOOOO bro, hahaha, Mattsun bro that's hilarious lol, not a single flop lol lol lol (Kansai-style fan gushing — "not a single flop" nods to Matsumoto's old no-flop storytelling show)
    38AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:59
    Cut it out with jokes where you don't even know if it's okay to laugh
    40AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:59
    Is this really something we're allowed to laugh at?
    What would someone with the same condition say watching this?
    41AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:00
    Written out as text, genius Matsumoto's joke is depressingly unfunny lol
    44AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:00
    Mattsun, all you talk about lately is poop
    45AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:00
    I heard that even at the same price, single-ply isn't just double the length of double-ply —
    it's about 50cm longer than that
    89AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:08
    Is this really a joke you're allowed to laugh at?
    Other patients are going to be furious
    95AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:10
    Re: #89
    He's the one actually living it, so it's fine, isn't it?
    111AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:14
    Good to see his comedic chops haven't dulled one bit
    121AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:18
    Re: #111
    Can you still say that after watching that syamu dance that blew up online? (syamu = a notorious Japanese internet meme figure)
    127AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:21
    He turned even his colostomy into a solid laugh
    Gotta hand it to him
    129AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:22
    Re: #127
    It's just not something to laugh at

    Background and Key Points

    Turning a stoma into stand-up isn’t Matsumoto’s invention — it’s closer to a Japanese comedy tradition of self-deprecation (jigyaku neta), where performers mine their own illness or misfortune for material rather than treating it as off-limits. Matsumoto had a portion of his large intestine removed for diverticulitis in 2023 and has periodically referenced the resulting colostomy bag in public appearances since. That backstory is why a throwaway toilet-paper question — the kind any comedian might field — became loaded: for him “single-ply vs. double-ply” isn’t abstract bathroom trivia, it connects to how he manages the stoma daily, which is presumably what made his answer land as a “perfect comeback” rather than a generic joke.

    The actual split in the thread wasn’t really about the joke’s quality — plenty of posters conceded it got a laugh — but about whether laughing was appropriate at all. One camp treated it as ordinary banter (drifting into genuinely mundane single-vs-double-ply preferences, regional sales patterns, folding habits), largely detached from the health angle. The other camp kept circling back to unease: is it fair to laugh at material rooted in someone’s ongoing illness, and how would another stoma patient feel watching it. A smaller sub-argument surfaced too — some argued the “genius” label does the joke’s heavy lifting, and that stripped of Matsumoto’s delivery and the interviewer’s setup, the line reads as unremarkable text.

    What’s easy to miss reading this from outside Japan: nobody in the thread explains that colostomy patients in Japan are often called “ostomate,” a coined term you won’t find used this way in English, and that toilet paper choice has real practical stakes for ostomates handling stoma-adjacent hygiene — context that reframes the debate as less trivial than it first appears.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Hitoshi Matsumoto Hits Back with a Perfect Comeback to “Single-ply or Double-ply?” — Event Erupts in Laughter.”

  • New Story of Seasons & Rune Factory 6 Footage Drops — 5ch Debates the PS5 Port

    After Marvelous released new footage for its upcoming Story of Seasons title and Rune Factory 6, 5ch lit up with debate over whether a PS5 port even makes sense. Sales figures for the previous entry, Story of Seasons: Let’s! Wind’s Grand Bazaar, were cited — the Switch version sold 95,817 units, while the PS5 version didn’t even chart (under 1,310 units) — and the thread split hard over what upside a PS5 release actually offers.

    2AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:36
    Ah, this one looks PS5-bound.
    8AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:40
    Re: #2
    What?? lol

    Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma
    Switch: 86,223 units

    Port
    PS5: 1,384 units

    Story of Seasons: Let's! Wind's Grand Bazaar
    Switch: 95,817 units

    Port
    PS5: not charted (under 1,310 units)
    13AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:41
    Re: #8
    It's not even the kind of game that sells overseas, and with domestic numbers like these, what's the point of putting it on PlayStation 😭
    88AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:21
    Re: #8
    And people still have the nerve to demand a PS release with numbers like that.
    14AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:41
    It's obvious that if even 5's cheap-looking 3D chugged on that hardware, putting out 6 with more than that would be a disaster.
    It'll probably be built PS5-first and downgraded just enough to barely squeeze onto Switch 2 as a multiplatform release.
    17AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:43
    Re: #14
    You can't even run 5 on PlayStation, so it never had the chance to chug in the first place lol
    30AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:49
    Re: #14
    The noisy minority who nitpick performance are just loud — the rest of them never actually spend any money.
    21AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:46
    There's no way a farming game sells on PlayStation. Wrong audience entirely.

    PlayStation's safest bet is just sticking to games about killing people.
    118AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:07
    Re: #21
    If it's coming to PS5, it'd better go full photorealistic.
    27AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:48
    Actually, did they finally drop Switch 1 support for this one?
    34AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:51
    Re: #27
    Story of Seasons is probably still on it.
    43AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:53
    I feel like they said, back around Wind Bazaar and Guardians of Azuma, that after learning their lesson from Olive Town and Rune Factory 5 they'd stop outsourcing development going forward.
    Quality actually improved because of it and both got reevaluated positively, so I've got high hopes for the next ones too.
    59AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:04
    The teaser has so little info there's nothing much to say.
    "We've been making this for 3 years" just makes me more anxious than excited.
    I didn't even think platform was worth discussing since Switch 2 seemed like the obvious answer, but I guess they never actually confirmed it.

