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  • Late-Night 5ch Live Thread Spirals from Animal Noises to Ghost Debate: “Ghosts and the Afterlife Are 100% Just Fiction”

    In a thread on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” (anything-goes live-commentary board), idle chatter — meaningless animal-noise exchanges and reactions to reader-submitted images — rambled on until a post declaring “Ghosts and the afterlife are 100% just fiction” sparked a small back-and-forth over whether spirits are real. Some posters offered their own theories, others replied with images resembling personal anecdotes, and the topic kept drifting without ever reaching a conclusion. Elsewhere, someone suddenly posted a new character image and asked “What anime is this from?”, while others speculated about why popular VTuber “Rushia,” who has since left the scene, departed.

    6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Wha-nya is this?! (playful cat-speak slang)
    7AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Re: #6
    Buzz-buzz-buzzz! 🐧
    9AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Re: #7
    Baaan-cho!
    12AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Re: #7
    Kon-ko-kon-kon-ko-kon-kon-kon ✊ (the classic "kon-kon" fox-cry sound)
    22AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:38
    🐀🐟
    27AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:39
    Re: #22
    Whaaat is this thing?!
    32AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:40
    Re: #2
    Safety check complete 👊😅👊 👮👮
    33AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:40
    Re: #32
    Whoa, this is amazing!
    35AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:41
    38AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:42
    Re: #35
    Is this from "I Want to Love You Until You Die"?
    39AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:42
    Re: #27
    Buzz buzz buzz~ 🐧
    42AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:42
    Re: #39
    Con-chiku-boob lol (a pun swapping the end of "dammit!" for the word "nipple")
    57AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:47
    New Mimi pic just dropped
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HGA3RaTbsAAS9Oz.jpg
    64AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:49
    Re: #57
    Super cute — what anime is this from?
    100AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:03
    Ghosts, the afterlife — that's 100% just made-up fiction, right?
    117AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:07
    Re: #100
    123AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:09
    Re: #117
    I bawled my eyes out at last year's Lantern Rite (the Genshin Impact festival event)
    139AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:15
    Hey!😡
    147AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:16
    Re: #139
    Google: "Unfortunate, but expected."
    149AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:16
    Re: #139
    Guess some people actually search for the "person inside" (the performer behind the VTuber)
    Hope it doesn't ruin the magic for them 🙏
    155AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:19
    157AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:19
    Re: #155
    Ah, the pretty elf one!
    163AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:20
    167AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:21
    Re: #163
    She's constantly getting soaked from swimming and Hydro attacks, but she never ends up looking like that
    171AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:23
    What did Rushia actually do, anyway?
    173AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:23
    Re: #171
    The person behind the character was just too cute
    175AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:24
    Re: #171
    She appeared on TV with the comedian Sanma (Akashiya Sanma) back in the day
    178AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:24
    Re: #171
    She got too popular, people got jealous, and she was pushed out

    Background and key points of this topic

    “Rushia” is the nickname of Uruha Rushia, a popular VTuber formerly affiliated with Hololive, whose activities ended in 2022 when her contract was terminated. The agency never disclosed the full details behind that decision, and fans still trade various theories about it to this day — the thread’s claim that “she got too popular, people got jealous, and she was pushed out” is just one such theory, and should be read with that caveat in mind. The same caution applies to the exchange about ghosts and the afterlife: the “just fiction” claim was simply met with images and anecdote-like responses, and no side was ever established as the definitive “answer” within the thread. Because live-commentary threads consist of posts that constantly cycle through, unverified claims and personal assumptions tend to flow past as-is, so it’s worth keeping in mind that individual comments are part of casual chatter rather than confirmed information.

    ※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Nandemo Jikkyo G”) thread “Meanwhile, over at Luna Castle… (・o・🍬)🏰.”

  • The Vanished Convenience Stores Circle K and Sunkus: 5ch Recalls ‘Sunkus, Brighter Than the Stars’

    Circle K and Sunkus were both convenience store chains with strong ties to Uny, and even after their 2004 merger into Circle K Sunkus, the chain kept an especially dense cluster of stores in Aichi Prefecture — a holdover from Sunkus’ roots as a Uny affiliate. When FamilyMart and the Uny Group merged in 2016, Circle K Sunkus spent the next few years being converted over to FamilyMart, and many of its stores disappeared along the way. In a thread on 5ch’s Hello! Project board (an idol-fan forum, of all places), users traded memories of their local stores and favorite items like coffee, meat buns, and beef bowls, along with stories of shops that closed after franchise contract terms changed post-merger.

    1AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:21
    Sunkus, right around the corner (their old slogan)
    6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:27
    Honestly I've got more nostalgia for am/pm.
    7AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:27
    There was a Sunkus near the rental place I used to live. Brings back memories.
    10AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:30
    Back in my old apartment there was a Sunkus and a Hot Spar nearby lol (Hot Spar — a regional chain)
    13AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:37
    Circle K's sweets beat FamilyMart's, honestly.
    14AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:38
    I worked at their refrigerated warehouse until FamilyMart bought them out.
    I liked their discounted bento deals.
    15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:39
    Please don't let MINISTOP disappear…
    there's no replacing that soft-serve.
    38AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:30
    Re: #15
    Totally get it
    Their Halo-Halo is seriously good (a Filipino-style shaved ice dessert)
    16AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:40
    There were tons of Sunkus near me and I used them all the time,
    but the owner had a contract dispute and they all turned into Lawson or something.
    17AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:42
    These days every industry's been bought up by big corporations and lost its personality — it's boring.
    18AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:44
    Sunkus, brighter than the stars
    47AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:58
    Re: #18
    Wasn't it 'Three F, brighter than the stars'?
    Though Three F's gone too now.
    19AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:45
    I'm from Nagasaki so I only know 7-Eleven, Lawson, and FamilyMart,
    so it's fun seeing all the different convenience stores when I go to other prefectures.
    20AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:46
    Their sweets and yakitori were the best of any convenience store.
    24AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:02
    When I worked there part-time they rolled out a Toshiro Kandagawa bento (2,000 yen I think), but it only sold 2-3 a day, and the owner would take the discarded ones home. (Kandagawa Toshiro is a famous Japanese chef)
    25AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:04
    There was an insane number of them in Aichi.
    Just walking from my house to the station I'd pass three Circle Ks.
    Zero of anything else.
    27AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:07
    They started out as part of the Uny group, so of course there'd be a ton in Aichi.
    30AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:11
    7-Eleven
    Lawson
    FamilyMart
    MINISTOP
    Three F
    Sunkus
    Circle K
    am/pm
    46AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:56
    Re: #30
    Hey, don't forget Poplar (another regional chain)
    32AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:15
    There were a bunch in Gunma and I used Sunkus all the time
    for breaks and meals.
    33AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:16
    Their hot snack selection was great.
    I used Edy like crazy back when it first launched. (Edy — an early e-money card)
    34AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:20
    There used to be one right at the bottom of the stairs on the Meiji-dori side of Ebisu Station's west exit, and I went there a lot.
    Used to buy their seared shime-saba (vinegar-cured mackerel) and Taiwan-style ramen.
    37AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:29
    I used to work there part-time.
    I was the only one not invited to the staff drinking party and it made me cry.
    39AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:31
    Convenience stores outside the big three always felt kind of dim inside somehow —
    Poplar, Daily Yamazaki, Circle K Sunkus.
    41AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:42
    That toasted sandwich thing they made was so good, and then FamilyMart just swiped it.
    42AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:43
    Sunkus' portion-pack coffee was great —
    I liked it better than 7-Eleven's freshly ground stuff.
    43AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:52
    Around 2018 when they merged into FamilyMart,
    out of about 10 stores near me, half turned into FamilyMart and half just closed for good.
    The owners were probably getting older and wanted out, and the franchise terms probably got worse too.
    44AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:53
    Sunkus' meat buns were so good though.
    48AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:59
    One opened up in my dying rural town, and with all the traffic it sold like crazy — they even ran sales — but then it got sandwiched between two Lawsons up and down the street and was done for in no time.
    And it was walking distance too…
    49AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:00
    Their beef bowl used cheap meat,
    but it was tasty, generous, and cheap, so I ate it a lot.
    This was back before convenience store bentos got all fancy.
    50AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:01
    The FamilyMarts that used to be Sunkus don't have automatic doors at the entrance.
    52AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:02
    I have this image of Three F sticking around pretty late, relatively speaking.
    53AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:03
    Seikatsu Station! Save On! (more regional convenience chains)
    54AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:04
    I'm an old man past 60 and I've never once set foot in a MINISTOP.
    55AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:05
    Re: #54
    Their soft-serve is amazing, you should go
    56AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:06
    I remember searching around for surviving stores while Sunkus was vanishing, looking for something you could only get there.
    But I can't even remember what that something was,
    and now that I'm writing this I'm starting to think it might've actually been Circle K.
    58AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:08
    Tokachi Niitsu Seimen's cup ramen was pretty good, I think. (a noodle maker)
    59AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:17
    Back when the yen was strong under the DPJ government, 7-Eleven was just running away with it alone. (DPJ — Japan's ruling party 2009-2012, a period of yen strength)

