Category: Society

  • Saudi Oil Pipeline Halted After Attacks — 5ch: “The US Has Zero Intention of Defending Us”

    Saudi Arabia’s crude oil pipeline was hit by multiple attacks on September 10, leaving casualties and prompting a precautionary shutdown. The pipeline had been growing in importance as an alternate route bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively blockaded by Iran — but the other detour, the area around the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, is controlled by the pro-Iran Houthi militia, and reports say President Trump turned down a Saudi request to strike the Houthis. On 5ch, users traded doubts about whether the US really intends to defend its ally Saudi Arabia, along with theories on why Saudi Arabia hasn’t simply retaliated.

    [Cairo, Kyodo] Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy announced on the 11th that the crude oil pipeline running east-west across the country had been hit by multiple attacks and was being shut down as a “precautionary measure.” The attack occurred on the morning of the 10th and left several people injured. The pipeline had been gaining importance as an alternate route to the Strait of Hormuz, which remains effectively blockaded by Iran.

    Meanwhile, the US news site Axios reported on the 11th that President Trump had, on the 10th, turned down a Saudi request to strike Yemen’s pro-Iran Houthi militia, which controls the area around the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait oil transport route. The US reportedly has no intention of intervening directly, wanting to keep its focus on the Iran situation, though American officials indicated they would offer intelligence on the Houthis and help with target selection.

    The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait has become an alternate oil export route to the Strait of Hormuz. According to Middle Eastern media, the Houthis control strategic islands in the strait as well as port cities along the Red Sea coast, and fighting with forces of Yemen’s transitional government is believed to be ongoing.

    Source: 47news.jp / Original article here

    3AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:10
    Iran, don't go doing anything that'd make America happy.
    6AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:11
    Re: #3
    It's the Houthis who are at odds with Saudi Arabia.
    216AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:58
    Re: #3
    Hint: the midterm elections.
    59AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:27
    I asked Gemini and it says Monday's just gonna be a "Monday" (a nonsense, circular non-answer).
    193AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:53
    Re: #59
    That's not gonna happen…
    The Dow and Nasdaq are both up 1%,
    it's not dropping — don't you even check the futures?
    Oil's down sharply too.
    What kind of prompt did you even use lol

    68AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:28
    Seems like Trump has zero intention of defending Saudi Arabia even though his ally keeps getting hammered.


    Trump rejects Saudi crown prince's request to strike the Houthis: Axios
    September 12, 2026
    https://www.afpbb.com/articles/amp/3652593
    98AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:34
    Re: #68
    Guess the petrodollar's collapsing too, huh.
    128AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:40
    Re: #68
    If that's the case, there's no point stationing US troops in Saudi Arabia.
    Dubai — popular with flashy influencers and criminals alike — is in trouble too.
    Japan pays over 200 billion yen a year for US forces stationed here, but with Trump, he might just ignore a request to fight back too.
    104AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:35
    Apparently electricity bills have jumped about 30% in pretty much every country since the Russia-Ukraine war started.
    Wouldn't be surprised if regulations telling us not to use so much electricity show up eventually too.
    140AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:42
    Re: #104
    Wonder what's gonna happen to all these power-guzzling AIs.
    143AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:42
    Re: #104
    Even so, AI's resource-guzzling isn't slowing down — if anything, it's accelerating like crazy.
    160AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:47
    America was way too naive thinking it could just fire some missiles, assassinate the leader, and call it done.
    174AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:50
    Re: #160
    >America was way too naive thinking it could just fire some missiles, assassinate the leader, and call it done.

    "Kill the leader and it's over" → reality: negotiations got harder

    "Destroy the country and it's over" → reality: it went full guerrilla, leaving no room to negotiate

    This is exactly how it plays out
    as long as you've got a weak point like vast oil facilities and pipelines.
    205AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:55
    Re: #160
    Same with Putin — dictators don't even trust their own advisors, so they barrel down the wrong path anyway.
    The CIA warned them off a preemptive strike on Iran, and they went and did it anyway.
    206AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:55
    Re: #160
    The CIA and Mossad teaming up to try to trigger regime change through protests in Iran failed too lol

    And with America bombing elementary schools and weddings,
    it's actually just strengthening unity inside Iran.
    166AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:49
    Whoa, there's only one of these and it just got hit — that's gotta hurt.
    Is the UAE's Fujairah port okay?
    179AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:51
    Re: #166
    Come to think of it, why is there only one line?
    They should've built multiple lines plus a backup.
    It's not like they're broke like Japan lol
    189AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:52
    Re: #179
    I'll bet on "never saw this coming" lol
    194AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:53
    Re: #179
    They probably figured not cooperating with America meant they wouldn't get attacked lol
    187AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:52
    Here's hoping for a massive stock market crash.
    239AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:03
    Re: #187
    Like I said, forget a crash — Monday's gonna bounce back.
    Kioxia's ADR isn't great so a huge surge seems unlikely,
    but with SOX up +1.81%, semiconductor stocks will rally
    even if Kioxia is shaky.
    Do people even bother checking anything…

    263AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:08
    This is clearly turning into a quagmire no matter how you look at it.
    Just have America and Israel surrender already, let them collect a toll, and get this over with.
    270AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:09
    Re: #263
    There's no way Trump's gonna say sorry.
    282AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:11
    Re: #263
    There's not even a 1% chance of America surrendering.
    266AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:09
    Maybe this is like a sparkler burning brightest right before it goes out.
    Trump's saying Iran seems to be planning to hold off on ceasefire negotiations until after the US midterm elections.
    275AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:10
    Re: #266
    >Trump's saying Iran seems to be planning to hold off on ceasefire negotiations until after the US midterm elections.

    Has Trump's read on the fighting with Iran ever actually been right?
    295AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:13
    Saudi Arabia's got some patience — taking this much and still not snapping.
    308AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:15
    Re: #295
    They're the custodians of Mecca, so if they crack down hard within the Islamic world, it just hands people an excuse to brand them a traitor and attack them.
    309AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:15
    Re: #295
    If they went to full-scale war, their own citizens and royal family would die.
    A lot of Saudi air force pilots are princes — it's also a way to prevent a coup.
    315AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:17
    Re: #295
    Saudi Arabia's got money but they're weak in actual combat.
    They've been at war with the Houthis for over 10 years now and still can't win.

    Background and Key Points of Debate

    The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a strategic chokepoint linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, is considered a lifeline for oil transport on par with the Strait of Hormuz. In recent years, Yemen’s pro-Iran Houthi militia has seized control of coastal areas and nearby islands and repeatedly attacked passing ships, and this pipeline attack is believed to be an extension of that pattern. As custodian of Islam’s holy sites of Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia has little choice but to act cautiously in its foreign military actions, and despite pouring enormous sums into defense spending, it has failed to secure a decisive victory over the Houthis in more than a decade of fighting. While the thread debated whether the US should get involved and the design flaw of relying on a single pipeline, it’s worth noting that posts about Japan’s auto industry or Chinese EVs were unrelated tangents with no factual bearing on this news.

    *This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “Saudi crude oil pipeline shut down — alternate strait route hit by multiple attacks.”

  • Over 200 Bullet Train Passengers Left Stranded After Nagaoka Fireworks — JR Had Flagged the Risk Back in February

    After the Nagaoka Festival’s Grand Fireworks Display held on August 2 in Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture, more than 200 passengers were unable to board the last Joetsu Shinkansen non-reserved-seat train bound for Tokyo. Reporting by the Niigata Nippo has revealed that JR East had already voiced concerns back in February about the proposed changes to the festival’s program, warning there was “a risk some people won’t be able to board.” JR East reportedly asked the Nagaoka Fireworks Foundation to reconsider, but the request went unheeded. On 5ch, opinions were split over whether the Foundation had given adequate advance notice, and over the rule preventing Shinkansen trains from running after midnight.

    9/12 (Sat) 11:30 JST

    Niigata Nippo

    Regarding the issue in which large numbers of visitors were unable to board the last Tokyo-bound Joetsu Shinkansen non-reserved-seat train after the Nagaoka Festival’s Grand Fireworks Display held in Nagaoka City on August 2, it has been learned — through reporting by the Niigata Nippo, as of the 12th — that JR East had already expressed reluctance in late February, when shown the proposed program changes, warning that “there is a concern people will be unable to board the last train.” JR East reportedly asked the organizing Nagaoka Fireworks Foundation to reconsider, but says its request was not accepted.