    Re: #43
    No, Guardians of Azuma was developed by Hyde, and Wind Bazaar was Three Rings.
    53AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:01
    Who knows when it'll actually release.
    Even if it ends up multiplatform with PS5, I wonder if they can even manage simultaneous physical releases.
    67AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:09
    Re: #53

    https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/sag_alt-er_/imgs/a/5/a59fdb3a.jpg

    Marvelous revealed in their earnings report that this fiscal year's console lineup is the Muramasa: The Demon Blade remaster plus one more unannounced title.
    So either the new Story of Seasons or Rune Factory 6 should be out by next March.
    75AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:12
    Re: #53
    Whoa… that actually sounds credible.
    The farming game still felt like it had a ways to go, so Rune Factory will probably come out first.
    Good to hear PS5 might actually get a disc release too.
    55AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:02
    Re: #53
    Probably around next summer, I'd guess. Though I think the farming game might come sooner, maybe spring.
    61AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:05
    Re: #55
    Really, that soon? Feels like it'll take 2-3 years.
    58AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:04
    This looks good. Honestly, just drop PS5 already.
    77AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:13
    Re: #58
    Switch is the one that should get dropped. I was already fed up with the insanely long load times on the Switch-first release of 5, and then the later Steam version ran buttery smooth — made me furious realizing I'd been sold the low-spec-adjusted version.
    64AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:07
    Re: #59
    Yeah, sorry, my bad.
    So maybe it's that they stopped outsourcing starting after Wind Bazaar and Guardians of Azuma? Honestly I'm fuzzy on where I even heard that.
    83AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:17
    Re: #64
    I feel like I heard something similar back then too, but Hyde and Three Rings both stayed on as usual,
    so I figure it just meant they'd stop handing everything off wholesale to outside studios.
    Now that I think about it, they did cut Hakama though.
    68AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:10
    Re: #53
    This fiscal year's core lineup only has two console titles, so it'd be Muramasa plus either the new farming game or Rune Factory 6, right?
    81AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:15
    Re: #77
    Bad graphics not selling was already proven by the Steam version of Guardians of Azuma.
    93AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:25
    Re: #81
    I mean, Rune Factory was never going to sell on Steam of all places anyway.
    86AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:19
    Re: #1 included, it's just people on the hardware board (ゲハ) squawking away without even watching the special broadcast — total 'never actually played it' posturing (エアプ).
    90AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:22
    Re: #86
    I watched it. The animal donuts were cute.
    98AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:40
    Wonder if they're dropping Switch 1. Doesn't look completely impossible for it to run, barely.
    99AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:45
    Re: #98
    Releasing on Switch too would sell the most, no contest.
    111AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:57
    Re: #98
    If it just means sacrificing resolution and frame rate, I'd still want a Switch version.
    Showing off how downgraded it looks might even help sell people on Switch 2.
    120AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:14
    Re: #98
    This is Switch 1 quality, honestly.
    101AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:45
    By the way, the Story of Seasons 30th anniversary and Rune Factory 20th anniversary sales are only running on Nintendo platforms, so that tells you everything.
    Also, which farming game would you all recommend?
    108AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:55
    Re: #101
    The most popular one is Three Villages.
    If you're starting now though, I'd go with Wind Bazaar — it's got the free trial running right now, and it's the best-made one of what's available on Switch.
    136AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:07
    Checking out the sale on the older titles — why is 4 cheaper than 3?
    Is 4 priced like a budget 'best' edition just because it's the bad one?
    138AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:09
    The problem with Marvelous's Story of Seasons line is that it's way too Nintendo-focused, with everything else left way behind.
    Steam got left completely untouched and lost to the competition outright.

    Re: #136
    They ported 4 first and 3 later, so the one that came out first (4) is priced lower.
    143AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:22
    Re: #136
    3 came out later and apparently had the budget to redo the graphics.
    4 is just a straight port from the 3DS with obviously no budget put into it — I wish they'd done it the other way around.

    Background and Key Points

    Story of Seasons is Marvelous’s long-running farming-sim franchise (known in Japan as Bokujō Monogatari), localized in the West as “Harvest Moon” by Natsume until a 2014 split sent Marvelous to publish it themselves under a new name. Rune Factory is its 2006-launched spinoff that bolts dungeon-crawling and combat onto the same farming loop. Both series have historically leaned on Nintendo hardware, and the sales figures cited in the thread — Famitsu-tracked Japanese charts, not global totals — show why: Story of Seasons: Let’s! Wind’s Grand Bazaar moved 95,817 units on Switch against under 1,310 on PS5, and Guardians of Azuma saw a similar 86,223-to-1,384 split. 5ch’s Hardware/Industry board (ゲハ) is a notoriously console-partisan space, so skepticism toward any PS5 push was baked in from the start.

    The thread didn’t actually split over whether the numbers were bad — everyone agreed they were. It split over what they mean for a Switch-2-era, likely-multiplatform release: one camp read them as proof a PS5 SKU is dead weight for a niche JRPG-farming hybrid; another countered that the real problem was never PlayStation demand but Switch hardware bottlenecking Story of Seasons 5’s performance, pointing to a smoother Steam port as evidence multiplatform releases are worth doing regardless of Japanese chart position.

    What nobody raises is that these figures are Japan-only physical/digital charts pulled from Famitsu-style tracking — they say nothing about Western digital sales on Steam or PlayStation, where localized farming-sim franchises often perform disproportionately well relative to their domestic footprint, which is the actual commercial case for a port these posters never engage with.

    *This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry (ゲハ)) thread “New footage revealed for “Story of Seasons” and “Rune Factory 6”!“

  • “Who’s Your Master?”: Town Councilman and Family Assault Myanmar Workers at Hokkaido Farm — Groped, Grabbed by the Collar, Beaten with an Iron Bar

    At an agricultural corporation in Kyogoku, Hokkaido, a sitting town councilman and his family are alleged to have repeatedly assaulted and sexually harassed Myanmar workers employed under the “Specified Skilled Worker” visa program. After the labor union that rescued the victims held a press conference, the story sparked a huge reaction on 5ch, with users debating everything from the state of Japan’s foreign worker system to the standing of the alleged perpetrator.

    At an agricultural corporation in Kyogoku, Hokkaido, a sitting town councilman and others are alleged to have repeatedly assaulted, verbally abused, and sexually harassed Myanmar women working under the “Specified Skilled Worker” visa. The labor union protecting the workers, who barely escaped with their lives, held a press conference revealing the harrowing details of the abuse.

    “Specified Skilled” foreign workers allegedly abused — six men and women rescued from Kyogoku farm

    [See this article in pictures for more detail]

    Source: newsdig.tbs.co.jp / Original article here

    28AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:24
    Re: #1
    "If it's hot, take off the raincoat. Drink water. Did you? Did you take the raincoat off? When did you take it off? You probably kept it on right until you got a headache, didn't you."

    Honestly the content of that quote is actually kind of caring lol
    210AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:57
    Re: #28
    Right? Not taking off the raincoat, not drinking water?
    228AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:00
    Re: #28
    He's literally telling them to take heatstroke precautions
    40AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:26
    >I've told you guys this how many times. If it's hot, take off the raincoat. Drink water. Did you? Did you take it off? When did you take it off? You probably kept it on until you got a headache.