    Background and Talking Points

    Both Sunkus and Circle K had strong ties to their parent company Uny, which is why they had such a high store density in Aichi Prefecture (comment 27). Around the same time, the 2010s saw a wave of consolidation among the mid-tier chains outside the ‘big three’ (7-Eleven, Lawson, and FamilyMart) — am/pm merged into FamilyMart, while Three F and Poplar joined the Lawson group. Some commenters said stores outside the big three ‘always felt kind of dim’ (comment 39), but each chain also built a loyal following with its own signature products, like portion-pack coffee, meat buns, and soft-serve ice cream. Behind the consolidation seems to be a gap in staying power versus the majors — aging store owners and worsening franchise contract terms (comment 43) among the likely factors.

    ※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Memories of the Now-Defunct ‘Circle K Sunkus’.”

  • Musician Sounds Alarm on Fast-Pass Healthcare: ‘Only the Rich Get Saved’

    On September 29, 2026, singer-songwriter SIRUP raised concerns on X about paid “fast-pass” services spreading through the healthcare system. Fast passes let customers pay extra to skip the line at theme parks or restaurants, and SIRUP’s worry is that the same model is now creeping into hospitals. On 5ch, opinions split between “healthcare isn’t a free service, so it’s only natural that paying customers get priority” and “public healthcare should stay equal for everyone,” with the debate spilling over into broader frustrations about inequality and politics.

    Tue, 9/29, 3:33 PM

    Singer-songwriter SIRUP (39) posted on X on the 29th, raising concerns about the growing use of fast-pass services that let patients cut down wait times at hospitals and elsewhere.

    A “fast pass” is a system where paying an extra fee lets you use a service or facility on a priority basis. It’s already used at theme parks and restaurants, drawing attention as a way to ease the stress of waiting in line.

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

    2AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:49
    Watching an Osaka night-view video channel on YouTube is way more fun than watching Peace-kun from Omiya Park (the zoo's famous swaying elephant, a minor internet meme).
    7AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:51
    Come on, this isn't exactly a life-or-death emergency situation.
    8AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:52
    Cosmetic surgery and stuff like that — just do whatever you want, it's elective, out-of-pocket care anyway.
    10AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:52
    Fast passes are fine for entertainment and amusement parks, but public institutions and hospitals should stay equal for everyone.
    43AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:59
    Re: #10
    What era do you think this is, calling hospitals "old folks' hangouts"? Japan today has the highest rate of working seniors in the world.
    11AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:52
    A rich person's minute and a poor person's minute aren't worth the same.
    That's still better than hospitals turning into old folks' hangout spots.
    12AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:53
    Which hospitals, exactly? "Some hospitals" is way too vague.
    35AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:57
    Re: #12
    Things like phimosis surgery, for example.
    14AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:53
    These people always jump straight to "they're triaging who lives and who dies."
    15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:53
    It's the fault of old folks who mistake hospitals for community centers.
    16AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:53
    "Because politics sucks"
    has nothing to do with this.
    19AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:55
    "Only the rich get saved," huh
    plenty of celebrities have died too, you know.
    20AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:55
    No, the real problem is that broke losers have been coddled all this time.
    If you've got a complaint, go pay more in taxes yourself
    though you'd just emigrate the second income tax went up anyway.
    21AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:55
    This is exactly why people say don't let idiots talk about politics.
    22AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:56
    Trash making under 20 million yen a year (about $135K) shouldn't even bother coming to the hospital.
    23AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:56
    If you'd already been living a life where you had money by that point, well, that's just how it goes.
    24AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:56
    Hospitals aren't charities, so it's just how it is.
    27AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:56
    You can get treated completely normally even on welfare, though.
    28AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:56
    Of course having money gets you faster, better healthcare
    that's just obvious.
    29AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:56
    Can't do a thing on your own, but the second you form a mob… that's no different from delinquents or bullies.
    31AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:57
    Healthcare isn't a free service.
    Isn't it obvious that whoever pays more gets access to a higher level of care?
    33AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:57
    No idea who this guy is and it doesn't seem political, but
    paying to jump the line at a hospital isn't really a good thing.
    45AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:00
    Re: #33
    You should really recognize how twisted that mindset is.
    47AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:00
    What's the point of starting a whole thread over some nobody's sleep-talking smear campaign?
    48AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:01
    Sounds like it's basically just a paid reservation system
    that much seems fine, no?
    49AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:01
    People who think "I'll pay so it's convenient for me"
    should think ahead to the future where this widening gap breeds resentment,
    and the safe, orderly Japan we've known disappears.
    59AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:03
    Re: #49
    Being resentful doesn't change your own situation, you know.
    Ending up miserable because you didn't put in the effort is just karma.
    You could still work hard now and raise your own worth
    why can't people manage something that simple?
    50AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:01
    No idea who this guy is and it doesn't seem political, but
    paying to jump the line at a hospital is a good thing
    do more of it.
    67AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:04
    If a politician and I were both in critical condition at the same time, the politician would get priority.
    That's just how it is.
    75AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:06
    Re: #67
    If you had money, you'd be the one getting priority.
    Organ transplants already work exactly like that.
    78AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:07
    I wonder if they have any thoughts at all about non-insured, out-of-pocket medical treatment.
    81AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:07
    This is a good system.
    People who work honestly deserve healthcare more than people like you lot.
    92AnonymousSep 29, 2026 16:08
    Re: #81
    You never know when you might end up on the discriminated-against side yourself.
    You should understand that.

    Background and Key Points of This Debate

    The original article doesn’t specify exactly which hospitals have introduced fast-pass services, and the thread never landed on a clear answer to the question “which hospitals, exactly?” The debate splits roughly into two points. First, there’s the question of how this squares with existing out-of-pocket arrangements — like cosmetic surgery or other elective treatments — that already let patients pay for priority care. Second, there’s the question of how far a paid priority service can coexist with the core principle behind national health insurance: that everyone should receive equal care regardless of ability to pay. Later in the thread, the discussion drifted into unrelated political grievances like the weak yen and immigration policy — worth noting that these are separate issues from SIRUP’s original point.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “‘Only the Rich Get Saved’ — Musician Sounds Alarm on Hospital Fast Passes: ‘If Politics Is This Bad’ / ‘Everyone Really Needs to Get Serious’.”

  • Japan’s Population Falls to 122.97 Million, Down 3.17 Million in 5 Years — 5ch Reacts

    On the 29th, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released finalized results from the 2025 national census, showing Japan’s total population — including foreign residents — stood at 122,972,528 as of October 1, 2025. That’s a drop of 3,173,571 people (2.5%) from the previous 2020 census. On 5ch, threads also cited a separate statistic based on the Basic Resident Register showing that, counting Japanese nationals only, the population fell below 120 million for the first time in 42 years — leading to confusion over why the two figures differed. Opinions on what counts as an “appropriate” population ranged from the 50 millions to the 80 millions, with posters split between those unconcerned about population decline itself and those worried about maintaining infrastructure and tax revenue.