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

    2AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:27
    Re: #1
    http://xxup.org/Ved51.png
    4AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:28
    Taking the bullet train just to see fireworks?
    That's just dumb
    7AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:29
    Re: #4
    Everyone spends their money differently
    58AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:44
    Re: #4
    Maybe you don't know this, but
    it's a fireworks show worth taking the bullet train for
    77AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:50
    Re: #4
    My daughter once told me: whoever calls someone else stupid is the real idiot
    8AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:29
    Just stay the night in Niigata, idiot
    16AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:31
    They falsely announced they had JR's approval, then left people stranded — and now they're pinning the blame on JR? That's pretty messed up, isn't it?
    17AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:31
    Re: #16
    That's just scummy, plain and simple
    25AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:33
    Maybe JR just couldn't add extra trains because of scheduling constraints?
    39AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:38
    Re: #25
    Pushing the last train back later would cut into the maintenance/inspection (and weed-clearing) window, maybe?
    51AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:42
    Re: #25
    Trains can't run past midnight, that's the rule
    Working backward from the Tokyo arrival time, leaving Nagaoka after 10:30pm is already cutting it close
    201AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:33
    Re: #25
    It's actually against the law for the Shinkansen to run past midnight
    It's not some loose arrangement with residents along the line or a self-imposed rule — it's the law
    49AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:42
    Couldn't JR have just run some extra trains?
    It's obviously stingy JR's fault
    64AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:47
    Re: #49
    Shinkansen can't run after midnight.
    That's not some rule JR made up on its own, so there was no way to add more trains beyond that.
    71AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:48
    This is exactly why they should just make every seat reserved
    Then you won't get people who bought a ticket but couldn't actually board
    78AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:50
    Re: #71
    That'd work if they also banned standing in the deck areas
    But in reality, even packed Nozomi trains during peak season end up with standing passengers overflowing not just into the decks but the aisles too
    That's genuinely unpleasant
    79AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:50
    Re: #71
    That'd solve it
    Happy ending
    98AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:54
    Re: #71
    Exactly
    It's only about 500 yen or so more to Nagaoka
    And booking through eki-net (JR East's reservation site) sometimes makes it even cheaper
    80AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:50
    I don't really get it
    If a lot of people are traveling from far away to watch, why not just end it earlier?
    Surely they could be that flexible
    102AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:55
    Re: #80
    These fireworks are a memorial for the victims of the Nagaoka air raid
    They're not for tourists — they're for the people who died
    That's the whole reason the festival exists
    103AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:55
    They should set the end time so people from the Tokyo area who watch the whole program can actually get home, and work backward from there.
    109AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:57
    Re: #103
    Sounds like this isn't for the Tokyo-area crowd's sake — see Re: #102. Only people who go with a humble "if I may be allowed to watch" attitude should be there, apparently
    127AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:04
    Re: #103
    If it doesn't profit the locals
    and doesn't help revitalize the area, they might as well scrap the fireworks festival
    84AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:51
    If you genuinely want to watch the fireworks to the very end, it costs money, but you book a hotel afterward
    or drive, as long as you're careful not to doze off at the wheel
    Since driving long-distance right after watching fireworks is risky, the safe pattern is to stay at a hotel somewhere and sleep before heading home
    94AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:53
    Re: #84
    Delaying the program to squeeze a bit more money out of visitors for the local economy is one thing, but the moment you've got a flood of spectators desperately trying to force their way home, that's just bad event management
    95AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:53
    Re: #84
    You probably can't even get a hotel room in the first place
    91AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:53
    The Fireworks Foundation actually publicized this — both when selling tickets and afterward —
    through their official website and local media,
    saying "watching the fireworks to the end means you'll miss the last Shinkansen, so please be careful"
    And on the day of the event, there were notices posted all over the venue too
    123AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:03
    Whether visitors were properly informed is really the key issue here
    Honestly, neither JR nor the organizers are particularly at fault. This is basically on the visitors themselves
    132AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:06
    Re: #123
    Like I wrote in Re: #91, there was publicity both beforehand and on the day
    101AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:55
    Isn't this actually a case where JR should've just run extra trains?
    105AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:56
    If they knew this would happen, they should've just added more trains lol
    129AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:05
    Re: #101
    Re: #105
    There's a rule that Shinkansen can't run past midnight, so it's just not possible
    156AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:12
    They've actually run overnight schedules like this before
    so they should do the same as a special service for the Nagaoka fireworks

    157AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:12
    Re: #141
    If you go as far as Tsubame-Sanjo or Niigata City, there should be hotels
    166AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:19
    Re: #157
    Hotels in the prefecture are probably fully booked, or insanely expensive if you can even find one
    Even for the Omagari fireworks in Akita, tourists end up staying as far away as neighboring Morioka
    so Nagaoka is probably even worse
    171AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:20
    Re: #157
    There's no vacancy anywhere
    164AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:18
    People who went to the Nagaoka fireworks left in despair after missing the last Shinkansen to Tokyo lol [469534301]
    https://greta.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/poverty/1785708993/

    Non-reserved-seat Shinkansen "beggars" (slang for those who skimp on reserved seats) are having a genuinely brutal time lmaooooooooooooooooo [398059782]
    https://greta.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/poverty/1785763614/
    195AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:31
    Re: #164
    Rough

    62 [We interrupt this program, but reposting to affiliate/aggregator sites is prohibited] (Wacchoi W cf23-h/JK) 2026/08/03 (Mon) 22:38:07.81 ID:sb1RVFlA0
    Note: this was in a reserved-seat car

    Shoshin @Sho_signal (2026/08/03 00:50:28)
    Came back from the Nagaoka fireworks on train No. 384 when it was packed to capacity……
    I heard people were also left stranded at Nagaoka Station…
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HOunlMEbsAA4qVu.jpg
    https://x.com/Sho_signal/status/2083943522177331545

    Background and Key Points of This Discussion

    The Nagaoka Festival’s Grand Fireworks Display originated as a memorial for the victims of the Nagaoka air raid near the end of the Pacific War — it isn’t simply a tourist event, and that history is baked into how it’s run. At the same time, Shinkansen trains can’t operate past midnight due to maintenance work, so even when the fireworks wrap up sometime in the 8 p.m. hour, it’s structurally common for visitors to miss the last train to Tokyo. What came to light this time is that JR East had already flagged concerns about the proposed schedule change back in February, yet the Nagaoka Fireworks Foundation didn’t reconsider. On the thread, opinion was split: some credited the Foundation for publicizing in advance that staying to the end would mean missing the last Shinkansen, while others criticized the response as inadequate, arguing that real countermeasures — like extra trains or addressing the hotel shortage — were still lacking. Some called for making every seat reserved, but others pointed out that even reserved-seat cars end up with standing passengers in the aisles during peak season, so that alone wouldn’t be a complete fix.

    *This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “[Niigata] Over 200 Shinkansen Passengers Left Stranded After Nagaoka Fireworks — JR Flagged Concerns in February, But They Went Unheeded.”

  • Osaka City’s Trash Storage Hits Capacity — 5ch: “Hashimoto-Era Incinerator Consolidation Backfired”

    In July, the Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association, which handles waste processing for Osaka City and surrounding areas, announced that its storage space for garbage awaiting incineration was nearly full. By August the situation had escalated to the point where neighboring Sakai City was asked to handle some of the household waste, and in September Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama called on residents to help by sorting and reducing their garbage. On 5ch, a thread kicked off with the question of why more incineration plants aren’t being built, and commenters raised the 2012 consolidation of incineration plants from nine down to six under then-Mayor Toru Hashimoto, along with the fact that Osaka City’s household garbage output is actually below the national average. Opinions split over whether administrative efficiency or maintaining a safety margin should take priority.

    Sat, Sep 12, 12:10 PM

    ABEMA TIMES

    In September, Osaka Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama called on residents to cooperate in sorting and reducing garbage. It was back in July that the Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association, which processes household waste for Osaka City and surrounding municipalities, announced that its storage space for waste was nearly full because incineration couldn’t keep pace. By August, the situation had escalated to the point of asking neighboring Sakai City to handle some of the household waste.

    Source: topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp / Original article here

    4AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:16
    Why not just build more incineration plants?
    24AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:22
    Re: #4
    Do you have any idea how much it costs to add just one more facility?
    25AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:22
    Re: #4
    Because there's no space.
    218AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:12
    Re: #4
    In 2012, as part of administrative reforms under then-Mayor Toru Hashimoto, Osaka City consolidated its garbage incineration plants from 9 down to 6.
    I guess it was meant to save money, but it backfired.
    7AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:17
    Classic Osaka move — dump your problems on someone else.
    254AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:23
    Re: #7
    Tokyo does the same thing, passing the buck to other areas too.
    12AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:19
    Re: #1
    "Furthermore, Mr. Fuchigami revealed that he only learned of this dire situation the day before he became council chairman.
    'The department manager told me the day before that there was "a matter to report" and that no questions would be taken. It's strange to be told the day before about something that's been known for over six months, and then not even be allowed to ask questions,' he pointed out.
    As a result, he says an extraordinary session of the Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association assembly was held on July 31, after he took office as chairman.
    'There was a lack of communication between Osaka City's Environment Bureau and the association. I've heard that even Mayor Yokoyama was only informed at the last minute,' he said."

    Sounds like Osaka City's bureaucrats just suck at their jobs.
    233AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:19
    Re: #12
    Yokoyama's just playing dumb — this has been brought up in city council for years.
    17AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:20
    There's tons of empty land out in the boonies, just bury it there.
    26AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:22
    Re: #17
    Problem solved — just bury it in your backyard.
    22AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:21
    They should adopt designated garbage bags.
    Toyonaka City already does that.
    52AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:26
    Re: #22
    Looked it up — turns out there are no paid garbage bags there.
    Apparently even a convenience store bag is fine as long as the contents are visible.
    29AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:22
    Just ask the national government for a landfill site — maybe somewhere next to Kansai Airport.
    40AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:24
    Re: #29
    Even for landfill, you have to incinerate it first to shrink the volume.
    57AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:27
    There's hardly any land left in Osaka to build new waste facilities, and it's just not cost-effective.
    Expanding the city's boundaries
    would actually be the most rational path for urban development,
    but there are people who just don't get that (lol)
    73AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:31
    Re: #57
    They're already reclaiming land offshore in Osaka Bay.
    112AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:43
    Re: #1
    > I've heard that even Mayor Yokoyama was only informed at the last minute