    He just sounds like a decent guy
    45AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:27
    Re: #40
    Posting that one line over and over doesn't really prove anything…
    48AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:28
    I watched the footage and heard the audio on the news
    The yelling was bad enough to make me sick to my stomach
    I feel ill
    To think there are Japanese people like this…
    55AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:29
    Re: #48
    That was just normal back in the Showa era lol
    57AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:29
    Japanese people probably did this kind of thing in Burma too
    63AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:32
    Re: #57
    No wonder Kiichi Nakai ended up playing roles like that" (referencing the actor's part in the Burma-set war drama "The Burmese Harp")
    58AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:29
    It keeps saying "father" this, "father" that — but whose father are we even talking about?
    61AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:31
    Re: #58
    There are three "masters," and they're father and sons, so they distinguish them as Master A (the father) and Masters B and C (the sons)
    76AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:35
    This is literally slavery.
    Isn't the UN going to come down on them for this?
    88AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:38
    Re: #76
    Before that, it violates Japan's own Constitution
    115AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:43
    Small-time farms like this should just be shut down — these are exactly the kind of people who want immigrant slaves
    130AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:47
    Isn't this just too low, even by any standard?
    Stories like this have come up before, but Japanese people are seriously trash
    179AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:54
    Re: #130
    Well, there are foreign workers who slack off too.
    Though hitting them with a stick is a bit much.
    189AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:55
    Re: #179
    If you paid Japanese workers a proper wage, they wouldn't slack off either
    191AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:55
    Re: #179
    Doing that to a woman is a bit much though
    Even if she's slacking off, there must be other ways to handle it
    153AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:50
    Hmm
    This is just some rural old guy — foul-mouthed and rough, sure — but isn't he just using "your Japanese master" to mean "boss/employer," to someone who barely understands Japanese?
    They're probably workers who don't listen and slack off
    160AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:51
    Hasn't the town council or the agricultural co-op put out any statement?
    The way everyone closes ranks to protect the local "big shot" (lol) — that solidarity really is something else, Hokkaido
    175AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:53
    If you check X (Twitter), his face and name are already out there
    He should just get arrested at this point
    203AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:56
    Re: #175
    Has anyone actually filed a police report though lol
    Looks like the Sapporo regional labor union is just demanding the agricultural corporation immediately stop the assault and abuse, that's all lol
    177AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:54
    See, it's a "black company" (exploitative employer), right?

    In the end, it's not just the foreigners who are the problem
    There are "people like this" who bring them over in the first place
    Same issue as the zaibatsu and the land reforms GHQ got furious and cracked down on
    Japan's biggest problem is its rich people
    182AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:54
    Immigration authorities go easy on farmers for some reason
    Stop coddling these hick farmers
    205AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:57
    Re: #182
    Same as the Iizuka case (the elderly ex-bureaucrat let off easy after a fatal crash) — they go soft on the elite
    I've been saying all along that they need to build a real system to manage and regulate foreign employers
    but somehow the penalties always get lighter when it's landowners and rich people involved
    209AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:57
    There's no way "coexistence" is actually happening
    Bringing foreigners into Japan in the first place was a mistake
    Sadly, Japanese people do have this tendency to look down on other Asians
    211AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:58
    So this is the LDP system in action then — importing foreigners?
    225AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:59
    Re: #211
    Are you an idiot? lol
    The fact that a labor union is involved means it's a labor law violation lol
    No way a Japanese person would work at a place this messed up, right? lol
    This has nothing to do with the LDP lmao

    Background and Key Points

    The “Specified Skilled Worker” (Tokutei Ginou) visa, created in 2019, lets foreign nationals work in labor-short sectors like agriculture, but workers are still tied to a single employer in ways that echo the older, notoriously abuse-prone Technical Intern Training Program it was meant to supplement. Hokkaido’s dairy and vegetable farms rely heavily on this labor, and Kyogoku is a small rural town where a family running the farm can also hold local political office — the alleged perpetrator is a sitting town councilman, which is why posters kept noting how insulated “local big shots” are from consequences. Labor unions, not the police, are typically the first responders in these cases because isolated foreign workers often don’t know how to reach authorities themselves.

    The thread split over how to read the leaked audio: some posters heard straightforward abuse — the shouting, the collar-grabbing, the iron bar — while others fixated on one relatively benign quote about telling a worker to remove a raincoat and drink water in the heat, arguing it showed the employer wasn’t purely malicious. That disagreement doesn’t square easily with the printed allegations of groping and beatings, which the “he was just doing heatstroke prevention” posters didn’t address.

    What the thread leaves out: as of the union’s press conference, no criminal complaint had been filed — the union was only demanding the company halt the abuse, not seeking arrest, so the “he should be arrested” comments are ahead of any actual legal process. Readers should also know the visa’s employer-tied structure, not individual cruelty alone, is what critics say enables this pattern to recur across Japan’s farms.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread ““Who’s Your Master?”: Town Councilman and Family Assault Myanmar Workers — Groped, Grabbed by the Collar, Beaten with an Iron Bar at Hokkaido Kyogoku Farm.”

  • Jomon Ancestry Gave Us a “Heat-Generating Physique” — But It Raises Obesity Risk Too

    A research team from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Kyushu University, and others has shown that descendants of the Jomon people may have inherited a “heat-generating physique” that lets them raise their body temperature by burning fat, without shivering.

    On 5ch, the finding that people with more Jomon-derived genetic ancestry tend to be more prone to obesity sparked detailed discussion about obesity rates and body types in regions like Hokkaido, Okinawa, and Kagoshima, said to carry stronger Jomon genetic ancestry.

    Research conducted at the University of Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan University, and Kyushu University in Japan has shown that the ancestors of the Jomon people may have evolved a “heat-generating physique” — the ability to burn fat and warm their bodies without shivering — in order to survive the last ice age.

    (details omitted)

    Our bodies have two switches for fighting off the cold.

    Source: nazology.kusuguru.co.jp / Original article here

    7AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:13
    So… what happens once you know that? 🤣
    12AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:15
    Re: #7
    Think for yourself, lol
    15AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:15
    Re: #7
    Dressing light in winter as a diet method — now that's revolutionary
    21AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:17
    Sweaty fat guys are Jomon descendants?