    Japan’s Total Population: 122.97 Million | NEWSjp — Kyodo News

    Published 2026/09/29 14:16:36

    According to finalized results from the 2025 national census released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on the 29th, Japan’s total population — including foreign residents — stood at 122,972,528 as of October 1, 2025. That’s a decrease of 3,173,571 people (2.5%) from the previous census in 2020.

    Source: news.jp / Read the original article

    3AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:34
    There are probably around 3.5 million foreigners in there —
    so that really puts it under 120 million.
    19AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:37
    Re: #3
    Yeah, pretty much.

    Japan's Population Falls Below 120 Million for First Time in 42 Years — Down 910,000 to 119.7367 Million; Foreign Residents Up 350,000
    https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20260729-GYT1T00324/

    On the 29th, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released population figures based on the Basic Resident Register, as of New Year's Day this year.
    The number of Japanese residents fell by 916,744 from the previous year to 119,736,483, dropping below 120 million for the first time in 42 years.
    Foreign residents rose by 353,696 to 4,031,159, a record high.
    74AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:51
    Re: #19
    Thought it hadn't dropped as much as expected…
    turns out this is why.
    76AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:51
    Re: #19
    910,000 people — that's basically an entire Kagawa Prefecture (aka "Udon Prefecture," pop. ~950,000) disappearing every year.
    6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:34
    50 million would be the right size for Japan.
    255AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:42
    Re: #6
    The problem is there's no real reason to think it'd stabilize at 50 million.
    Say there are about 700,000 births this year —
    even if every single one of them lived to 90, that's only about 63 million total.

    Where does this fantasy of the population leveling off at 50 million even come from?
    9AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:35
    It's shrinking at a no-joke pace, but are we really going to just keep coasting on this warped social structure?
    Forget immigration — until we stop propping up the elderly and start spending on the younger generation instead, the root problem isn't getting solved.
    12AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Re: #9
    Thank Heizo Takenaka for that (the economist-politician behind Japan's labor deregulation reforms).
    75AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:51
    Re: #9
    It's because companies won't hire young Japanese for blue-collar work that immigrants end up filling the gap.
    224AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:35
    Re: #9
    You say "cut them loose" like it's nothing, but if we just abandon the elderly, we'll end up with bodies piling up everywhere — you fine with that?
    And you think the young could actually live normally in a world like that?
    32AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:40
    If they properly counted the tribes living in remote, unexplored areas, wouldn't the number go up a bit more?
    142AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:15
    Re: #32
    Some super-rural prefecture, maybe?
    Isn't that the one supposedly hidden somewhere between Saitama and Gunma? (a running joke about a mythical "secret" prefecture)
    37AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:41
    Re: #19
    There are 4 million of them??
    That's 1 in every 30 people.
    190AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:28
    Re: #37
    Among people in their 20s, 1 in 10 is a foreign national.


    That's Abe's parting gift.
    https://bbs68.meiwasuisan.com/news/img/17890130880018.jpg

    Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced at the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy on the 5th that Japan would expand its acceptance of foreign workers. A new residency status covering five labor-starved industries — including construction, agriculture, and elder care — was set to launch in April 2019. It opened the door to simple labor, previously off-limits in principle, with a goal of getting over 500,000 foreign workers employed by 2025.
    https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO31413180V00C18A6MM8000/
    56AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:46
    What's so bad about the population shrinking? Just build a country that can run fine with around 80 million people. Plenty of countries manage it. Sure, it'll probably be rough in some ways, but still.
    59AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:47
    Re: #56
    A lot of what was built here assumed the number of users would just keep growing forever.
    69AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:49
    Re: #56
    More like — in the age of IT and AI,
    having a smaller population is actually an advantage.
    144AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:15
    Re: #56
    But… this is Japan we're talking about (´・ω・`)
    81AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:53
    Something like 50-60 million seems about right.
    The UK and France are roughly that size too.
    120AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:04
    Re: #81
    You can say "seems about right" all you want, but that doesn't mean the decline actually stops there.
    133AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:08
    Re: #121
    If the population shrinks, there are fewer people producing garbage too, so it evens out, right?
    145AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:15
    Re: #133
    You're not getting it.
    The real problem is Japan's population structure.
    The number of elderly people who can no longer work is only going to keep climbing.
    That trend isn't reversing.
    The number of people around to even collect the garbage keeps shrinking too, and broken roads and bridges just staying unrepaired forever is going to become the new normal.
    149AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:16
    Re: #145
    Then just thin out the number of roads and bridges, no?
    154AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:18
    Re: #149
    But that makes travel and logistics less efficient,
    so wouldn't you need even more manpower as a result?
    159AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:19
    Re: #149
    I can already picture a future where bridges that couldn't be reinforced and got closed off somehow still end up being accident hotspots (´・ω・`)
    170AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:23
    Fewer old folks — ain't that a good thing?
    174AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:24
    Re: #170
    Sure, fewer old folks, but the kids aren't increasing either —
    so who's going to pay the taxes?
    177AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:24
    Re: #170
    This is a country where 1 in 3 people is elderly now.
    Try actually looking at the statistics for once.
    181AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:26
    Re: #170
    It's the kids who are shrinking.
    The elderly population peaking out is still a ways off.
    238AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:39
    Other developed countries are seeing population decline too, so it's not like Japan is uniquely disadvantaged.
    Downsize the country smartly, and population decline doesn't automatically mean getting poorer.
    245AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:40
    Re: #238
    We've let ourselves become the country with the world's highest elderly ratio —
    that's downsizing in about the least smart way possible.
    246AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:40
    Re: #238
    > Downsize the country smartly, and population decline doesn't automatically mean getting poorer.
    Not happening. Japan's income level is already about half that of the US/Europe. It's already getting poorer.
    Even King Bombii was living large back when it was 300 yen to the dollar. (King Bombii — the poverty-god character from the "Momotaro Dentetsu" board game series, invoked here as a joke about how weak the yen has become)
    250AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:41
    Re: #238
    Japan has no natural resources and barely any flat land — how exactly is it supposed to downsize "smartly"?

    Background and Key Points of the Debate

    The figures released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications are the finalized results of the 2025 national census (as of October 1, including foreign residents), showing a decline of 3.17 million from five years earlier. Meanwhile, the figure cited in post #19 — based on the Basic Resident Register — is a separate count as of January this year, covering Japanese nationals only, showing a year-on-year drop of 910,000 and a fall below 120 million for the first time in 42 years. Because the two statistics use different reference dates and different scopes (whether foreign residents are included), seeing both numbers side by side in the same thread led to the mistaken impression that the decline was “smaller than expected.” As for what counts as an “appropriate” population, opinions ranged anywhere from 50 million to 80 million, but as post #255 points out, with roughly 700,000 births a year, there’s little basis for thinking the population would actually level off in that range over the long run. On causes and solutions, opinions split over immigration, elderly welfare, and the cost of maintaining infrastructure, with no consensus reached.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Japan’s Total Population: 122.97 Million.”

  • Manga Titles Have Doubled in Length Over 15 Years — “Reincarnated” and “Lady” Buzzwords Surge

    When e-book store BookLive analyzed its own catalog data to mark passing 2 million cumulative distributed titles, it found that the average character count of manga titles had roughly doubled over the past 15 years. In shōnen and seinen (boys’/young men’s) manga, words like “another world,” “reincarnation,” and “strongest” have become conspicuous, while shōjo and josei (girls’/women’s) manga shifted from love- and marriage-focused terms around 2016 to more raw, real-life words like “housewife,” “toxic (black),” and “neighborhood” by around 2019. On 5channel, reactions ranged from jokes about “villainess”-genre title clichés to comments noting that long titles have actually been around for ages.