    There's no way that report didn't reach Mayor Yokoyama, who is also the administrator of the joint public body.
    The Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association was established in 2015 as a partial affairs association.
    Osaka City, Yao City, Matsubara City, and Moriguchi City — all four have Ishin (Osaka Restoration Association) mayors.
    Seven of the eight incineration plants are in Osaka City, the remaining one in Yao.
    Way too unbalanced, and on top of that Moriguchi City has closed its own plant.
    Ever since Mayor Hashimoto, all you can say is the planning has been way too naive.
    128AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:47
    Re: #112
    They probably pushed things a bit too hard to cut administrative costs, as a talking-point achievement for Ishin.
    On top of that, several unexpected setbacks piled up, and now things are genuinely stretched to the breaking point.
    Guess it just shows that infrastructure needs some redundancy — costs that look wasteful at first glance but actually matter.
    116AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:44
    At the very least, people should crush their PET bottles and aluminum cans flat to cut down on volume.
    125AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:46
    Re: #116
    Those don't go to the incinerator anyway, do they?
    141AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:50
    Isn't this just poor planning? It's not like the garbage suddenly increased overnight.
    155AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:54
    Re: #141
    According to the article, the amount of garbage hasn't actually increased.
    Apparently it's the result of maintenance work and equipment breakdowns piling up together.
    148AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:51
    More urgently than that, Japan really needs to sort out the collection of swollen, damaged batteries nationwide before something goes seriously wrong.
    151AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:52
    Re: #148
    Where I live, they collect it with a flatbed truck, so now you can put it out on glass-bottle collection day — that way, even if it explodes, the damage is minimized.
    160AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:56
    Re: #148
    My municipality started collecting them last year.
    They'll take them whether they're swollen (jokingly called "pregnant" batteries), missing the recycling mark, or just a bare cell.
    159AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:56
    Just build another island in Osaka Bay, problem solved.
    165AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:57
    Re: #159
    Guess it'll be finished in three years or so.
    168AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:59
    Separating paper and plastic out of the burnable trash would cut the volume quite a bit — are they even doing that?
    175AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:01
    Re: #168
    > Osaka residents produce about 344g of household garbage per day, compared to the national average of about 466g — they're already doing well.

    If you believe the numbers, Osaka households are already working pretty hard at reducing waste.
    178AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:02
    From what I'm reading in the article, this looks like an administrative failure to me.
    196AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:08
    Re: #178
    It's not the administration's fault, it's a misjudgment by the citizens of Osaka Prefecture.
    They pushed too hard for efficiency without allowing the administration any margin for slack.
    They don't get that an administration with zero waste can't cope with even the slightest change.
    222AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:14
    Garbage is decreasing nationwide, but Osaka City's is increasing.
    Why is that?

    S P E C I A L – Z O N E A I R B N B s (minpaku home-stay rentals)
    241AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:21
    Re: #222
    Osaka City's per-capita garbage output is actually lower than the national average, though…
    264AnonymousSep 12, 2026 19:25
    Re: #241

    Background and Key Points of Debate

    The Osaka Metropolitan Area Environmental Facilities Association, which handles waste processing for Osaka City, was established in 2015 as a partial affairs association made up of Osaka City, Yao City, Matsubara City, and Moriguchi City. Of its eight incineration plants, seven are currently located within Osaka City, while Moriguchi City has already closed its own facility. In 2012, under then-Mayor Toru Hashimoto, the incineration plants were consolidated from nine down to six as part of administrative reforms, and many commenters pointed to this consolidation as an underlying cause of the current crunch. At the same time, data showing that “Osaka residents produce about 344g of household garbage per day, below the national average of 466g” also came up, lending weight to the view that the real problem isn’t a rise in garbage volume but a lack of spare capacity (redundancy) in the facilities. The pattern of prioritizing efficiency only to lose the ability to respond to unexpected situations is a theme that comes up across administrative cost-cutting in general.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Osaka City] Garbage processing under strain, storage space in an “abnormal” full state… burden of maintaining facilities also rising. How can garbage be reduced? Japan’s “new policy” needed.”

  • Toyama City Overstated Its Population in the National Census — 5ch: “Padded by About 450 People?”

    An interview with Mayor Fujii has revealed that Toyama City reported a higher population than the actual figure to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in the 2025 national census. The issue reportedly came to light after the Ministry raised a concern that “the survey method might be wrong.” On 5ch, discussion centered on why a city known as a success story for compact-city policy would over-report its population, with users citing the roughly 450-person gap between the 399,759 population listed on Toyama City’s official website as of the end of August, Reiwa 8 (2026), and the census result of 400,213. Some speculated the motive was preserving local allocation tax funding or the city’s pride as a core city, while others pushed back, noting that the 400,000 figure itself isn’t actually a threshold for allocation tax payments — leaving opinion divided.

    It has come to light that in last year’s national census, Toyama City reported a population to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications that was higher than the actual figure.

    This was revealed by Toyama Mayor Fujii in an interview.

    According to the mayor, the Ministry had pointed out that “the survey method might be mistaken.”

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

    7AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:27
    Toyama, huh. Neighborhood associations run this area way too much, so of course the population decline would be severe.

    They probably had to save face.
    11AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:29
    Re: #7
    They'd been loudly touting it as a success story for compact-city policy, after all.
    17AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:31
    Re: #7
    Have the entire city hall staff go door-to-door and check each one properly.
    12AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:30
    Hold on, how do you even end up OVER-reporting the population?
    Under-reporting because residents didn't cooperate, sure, that I could see happening — but this?
    16AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:31
    Re: #12
    Their local allocation tax grant would get cut.
    117AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:13
    Re: #58
    Whether it's paid out depends on the shortfall between the standard fiscal need amount (calculated from population, etc.) and estimated tax revenue.
    If population drops, the standard amount drops too.
    So the grant paid to cover the shortfall shrinks.
    22AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:33
    Toyama City is known for the convenience of its compact-city policy and its rich natural environment.
    Apparently it's recommended as a place to relocate to.
    32AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:37
    Re: #22
    Nature aside, you can't get anywhere without a car.
    167AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:32
    Re: #22
    You've clearly never been to Toyama City.
    Hint: think about where Favore (a big local shopping mall) is.
    39AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:41
    A prefecture committing fraud, that's rough.
    Who's the governor?
    56AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:46
    Even Kanazawa, the biggest city in the Hokuriku region, has a smaller population than Oita City, you know.
    96AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:07
    Re: #56
    And that's Toyama's population even after the Heisei-era municipal mergers.
    163AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:30
    Re: #56
    Poor Oita — bigger population than Kanazawa and more passenger traffic than Nagasaki, yet still no shinkansen line.
    Well, I guess 40 years ago when the plans were decided, Hokuriku and Nagasaki had overwhelmingly more clout.
    67AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:54
    I don't get the point of the survey method.
    Can't they just check the population at the push of a button these days?
    Why do they need to fiddle with the numbers so much?
    79AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:01
    Re: #67
    Electoral district boundaries, local allocation tax, subsidies, and so on —
    I think they should just have municipalities submit this data,
    since they update it every month anyway.


    Politics/administration basics —
    Electoral district boundaries: House of Representatives single-member district boundaries are revised to track population changes.
    Local allocation tax calculation: determines how much money (local allocation tax) the national government distributes to each municipality.
    Welfare/disaster-prevention planning: used to expand welfare services in aging areas, plan disaster evacuations, and guide infrastructure development.
    85AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:04
    Re: #67
    Can't be done.
    Family registers and residence records are filed by the person or their family, so
    the census is what actually investigates who's really living where,
    how many people, and what they're doing.
    Residents self-report for the census too, but the rule is that
    census takers actually go out and check the location in person.
    70AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:55
    Why'd they lie?
    84AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:03
    A lot of city halls post a board showing the city's population, right?
    Like how many people it went up or down this month.

    Toyama City's population (per its official website, as of end of August, Reiwa 8 [2026]): 399,759
    2025 National Census: 400,213

    So padded by about 450 people?
    88AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:04
    Re: #84
    Isn't that just plain population outflow?
    99AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:08
    Aren't they counting from residence registrations? (lol)
    100AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:08
    Did they pad it by like 100,000 people or something?
    102AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:08
    Because their civil servant headcount would get cut.
    104AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:09
    Re: #102
    The national government has no authority to do that.
    126AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:15
    Re: #102
    It would shrink through municipal mergers.
    110AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:11
    I'd think you could figure out the population just by counting from residence records and the basic resident registry.

    Of course there's stuff like commute-time surveys too, so it's not that simple, but…

    Is the census even really necessary?
    144AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:21
    Re: #110
    Students in rented rooms or people on solo job transfers often don't transfer their residence registration.
    For things like population, the census treats the real situation at survey time as the correct figure.
    149AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:24
    Re: #110
    For infrastructure data, I think they could just have the railway and bus companies provide it.
    That would cover the people who don't transfer their residence registration too — and honestly, people who don't transfer it probably just end up counted as still living at their parents' place anyway
    (students especially could pull that off).

    Population's shrinking anyway, so maybe it's fine to focus on maintaining what exists over building new stuff.
    It just feels like this system doesn't fit the times — or rather, it's failing to keep improving along with them.
    111AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:11
    According to the census statistics, I don't exist in this world.
    121AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:14
    Re: #115
    lol, meanwhile all the young women are fleeing
    130AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:16
    Re: #121
    Guess young people just uniformly have no eye for a good place, huh?

    Well, maybe they'll do a U-turn back home once they're older (lol)
    138AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:18
    Re: #1
    Aren't they surveying the same way every year?
    Ever since the Hokuriku Shinkansen was built, [the region] started getting sucked straight into Tokyo,
    and it's now all but certain Hokuriku will turn into a depopulated backwater like Tohoku.
    Being at a comfortable distance between Tokyo and Osaka used to be a good thing, but they threw that away themselves — nothing but decline from here.
    141AnonymousSep 12, 2026 18:20
    Re: #138
    It's just that the people who used to move out to the Kansai region shifted to Tokyo instead, so the net balance hasn't actually changed.

