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  • Nintendo Stock Keeps Climbing Despite Soaring Chip Prices — 5ch Users Debate Why

    A discussion heated up on 5ch’s “Hardware/Industry” board (nicknamed “Geha”) over why Nintendo’s stock keeps rising. The thread’s original poster pointed to worrying factors like the weak yen, Japan’s declining birthrate, and soaring semiconductor prices, but other posters countered that the stock is “rallying in the opposite direction of the semiconductor sector,” and argued that even as AI makes it easier to churn out copycat games, Nintendo’s deep well of in-house IP makes it resilient. Others remained pessimistic about the company’s future, citing the shrinking birthrate and a constantly turning-over customer base, and the thread spun off into comparisons with other companies’ IP sales (like Gundam) and debates over Studio Ghibli’s business management — without ever reaching a consensus.

    1AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:57
    Somebody explain this to me
    Weak yen
    Declining birthrate
    5AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:03
    It's rallying against the semiconductor sector, probably? Dunno though
    8AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:07
    Re: #5
    Is it really plausible that AI chip demand just vanishes?
    Like everyone suddenly stops using ChatGPT and Gemini overnight,
    investment in self-driving cars and robots dries up,
    and we just snap back to a pre-AI world like nothing happened?
    If anything we're still at the very beginning of the AI revolution
    and if home consoles already smell this "washed up" at the starting line, that just screams a bleak future to me
    6AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:03
    Someone who knows stocks,
    explain the mechanism here
    because any way you slice it, Nintendo looks rough
    I'm not coming at this as a Sony fanboy or anything
    I just think both Sony and Nintendo are in trouble going forward
    9AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:07
    Re: #6
    From your perspective the stuff listed in Re: #1 looks like bad news, but the market and investors just see it differently, that's all
    16AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:14
    Re: #6
    If AI makes it easier to clone games themselves, then IP that can't be cloned becomes the valuable thing
    and Nintendo, which is sitting on a mountain of that, gets seen as having a strong future, maybe?
    Plus Ocarina of Time's remake is coming, then a movie after that, so the Zelda IP looks set to stay hot
    10AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:08
    Wasn't it like ¥90,000 before the stock split?
    28AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:22
    Re: #10
    Before the split it was more like ¥50,000
    17AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:14
    Plain and simple, the companies hurt most by rising chip prices are the ones making game hardware
    Software-only companies might manage to survive
    but even then, in an era of fewer kids, an aging population, and Japanese people getting poorer,
    Nintendo — skewed toward kids and the domestic Japanese market — has to be the worst of the worst off
    Even the Switch got a launch boost from 3D Mario and 3D Zelda early in its hardware life
    and this time there isn't even that boost
    This year's boost is going to PS5 and Xbox, riding on GTA6
    and even that's basically the games industry's last fireworks show
    it's plain to see PS6 is going to have it even harder than the Switch 2
    24AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:19
    Re: #17
    Yeah, PS6 is definitely going to have a rough time, I'll give you that
    but the rest is off the mark…
    Well, if you really believe that, why not go buy some AI or memory stocks?
    They're supposedly inversely correlated, so they should go up

    By the way, Kioxia, which was flying high not long ago, is still in free fall
    22AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:17
    That thing called "Astra" was wild — auto-generating indie-level games — but OpenAI itself is on record saying it'll keep posting tens of trillions of yen in losses going forward
    Can they actually ever earn that back?
    23AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:19
    Re: #22
    Even if they can't earn it back, they can't stop now
    China and everyone else are in the same boat
    No telling where this all ends up though
    27AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:22
    Re: #16
    That theory sounds fishy too, honestly
    Ghibli-style AI art went viral on X
    but Ghibli itself hasn't made a dime off it
    if anything they're in such a slump they can barely put out a decent new film anymore
    AI is churning out photorealistic gravure idol videos too
    but the real-life gravure idols aren't benefiting from that at all — if anything demand for them looks set to keep shrinking