    It’s no longer unusual these days to spot manga on shelves or in apps with long titles like “The Strongest… Who Got Exiled,” but how much have titles actually grown? E-book store BookLive analyzed titles from its own catalog to mark passing 2 million cumulative distributed copies, and found that the average character count had doubled over 15 years.

    The words used in titles have also shifted over the past decade. In shōnen and seinen manga, for example, terms like “another world,” “reincarnation,” and “strongest” have risen to the top, reflecting a growing tendency to convey the setting or the protagonist’s powers right in the title.

    The change looks even more dramatic in shōjo and josei manga. Compared to 2016, when love-centered words like “love,” “marriage,” and “romance” dominated, by around 2019 titles were leaning toward grittier, real-life drama terms like “housewife,” “toxic (black),” and “neighborhood.”

    Source: 0115765.com / Original article here

    7AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:45
    Re: #1
    Man, there sure are a lot of reincarnation stories out there.
    But if a nobody like us with no talent or skills got reincarnated, we couldn't actually do anything with it —
    we'd probably just end up living out our life as a lowly nobody in the new world too.
    Isn't there a manga where the guy gets reincarnated and just… stays an ordinary commoner the whole time?
    45AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:09
    Re: #7
    People pick these up because they want catharsis — a way to vent the frustration of their own crappy, low-status lives.
    No matter how much readers crave a twist on the formula because ideas are running dry, a story where the hero just stays a nobody to the end will never catch on,
    because that's literally just the reader's own life.
    9AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:47
    If it's too long you can't remember the title, right?
    Even I forgot the actual full title of "Yamaguchi Roppeita."
    15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:51
    Re: #9
    "General Affairs Department, General Affairs Section, Yamaguchi Roppeita" —
    it popped up as an autocomplete suggestion while I was typing it out lolololol
    12AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:49
    Isn't this trend something that came over from light novels and that whole scene?
    31AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:01
    Re: #12
    Yeah, it's probably from manga adaptations of that stuff.
    25AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:58
    The longest ones on my bookshelf are "The World Is Mine" and "Keiba Kyousouden: Arya Uma Korya Uma" (a horse-racing manga whose title roughly means "Is This a Horse? Is That a Horse?").
    42AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:08
    Re: #25
    Mine is "Hazakura no Kisetsu ni Kimi wo Omou to Iu Koto" ("Thinking of You in the Season of Leaf-Cherry Blossoms").
    48AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:09
    Re: #25
    "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" (Murakami's novel).
    51AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:12
    "The Tale of Setting Out on a Journey to Gather the Seven Orbs That Summon a Dragon Who Grants Any Wish You Want"

    "I Trained Insanely Hard to Defeat the Demon Who Killed My Parent, But Somehow My Sister Turned Into a Demon Too and Now She Dotes on Me Way Too Much and It's Exhausting"


    That's basically what we're talking about —
    typical titles for "Narou" web-novel manga (riffing on Dragon Ball and Demon Slayer).
    122AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:44
    Re: #51
    The word "doted on" in a title is almost always aimed at a female readership.
    55AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:14
    Reincarnation
    Another world
    Overwhelming strength
    Broken engagement
    Villainess
    Exiled
    Serves them right (comeuppance payoff)
    Actually the strongest
    Frontier lord
    Slow life
    102AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:36
    Re: #55
    The villainess genre is already running out of fresh ideas.
    57AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:15
    I don't totally get it, but it's always some kind of medieval-European-ish world, right?
    There's a butler, and it feels like there's always a prince, a princess, and a knight somewhere.
    Guess ancient Africa or Mongolia just wouldn't cut it as a setting.
    59AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:16
    Re: #57
    >some kind of medieval-European-ish
    Apparently that's called "Naroppa" (a mashup of "Narou," the web novel site, and "Europe").
    60AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:17
    This is basically what a "villainess" story looks like:











    69AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:23
    Re: #60
    She just keeps getting her engagement broken off, huh lol
    Is she about to go running to a crooked lawyer next?
    78AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:28
    Re: #60
    In image 10, doesn't a character just flat-out say "villainess" out loud lol
    95AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:34
    Re: #60
    Whoa, I thought the heroine kept getting her engagement broken off over and over within the same story.
    Guess I'm getting old.
    62AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:18
    – "The Room, the Dress Shirt, and Me"
    – "As Selfish as Love, I Won't Hurt Only You"
    – "Let's Break Up, I'll Disappear From You"
    – "Love Syndrome — A Study on Its Onset, Tendencies, and Countermeasures"

    There are some surprisingly long song titles too, huh.
    70AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:23
    Re: #62
    "I'm the one breaking up with you, so YOU get lost" — what a brutal title 😂
    76AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:26
    Whether it's manga, anime, or a movie, if the title is a full sentence, it's garbage.
    77AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:27
    Re: #76
    "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (the Japanese release title).
    79AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:28
    I wonder if authors who jump on a trend late ever feel any embarrassment about it.
    94AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:33
    I bet plenty of readers only remember the abbreviated title accurately.
    And once something becomes a hit, a lot of titles show up that seem designed to be mistaken for it.
    104AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:36
    Re: #94
    "No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!"
    → shortened to "WataMote"
    → which then got mixed up with "What Would I Even Do If I Became Popular"

    Not that either one is a bad series, but still…
    106AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:37
    There's no way a title like that could ever land the kind of gut-punch payoff "Parasyte" pulled off with its title.
    111AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:39
    Re: #106
    "Your Lie in April."
    115AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:42
    Re: #106
    I thought "Talentless Nana" landed its title payoff beautifully.
    109AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:37
    Any story that needs an absurdly long title just to explain its own premise is, without exception, garbage.
    119AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:43
    There are way too many light novels where the title is basically the entire content.
    The stories themselves are painfully thin.
    127AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:44
    Re: #119
    On the flip side, plenty of series only match their title for the first few chapters,
    and then the title stops having anything to do with the story pretty quickly lol
    124AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:44
    Re: #111
    Re: #115
    That's not even a long title at all lol
    129AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:45
    Re: #124
    When it comes to long titles, the manga adaptation of "Chi-Fuyo" (short for a cheat-skill isekai title roughly 100 characters long) pulls off its title payoff through pure, absurd brute force lol

    Background and Key Points of This Topic

    Behind the lengthening of titles lies the web-novel culture epitomized by the site “Shōsetsuka ni Narō” (“Let’s Become a Novelist”). Because a story’s premise had to be conveyed within the few characters shown on a ranking list, titles that crammed in the whole synopsis became the norm — and industry insiders often note that this habit spread to ordinary bookstore shelves as those works were turned into published novels and manga adaptations. On the thread, opinions split over the blanket claim that “long title = bad work”: some pointed to examples like “Your Lie in April,” where a short title still lands a powerful payoff, while others argued length and quality have nothing to do with each other. Some also brought up Shōwa-era pop songs like “The Room, the Dress Shirt, and Me” and works of foreign literature, noting that long titles are hardly a new technique. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the underlying data comes from a single company, BookLive, and its own distributed catalog — not a comprehensive survey of the publishing industry as a whole.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Geinō/Sports News Plus) thread “Manga Titles Have Grown “Twice” as Long on Average Over 15 Years… What’s the Reason? A Clear Trend of Surging “Reincarnation” and “Lady” Words.”

  • Developer Complains “Too Many People Wait for Download Sales” — Turns Out That’s Just the Old Secondhand Crowd

    On 5ch’s Hardware/Industry board — known as “Geha” (ゲハ), a notoriously contentious console-war subforum of Japan’s largest anonymous forum — a game developer’s lament that “too many customers wait for download sales” went viral. Posters agreed that waiting for a price drop is nothing new, but repeatedly pointed out that the people who used to buy at full price on release day were the very same crowd who used to trade physical discs secondhand. Now that secondhand disc trading has gotten harder, that demand has simply shifted over to sales. Commenters also cited titles like Factorio that never go on sale at all, along with how fast Square Enix and Capcom slash prices, converging on the view that it’s publishers’ own pricing — plus gamers’ ever-growing backlogs (“tsumige,” 積みゲー, literally “piled-up games”) — that’s really driving “sale-waiting.”