    If that's true, Tohoku, Hokkaido, and Okinawa should be overflowing with fat people, right?
    Rejected.
    139AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:57
    Re: #21
    Actually, obesity rates in Tohoku, Hokkaido, and Okinawa ARE high
    23AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:18
    I don't see many fat people in Hokkaido though
    31AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:19
    Re: #23
    I went to Hokkaido three years ago, and people there seemed less "fat" and more "big-boned." Even the thin ones had sturdy, solid frames.
    26AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:18
    So the pervert who's always stripping naked was right all along
    43AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:23
    Re: #26
    If we're all in this together, maybe we shouldn't be so quick to deny each other's strengths?
    35AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:20
    (;゚Д゚) So does that make skinny me… "Yayoiken" (likely meant "Yayoi lineage" — 弥生系 — probably a typo)?
    49AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:26
    Re: #35
    Baldness is a continental (Yayoi) trait, lol
    46AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:25
    If you skimp on heating in winter, you'll have lost weight by early spring.
    Though it's not exactly a healthy way to diet.
    51AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:27
    So the generally-disliked sweaty fat guys might be the Jomon type.
    Maybe the reason the Jomon lineage got wiped out was some kind of genetic aversion response.
    A gene everyone hates.
    53AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:30
    I see — so I'm not fat, I just have strong Jomon blood
    55AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:31
    Re: #53
    Be careful
    You'll get wiped out
    56AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:31
    Re: #53
    You're still fat either way though, no?
    72AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:41
    The traits everyone hates are probably Jomon characteristics:
    Fat
    Sweaty
    Bald
    Coarse body hair
    Body odor
    Bald
    If any of this sounds like you, brace yourself.
    The Yayoi won't let you escape.
    82AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:48
    Re: #72

    Got some kind of grudge against bald guys?
    85AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:51
    My arm hair is sparse
    Beard only grows around my mouth
    Shovel-shaped teeth
    Normal shin hair
    Flat facial features
    Bald
    High alcohol tolerance
    Curly hair

    Pretty much all Yayoi genes
    117AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:33
    Re: #85
    Same as me, except for the "bald" part.
    Middle-aged guy here, 174cm and about 72kg.
    110AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:23
    So doesn't that mean I could lose weight just by exercising!?
    114AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:27
    You don't need to be a Jomon descendant to figure this out.
    Why burn fat to stay warm?
    If you gather firewood, there's no need to carry extra fat, and no need to deliberately burn it either.
    It's genuinely inefficient.
    There must have been a scenario where this trait was advantageous, which is why the ability survived.
    A scenario where you're forced to stay in a cold place.
    A scenario where you need to consciously raise your body temperature there.
    And without moving your body.
    So what does that body heat actually do?
    It improves physical performance.

    Lying in wait for prey.
    Hunting.

    Re: #110
    Exactly.
    A constitution that gains fat easily and also burns it easily.
    And one more thing —
    muscle builds up just as easily too.
    119AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:35
    This is amazing.
    I wonder if people with high body temperature have more brown fat cells.
    If we could someday inject the genes for more brown fat cells, we'd be all set for the next ice age.
    125AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:41
    Re: #119
    You can't burn calories you never ate.
    What you'd actually want for the next ice age is someone who can stay warm through the power of civilization without burning fat —
    a low-calorie, eco-friendly human who can survive on scarce food.
    That might not be the Jomon people.
    It might be you.
    120AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:37
    Jomon bodies are surprisingly tough.
    They wouldn't even collapse under conditions that would normally cause death from overwork.
    But they can't defy the laws of physics.
    The payback for that toughness — for all the strain put on the body — always comes due later in life.
    Jomon people perform best living "short and intense."
    Sprinters of life.
    172AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:34
    Re: #120
    To begin with, the short lifespan of Jomon people wasn't purely a physical issue
    141AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:00
    So does that mean I can lose weight by just blasting the AC?
    145AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:18
    Re: #141

    (°∀°) Skip dinner and you'll slim right down. What's the point of eating right before bed? Though personally I still eat and drink booze anyway.

    (°∀°)つ Black oolong tea
    (/◎＼) *glug glug*
    148AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:21
    Why are there so many overweight people in Hawaii?
    171AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:13
    Re: #148
    Well, not just Hawaii — people living on Pacific island nations could catch plenty of fish, so they got animal protein easily.
    On the other hand, sugary fruit was scarce, so genes efficient at absorbing what little sugar there was survived and spread.

    …But once modern society brought in lots of sugary food, that same genetic efficiency meant they absorbed too much sugar,
    making them prone to weight gain, apparently. Same goes for Japanese people — basically, human food environments have changed drastically in a short span of time,
    and it feels like our bodies and genes just haven't caught up.
    149AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:28
    People from Honshu outside Tohoku only carry about 10% Jomon genes, so it's not that relevant.

    Now that you mention it, people from Kagoshima and Okinawa, where Jomon ancestry is strong, do tend to be sturdy and a bit stocky.
    200AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:35
    Re: #149
    By Y-haplogroup it's actually 40%.
    Trying to downplay indigenous genetic ancestry
    is a form of discrimination against indigenous peoples —
    and that includes denying your own ancestors.
    168AnonymousAug 24, 2026 22:55
    Published in Nature on November 12, 2024 — BioBank Japan (BBJ) genome analysis of Japanese people by region (171,287 individuals)


    The study found that a "triple structure" broadly applies to the genetic origins of modern Japanese people, with the proportion of Jomon ancestry varying significantly by region and individual.
    The proportion of Jomon ancestry strongly correlated with modern obesity risk and elevated BMI.

    Within the Ryukyu Islands (26.1%), Jomon ancestry levels are elevated, with the highest proportion observed on Yoron Island (Figure 2b).
    It's even higher in the Hokkaido subpopulation (mixed Ainu) at 31.6% (Figure 2c), a subpopulation drawn mainly from a subset of 139 individuals from Hokkaido.
    The Kinki region shows a relatively low level of Jomon ancestry (9.8%). This reflects the region's long-standing role as a political center, suggesting more frequent interaction with people arriving from the Asian continent than in other regions.
    177AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:04
    But in winter, Westerners seem oddly prone to dressing lightly, don't they?
    181AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:14
    Re: #177
    In cities, winters are often hot indoors because of the heating.
    Even I often feel like stripping down to just a T-shirt on the subway.
    179AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:12
    > As for Europe, it's a mere 8%.