    Background and key points of this discussion

    The national census determines population not from residence registrations but from census takers confirming the real situation on the ground — data that underpins things like electoral district boundaries and the calculation basis for the local allocation tax. What makes this case notable is that it came to light because the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications pointed out that “the survey method might be wrong” — the city didn’t volunteer the correction on its own. On the thread, two competing theories about the motive for over-reporting remain unresolved: one that the city wanted to avoid a cut to its local allocation tax, versus a counter-argument that hitting 400,000 isn’t actually a requirement for receiving that grant. In reality, the size of the allocation tax grant is determined by the gap between standard fiscal need (which factors in population) and tax revenue, so reaching 400,000 is thought to carry more symbolic weight — like the city’s standing as a core city, or leverage in attracting shinkansen lines and major national projects — than any direct fiscal payoff. The article cites a roughly 450-person gap between the resident-registry population (399,759) and the census population (400,213), but it’s worth noting this figure doesn’t reveal the specific method behind the over-reporting or whose numbers were padded.

    *This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Toyama] In the 2025 National Census, Toyama City Over-Reported Its Population to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.”

  • Foreign Workers’ Average Monthly Pay Hits ¥292,400, Up 6.4% Year-on-Year: Labor Ministry Survey

    According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s 2025 Survey on the Employment Conditions of Foreigners, released on August 31, the average monthly salary (base pay plus overtime) for foreign nationals working full-time came to ¥292,400 — up ¥17,500, or 6.4%, from the previous year. The survey covered 9,016 workplaces employing foreign workers, conducted in October–November 2025, with 3,919 workplaces responding. While the results reflect improving conditions amid Japan’s labor shortage, threads on 5channel lit up with comments like “Japanese workers at the bottom only make ¥200,000” and “why not just hire Japanese people?”, sparking debate over comparisons with low-wage domestic labor and the industries that have come to rely on foreign workers.

    The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare’s 2025 Survey on the Employment Conditions of Foreigners, released August 31, found that foreign nationals working as regular full-time employees earned an average monthly salary of about ¥290,000. That’s up 6.4% from the previous year, with treatment of foreign workers improving amid the ongoing labor shortage.

    The survey was conducted in October–November 2025, targeting a random sample of 9,016 workplaces with five or more employees enrolled in employment insurance that employ foreign workers. 3,919 workplaces responded.

    Monthly pay, including base salary and overtime, averaged ¥292,400, up ¥17,500 from the previous year. Working hours averaged 158.7 hours, with 17.6 hours of overtime.

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

    3AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:39
    Japanese people at the bottom only make ¥200,000
    9AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:43
    Re: #3
    In Okinawa that'd make you a high earner
    44AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:04
    Re: #3
    Plenty of people out there taking home just ¥150,000 after taxes
    10AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:44
    When it's bankruptcy or nothing, you do what you have to
    But slaves who aren't business owners wouldn't understand that
    17AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:47
    Re: #10
    An owner whose company goes under from a labor shortage will end up back in the workforce as an employee, won't he.
    19AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:47
    Re: #1
    Hikikomori (shut-ins), get a job.
    23AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:48
    Re: #19
    You'll hire them? If it's remote-work-first and you'll take anyone,
    you'll get an insane number of applicants
    26AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:52
    We're firing the entire Ice Age Generation (Japan's lost-decade job seekers) — all of them
    32AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:55
    Re: #19 Re: #26

    Just keep going at it forever, you two. Like a stick of Kintaro candy (same pattern no matter where you cut it).
    177AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:41
    Re: #19
    I kind of feel like if you work, you've already lost
    25AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:51
    Same monthly pay as me, and I've worked at a major Japanese company for 26 years…
    34AnonymousSep 12, 2026 13:56
    Re: #25
    What exactly have you been doing for 26 years?
    40AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:00
    Welfare payments for Japanese people should be tied to that too. This is Japan — there's no way Japanese people should end up poorer than foreigners in their own country.
    42AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:03
    Well then let me ask — is there any other reliable way to save labor-short industries besides foreign workers?
    45AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:06
    Re: #42
    Apparently they should just go under, is the idea. Lately all I see is stuff like 'better to fold than bring in foreigners' or 'AI will make foreigners unnecessary' — from NEETs, I guess.
    But it's exactly because Japanese people won't work in construction, civil engineering, trucking, caregiving, factories, farming, or fishing that this happens.
    46AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:07
    Re: #34
    With 26 years you could've passed the bar exam or the CPA exam, or even gotten into med school and become a doctor.
    111AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:45
    Re: #46
    Even 100 years of studying wouldn't be enough for him lol
    63AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:45
    Isn't that more than Japanese people make?
    66AnonymousSep 12, 2026 14:52
    Re: #63
    No way. ¥290,000 is actually cheap.
    Take-home pay is even lower than that.
    95AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:30
    Re: #66
    For a rural job listing, that's upper-middle-class territory
    76AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:00
    Why not just hire Japanese people?
    78AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:01
    This is just going to make Japanese people even less motivated to work
    85AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:06
    Re: #76
    It's because Japanese people don't apply for these '3K' jobs (kitsui/kitanai/kiken — tough, dirty, dangerous) lol


    >By industry, manufacturing had 610,000 workers, services 330,000, wholesale/retail 230,000, and medical/welfare 140,000.
    86AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:06
    Re: #76
    Nobody's volunteering for physical labor or dirty work lol

    Re: #78
    There wasn't any motivation to begin with lol. Don't go blaming other people for it lol
    106AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:37
    The reality is we're going to have to bring in even more foreign workers going forward
    110AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:43
    You should treat 'labor shortage for business expansion' and 'labor shortage for business survival' as separate problems.
    Convenience stores and restaurants, which fall into the former, just want cheap labor,
    so it would be better to strictly limit their hiring of foreign workers and instead boost labor mobility toward other industries.
    117AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:49
    Re: #110
    Convenience stores can't use the Specified Skilled Worker or Technical Intern Training visa categories,
    so that's not really relevant.
    Restaurants, on the other hand, already can't survive without foreign workers —
    they're becoming almost all-foreign staff at this point.
    124AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:55
    Re: #1
    Manufacturing had 610,000 workers, services 330,000, wholesale/retail 230,000, and medical/welfare 140,000.

    Do they really get paid this much though?
    Even converting to an hourly wage in Tokyo, it seems questionable.
    138AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:02
    Re: #124
    Construction, sure, but I can't imagine factory work at a manufacturer paying that well.
    If it really pays that much, then the part-time middle-aged women working there should be earning about the same, which doesn't add up.
    Maybe it's mostly night shifts?
    152AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:18
    Re: #124
    Manufacturing and medical/welfare come with night-shift overtime,
    services have late-night shift rotations,
    wholesale/retail includes logistics and installation work

    For that kind of work, even Japanese workers would make around ¥300,000 a month.
    My job has weekends and holidays off, day shifts only, no overtime, no quotas, so I only make around ¥250,000.
    173AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:27
    Put another way, if you're making less than this, doing the same kind of work would raise your pay
    — though the toughness level would be on a whole different scale
    174AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:31
    Re: #173

    Convenience store bento factories are apparently mostly foreign workers now too,
    but it doesn't seem like especially heavy labor?
    _


    – The "foreign national recruitment homepage" of Musashino Group Co., Ltd., which manufactures 7-Eleven bento boxes
    https://job-gear.net/msholdings/

    "We know people working in Japan for the first time have a lot of worries.
    But don't worry.
    People from many different countries work at our factory.
    There's sure to be someone from your own country here too, so if you're interested, please apply first.
    Our full-time foreign staff will carefully teach you the job from scratch, and we have notices posted in foreign languages too. If any trouble comes up, we'll support you, so don't worry.
    Getting to work with Japan's food industry, renowned as some of the safest in the world, is sure to teach you a lot too.

    We'd love it if you can work 4–5 days a week, but starting at around 2 days a week is fine too.
    If you find it 'interesting' or want to do more, you can always increase your work days."

    https://job-gear.net/m/ms/msholdings/images/index_main_img01.jpg
    180AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:49
    I see — so now at a job interview, a Japanese applicant could say: 'I hear that due to the labor shortage you're paying foreign workers ¥290,000. So please pay me more than that.'
    You really could say that
    182AnonymousSep 12, 2026 17:52
    Re: #180
    Interviewer: 'In that case, we'll just hire a foreign worker instead. Goodbye.'

    Background and Key Points of This Discussion

    It’s worth noting that this figure isn’t an average across all industries — the survey is limited to “workplaces that employ foreign workers.” The sample skews toward industries already facing severe labor shortages, such as manufacturing, services, wholesale/retail, and medical/welfare, and conditions involving night shifts and overtime may be pushing the monthly figure upward. Comments in the thread ranged from surprise that this is “higher than what Japanese workers at the bottom make” to claims that it’s “actually a reasonable level for rural areas or certain job types,” with many pointing out that a single national average doesn’t match their lived experience. Notably, the discussion centered less on improving conditions for foreign workers themselves and more on comparisons with domestic low-wage workers and the treatment of Japan’s Employment Ice Age Generation.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Speed+) thread “[Foreign Workers’ Monthly Pay] ¥290,000, up 6.4% from last year — Labor shortage cited as reason 〈Labor Ministry Survey〉“

  • Kochi Sends Passing Notices to 221 Teacher Candidates — More Than Double the Open Slots — 5ch Asks: “Why Apply If You’re Just Going to Turn It Down?”