    1AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:13
    We're finally clawing back the profits the secondhand market used to skim off us — devs should be happy about this.
    2AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:15
    Unless it's a game I actually want to play on day one, I wait for a sale.
    3AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:16
    Then just… don't run sales?
    16AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:25
    Re: #3
    Some games actually declare they'll never go on sale. Like Factorio — its price has actually gone UP over time.
    4AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:16
    Blame your own lack of talent for only making solid-but-forgettable games that people are fine sale-waiting on. If it bugs you so much, make something compelling enough that people HAVE to buy it day one.
    49AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:44
    Re: #4
    If even a solid game gets sale-waited, what kind of masterpiece would actually get bought at full price…?
    5AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:20
    The fair price for a game is like ¥7,000 tops. Sitting in front of a monitor mashing buttons isn't worth more than that.
    6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:20
    Every player can tell when a launch price is clearly set assuming a future 50%-off sale — nobody's fooled.
    7AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:21
    People have been saying 'buying a game on release day is dumb' for years now, if not longer.
    10AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:22
    With secondhand, the publisher gets nothing. With a sale, they at least get paid — so what's the problem?
    11AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:23
    Blame the publishers who slash prices 30% within a few months of launch.
    12AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:24
    Why not just declare 'we will never put this on sale,' like Factorio does?
    13AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:24
    If I get hooked on a game I bought on sale, I'll buy the sequel day one.
    14AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:25
    The real whale customers are the ones who buy day one, serve as free debuggers, and play it before any extra content even exists.
    15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:25
    Just do what Factorio does and never go on sale. Discount too aggressively and people lose all motivation to ever pay full price.
    17AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:25
    There are games that make you want to play the moment they launch, and games that don't.
    18AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:26
    Just make games people want to jump into the second they buy them. Backlogs are already so huge that people don't even start new day-one purchases right away — that's exactly why they end up waiting for the price to drop instead.
    19AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:28
    With PlayStation dropping discs, now there's also 'this might be a dud, better hold off' hesitation stacking on top. Day-one sales are only going to get worse.
    33AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Square Enix stuff basically halves in price if you just wait. Capcom's down to ¥990, so the earlier you buy, the more you lose. Personally, half-price is basically my starting point now. If I really, really want something I'll still buy day one — but even then it always drops later anyway.
    39AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:39
    Re: #33
    We already get kept waiting something like 5 years just for these games to come out, so waiting another six months on top of that feels easy.
    42AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:39
    It's not really about assigning blame — games just aren't a priority anymore, which is what lets people wait for the sale in the first place.
    44AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:41
    Re: #42
    Six months feels like forever to a kid, but it's nothing to an adult. Nintendo has a lot of kid players, and kids have school to talk about games with their friends.
    45AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:42
    There are just so many games now. Even buying day one, if it lands in your backlog, the price drops eventually anyway… And with key-card releases, there's not much reason to buy physical anymore either. A real game card at least saves storage space no matter the price, so that's still worth buying.
    53AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:46
    Re: #45
    These days over 20,000 titles ship in a year, easy, lol.
    'Steam's weekly new-release count now tops 700 titles — roughly 100 games launching per day. Some on social media say devs' real challenge has shifted from just shipping the game to getting it discovered.'
    https://news.denfaminicogamer.jp/news/2609032d
    48AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:43
    Sales have their upside too — you end up grabbing stuff you had zero interest in just because it's cheap. Then it goes straight into the backlog. Whatever happens after the purchase, at least it sold.
    59AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:53
    Re: #48
    Seasonal sales feel like a festival, so every time I set myself a budget — like ¥5,000 — and buy a grab-bag of stuff.
    63AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:57
    Honestly I'm just waiting for Pragmata to get cheaper.
    66AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:58
    Re: #63
    Yeah, once it hits half-price I'd want to try it. ¥990 is probably still a long way off though — even [Monster Hunter] Wilds (digital) hasn't gotten there yet.
    65AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:58
    I figure Nintendo will roll out a bundle voucher deal once they've got enough titles piled up, so I'm holding off on the so-so ones. ¥9,000 for Mario Kart World is way too much.
    76AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:10
    Re: #65
    I doubt Switch 2 will get a bundle-voucher program ("katachike" — Nintendo eShop's multi-game discount ticket system). Even if there's ever a discount, it'll probably be something small like ¥1,000–2,000 off for buying two games.
    77AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:10
    A secondhand copy is someone else's used goods, but a download sale is the publisher officially declaring 'this brand-new copy is now only worth this much.' Sale-waiting basically means the customer never valued it as more than that to begin with.
    81AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:11
    Re: #77
    If it plays out like it has for Capcom — more users AND more profit — I don't see the downside.
    78AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:10
    Unlike physical copies, there's no risk of selling out, so you don't have to panic-buy and pile up your backlog even faster.
    84AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:13
    Re: #78
    No sellouts, sure, but sales do run on a countdown — and that's exactly what fills the backlog up faster.
    93AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:23
    From a publisher's perspective, a sale-price digital purchase still beats losing that sale to secondhand entirely.
    96AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:33
    Re: #93
    Actually the opposite — a lot of publishers oppose dropping discs specifically because physical releases let them dodge the full platform cut ('furupura,' full platform fee) on new titles.
    99AnonymousSep 29, 2026 15:40
    Re: #93
    Physical already has thin margins on top of the secondhand problem, so I'd think publishers actually welcome the shift to digital.

    Background and Key Points of the Debate

    In the background lies Japan’s history of legal disputes over “secondhand resale rights” for console games, in which publishers fought — and lost — attempts to restrict resale. Physical secondhand trading has long been legal but generates zero revenue for developers, a sore point in the industry for decades. The thread’s real point isn’t “sale-waiting customers are the villains” — it’s that as disc distribution shrinks and more games go download-only, demand that used to flow into the secondhand market has simply migrated to sales instead, which, if anything, is an improvement for publishers since they actually get paid this time. That said, examples like Square Enix and Capcom cutting prices sharply within a short window of release were also raised, and it’s easy to overlook how the sheer speed of those markdowns is itself what trains customers to learn “just wait, it’ll get cheaper.” The thread also cited a report that Steam now sees roughly 700 new titles released per week, pointing to a deeper structural factor: with that much supply competing for the same finite time and money, waiting for a sale only becomes more appealing.

    ※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry “Geha” board) thread “Developer: ‘Too many people buying via download sales’ ← Turns out it’s just the old secondhand crowd switching over to download sales.”

  • Kushikatsu Tanaka and Uotami Use Chinese Vegetables — 5ch Reacts: “I’m Done Going to Yayoiken”

    A Daily Shincho article has revealed the origins of the vegetables used by restaurant chains. While yakitori chain Torikizoku responded that its vegetables, chicken, and pickles are all domestically sourced, it turned out that Kushikatsu Tanaka and Uotami — while not using Chinese-grown napa cabbage — do use many other Chinese-grown vegetables. On 5ch, the thread saw estimates that a meal made entirely with domestic vegetables would cost over 2,000 yen, arguments that it’s odd to single out vegetables when chicken, pork, and beef are already predominantly imported, and debate over the safety of Chinese-grown vegetables themselves.

    (Excerpt)

    Torikizoku, a yakitori chain that operates stores across Asia and even in North America, notes on its official website that “(processed foods) … the food ingredients used may include those sourced from overseas,” but nonetheless stated that “vegetables, chicken, and side dishes like pickles are all domestically sourced.”

    Meanwhile, Kushikatsu Tanaka and Uotami — whose signs are a common sight in entertainment districts — both reported not using Chinese-grown napa cabbage, but did use a wide variety of other Chinese-grown vegetables as ingredients.