    Even the Europeans like Erik the Red who reached Greenland
    ultimately failed to establish a lasting settlement there.
    It's Danish territory now, but
    90% of the population is Inuit, with very few white people.
    But the Inuit — or Eskimo, whatever you call them — being a people closely related to us, are incredibly resistant to cold.
    Well, even Hokkaido was something Japanese people avoided; serious settlement there didn't really start until the Meiji era, lol
    180AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:14
    Re: #179
    It's less that Honshu people "disliked" Hokkaido, and more that it was remote, already had indigenous people living there, and was too cold for farming to be practical, no?

    Background and Key Points

    Japan’s population genetics has long rested on the “dual structure” model proposed in the 1990s: Jomon hunter-gatherers, present in the archipelago from roughly 16,000 to 3,000 years ago, mixed with Yayoi-period rice farmers who arrived from the continent starting around the 3rd century BCE, and modern Japanese are a blend of the two. The BioBank Japan analysis cited in the thread (Nature, November 2024, 171,287 individuals) refined this into a “triple structure” and, crucially, quantified regional variation: Jomon ancestry runs around 26% in the Ryukyus, over 31% in the Hokkaido subpopulation, but only about 10% in Kinki, the historic seat of government where continental contact was heaviest. The physiological claim — that Jomon-associated variants support non-shivering thermogenesis, burning fat via brown adipose tissue rather than shivering — is presented as an ice-age cold-adaptation, with the tradeoff being higher modern obesity/BMI risk, a “thrifty gene” pattern similar to what’s documented in Pacific Islander and Inuit populations.

    The thread’s actual disagreement wasn’t over the genetics but over lived observation: posters initially doubted the obesity link because Hokkaido “doesn’t look full of fat people,” only for others to push back with actual regional obesity-rate data supporting the correlation, and a separate dispute over whether Jomon ancestry in Honshu is ~10% (autosomal) or ~40% (Y-haplogroup) — different methods measuring different things, a distinction no one in the thread actually resolved.

    What’s likely misunderstood: “Jomon ancestry” here is a statistical genome-wide component, not an ethnic or indigenous identity marker, and the thread’s casual Jomon/Yayoi physical stereotyping (baldness, body odor, sturdiness) has no basis in the actual study, which only ties ancestry proportion to obesity/BMI risk.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Study] Jomon People Could Burn Fat to Warm Their Bodies — a “Heat-Generating Physique”; The More Jomon Genetic Ancestry a Person Has, the More Prone to Obesity They Tend to Be“.

  • Summer Dramas Flop With 2% Ratings Across the Board — Not Even Yuki Uchida or a GTO Revival Can Save Fuji TV

    Fuji TV’s summer dramas have all sunk to ratings in the 2% range, with even a drama starring Yuki Uchida and the revival of “GTO” failing to turn the numbers around, according to reports.

    On 5channel, users debated the reasons behind the ongoing exodus from television, how today’s drama production compares in quality to the hits of years past, and the culture within Fuji TV itself.

    Summer dramas all flop — Fuji TV’s crisis that even 50-something beauty Yuki Uchida or a GTO revival can’t save

    You can practically hear the death throes echoing out of Odaiba.

    Fuji TV’s dismal state is the talk of every network’s programming and production circles. It’s been a year and a half since the Nakai Masahiro scandal, and at Fuji Media Holdings’ shareholder meeting this past June, the company had just announced improved earnings…

    Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

    2AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:29
    Because nobody watches TV anymore.
    4AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:29
    Re: #2
    Exactly this.
    Especially young people.
    12AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:32
    Re: #2
    Lol, morons who brag about not watching TV but are still obsessed with everything TV-related.
    13AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:32
    The Wednesday 10pm slot's "Tokyo Middle 30"

    Has been #1 overall on TVer for 5 weeks straight

    TVer Overall Ranking #1
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HN6vv92akAAQAk7.jpg

    @TVer_official
    Thu 7/30 #TVerDailyRanking

    🥇 #TokyoMidosa (nickname for "Tokyo Middle 30")
    🥈 #WednesdayDowntown
    🥉 #VIVANT
    4⃣ #FirstCry
    5⃣ #GreatChase
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HOhmvjvaMAAiQEU.png
    19AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:33
    Episode 3
    TVer Ranking
    #1 Overall
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPCfY0FaoAA1A9f.jpg

    #1 overall, baby!

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPml2YUa8AEyK8K.jpg
    20AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:33
    Re: #4
    Middle-aged and older viewers are drifting away from TV hard too these days.
    They probably cast Yuki Uchida as the lead betting her generation would still watch terrestrial dramas, but that bet totally missed.
    23AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:34
    The Taiga historical drama and the Sunday Theater slot are the only "national dramas" left. Everything else is garbage.
    34AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:37
    Re: #23
    Isn't the morning drama (asadora) doing better than the Taiga?
    This season too — the Toyotomi-themed Taiga < "Kaze Kaoru" (the asadora).
    29AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:35
    The damages claim against Nakai is going to be massive, isn't it.
    143AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:03
    Re: #29
    I doubt they can actually collect money from Nakai, but he'll go down in history as the guy who took down a media giant like Fuji TV with a single act of sexual violence.
    153AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:07
    Re: #29
    Sounds like [former] president Minato and other execs are the ones being billed 5 billion yen by Fuji TV. Kind of makes you wish they'd gone after Nakai instead.
    33AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:37
    GTO ended up just pandering to kids — Onizuka lost his cunning, his lechery, his wild unpredictability, basically everything that made him him. It perfectly symbolizes the times: they caved to a tiny handful of people making dumb complaints, and as a result the vast majority just gave up and stopped watching.
    42AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:38
    Re: #33
    I think [screenwriter] Yukawa did write it well, but honestly I wanted Onizuka to go full wrecking ball on the "school" itself lol. It's a drama — you can go as crazy as you want.
    78AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:47
    Re: #33
    The '98 version had Onizuka's wild side, and the student cast was on a whole different level compared to now. The source material, script, and direction all came together, and that's how it hit over 30% ratings at its peak.
    40AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:38
    Same with Yuji Oda in Bayside Shakedown — isn't it weird they think they can still win with basically the same cast lineup from over 20 years ago? I'd get it if middle-aged and older viewers still loved it, but that generation's stopped watching TV too.
    52AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:40
    Re: #40
    And on top of that, they shot themselves in the foot with the Jiro Sato scandal.
    81AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:47
    Re: #40
    Apparently [writer] Osamu Suzuki came up with the "101st Proposal" sequel after watching Top Gun — GTO's probably the same kind of thing.
    46AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:38
    Wasn't Fuji TV (mockingly nicknamed "Uji TV" by posters) President Shimizu supposed to be putting effort into anime? Did the incompetent old-guard drama/variety producers stage a comeback and kill that off?
    104AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:54
    Re: #46
    And yet there's still no anime in primetime.
    59AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:42
    They already flopped with the Shomuni revival.
    69AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:44
    Re: #59
    The "Men Who Can't Get Married" sequel also ended in disaster…
    Though reviving old shows isn't inherently a bad move.