    Still, Ghibli and the gravure idols might have it easy since they just slowly fade out
    Console makers have to keep their foot on the gas until they've locked in a critical mass of users
    being stuck dragging out hardware that isn't selling, unable to just fade away, that's the most painful spot to be in
    32AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:25
    Re: #27
    IP isn't the same thing as an art style, so your comparison's off
    explaining that from scratch is kind of a hassle though
    33AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:25
    Re: #27
    This has nothing to do with AI at all — Ghibli's artisan mentality has always gotten in the way of the business side, they've been terrible at it from the start
    Granted, the rise of AI doujin stuff hasn't made it any better either
    but either way, it's just not a good example to use
    37AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:31
    Re: #33
    Simply put, AI lets you mass-produce knockoff games
    People are already making a huge fuss over Palworld, just one small indie outfit
    but if China builds endless AI data centers, they could crank out knockoffs at 10,000x or even 100,000,000x Palworld's output
    Looked at that way, just owning IP doesn't guarantee safety
    if anything, like Ghibli or the gravure idols, you've got a rough future ahead unless you play your cards really well
    47AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:40
    Re: #37
    Hmm… I bet China and that crowd are dreaming of exactly that
    same with countries that can't produce their own IP, or the Hollywood camp that resents Japan's anime boom
    but even if a flood of junk mass-produced IP gets born out of this, all it does is dump more garbage into storefronts that are already a dumping ground thanks to indies
    40AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:34
    Even if AI stocks crash, memory prices aren't going to come down
    41AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:35
    Re: #40
    I heard China's going to start selling it cheap next year though
    52AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:48
    Saying Ghibli is 'playing it smart' is already off base
    that studio is the textbook definition of bad at navigating business
    even an all-time classic like Laputa was a box office flop in theaters
    they disband the production team after every single film, so none of the know-how ever accumulates — it just leaks out every time
    in later years it's basically just been 'let Miyazaki make whatever he feels like,' with zero regard for the company's survival or profits
    56AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:51
    Re: #52
    That's not it
    Ghibli and the gravure idols were grouped together as 'cases where you're in trouble unless you play it smart'
    not as examples of a successful 'playing it smart'
    57AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:53
    Precisely because they ARE playing it smart, they're not stuck living or dying on a single film the way Ghibli does — they diversify and leverage the content across multiple angles
    60AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:54
    Re: #57
    Same goes for Bandai Namco — they actually cultivate their IP properly, I think they're genuinely doing it right
    70AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:01
    The Dragon Quest brand used to be treated like something sacred too,
    but the landscape can completely flip in about five years
    consumers just don't place that much weight on brand loyalty
    Maybe it's different for physical luxury goods that keep their value, like Hermès or Rolex…
    but say a free PC knockoff of Kirby Air Ride comes out with 1,000x the content volume, people will flock to that instead
    Sure, the middle-aged guys who grew up playing the original Air Ride as kids probably won't jump ship
    but the thing is, those guys eventually graduate from gaming altogether, and Nintendo's defining trait is that its customer base keeps churning over
    They're strong on IP and brand, but it's their fate to keep shedding the very customers who were attached to that IP and brand
    76AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:06
    Re: #70
    Even so, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D still sold well. Its popularity hasn't faded at all
    The only thing that's faded is Square Enix's management and Horii
    Indie and small-studio games made with stuff like RPG Maker have been around forever, long before any of this AI trend
    you're just cherry-picking that to arm your own argument
    78AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:10
    AI companies' earnings are good, but that's already priced in and there's no more good news left to come
    if anything people are now talking about AI regulation and AI not being profitable
    Nintendo's stock looking like it should rise but not quite rising, isn't that simply because its software lineup is weak?
    Investors want another Breath of the Wild-caliber title, but that's setting the bar way too high
    79AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:12
    Re: #78
    Judging it by whether the "software is strong or weak" is exactly the kind of thing an amateur who picks stocks after watching some TV documentary would say
    you're that type, aren't you. Geha (console-war board) is full of guys like that
    80AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:12
    Gundam is selling better overseas right now than it ever has
    is "overseas" in your head only the US and Europe or something?
    86AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:19
    Re: #80
    Gundam's revenue: ¥200 billion
    Nintendo + Pokémon Company's revenue: ¥2.8 trillion

    You should at least know they're not even in the same league
    95AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:30
    Re: #93
    Even a grade-schooler could figure this out in a few seconds
    Every bit of Nintendo's revenue comes from its own in-house IP
    Bandai Namco's revenue, outside of Gundam, is mostly other companies' IP
    If you think IP matters, that's the only number you need to be looking at
    87AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:19
    And then on your deathbed you realize it was an empty life spent chasing nothing but money
    90AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:23
    Re: #87
    That's exactly why people trade stocks, no?
    If you try to earn it the normal way by working, think how much of your life you'd burn away just for money
    96AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:34
    Re: #89
    I cashed out stock I bought and forgot about back during the second wave of Abenomics,
    and paid off my mortgage in full 😚
    I'll be grateful to Sony and Capcom for the rest of my life 😆