    Source: dailyshincho.jp / Original article here

    2AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:34
    If you insist on domestic produce, cooking at home is your only option.
    6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:35
    Which sense of "gachi" (seriously/for real) do they mean here?
    8AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:37
    Chicken, pork, beef — it's already flooded with imports, so insisting only the vegetables be domestic is the weird part, if you ask me.
    9AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:38
    I go to the supermarket and domestic cabbage and domestic napa cabbage are like 200 yen each, right?
    Domestic carrots are about 80 yen apiece too.
    Even after paying steep shipping costs to import from China, is it actually cheaper than that?
    10AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:38
    "We'll use domestic vegetables."
    "That'll push each meal over 2,000 yen."
    Then none of you would actually go, would you?
    13AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:40
    Ringer Hut has been touting its use of domestic vegetables for ages.
    14AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:40
    Making an all-domestic karaage set meal at home costs under 500 yen — why does it run 2,000 yen at a restaurant?
    15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:41
    If Chinese produce were lethally harmful,
    China's population should've dropped to like 100 million by now.
    18AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:44
    Re: #15
    Cancer rates in China are abnormally high in certain regions.
    43AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:07
    Re: #15
    It's not that they're using instantly lethal poisons — the problem is chemicals that build up in the body and cause illness years or decades later.
    The kind of dubious, maybe-never-actually-inspected products ordinary Chinese citizens buy at street stalls or supermarkets are things senior Communist Party officials would never eat themselves; separately produced, safety-guaranteed food exists just for them.
    Some ordinary citizens aren't stupid either, which is why foreign-capital supermarkets with strict inspection standards have become popular.
    53AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:33
    Re: #15
    It's local production for local consumption.
    For food eaten locally, you don't need preservatives or coloring.
    The risky stuff is the export-grade produce, which has to look good to sell — and because it's for export, preservatives get added so it can survive the long haul in transit.
    21AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:46
    MOS Burger uses Chinese vegetables, but McDonald's doesn't, you know.
    22AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:46
    Maybe it's because of where the cabbage is grown, but lately a whole head of cabbage is only 100 yen. I'd seen news about prices going up, so I was like, huh?
    Ringer Hut switched to domestic back in the Heisei era, but the locations near me have all disappeared lol
    24AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:46
    DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF, THAT'S JUST HOW IT GOES, HOW IT GOES (written in garbled half-width katakana, a 5ch meme-speak affectation)
    26AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:48
    At least the rice — every place uses domestic rice.
    31AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:53
    Re: #26
    Yoshinoya mixes in Calrose rice though, right?
    27AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:51
    Re: #1
    Well, of course it is — what else would you expect?
    30AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:52
    Re: #27
    So you're eating Chinese vegetables knowing full well what they are?
    34AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:55
    Re: #30
    Even fukujinzuke (pickled relish) uses Chinese vegetables.
    I'd avoid it if I could, but sometimes you have no choice but to eat out, so it can't be helped.
    48AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:22
    Re: #30
    If you worried about every little thing like that, you'd never be able to eat out at all.
    28AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:51
    Well, of course.
    Convenience store fried chicken is probably from Brazil or Thailand too.
    29AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:51
    There's a set-meal chain near me, and every so often the manager fills up a cart with vegetables at the nearby supermarket and pushes it back to the store.
    Must be turning a profit somehow.
    35AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:55
    Even the AI sounded the alarm:


    "Is Chinese-grown produce dangerous?"

    "It's not accurate to say Chinese vegetables are 'all dangerous,' but given past pesticide issues and recent reports of illegal formaldehyde use on napa cabbage, there are aspects that raise concern from a risk-management standpoint."
    36AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:56
    If you're going to worry about Chinese origin, you can't even eat chestnuts.
    37AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:56
    That's a "well, duh" — nobody's surprised. (a nod to the old catchphrase "atarimae da no cracker")
    38AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:58
    The same people who use chain restaurants would complain the moment prices rose from switching to 100% domestic — and now they're bothered by news like this?
    39AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:59
    I don't have the clothes, the money, or the friends to go to a family restaurant, so it's not an issue for me 🥲
    44AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:08
    Funny how it's always the people eating the cheap stuff who complain the most.
    45AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:16
    When it comes to food, please spare me anything Chinese-made.
    Though I don't really eat out anyway.
    46AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:20
    Chains are actually the better option since a lot of them properly disclose their sourcing.
    47AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:20
    I used to supply lettuce to Saizeriya, and their standards were insanely strict.
    49AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:24
    Yayoiken actually lists all its ingredient origins honestly, but it's basically all Chinese — I stopped going.
    52AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:31
    Frozen food is basically all Chinese too.
    Seafood mix in particular — you really shouldn't buy that stuff.
    58AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:05
    Re: #52
    For some reason squid is like 100% Chinese-sourced, isn't it?
    55AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:59
    Re: #34
    There are products that advertise being entirely domestic too — they just cost about twice as much as the Chinese versions.
    59AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:05
    Re: #55
    Wait, isn't this about eating out?

    Background and key points of this discussion

    At Japanese restaurants, the country-of-origin labeling requirements mandatory for fresh produce at retail generally don’t apply — it’s left up to each company to voluntarily disclose the information or not. The article behind this discussion was likewise based on interviews with and voluntary responses from each chain. Opinions on the thread split over whether to prioritize price or safety: some pointed out that insisting on domestic vegetables would sharply raise the cost of eating out, while others held firm that they wanted to avoid Chinese-grown vegetables altogether due to concerns over pesticide residue and additives. It’s also worth noting that every company added the caveat that processed foods may contain overseas-sourced ingredients, meaning the country of origin can vary by store or menu item. Some posts in the thread also touched on consumption patterns within China and the diets of Communist Party officials, but these reflect individual posters’ personal accounts rather than claims backed by public verification.

    *This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “[Shocking] Apparently Most of the Vegetables Used at Famous Restaurant Chains Are Chinese-Grown.”

  • Voice Actress Moana Shirase Announces Retirement at End of September, Will Also Delete Her X Account

    Voice actress Moana Shirase updated her X account by September 29, announcing her retirement from voice acting. According to Nikkan Sports, she described the move as “a positive choice made with an eye toward the rest of my life,” and said she plans to delete her account soon as well. On the 5ch Geinou/Sports News+ thread, users expressed surprise that her only credited role was in “100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You,” shared details about the sales performance of her idol unit “Tsubomi Symphony,” and voiced broader frustration with the harsh income structure of the voice acting industry as a whole — turning the discussion from one individual’s story into a debate about the state of the industry.

    Nikkan Sports

    [September 29, 2026, 8:05 AM]

    Voice actress Moana Shirase updated her X account by the 29th, announcing her retirement from voice acting.

    Source: nikkansports.com / Original article here

    2AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:09
    Because watching an Osaka night-view video channel on YouTube is way more fun than watching Peace-kun from Omiya Park.
    12AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:14
    Ah, she's the 'Girl G' from 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You.
    19AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:15
    Re: #12
    Oh yeah, that one…
    …as if anyone actually knows who that is
    100AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:38
    Re: #12
    If she'd just done the "Bibiin!" pose (a big exaggerated ta-da! gesture), she could've landed a better role
    134AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:53
    Re: #12
    I searched and that's literally the only voice acting credit that came up
    16AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:15
    Searched and couldn't even find a wiki page for her lol
    37AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:19
    Re: #16
    Somebody go write her a wiki page
    Guess she's quitting before she even got herself one dedicated fan
    Kinda sad, honestly
    125AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:48
    Re: #16
    Being that unknown is actually pretty rare
    28AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:17
    The fact that nobody's even bringing up a signature role says she was more of an idol than a voice actress
    38AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:19
    Re: #28
    "Tsubomi Symphony," running since October 2023, sounds like that kind of project
    41AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:20
    Her most notable activity was with "Unity Canvas"
    52AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:23
    Re: #41
    Sounds like she was in one of the weaker-selling units within Tsubomi Symphony
    https://www.tsubomi-symphony.com/top