    After all, the Dragon Zakura sequel — another Hiroshi Abe drama — was a hit.
    74AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:46
    Re: #69
    Both "Men Who Can't Get Married" and Dragon Zakura were good though.
    63AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:42
    The only way out of this mess is to make a drama starring Takuya Kimura for the male lead and Yui Aragaki for the female lead!
    89AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:50
    Re: #63
    That reminds me, I want to see Sakai's Legal High again. Give us season 3 already.
    64AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:43
    Sankei Shimbun is pulling out of the Tohoku region, and Sankei Building is being sold off. They say they're focusing on the media business, but moves like this don't exactly show it.
    68AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:44
    Re: #64
    Sankei Shimbun is still hanging in there in Okinawa, but it's not contributing to profits.
    70AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:45
    This is the result of them getting cocky with "if it's not fun, it's not TV." Go back to the spirit of coughing up blood to make content — that's what TV should be.
    77AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:47
    Re: #70
    Back in the "if it's not fun" era it actually was fun. At some point TV as a whole just became boring.
    82AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:47
    Who would've counted as the "50-somethings" back when today's 50-year-olds were students? Mari Kaga and that crowd, maybe?
    90AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:50
    Re: #82
    Nah, for me it'd be Kaoru Yachigusa for actresses and Ken Takakura for actors.
    85AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:49
    They probably figured a GTO revival would pull in ratings. Wake up — the whole premise is out of touch. Nobody out there actually cares about sequels to old dramas.
    105AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:54
    Re: #85
    Korean and Chinese dramas just look more beautiful. Japanese dramas are so gloomy and dark they're hard to watch.
    101AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:54
    TV and games both feel like they've stopped thinking. All they care about is making money without spending any, and that's exactly why it's boring. To start with, the people making it don't even find it fun themselves. Nobody knows what'll sell anymore, so they just flail around and lose the ability to make something they'd genuinely enjoy — which means they can't justify spending money on it either.
    118AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:57
    Re: #101
    Nobody knew what would sell back then either. It's just that everyone's become the type to shoot ideas down immediately, so they've lost the ability to make something they actually believe in.
    122AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:58
    Re: #101
    The core of the production side genuinely thinks they're overflowing with talent and making incredibly interesting stuff. You can tell they're deluded if you saw the video the screenwriters posted and quickly deleted during the "Sexy Tanaka-san" controversy.

    Background and Key Points

    Fuji TV has been in freefall since January 2025, when a scandal involving star host Nakai Masahiro—accused of a sexual assault the network was later found to have known about and mishandled—triggered advertiser boycotts, a management shakeup, and the resignation of president Koichi Minato. In Japan, terrestrial drama ratings are household viewership percentages tracked by Video Research; a 2% rating for a primetime drama is a historic low, especially for a network that once dominated the 1990s-2000s “trendy drama” era. GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka), the 1998 series about a delinquent-turned-teacher, was a cultural phenomenon that hit over 30% ratings at its peak, making its revival a symbolic test of whether Fuji can still produce a hit.

    The thread’s real fault line isn’t “is TV dying”—posters mostly agree it is—but whether the failure is structural (audiences fleeing to streaming/TVer, an aging fanbase that no longer watches broadcast) or self-inflicted (a sanitized, toothless GTO reboot, recycled 20-year-old franchises like Bayside Shakedown, and a production culture posters accuse of self-satisfied complacency, referencing a leaked video from writers during an unrelated scriptwriter controversy).

    What outsiders likely miss is TVer, Japan’s free ad-supported catch-up streaming platform: several of these “flop” dramas are actually topping TVer’s daily rankings, meaning viewership hasn’t vanished so much as migrated off the household-ratings metric entirely—a nuance the posters raise but the headline obscures. Also unmentioned in the thread is that Fuji’s parent, Fuji Media Holdings, is separately dealing with real-estate divestitures (Sankei Building) unrelated to the drama slump, muddying how much of the crisis is content versus corporate.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[TV] Ratings in the 2% range everywhere… Summer dramas all flop — Fuji TV’s crisis that even 50-something “Yuki Uchida”‘s beauty or the “GTO” revival can’t save“.

  • ‘Yani Neko’ Yanked From Overseas Streaming as Smoking Scenes Draw Backlash

    The anime ‘Yani Neko’ (“Nicotine Cat”) has come under fire for its smoking scenes, and following Hong Kong, it has now been pulled from streaming in Taiwan as well. On the thread, some pushed back with “Does anyone actually watch that and want to smoke?”, while the discussion branched out into mentions of other Kodansha titles and comparisons to the overseas version of ‘One Piece,’ where Zoro and Sanji’s smoking scenes were swapped out for candy.

    Following Hong Kong, Now Taiwan Too… ‘Yani Neko’ Pulled From Streaming Overseas, One After Another — Some Call It Tobacco Advertising, “Basically an Anti-Smoking Teaching Aid,” Say Those Demanding a Retraction

    It has come to light that the TV anime ‘Yani Neko,’ which has been airing in Japan since July 2026, has had its streaming halted in Taiwan — following Hong Kong — over concerns about its smoking depictions.

    After local streaming services pulled the show, local fans and creators’ groups have raised voices of protest, calling for the decision to be reversed.

    Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

    3AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:47
    Watching Showa-retro exploration videos on YouTube beats watching Peace-kun from Omiya Park any day (Peace-kun is a local mascot animal at the park).
    5AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:50
    Does anyone actually watch that and want to smoke?
    Now if it were a full-on "yani" video (a smoking-fetish genre), sure, I'd get it.
    35AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:02
    Re: #5
    I decided I'm gonna start smoking, so I picked out a brand with a cool-looking pack.
    Now I just have to actually go buy it.