    On September 11, the Kochi Prefectural Board of Education announced the results of its public school teacher hiring exam for 2027 appointments. Elementary school teaching posts have seen a string of resignations among successful candidates in recent years — seven in ten declined the year before last, and six in ten declined last year — so this time the board notified 221 people that they had passed, more than double the number of positions actually available. The prefecture has also moved up the timing of its supplementary exam by a month compared with last year. On the 5ch thread, comments poured in from all angles — from puzzlement over why people decline offers after passing, to debates over temp hiring, the now-scrapped teaching license renewal system, and the realities of teacher pay and retirement benefits.

    Elementary Teachers Keep Declining Even After Passing: Kochi Notifies 221 Candidates — More Than Double the Planned Hires — as 70% Declined the Year Before Last and 60% Last Year

    Yomiuri Shimbun

    The Kochi Prefectural Board of Education announced on the 11th the results of its selection process for the public school teacher hiring exam for 2027 appointments. Of the 1,128 people who sat the exam, a total of 382 passed across elementary, junior high, high school, and other prefectural schools. For elementary schools, where successful candidates have frequently turned down offers in recent years, the board notified 221 people that they had passed — more than double the planned number of hires. A supplementary hiring exam, anticipating further declines, will also be held on November 15, a month earlier than last year.

    Source: yomiuri.co.jp / Original article here

    11AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:57
    Why apply in the first place if you're just going to turn it down?
    17AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:58
    Re: #11
    Because it's just a backup option (a safety net in case their real preference falls through).
    19AnonymousSep 12, 2026 15:59
    Re: #11
    Maybe they're applying to multiple places at once?
    28AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:00
    Re: #11
    Did you seriously only ever apply to one school and one job when you were job hunting?
    27AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:00
    Why not just give permanent positions to the temp teachers who cover for maternity leave or teachers out with depression?
    47AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:06
    Re: #27
    If you want to go permanent, the only way is to take the teacher hiring exam.
    You'll pass if you take it — anyone who actually wants to go permanent just needs to sit it.
    48AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:06
    Re: #27
    If even full hiring looks like this, there's no way tons of people are signing up as substitute teachers.

    I'd love to see the face of whoever came up with the teaching license renewal system.
    They scrapped it out of nowhere and still haven't given any real review or apology.
    60AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:09
    I took the elementary teacher hiring exam over and over and kept failing — I'm from the Employment Ice Age generation (Japan's brutal 1990s–2000s job market). I'd probably pass if I took it now, but I hate the idea of more workload, so I've just kept doing temp contracts.
    Meanwhile the ones who went permanent burned out and dropped away…
    66AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:11
    Re: #60
    What's actually different about being a temp? Club activities? Being homeroom teacher?
    116AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:25
    Re: #60
    I had a classmate from elementary school, probably the same Ice Age generation as you, who passed straight through and got hired straight into a permanent elementary post. It was brutal — nonstop overwork on top of student guidance and club duties — and a few years in she had a mental breakdown and quit three years later.
    Her husband tells her not to push herself, but she doesn't even have the energy to start a new job, so it looks like she's just going to end up a stay-at-home wife.
    121AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:26
    Re: #60
    Sorry, missed the last part.
    But yeah, "the permanent ones burned out" is exactly right.
    75AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:15
    For elementary school teachers you'd go through an education faculty, right?
    Is there anywhere else to work besides teaching?
    Given the labor shortage, maybe an education faculty at a decent university can still land you something?
    82AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:16
    Re: #75
    Plenty of people quit and move into other fields.
    If you burned out as an elementary teacher, there's nowhere left to go but elsewhere.
    87AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:17
    Re: #75
    People at Japanese liberal-arts universities barely study anything anyway, so your faculty doesn't really matter.
    Plenty of education-faculty grads end up in the private sector too.
    98AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:19
    Re: #75
    Liberal arts students are just there to goof off anyway, so the faculty doesn't matter at all.
    96AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:19
    Re: #87
    It's just hard to get an elementary teaching license outside of an education faculty.
    123AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:27
    Re: #96
    You can just pass the elementary teacher qualification certification exam instead.
    No student teaching required, and anyone with a high school diploma can take it.
    128AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:27
    Re: #123
    Actually, you do need student teaching for that one.
    135AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:29
    Re: #123
    That's fine too, and you can even get it through a correspondence course — but people burn out in year one without knowing what's going on.
    111AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:25
    I'm 52 and have worked as a non-permanent teacher my whole career. They asked if I wanted to take the exam for a permanent post — I'm not doing it.
    Going permanent now would just mean more work, and I'd end up worn down mentally and physically for nothing.
    Non-permanent experience doesn't translate into great salary terms anyway.
    I'm planning to change careers next year.
    117AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:26
    Re: #111
    Well said, old-timer temp teacher ("rinsai ojisan" — slang for a veteran non-permanent hire).
    127AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:27
    Re: #111
    Is that a rural municipality? In the cities the pay isn't much different from permanent staff.
    120AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:26
    They started the teaching license renewal system to try to screen out predators, but it had zero effect, so they scrapped it out of nowhere.

    That system cost us a lot of things for nothing.
    170AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:37
    Re: #120
    The whole setup assumed Ice Age generation salarymen and civil-service hopefuls would just keep sprouting up endlessly.
    You won't find many countries this dumb about it.
    238AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:49
    Re: #170
    I think the Ministry of Education really needs to seriously look back at the teaching license renewal system and figure out what that was even for.
    154AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:33
    If you're going to become a teacher anyway, a private school is probably the better bet.
    159AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:34
    Re: #154
    Do you really like the risk of being on a contract and getting let go on short notice?
    161AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:35
    Re: #154
    Private elementary schools basically only exist in the greater Tokyo area.
    The pay's good, but it's still just as busy.
    177AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:38
    Public elementary school retirement pay is like 50 million yen, right?
    181AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:39
    Re: #177
    Even someone who made it all the way to principal is looking at maybe 30 million, if that.
    Civil servant retirement payouts have been getting worse and worse for 30 years straight.
    182AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:39
    Re: #177
    Working straight from graduation to retirement gets you only around 20 million. And most people drop out along the way anyway.
    198AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:42
    Re: #177
    What decade are you living in, lol.
    Working all the way to retirement gets you 16–20 million.

    You clearly don't know the payout multiplier keeps getting cut at every four-year revision — total keyboard-warrior take.
    Major corporations pay out 50 million, though.
    180AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:38
    Re: #168
    All that complaining is exactly what led to fewer people wanting to become teachers, and here we are.
    Elementary teachers these days are mostly grads from schools you've never heard of (bottom-tier "F-rank" universities), and now even they've stopped coming.

    If people are serious about fixing public education, it's about time they dropped the idealism and faced reality.
    188AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:40
    Re: #180
    The point is that school teachers are tied up hand and foot and can't push back on anything, whereas private cram schools are different.
    196AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:41
    Re: #188
    Picking your customers isn't something only cram schools do — plenty of other industries do it too.
    Actually, private schools do the same thing, and it's precisely because they choose their students that they can deliver a good education.
    You can't provide a good education if you have to take absolutely everyone who walks in.
    203AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:42
    Re: #196
    Private schools only care about students with top grades.
    Character doesn't matter to them at all.

    Anyway, more importantly — have you figured out what cram schools can and should actually be doing?
    187AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:40
    Schools should publish a homeroom teacher's history before enrollment.
    Exam history, pass history, hiring history.
    Are they a permanent hire or a year-to-year contract instructor?
    Parents should get to choose which school to enroll in based on that.
    193AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:41
    Re: #187
    No matter how impressive that résumé looks, it doesn't mean they're a decent human being.
    212AnonymousSep 12, 2026 16:44
    Re: #187
    Homeroom teachers aren't announced until the first day of the new term anyway.
    With the labor shortage these days, it's completely normal for a first-year homeroom teacher to just be someone covering for a teacher on maternity leave.
    And it's hit or miss — sometimes you get a genuinely great veteran — so you really can't say either way.
    For the kids it's a homeroom-teacher lottery ("tannin gacha"), and for the teacher it's just as risky — a kid lottery and a parent lottery right back.

    Background and Key Points of This Topic

    The number of people who “pass” a teacher hiring exam doesn’t necessarily match the number who actually get hired. With elementary schools facing a growing shortage of people willing to become teachers, 70% of successful candidates declined before starting the year before last, and 60% declined last year. This time, Kochi Prefecture is trying to fill the gap by notifying 221 candidates that they passed — more than double the number of positions actually planned. Behind this lies the fact that even though the teaching license renewal system was abolished in 2022, the burden of long working hours and club-activity supervision hasn’t changed, and cases of teachers leaving within just a few years of being hired permanently remain common. The thread showed a split between those criticizing the system design that produced this situation and those framing it as a rational choice by teachers who deliberately stay non-permanent. It’s also easy to overlook that a rise in the number of passing candidates doesn’t necessarily mean the teacher shortage is actually being resolved.

    ※ This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “[Kochi] Elementary Teachers Keep Declining Even After Passing — 221 Notified, More Than Double the Planned Hires — as 70% Declined the Year Before Last and 60% Last Year.”

  • First Paycheck ‘Zero Yen’ After Illegal Wage Deductions: Ramen Chain Ordered to Pay ¥1 Million — 5ch: ‘A Disgrace to Japan’

    It has come to light that a company operating the ramen chain “Mitsuyado Seimen” in Tokyo unilaterally deducted the deposit and key money for company housing from the wages of a 30-year-old Myanmar woman working under the Specified Skilled Worker (Tokutei Ginō) visa status, leaving her effective first paycheck at zero yen. The woman filed suit seeking about 1.7 million yen in unpaid wages and other compensation, and on September 11 the Tokyo District Court ruled that the deductions violated the Labor Standards Act, ordering the company to pay roughly 1 million yen. On 5ch, users expressed surprise that the company chose to fight the case all the way to a ruling, and debated who should really bear the cost of housing for foreign workers.