    Looks like they were in last place from April through July
    45AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:21
    Crazy that Ochiai's son is still hanging in there in this industry (likely referring to voice actor Fukushi Ochiai, son of baseball star Hiromitsu Ochiai)
    117AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:44
    Re: #45
    Well, he's genuinely good at it
    54AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:24
    Maybe a Nikkan Sports reporter just happened to be a fan, so they wrote it up as a story
    57AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:24
    Idol-type voice actresses have it rough once they hit 30
    72AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:28
    Re: #57
    No problem if you just stay 17 forever
    70AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:28
    Re: #13
    "100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You" (TV anime Season 3, Episode 36 / the finale) — played the role of "Girl G"


    Apparently that's it.
    80AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:32
    Re: #70
    Even the people who are top-tier right now spent years grinding out roles just like this one, though
    109AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:40
    Re: #70
    So she wasn't even one of the "100 girlfriends" herself, huh
    73AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:29
    Should've just gone the VTuber route
    82AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:33
    Re: #73
    There's actually a decent chance that's exactly the plan
    89AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:35
    For a second I misread that as Megumi Ogata
    97AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:37
    With this much anime being churned out nonstop,
    there's probably an oversupply of voice actors behind the scenes
    103AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:38
    Re: #97
    Sounds even more jammed up at the top than regular show business
    104AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:38
    Re: #97
    There's just not enough money on set
    101AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:38
    Is she gonna become a VTuber?
    111AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:40
    Re: #101
    Well yeah, just playing games and screaming "kyaa!" has a pretty high success rate…
    118AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:44
    In voice acting, only about the top 20 at the very peak of the pyramid actually make real money
    132AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:51
    Re: #118
    20 people is way too few — there's probably 100 to 200

    Background and Key Points of This Topic

    Japan’s voice acting industry is said to have far fewer major job openings than the number of talent signed to agencies, so only a small handful at the top actually earn a living from it. Points raised in the thread — like the claim that “only those near the top of the pyramid actually make money,” or that “you can’t keep doing this unless your family is well-off” — reflect structural issues commonly discussed across the whole industry, not something unique to this case. It’s worth noting that this retirement is an official announcement covered by the sports newspaper Nikkan Sports, sourced from her own X post — this is a documented, real event, not speculation. On the other hand, while many commenters expressed surprise at how “unknown” she was given her thin résumé, voice actresses who belong to idol-style units often have individual acting credits that don’t stand out much by nature, so a mismatch between name recognition and actual track record is easy to misread. No solid information about the reason for her retirement emerged in the thread, and a lot of the comments never got past speculation.

    *This article is composed of excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “Female Voice Actress Announces Retirement at End of September, Will Also Delete X: “A Positive Choice Looking Ahead to the Rest of My Life”.”

  • DeNA Announces First Round of 10 Roster Cuts, Including Fujinami and Kozono

    DeNA reportedly issued first-round roster cut notices on September 29 to 10 players in total — 6 on the active roster, including pitchers Shintaro Fujinami, Kenta Kozono, and Chihaya Sasaki, plus 4 development-squad players. On 5channel threads, the main topic was Kozono’s stalled development, given he joined the team as a first-round pick contested by multiple clubs out of high school and is now facing this notice in his fifth year, with many posts comparing his fate to that of high school pitchers from the same draft class who went to other teams. There was also plenty of speculation about where Fujinami might end up next, with some predicting this first round of cuts won’t be the last.

    On the 29th, DeNA issued roster cut notices to six active-roster players — pitchers Shintaro Fujinami, Kenta Kozono, Chihaya Sasaki, Hayato Horioka, and Hayate Nakagawa, plus outfielder Ayato Inoue — along with four development-squad players: infielder Kenji Nishimaki, pitcher Ryunosuke Matsumoto, infielder Sou Ogasawara, and catcher Taiga Kondo. With this first round already topping 10 players, it looks set to be an offseason of major roster turnover.

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

    2AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:11
    So Ichiwasho's Kozono is done for?
    Guess he's just fallen apart.
    4AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:11
    You've gotta cut guys like that or you'll never have room for the draft, free agents, or import signings.
    6AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:12
    Seriously, what even happened with Kozono?
    7AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:12
    Kozono hasn't developed one bit since his rookie year.
    Forever stuck throwing that limp-noodle ~140 km/h (~87 mph) fastball.
    15AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:14
    Re: #7
    I mean, even in high school he couldn't dominate other high schoolers.
    His control was just way too bad.
    8AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:13
    Didn't Sasaki Chihaya actually pitch a decent amount this year too?
    19AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:15
    Re: #8
    Only 5 appearances, so honestly that's basically nothing.
    Still, he's already 32… wonder if anyone will pick him up.
    9AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:13
    Is Fujinami seriously headed for the takoyaki-stand life? (a running joke about washed-up athletes opening food stalls)
    10AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:13
    Kozono was a first-round pick multiple teams fought over in the draft too.
    Did that year's high school BIG3 completely wash out?
    30AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:18
    Re: #10
    Yeah, it's pretty rough.
    39AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:22
    Re: #30
    Just Tatsu, Taisei, and Sumida left standing, huh?
    11AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:13
    So they're cutting Kozono in year 5 even though he was a contested first-round high school pick?
    He was always a mystery pitcher — a righty who topped out at 140 km/h (~87 mph).
    13AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:13
    From a Chunichi fan's point of view, a guy like Nakagawa is an absolute monster.
    17AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:14
    Getting cut this fast after being a contested first-round high school pick is pretty rare.
    18AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:14
    So where's Fujinami gonna land, anyway? There's a rumor floating around about the Fighters (Nippon-Ham).
    20AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:15
    Having three first-round picks get cut all at once is pretty unusual.
    Though DeNA only had one true first-rounder in that mix.
    33AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:19
    Wait, isn't Nishimaki the guy who used to be with Rakuten?
    He was getting into games as a rookie straight out of high school and seemed pretty highly touted, no?
    50AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:25
    Re: #33
    In the end he never did learn to hit the fastball.
    46AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:24
    Messenger (former Hanshin ace Randy Messenger) once said, 'If Fujinami keeps this up, he'll end up an average pitcher' — didn't expect him to end up below average.
    52AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:26
    Re: #46
    If you can stick around as a pro until you're 32, that's already way above average.
    53AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:26
    Ochiai, who used to go head-to-head with Kozono back in high school, has quietly turned into a pure fastball machine hitting the 150s (93+ mph) with the Hayate (independent league club).
    This guy might actually get drafted on potential alone.
    64AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Re: #53
    Honestly surprised to hear he's still even playing baseball.
    54AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:27
    Even someone like me who barely follows this stuff has heard of Kozono.
    60AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:31
    Re: #54
    Not the 'Zombie Cigarette' guy, though — different person.
    59AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:30
    Re: #55
    What's this 'Tatsu-Tatsu' thing?
    61AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:32
    Re: #59
    Guess you don't know the first thing about keeping up appearances.
    63AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:34
    Where did Tanaka Masayoshi and Sasaki Chihaya's paths diverge?
    66AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:36
    Re: #63
    Well, 'Justice' (Tanaka's nickname, a pun on his name) hasn't lived up to his amateur-days hype either.
    Back in his amateur days he was mowing down pros with ease, so everyone assumed he'd dominate as a starter from year one.
    69AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:40
    If it's only 6 active-roster guys, they'll definitely cut more in the second round.
    Makes no sense that Kamizato and Shibata weren't cut in this first round.
    73AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:42
    Re: #69
    Those two are on the first team.
    There are still games left to play this season.
    70AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:41
    Tatsu got labeled a 'landmine' for being so obsessed with the majors that he wouldn't listen to his high school coaches, but he ended up being the biggest hit of the bunch.
    92AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:51
    Re: #70
    According to Takada, the former GM, the Fighters apparently have a team policy of favoring that kind of maverick-type player in the draft.
    71AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:41
    Everyone assumed Hanshin was going to make Sasaki their top pick, but 'Yaniki' (nickname for Hanshin great Tomoaki Kanemoto) going with his own gut call and picking Oyama instead is just incredible.
    74AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:42
    Re: #71
    They still got him in the second round though, right?
    77AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:43
    Re: #71
    Oyama should've been a contested pick too!
    80AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:44
    Fujinami, Kozono, Chihaya, Nakagawa, Horioka —
    that's honestly enough talent to build a decent rotation out of.
    Is DeNA's pitching staff really going to be okay cutting this many guys?
    83AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:46
    Re: #80
    Isn't Fujinami the only one with an actual track record?
    81AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:45
    Don't forget Nishimaki was already released by Rakuten after just 2 years. So he's lasted 6 more years since then — that's actually not bad at all.
    And now Sasaki Chihaya, the guy fans wanted to see as a contested pick alongside Oyama, gets cut first.
    84AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:46
    Re: #81
    If Oyama had been a contested pick and they'd ended up with Sasaki instead, there'd have been no championship this year.