    By the way, here's the design I went with:


    Making my smoking debut at 48.
    73AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:17
    Re: #35
    Don't do it.

    Tobacco chronically damages your body and mental function through nicotine dependence.

    Physical effects
    * Higher cancer risk: raises the risk of cancer throughout the body — the lungs, plus the mouth, esophagus, stomach, bladder, and more.
    * Cardiovascular damage: blood vessel constriction and progressing arteriosclerosis sharply raise the risk of heart attack and stroke.
    * Destroyed lung function: COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), which destroys the alveoli, causes irreversible breathing difficulty.

    Mental effects
    * Nicotine dependence and rising stress: the brain's reward system gets rewired, and the irritability and anxiety of nicotine withdrawal turn everyday stress chronic.
    * Worsening mental health: imbalanced brain neurotransmitters raise the risk of depression and anxiety disorders.
    * Sleep trouble and emotional instability: the strong stimulant effect degrades sleep quality and affects the brain, cutting into emotional control and concentration.
    83AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:21
    Re: #35
    Doesn't Thailand put graphic lung cancer photos right on the cigarette packs?
    6AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:50
    Whether stuff like this should be banned
    or not banned —
    opinions are probably going to be split on that.
    7AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:50
    Is there really anyone who watches that anime and wants to start smoking? lol
    9AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:52
    It's probably more because it's peddling creepy fan-service than because of the smoking.
    11AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:52
    One Piece is fine though, right?
    70AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:16
    Re: #11
    That's because in the overseas version they're holding something else in their mouth.
    152AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:16
    Re: #11
    I heard Sanji got swapped out for a lollipop.
    12AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:52
    They knew full well this would blow up and made it into an anime anyway —
    Kodansha's playing it pretty cheap.
    13AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:52
    Proof that people still think 'anime' automatically means 'for kids.'
    14AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:52
    A powerful endorsement

    156AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:22
    Re: #14
    An endorsement from a minor… that's an awkward one to comment on.
    18AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:55
    Mii-chan

    Yakuza ("893"), host clubs, meth, bullying the disabled, getting dragged into sex work by a host…

    …isn't that pretty messed up?
    141AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:00
    Re: #18
    That's Cool Japan for you.
    19AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:56
    They should've just gone with Mii-chan instead.
    80AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:20
    Re: #19
    Turns out neither one was okay.
    20AnonymousAug 24, 2026 23:56
    In the US version of One Piece, Zoro's shown sucking on candy.
    112AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:40
    Re: #20
    That's Sanji you're thinking of. (´･ω･｀)
    29AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:00
    This one skates by on a technicality because the character's a cat-girl, but if you just made her an old guy, it'd be a pretty unpleasant anime.
    81AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:21
    Re: #29
    There's a manga called 'Agonashi Gen to Ore Monogatari' (lit. "Chinless Gen and My Story") that's like that — give it a read.
    43AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:08
    What kind of manga even is this?
    Just one where anthropomorphized characters sit around smoking cigarettes?
    64AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:13
    Re: #43
    It's a manga and anime that includes a story where a guy ends up having to step outside his apartment while still, uh, inserted in a love doll, and gets helped out by a female neighbor.
    46AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:09
    This one's Kodansha too, huh.
    That's strike two.
    74AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:18
    Re: #46
    By the way, the new title Kodansha's pushing right now is 'Gyakukou no Kuru-chan' (a title blending "abuse" and "happiness").
    This one will probably get its own wave of "isn't this a problem" voices eventually too, with an anime adaptation not out of the question.

    'Gyakukou no Kuru-chan,' a mother-daughter story depicting abuse that's invisible to those living through it
    https://ddnavi.com/article/1370973/a/
    48AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:09
    The people who piled on over their 'Mii-chan' and 'Yamada-san' allergies, whipping up something close to a boycott campaign, must be pretty confused too —
    they never imagined something they actually like would get the same treatment.
    55AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:12
    Re: #48
    Honestly, I think this one was a no-go from the start.
    Reason's in Re: #49.

    Something like Umaru-chan getting hopped up on potato chips and cola was about the line for what could get an anime adaptation —
    at that level nobody gets hurt, so it was fine.
    98AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:30
    Meanwhile some old guy smoking behind the supermarket gets a total pass.
    Talk about discriminating against a work of fiction.
    157AnonymousAug 25, 2026 01:24
    Re: #98
    Does "behind the supermarket" get streamed overseas too?
    113AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:41
    Honestly, that show doesn't need to worry about going overseas.
    So just do whatever you want with it.
    116AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:45
    Re: #113
    Well, the production side probably saw this coming — I mean, the drug stuff in it is just as bad lol.
    Actually, I kind of wonder how they ever figured they could stream the non-smoking content either…
    120AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:48
    Re: #113
    It's fine for grown men to watch.
    At this point nobody thinks it looks cool or that it shows some deep understanding of freedom and fun anymore.

    But kids are different.
    117AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:46
    I get that smoking's bad for you, so it's an issue.
    But isn't violence and killing worse for you?
    There's tons of gory stuff like that in both live-action and anime.
    122AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:51
    Re: #117
    Violence isn't addictive, doesn't cause health damage, and isn't a business model or a form of brainwashing.
    The kind of "bad influence" is just different to begin with.
    131AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:55
    One Piece has way too many smoking characters too — they're even smoking in the middle of battles, round the clock. Are they idiots?
    134AnonymousAug 25, 2026 00:57
    Re: #131
    Think about the era and setting it's based on…

    Background and Key Points

    Background readers need: ‘Yani Neko’ (“Nicotine Cat”) is a Kodansha manga adaptation that began airing in Japan in July 2026, centered on cat characters who smoke. In Japan itself, depicting smoking in fiction is essentially unregulated — there is no equivalent of the FCC content codes or EU advertising directives applied to anime. The pulls in Hong Kong and then Taiwan are not Japanese censorship; they are foreign streaming platforms responding to their own, much stricter tobacco-control law. Hong Kong’s Smoking (Public Health) Ordinance and Taiwan’s Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act both restrict depictions that could function as tobacco promotion in media, and platforms there routinely pull or edit content rather than risk liability — the same legal environment that historically led U.S. syndicators (in the 2000s 4Kids dub, not the current official release) to redraw Sanji’s cigarette as a lollipop in ‘One Piece,’ the comparison posters keep reaching for.