    Illegal Deduction from Specified Skilled Worker’s Pay: Tokyo District Court Orders Ramen Chain to Pay | Mainichi Shimbun

    September 11, 2026, 13:15 (Last updated September 11, 20:54)

    In a lawsuit brought by a 30-year-old Myanmar woman who worked at the ramen chain “Mitsuyado Seimen” under the Specified Skilled Worker visa status — who sought roughly 1.7 million yen in unpaid wages and other compensation from the Tokyo-based operating company, saying illegal deductions had left her first paycheck at “zero yen” — the Tokyo District Court ruled on the 11th that the company must pay about 1 million yen. The court found that unilaterally deducting upfront costs such as the deposit and key money for company housing from her wages violated the Labor Standards Act.

    Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here

    3AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:45
    Re: #1
    That's rough, even by low standards.
    This one's
    a disgrace to Japan.
    222AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:21
    Re: #3
    Stuff like this is exactly why Japan's going downhill.
    The fact it went all the way to trial means they actually meant to fight it — what idiots.
    18AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:48
    This kind of setup that traps people the moment they sign on has been around forever.
    29AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:50
    Re: #18
    They zero out her living costs and then demand she move out —
    probably the plan is to pocket the subsidy and force her to 'quit voluntarily' within 3 months.
    170AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:13
    Re: #18
    This is common with shady landlords —
    pen workers up in a dorm, work them from dawn till midnight, then bill anyone who quits for the rent.
    30AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:50
    They drained her dry all at once — should've gone thin and long, like ramen noodles (a play on the saying 'slow and steady,' literally 'thin and long').
    34AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:51
    Re: #30
    Exactly right —
    the proper way is to squeeze someone dry down to the marrow.
    35AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:51
    What's a 'Specified Skilled Worker' job even doing at a ramen shop?
    Isn't this part-timer-level work??
    40AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:53
    Re: #35
    Draining the noodle water, maybe? (a basic kitchen task, 'yugiri')
    48AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:55
    It's guys like this pushing immigration that make the whole thing toxic.
    56AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:56
    The fact it went all the way to a verdict
    means this ramen chain actually fought back after pulling this stunt.

    Unreal.
    Which ramen chain is this again?
    70AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:59
    Re: #56
    Right, if I were their lawyer I'd tell them to pay up big and settle —
    once this goes public their brand image is going to hit rock bottom.
    103AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:04
    Re: #56
    This isn't a noodle-making plant —
    it's the ramen chain that blew up for its tsukemen (dipping noodles).
    58AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:57
    Well, I did hear my company covers deposit, key money, and furniture costs, so I thought that sounded unfair too.
    Couldn't they just handle it with a loan or something?
    75AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:00
    Re: #58
    In the end they're just passing the cost along anyway.
    But hold on — isn't the company supposed to arrange housing for foreign trainees? So why deposit and key money at all?
    59AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:57
    You guys who trash any ramen shop for charging over 1,000 yen a bowl share some of the blame here too.
    86AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:02
    Re: #59
    Yeah, they should be charging 2,000 yen for bacteria-contaminated crab ramen at the very least!
    85AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:01
    There are probably other cases like this out there.
    Everyone should keep suing and collecting damages.
    99AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:03
    Re: #85
    Don't know how it actually turned out, but
    I know of a company that rented an apartment for a worker, and the guy smashed windows and put holes in the walls, trashing the place way beyond what the deposit could cover —
    and he was trying to just move out without fixing any of it.
    115AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:06
    Well, a ramen chain that pulls stuff like this
    is probably only capable of making so-so ramen and only draws so-so customers.
    195AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:17
    Re: #115
    Once you get yourself a foreign 'slave,' cheap eateries like this start turning a profit.
    Some places even have a single foreign worker running the whole shop solo.
    116AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:06
    Never lived in company housing myself so I don't know, but is the deposit and key money really supposed to be the employee's own burden?
    Not sure about the appliances either, since I don't know if she bought those herself because she wanted them.
    124AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:08
    Re: #116
    I doubt he even knows about any of that.
    Staffing agencies just call up saying 'you can use them cheap on a day rate' and that's the whole pitch.
    138AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:09
    In the end, it's not really a labor shortage. It's a slave shortage.

    And it's not just this ramen chain — honestly, everywhere's probably doing something similar.
    147AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:10
    Re: #138
    Exactly, there's plenty of manpower.
    What's actually lacking is slaves willing to work like draft horses in a black-company environment (lol).
    144AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:10
    Re: #139
    Probably true, but don't they realize how bad this looks?
    157AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:12
    Re: #144
    If anything, I think messing with technical intern trainees is riskier than with Japanese employees.
    Japanese workers tend to just swallow it even when there's a labor law violation,
    but with trainees, if they run to a support organization, the company gets absolutely wrecked.
    150AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:11
    But once they pay that 1 million yen, doesn't it defeat the whole point of hiring a foreigner?
    That's easily enough money to have hired a Japanese worker instead.
    162AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:13
    Re: #150
    That's because hiring one foreign worker gets you an 80,000-yen subsidy every month.

    Background and Key Points of This Story

    The Specified Skilled Worker (Tokutei Ginō) status, introduced in 2019, is a visa category that lets fields facing severe labor shortages bring in foreign workers who are ready to contribute immediately. Unlike the Technical Intern Training Program, it allows workers to change jobs within the same field, and has generally been seen as offering stronger worker protections than technical internships. Under the Labor Standards Act, wages must in principle be paid in full, and deducting costs such as company housing fees requires a labor-management agreement — without one, such deductions are illegal. In the thread, almost no one defended the company’s conduct; attention centered on who should really bear housing costs and whether similar practices exist at other workplaces, though some posts also conflated the Technical Intern Training Program with the Specified Skilled Worker system.

    *This article was compiled by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (News Express+) thread “First Paycheck Hits ‘Zero Yen’… Illegal Deduction from Specified Skilled Worker’s Pay: Tokyo District Court Orders Ramen Chain to Pay.”

  • Calls to Permanently Raise Corporate Tax Spark Debate — 5ch Asks: ‘Does Shimane Even Have Any Big Corporations?’

    Shimane Prefecture Governor Tatsuya Maruyama reportedly told a press conference that corporate tax on large companies should be permanently raised. The remark is seen as reflecting the harsh state of local government finances, but on 5ch the first reaction was the simple question of whether Shimane even has any major corporate bases to begin with — and from there, the discussion expanded into a broader tax-policy debate over whether corporate tax or consumption tax should be raised or lowered. Some argued corporate tax should go up, others pointed out that Japan’s consumption tax burden is low by international standards compared to its corporate tax, and still others worried that high-earning companies would flee overseas — the thread never settled into a simple for-or-against split.

    “Permanent Corporate Tax Hike Should Put the Burden on Big Business” — Shimane Governor at Press Conference | Mainichi Shimbun

    September 12, 2026, 10:40 AM

    Shimane Governor Tatsuya Maruyama says at a press conference that “corporate tax should be permanently raised” — at the prefectural government office, September 11, 2026, 2:11 PM. Photo by Osamu Kobayashi.

    Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here

    7AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:37
    Does Shimane even have any big-corporation headquarters?
    Even the branch offices there probably don't bring in much revenue.
    12AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:40
    Re: #7
    San-in Godo Bank… (a regional bank headquartered in Shimane)
    72AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:58
    Re: #7
    If a big company that could actually be named were based in Shimane, the governor would've already been forced out.
    103AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:04
    Re: #7
    There isn't one — that's exactly why he's saying the regions need money handed to them.
    10AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:39
    Shimane Prefecture should just have its national treasury subsidies and local allocation tax grants permanently cut off.
    Let them run on their own tax revenue for once.
    Or else, just get absorbed into Tottori Prefecture.
    33AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:46
    Re: #10
    So in return, they wouldn't have to pay national taxes either, right?
    11AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:39
    For a tiny outfit like mine with only 4 employees, even our small profit margin gets eaten up by taxes.
    It's rough.
    128AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:11
    Re: #11
    It literally says 'big corporations' right there…
    20AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:41
    Corporate tax: 7th highest out of 38 OECD countries
    Consumption tax: 33rd out of 38 OECD countries

    Japan has high corporate tax and very low consumption tax, so if anything's getting cut it should be corporate tax, and if anything's getting raised it should be consumption tax.
    181AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:28
    Re: #20
    Funny thing is, big exporters don't actually end up paying that consumption tax.
    32AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:46
    Japan just takes too much in taxes overall.
    Individuals are already past their breaking point,
    but it's not like corporations get off easy either.

    I guess the logic is corporations still have more breathing room so raise theirs,
    but honestly the government wastes money on unnecessary things to begin with
    — handing out welfare benefits to foreign nationals and then talking about raising taxes?
    44AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:50
    Re: #32
    Everyone says the Maibara route would be plenty, yet they're burning
    5 trillion yen in tax money on the Hokuriku Shinkansen's Obama-Kyoto route instead.
    There's no doubt the LDP massively wastes tax money.
    34AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:47
    The people opposed to cutting consumption tax

    obviously also want the corporate tax cuts reversed too, right? (lol)
    75AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:58
    Re: #34
    Corporate tax and consumption tax aren't the only taxes that exist, you know.
    From the standpoint of widening inequality, taxing the wealthy more is just the obvious call.
    36AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:48
    > "Permanent Corporate Tax Hike Should Put the Burden on Big Business" — Shimane Governor at Press Conference

    That's idiotic.
    Do that and highly profitable, healthy companies will just flee Japan for other countries one after another.
    All that'll be left in Japan is a pile of companies running in the red.
    60AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:56
    Re: #36
    With the yen at historically weak levels, production costs overseas have skyrocketed — so where exactly would they flee to?
    61AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:56
    Re: #36
    There's no such thing as a 'healthy company' in Keidanren (Japan's big-business federation).
    It's full of parasite companies that just skim off the top as middlemen.
    Better to drive these guys out and let honest companies thrive instead.
    38AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:48
    Re: #1
    Corporate tax is a tax on profit.