    Background and Key Points of This Topic

    NPB’s roster cut notices begin every year in late September, starting with each team announcing its ‘first-round’ list of released players, followed by a second round of notices and shifts to development contracts before final rosters are settled by year’s end. The 10 players named this time include both active-roster and development-squad players, and the article alone doesn’t make clear that development contracts differ from active-roster contracts in terms of treatment and re-signing conditions. Kozono, who became the focus of the thread’s discussion, was a highly touted prospect who joined the team as a first-round pick contested by multiple clubs out of high school, and his results became a point of comparison against other high school pitchers drafted around the same time by other teams. That said, internal team matters such as individual development progress or injury history can’t be determined from the thread posts alone, so caution is warranted before drawing firm conclusions. As for where Fujinami might transfer to, the discussion never goes beyond rumor, and an official announcement will need to be awaited.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Live Galileo) thread “DeNA cuts a massive 10 players lol.”

  • Employment Rate Among Seniors 65+ Hits Record High of 26.0% — 5ch: ‘Working Helps Keep Dementia at Bay’

    According to statistical topics released by the Statistics Bureau of Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the employment rate among people aged 65 and over reached 26.0% in 2025, up 0.3 percentage points from the previous year. Employment rates hit record highs across every age bracket — 65–69, 70–74, and 75 and over — meaning roughly one in four people 65 or older is now working. On 5ch, opinions split between those who see the figure as evidence that more elderly people are being forced to work just to get by, and those who view it as a matter of choice — working to stay healthy and maintain a sense of purpose. The thread also sparked discussion about the rising pension eligibility age and the changing shape of Japan’s retirement system.

    (…)

    The employment rate for people 65 and older is 26.0%. All three brackets — 65–69, 70–74, and 75+ — hit record highs.

    Let’s start with the overall picture. According to statistical topics released by the Statistics Bureau on September 20, 2026, the employment rate for people 65 and older in 2025 was 26.0%, up 0.3 percentage points from the previous year. That means roughly one in four people 65 or older is working.

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

    2AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:29
    Single men past 30 should work until the day they die
    3AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:29
    Welfare payments cost ¥3 trillion a year.

    Just scrap the whole system already and cut taxes instead.
    9AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:32
    Re: #3
    Welfare cases among young people are 7 times what they were 20 years ago.
    32AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:37
    Re: #3
    A ¥3 trillion tax cut isn't nearly enough to let elderly people stop working.
    8AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:32
    Proportionally speaking, Japan has the hardest-working elderly population in the world.
    And yet the country is still poor and in decline — think about it for a second and it's obvious whose fault that is.
    11AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:33
    This country is finished.
    Retirement used to be at 60, but the government keeps moving the goalposts because it doesn't want to pay out pensions.
    It's a country where the wealthy never have to work a day in their lives, while others are still working part-time jobs at 90.
    17AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:34
    Re: #11
    Retirement used to be at 55.
    144AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:25
    Re: #11
    I bet that number includes people who are already drawing a pension but still working.
    218AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:20
    Re: #11
    Life expectancy used to be shorter back then.
    It's crazy that they never raised the retirement age even as people started living longer.
    21AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:35
    Man, retirement used to be at 55.
    54AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:42
    Re: #21
    Apparently Namihei (the dad from the classic anime Sazae-san, drawn as an old man) is only 54.
    177AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:49
    Re: #21
    And back then people could actually live on their pension alone — even though they hadn't paid in all that much.
    24AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:36
    You guys can complain all you want, but working really does help stave off dementia.
    Even if you're financially set, working a little — doesn't have to be full-time — helps keep your mind sharp.
    82AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:48
    Re: #24
    You'd be better off hiking mountains than working — nobody knows how much time they've got left, so you might as well enjoy life.
    27AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:36
    Re: #21
    Then again, back then people would drop dead pretty much across the board once they hit their 70s.
    62AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:44
    Re: #27
    Being 55 back then meant you were already a frail old man.
    73AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:47
    Re: #62
    These days plenty of single 55-year-old guys still think of themselves as young.
    Then the moment their parents die, these guys get lonely and start hunting for a much younger wife.
    This is what's now being called an 'oji attack' (an older guy's aggressive push into the dating pool for young women), and it's become a real social problem.
    37AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:38
    58AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:43
    Re: #37
    I want to smack him with everything I've got.
    Get a job already, you useless mooch of a relative.
    38AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:39
    I once had a Yu-Pack (Japan Post parcel delivery) driver show up who was shockingly old.
    55AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:43
    Re: #38
    Same with taxi drivers — every now and then you get one who's shockingly old, like, 'this guy's gotta be over 90.'
    70AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:46
    Re: #55
    A lot of taxi drivers earned low wages during their working years, so their pensions are small too — not enough to live on by themselves.
    Low wages meant they couldn't save, and low wages meant a smaller pension — so what exactly are people in that spot supposed to do?
    This country's system is broken.
    102AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:56
    Re: #55
    People like that scare me — their view of the world is way too narrow.
    43AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:40
    Poor people should work and pay their taxes till the day they die lol
    90AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:52
    Re: #43
    Whatever taxes poor people pay doesn't amount to much of anything —
    it doesn't even fully cover their own healthcare and social security costs.
    44AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:40
    They keep young people distracted with dancing videos, social media, and games so nobody notices problems like this.
    Old people are half senile anyway, so elections are an easy win.
    185AnonymousSep 29, 2026 13:51
    Re: #44
    Social media is basically an idiot-manufacturing machine.
    Pay influencers huge sums and it's a pyramid scheme where idiots breed more idiots.
    ( ̄∀ ̄)
    80AnonymousSep 29, 2026 12:48
    So poor people keep working even into old age?
    Rough life, huh lol
    Interest rates are finally climbing again.
    Maybe I'll dump ten million yen into government bonds since I've got nothing else to do with it.
    Keeping all your savings in yen alone is just dumb lol
    205AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:11
    There's a huge difference between 'I have no choice but to work just to survive' and 'I don't need to work, but I do a little to keep my mind sharp.'
    206AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:12
    Re: #205
    I think a lot of the bubble generation partied their money away and are now drowning in debt.
    211AnonymousSep 29, 2026 14:17
    Re: #205
    I'm from the countryside, so pitching in on more than just your day job — local community work, basically — is just normal, and I've seen firsthand how directly that ties into public safety lol

    Background and Key Points of the Discussion

    Retirement used to typically come around age 55, but revisions to the Act on Stabilization of Employment of Elderly Persons have since made a 60-year-old retirement age with employment secured up to 65 the norm, while the age at which pension payments begin has also been raised in stages. In the thread, opinions split between seeing the statistic as evidence that more elderly people are being forced to keep working just to make ends meet, and seeing it as a voluntary choice to keep working while still healthy — and neither explanation alone fully accounts for the trend. In practice, the rising employment rate likely reflects both a growing number of people whose pensions alone aren’t enough to live on, and a growing number of healthy elderly people who are able to keep working thanks to longer healthy life expectancy. It’s also worth noting that the growth in non-regular employment is concentrated among people in their early 70s — a reflection of the fact that post-retirement rehiring is often structured as non-regular work, which is a different phenomenon from simply ‘staying on’ as a full-time regular employee.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “Employment rate for people over 65 rises to 26.0%, with the increase in non-regular work concentrated among those in their early 70s.”