    What the thread actually splits on is not “is smoking bad” but whether fictional depiction causes real harm at all: posters like >>117 and >>122 argue over whether smoking imagery deserves this treatment when violence, far more common in anime, goes unregulated — the counterargument being that violence isn’t addictive or a marketed product, while tobacco depiction arguably functions as informal advertising for a real, purchasable good.

    What’s likely misunderstood: this isn’t a story about Japan banning the show — Japan’s broadcast and streaming continue unaffected. It’s a jurisdictional mismatch between Japan’s permissive content norms and its neighbors’ strict, ad-law-driven media regulation, with Kodansha caught in a second controversy after the unrelated ‘Mii-chan’ backlash referenced in the thread.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “[Anime] ‘Yani Neko’ Pulled From Overseas Streaming, One After Another… Following Hong Kong, Taiwan Cancels Too — Some Call It Tobacco Advertising, “Basically an Anti-Smoking Teaching Aid,” Say Those Demanding a Retraction.”

  • Stellar Blade Switch 2 Version: Reactions to New Footage Over Graphics and Mods

    New footage believed to show the Switch 2 version of the PS5 action game “Stellar Blade” was released, sparking discussion on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry board (Geha).

    While some pointed out degraded graphics, others noted that since the game had already been shown running on UMPCs (handheld gaming PCs), a port had been expected. The thread also covered the restrictions on costume mods, the backstory of the PlayStation exclusivity deal, and comparisons with how other companies have handled similar ports.

    Quality looks great

    Source: youtu.be / Original article here

    2AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:13
    Bet the frame rate's choppy again like COD, really showing off that low-end performance lol
    3AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:13
    Re: #2
    Glad to see you sounding so bitter about it
    91AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:58
    Re: #2
    Oh, you mean the PS5 version of GTA6!
    4AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:16
    Since it already ran on UMPCs (handheld gaming PCs), I figured a Switch 2 version was coming
    54AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:09
    Re: #4
    UMPCs range wildly in quality, from top-tier to bottom-of-the-barrel
    5AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:20
    A downgraded version that can't even use mods
    32AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:52
    Re: #5
    Even though Shift Up (the developer) basically egged fans on about costume mods, the sad truth is the only mods that showed up were lower quality than the outfits already in the game
    17AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:38
    Re: #8
    Why'd you suddenly bring up PlayStation out of nowhere?

    22AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:41
    Is this actually happening?
    I thought it was just a joke from Shift Up
    23AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:43
    Re: #22
    https://www.4gamer.net/games/035/G103535/20260821055/index_2.html
    There's an official press release out too, so it's not a joke
    37AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:55
    It's all crackly and frizzled looking lol
    41AnonymousAug 24, 2026 19:59
    Re: #37
    Thought this was the Raven boss fight, but it's the Great Desert.
    Still, everything just turns to dust here huh lol
    45AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:01
    Re: #37
    That's every single flaw of DLSS on full display
    53AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:06
    Re: #37
    Wait, no, this is the Wasteland.
    The Great Desert is where that final boss, Adam, drops his suggestive hints
    55AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:10
    It's not necessarily the Switch 2 version. Promo footage can be faked
    57AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:11
    Re: #55
    No way they'd pull a stunt like that, that's more of a Sony move
    72AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:43
    Re: #69
    That super-degraded, garbage leftovers of a Switch 2 version won't even sell a tenth of the PS version cumulatively, digital included

    https://imgur.com/SPDLqbM.jpeg
    https://imgur.com/z0wB22U.jpeg
    83AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:54
    Re: #72
    The later-released PS5 version won't outsell the Switch 2 version either, you know. There's hardly ever a game that sells well as a late port, right?
    78AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:49
    Nobody said it'd outsell the PS5, but you're going off on your own — kinda funny lol
    82AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:54
    Has any late-ported game ever actually sold well on PS5? lol
    89AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:56
    Re: #82
    Nope, doesn't exist
    90AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:57
    If you get this worked up over something like this, you won't last.
    There's bound to be more games dropping PlayStation exclusivity going forward too
    92AnonymousAug 24, 2026 20:59
    Re: #90
    If Chinese/Korean mobile games ever dropped PlayStation exclusivity, people would really lose it
    96AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:00
    Re: #92
    Wasn't there already a leak about a Switch 2 version of Genshin Impact or something?
    No idea when it'll actually come out though
    104AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:22
    Re: #92
    A mobile game 'dropping PlayStation exclusivity' doesn't even make sense — it was never PS-exclusive to begin with
    98AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:02
    Feels like pretty much every PS5 game is ending up on the Switch 2 these days 😁
    99AnonymousAug 24, 2026 21:05
    Re: #98
    Even FF7 Revelation and Kingdom Hearts 4 are coming out on it, so there's probably no game that truly can't be ported.
    If a game isn't coming, it's just out of deference to PlayStation

    Background and Key Points

    Stellar Blade runs on Shift Up’s own engine and had been a PS5 console exclusive since its 2024 launch, a deal that made it one of the higher-profile “PlayStation exclusivity” titles when Sony was actively courting console-selling third-party partners. Switch 2 launched in mid-2026 as Nintendo’s successor to the Switch, built around Nvidia hardware capable of running scaled-down current-gen titles, and it has already pulled in ports of other formerly PS-exclusive or PS-associated games; Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Kingdom Hearts titles are cited in the thread as further examples of that trend. Shift Up had also promoted the PC version’s costume mod support as a selling point, which matters here because mod availability (or its absence) became a specific point of comparison for the console port.

    The thread doesn’t split on whether a port makes sense — most posters treat that as inevitable given the game’s prior UMPC (Windows handheld) showings — but on whether the footage shown is a fair or damning representation of it, with disagreement over whether visible artifacting is genuine DLSS-upscaling degradation or just compression from the promo video itself, and separately, sniping over whether a downgraded Switch 2 version could still outsell, or undersell, a PS5 release.

    What’s likely to get lost on readers unfamiliar with the Japanese gaming press: Shift Up is a South Korean studio, not Japanese, and “PlayStation exclusivity” for a multiplatform-minded developer like this is typically a marketing/timed arrangement rather than an ironclad technical lock-in, which is why posters treat these drops as unsurprising rather than newsworthy. Also unaddressed in the thread: no release date or price for the Switch 2 version was confirmed, only that a press release exists.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “Switch 2 Stellar Blade new footage released.”