    When the corporate tax rate was cut, tax revenue actually went up.

    That's because it became cheaper to just pay the tax than to force through extra spending purely to dodge it.

    Consumption tax, from a company's perspective, is a tax on revenue.

    Since consumption tax taxes revenue, there's no way to avoid it through tax planning.

    If Japan wants to increase tax revenue, it should raise the consumption tax, not the corporate tax.
    45AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:51
    Re: #1
    Consumption tax is the mechanism by which everyone — not just the working-age population —

    shares the burden of social security spending, which already eats up more than half the national budget.

    In other words, cutting consumption tax just means dumping that heavy social security burden entirely onto the working-age generation instead.

    If you're going to cut consumption tax, you need to cut social security spending itself, otherwise the burden on working-age people won't actually get lighter.

    And if you are going to cut it, it should be on housing and luxury goods — not on daily necessities.
    48AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:52
    Re: #45
    Housing tax cuts? Already been done ages ago.
    Quit spreading misinformation.
    50AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:53
    They need to fix the system where a company can have its factory out in the regions but book its profits and pay taxes through its Tokyo head office.
    52AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:54
    Re: #50

    For Tokyo-headquartered companies, the corporate tax rate should be tripled, and losses should be taxed mercilessly too.
    57AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:55
    Consumption tax rates:

    Denmark  25% (food: 25%)
    Norway  25% (food: 15%)
    Finland 24% (food: 14%)
    Japan     10% (food: 8%)

    Japan's consumption tax is low, so there's no need to cut or abolish it.
    64AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:56
    Re: #57
    Of course it looks that way when you only cherry-pick the countries with high rates.
    Show some countries with zero percent too.
    145AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:16
    Oh, you're back.
    Good to see.


    Re: #57
    Japan really needs that special financial audit system I've been proposing to the young and mid-career officials at the Ministry of Finance — if it ever got introduced, there's no telling how many bureaucrats would get arrested. This country is so riddled with middlemen skimming off the top that it's hopeless as is.
    65AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:56
    Re: #48
    If raising interest rates is going to increase the mortgage burden on the working-age generation, then the consumption tax on housing should be cut to offset that.

    And raise the consumption tax on food instead.
    71AnonymousSep 12, 2026 11:57
    Re: #65
    Housing tax cuts are already a thing.
    Quit spreading misinformation.
    105AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:04
    If Japanese companies keep posting record profits, I'd think the better move is to raise the labor share of income and distribute more to workers, rather than just raising corporate tax.
    119AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:09
    Re: #105
    Corporate tax is levied on profit, but consumption tax is effectively levied on profit plus labor costs.
    That means raising employee salaries actually increases the tax burden under consumption tax — that's the brutal part of it.
    With corporate tax, raising salaries doesn't increase what you owe — if anything, paying employees more actually lowers your corporate tax bill.
    That's the most horrifying thing about consumption tax by comparison.
    120AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:09
    Re: #105
    The whole point is that since companies aren't doing that on their own, corporate tax should be raised instead.
    210AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:39
    Re: #1
    Honestly, I don't think high corporate tax is a problem.
    Companies are using the local workforce in that region, after all.
    Income tax originally started as a way to fund wartime expenses anyway — just abolish it and
    roll everything back into corporate tax. It's the same money no matter what stage it's taxed at.
    And abolish consumption tax too, while we're at it.
    211AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:39
    Would companies actually start thinking 'might as well raise salaries instead of losing it all to corporate tax'?
    216AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:42
    Re: #211
    No, it wouldn't.

    Japan's effective corporate tax rate was the 2nd highest in the world for years (now it's 7th),
    and salaries never went up because of it.
    220AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:43
    Re: #210
    More companies might start exploiting loopholes in the corporate structure to dodge tax — like a massive corporation conveniently using sole proprietors for convenience.

    Re: #211
    No, it wouldn't. If corporate tax gets raised, the trend will just shift toward executives holding their own company stock and boosting shareholder dividends instead.
    237AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:51
    One reason Japan lowered its corporate tax was to make it easier for foreign companies to set up here
    — but foreign companies never came in anywhere near the numbers the government expected.
    240AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:52
    Re: #237
    Companies invest in markets where growth is expected, right?
    Japan is a country in decline due to a shrinking, aging population, so there aren't many companies lining up to invest here going forward.
    244AnonymousSep 12, 2026 12:53
    Re: #237
    Well, Japan's corporate tax is still
    the 7th highest in the world.

    Other countries offer things like several years of corporate tax exemption to attract factories.
    Once jobs increase, they can just collect from the workers' income instead.

    Background and Key Points of This Debate

    The tension between corporate tax and consumption tax is a recurring structure in Japan’s tax policy debates: corporate tax falls on profit while consumption tax falls on sales and consumption, and that difference in nature fuels disagreement over “who should bear the burden.” What makes this particular remark notable is that it came from a local government like Shimane Prefecture — a reflection of Japan’s local tax structure, where tax payments concentrate in the major metropolitan areas where most big corporate headquarters are based, leaving regional areas with little tax revenue of their own. The thread’s starting point — “does Shimane even have any big corporate bases?” — raised doubts about whether the governor’s argument actually connects to his own prefecture’s interests, before the conversation broadened into a general debate over whether corporate tax or consumption tax should be raised or lowered. Some posts cited specific figures, such as OECD tax-rate rankings, but these remain claims made on an anonymous message board, without cited sources — a point worth treating with caution.

    *This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “‘Permanent Corporate Tax Hike Should Put the Burden on Big Business’ — Shimane Governor at Press Conference.”

  • Man Googles JAF for Roadside Help, Gets Fake Company Instead — Threatened Into Handing Over ¥300,000

    In Adachi Ward, Tokyo this past May, a man in his twenties whose car had broken down searched for JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) on his smartphone and called the contact number that came up. What he actually reached, though, was a fake operator believed to be tied to “Tokuryu” — a loosely organized crime network — and the man who showed up threatened him into handing over ¥300,000 in cash. Two people, including an executive at a roadside-service company, have been arrested. On 5ch, the thread splits between people questioning how a fake company could slip into search results in the first place (an ads/SEO problem) and others pointing out he could have simply used the roadside-assistance rider on his auto insurance instead.

    ■ Was the man who showed up linked to “Tokuryu”?

    The person arrested is Shin Akimoto (24), an executive at a roadside-service company.

    This past May, a man in his twenties whose car broke down in Adachi Ward, Tokyo, searched on his phone to call JAF. He reportedly called the contact number that came up in the results.

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

    11AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:07
    Wait, he called JAF without even being a member? lol
    251AnonymousSep 12, 2026 01:12
    Re: #11
    Expensive, but fine I guess.

    Normally you'd just call your own auto insurance though.
    27AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:09
    Didn't he have the roadside-assistance rider on his insurance?
    222AnonymousSep 12, 2026 01:04
    Re: #27
    A guy who screws up a basic search probably doesn't even know his insurance has roadside assistance.
    48AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:14
    Apparently when you search "JAF," a bunch of sketchy ads show up first and you have to scroll way down before the real JAF appears.
    Google is garbage.
    56AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:17
    Re: #48
    There's been a problem for a while now with scam sites showing up as the top ad.
    Users just have to get more internet-savvy.
    50AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:15
    I genuinely don't get how searching for JAF ends with you calling a roadside company tied to Tokuryu (a loose, disposable crime network).
    59AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:17
    Re: #50
    They probably rigged it to rank above the real JAF in search results.
    Just a net cast wide, waiting for people to swim into it.
    63AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:19
    Re: #59
    That's probably not doable.
    Gaming it that way costs way too much money.
    Guys like this couldn't pull that off.
    90AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:28
    Re: #59
    They wouldn't burn that kind of money and time on it — this isn't some finance-industry operation.
    He said he "thought it was affiliated with JAF," so he was probably looking for something cheaper than JAF and got snagged by a scam site claiming some JAF connection.
    60AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:18
    There are scams with plumbing/water-line work too, that's scary.
    186AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:53
    Re: #60
    For water-line work there are municipally-designated contractors, so apparently if one acts outrageously you can file a complaint with the local government and get them delisted.
    64AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:20
    These days even the membership card is just an app.
    He might have been a non-member who was never actually signed up with JAF.
    77AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:23
    Re: #64
    Sparkle, sparkle~ (a meme-ish sound effect, often used sarcastically)
    100AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:29
    Re: #1
    Searching "JAF" only brings up JAF lol
    Wonder what he actually searched.
    111AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:32
    Re: #100
    Probably something like "cheap tow truck."
    Tons of shady results show up for that.
    193AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:55
    Re: #100
    Not sure how exactly, but maybe he got the search results scrubbed at lightning speed afterward?
    145AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:42
    Whoa, is finding a business online really this dangerous these days…
    How are you even supposed to search for a legit company when you need one…
    154AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:45
    Re: #145
    First, call the police.
    158AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:46
    Re: #145
    If you use Virus Buster (a Japanese antivirus suite), it probably blocks it or color-codes results — showing only safe sites in green.
    167AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:48
    Re: #145
    You've got your best buddy Chappy, don't you? (slang nickname for ChatGPT)
    166AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:48
    Re: #1
    Quite a few people clearly haven't read Re: #1.

    > Suspect Koki Makishima (26), occupation unknown, was arrested on suspicion of threatening the victim and extorting ¥300,000 in cash.
    (That's the guy who showed up.)

    > It was suspect Akimoto who arranged this car carrier.
    >
    > He's suspected of borrowing it from a rental company for nearly a year without paying the rental fee.
    (That's the guy who got the call.)

    If he doesn't even own a car and uses a rental, he probably doesn't have his own auto insurance either.
    (And even if he did, with a "driving other cars" rider, whether it'd cover this situation is iffy.)
    People going on about auto insurance should at least read Re: #1.
    181AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:52
    Re: #166
    The car carrier he never returned to the rental company is the one the suspect actually drove there in.
    200AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:57
    Didn't a JAF employee do something recently too?
    204AnonymousSep 12, 2026 00:59
    Re: #200
    He claimed the car behind him was tailgating and tried to kill the driver by trapping them at a railroad crossing.
    209AnonymousSep 12, 2026 01:00
    Re: #200
    Trapped someone at a railroad crossing — attempted murder charge.
    219AnonymousSep 12, 2026 01:03
    When I Google "jaf," the top results are all just jaf.or.jp or jafnavi.jp.
    231AnonymousSep 12, 2026 01:06
    Re: #219
    Maybe he googled "tow truck" instead of "JAF"?
    232AnonymousSep 12, 2026 01:06
    Re: #219
    He probably didn't google "JAF" but something like "roadside service" or "tow truck."
    Do that and the top results turn into ads.
    236AnonymousSep 12, 2026 01:07
    Re: #219
    For me too, the official site with the JAF logo comes up first.
    And all I typed was just
    jaf
    So how'd he end up picking a different site?

    Background and key points of this discussion

    “Tokuryu” (anonymous, loosely-affiliated crime networks) is a term that has become common in recent reporting on phone scams and robberies, characterized by ringleaders and low-level operatives who form and disband on a disposable, ad-hoc basis. This particular scheme looks like a form of “search fraud,” where victims connect with a fake operator hidden among search results or ad slots and are then hit with an inflated bill in person. The thread is split between commenters arguing that “searching for JAF only turns up JAF” and others noting that combined search terms like “tow truck” or “cheap” can surface ads and fake sites — and the article alone doesn’t clarify exactly what search terms the victim used. Many auto insurance policies also come with a roadside-assistance rider that can provide free or low-cost help with just a call to the insurer, but non-members or those without that rider may have no choice but to search for a provider this way.

    ※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Called JAF, Tokuryu Showed Up and Shook Him Down for ¥300,000.”

  • Surprisingly Many People Are Uncomfortable With Secondhand Goods — 5ch: “I Just Can’t Deal With Something Someone Else Already Touched”

    Flea-market apps and reuse shops have made buying secondhand completely normal — yet a wave of social media posts revealed that far more people than expected simply can’t stand the idea of used goods. A news article on the topic sparked a big reaction on 5ch, where users debated exactly where the line falls: opened figures, used PCs, secondhand clothes, even used underwear. Some objections were purely about hygiene (“it’s just gross”), others purely practical (“it’s cheap, so used is plenty”), and opinion split cleanly down the middle.

    Even now that flea-market apps and reuse shops are completely mainstream, it seems a surprising number of people still say they’re “just not okay” with secondhand books, clothes, appliances, and the like.

    ◼ Even if it looks spotless…

    On social media, comments about using secondhand goods include things like “Someone’s hands were all over this, right? Using that every day is a bit much” and “Even if it’s been cleaned, there’s just no way with clothes.”

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

    10AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:20
    The worst by far is opened/unboxed figures
    and you can't even check them with a blacklight…
    66AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:27
    Re: #10
    The ones that have hydrolyzed and gone all sticky are brutal
    15AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:21
    I only buy on Yahoo Auctions when there's truly no other choice
    like TV remotes
    92AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:30
    Re: #15
    Universal remotes
    19AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:21
    If my wife were "secondhand" I'd rather be dead lol
    34AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:22
    Re: #19
    I'm genuinely shocked people still say stuff like this in the Reiwa era!?
    31AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:22
    Go visit America sometime

    They sell "used underwear" literally labeled USED


    That's the one thing I can't handle

    Sure enough, it's become a meme over there too
    328AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:49
    Re: #31
    They sell that in Japan too, you know
    and it goes for a premium
    42AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:23
    Let the germophobes just keep living their way lol,
    but as a basic rule of thumb for person-to-person deals on sites like Yahoo Auctions or Mercari:
    don't buy anything in a category that's already been "discovered" (i.e. overhyped/scalped),
    and don't sell anything in a category where the enthusiasts are notoriously picky lol — that's the golden rule
    51AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:25
    You're already breathing in air someone nearby just exhaled
    and drinking water that evaporated out of poop
    well, as long as it doesn't make you sick, it's fine
    64AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:27
    I lick my finger to turn pages in library books, no problem at all
    169AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:36
    Re: #64
    There was a real champion who left boogers
    on almost every single page though
    it got thrown out in the end
    98AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:30
    My house is secondhand
    couldn't afford a new build
    166AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:36
    Re: #98
    Apparently the moment you get the keys, the value drops 20-30%
    178AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:37
    Re: #166
    Well, that's basically the dealer's profit margin right there
    202AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:39
    Re: #166
    They say houses and cars lose half their value the instant you buy them
    it's an extreme example, but still
    209AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:40
    If there's no new option, fair enough, but
    would you ever deliberately choose to buy secondhand?
    235AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:41
    Re: #209
    High-end road bikes that used to cost a fortune go super cheap secondhand if they're rim-brake
    you don't even need discs on paved roads anyway
    242AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:42
    Re: #209
    What reason is there besides "it's cheap"?
    I get almost all my clothes on Mercari
    216AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:40
    There are probably people out there who can't sit in a train or bus seat someone else has sat in, or grab the handrails
    or can't even ride in taxis
    people like that must genuinely exist… lol
    258AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:43
    Re: #216
    Some celebrity, forget who,
    said they're so germophobic they open outdoor doorknobs with their foot
    turning the knob with their shoe, apparently
    though indoors they do use their hands
    307AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:47
    Re: #216
    You do occasionally get people who can't bring themselves to grab handrails

    At hotels and ryokan, some people bring their own pillow, though that's for a different reason
    never heard of anyone bringing their own bedsheets though
    228AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:41
    Thrift stores have secondhand shoes on the shelves too, but I bet a ton of them belonged to people with athlete's foot
    247AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:42
    Re: #228
    Just soak them in Kitchen Hyter (a bleach-based cleaner) and disinfect, you're fine
    263AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:44
    Re: #228
    It's probably already killed off by whatever disinfectant they use anyway

    Though apparently AI told someone that with zero treatment, it can stay infectious for months
    274AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:45
    Apparently used lipstick and foundation sell well too, but how is that hygienic
    Appliances and PCs are fine but I don't want a used smartphone
    293AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:46
    Re: #274
    People sell used shoes and underwear too…
    I just don't get it
    304AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:47
    Re: #274
    With cosmetics I just can't shake the feeling
    that someone's skin oils are on it
    333AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:49
    Smartphones and PCs are totally fine secondhand
    343AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:50
    Re: #333
    For me, PCs are actually the category I trust least when it comes to secondhand
    359AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:51
    Re: #333
    Anything that runs on electricity I'd rather buy new
    age-related wear is unavoidable
    363AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:52
    What about the bowls at ramen shops?
    377AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:54
    Re: #363
    It's the spoon (renge), not the bowl, that's worse
    that's basically an indirect deep kiss with some grimy old guy
    378AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:54
    Re: #363
    Some guy has eaten out of that hundreds, thousands of times, so no way
    367AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:53
    The PC tower itself is fine, but
    keyboards and mice are crawling with bacteria
    if the previous owner was a gamer with poor hygiene
    there could be dandruff stuck in there, it's gross
    382AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:54
    Re: #367
    These days, deep-travel keyboards have hair and stuff fallen down into the gaps.
    Makes me want to take it apart and clean it every so often.
    406AnonymousSep 11, 2026 18:56
    Re: #367
    I don't like used PC towers either
    not for hygiene reasons but because you can't tell how worn out it is

    For me it's wear and tear that matters more than hygiene
    cars, smartphones, appliances — it's hard to gauge how degraded any of them are
    with something new you get a warranty, and since you're the one using it, you actually know how hard it's been run

    Background and key points of this discussion

    The secondhand market has expanded rapidly thanks to flea-market apps, but what stood out in this discussion wasn’t price — it was psychological resistance. The thread split between people prioritizing a gut-level aversion to “used” itself, and people prioritizing price and practicality. Some pointed to hidden deterioration that’s invisible on the surface, like hydrolyzed figures or deteriorating old books, while others noted that even brand-new items — houses, cars — lose value the instant they’re purchased, meaning “secondhand or not” and “degradation/asset value” aren’t always the same axis. Several posts also made the point that while cleaning or disinfecting can lower the actual hygiene risk, it doesn’t necessarily erase the psychological discomfort itself.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Newsplus) thread “Turns out there are a lot of them… people who “can’t buy secondhand”: SNS reactions include “I can’t deal with something someone else already touched” and “seems like you’d lose out if it breaks”.”