    I'm going to get the mortgage lien cleared next month
    and celebrate with the refund at Jojoen (a yakiniku restaurant chain) 🥳


    98AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:42
    Re: #8
    It's not going to disappear, but the moment people start thinking 'wait, is this even profitable?' it'll drop regardless of the actual results
    101AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:49
    Re: #98
    I mean, at this point semiconductors are basically a situation where everyone's piling up cash to fight over something that doesn't even exist yet
    106AnonymousOct 17, 2026 18:04
    The stock dips every single time there's a Nintendo Direct, any real gamer knows stock price doesn't mean much

    Background and Key Points of the Debate

    The discussion rests on a backdrop where demand from AI data centers has driven up prices of memory and other semiconductors, squeezing the cost of building game console hardware. Within the thread, posters cited different figures for Nintendo’s pre-split stock price — “around ¥90,000” (post 10) and “around ¥50,000” (post 28) — and this article cannot confirm which is accurate. Opinion split mainly over whether a rise in AI-made copycat games is a tailwind or a headwind for an in-house-IP company like Nintendo: one camp argued that owning IP guarantees safety, while the other pointed to Ghibli and mass-produced AI IP as proof that “it all comes down to how well you play your cards.” It’s also worth noting, for readers less familiar with investing, that a stock’s rise or fall doesn’t always track neatly with a company’s actual earnings or user numbers.

    ※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “Why Is Nintendo’s Stock Price Shooting Up So Abnormally.”

  • Yamanba the Mountain Hag Exists — So Where’s Her Male Counterpart “Yamanji”? 5ch Debates Yokai Lore

    On 5ch’s Hello! Project chat board “Morning Coffee,” a user posed the question: “There’s a female yokai called Yamanba (Mountain Hag), so why isn’t there a male version called ‘Yamanji’?” — sparking a full-blown yokai discussion. It turned out a male yokai called “Yama-jijii” (Mountain Old Man) does exist, as shown by a Wikipedia excerpt someone posted, but it was pointed out that he’s far less well-known than Yamanba and nowhere near as fierce in temperament. The conversation then expanded into the theory that one-eyed, one-legged yokai designs were modeled on the craftsmen communities who worked tatara ironmaking in the mountains, turning into a lively bit of folklore chat.

    1AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:07
    Why though?
    Is it because men don't turn into monsters?
    5AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:09
    There's Yuki-onna (the Snow Woman), so why isn't there a 'Kaeri-onna' (the Returning Woman)?
    6AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:10
    There's a Yamanba on Mt. Fuji
    No Yamanji, but there is "Fujiyamacho" (a pun blending "Fuji-yama" with "macho")
    7AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:11
    There's "Kaettekita Ultraman" (lit. "The Ultraman Who Came Back," a real show title)
    but no "Ultraman Who Left"
    12AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:17
    But aren't most yokai male anyway?
    13AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:18
    Re: #1
    When men get old, they turn into a cute little granny type.
    When women get old, they turn into monsters.
    15AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:25
    Isn't "Yamanji" basically just an oni (demon)?
    17AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:29
    Old men die quick.
    Old women are tough as nails.
    18AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:31
    In most stories, Yamanba basically lives in an old traditional farmhouse.
    She's less like someone banished to the mountains for a crime or to cut down on mouths to feed, and more like an old granny left behind in a depopulated mountain village.
    19AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:31
    The "oni = foreigners" theory is just paranoid fantasy from the Edo period onward, when people feared Russia's southward expansion.
    Go back further in history and even blacksmiths got treated as oni.
    20AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:33
    Yama-jijii ("Mountain Old Man"), also known as Yama-chichi ("Mountain Father")[1] (or regionally, "Yamanji"[2]), is a type of yokai passed down in Japan.
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Ehon_atsumegusa_Yamachichi.jpg
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Tosa_Yama-chichi.jpg
    24AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:42
    Re: #20
    Whoa, that one-eyed, one-legged look really does seem based on the groups who mined iron sand in the mountains.
    Things like the Ippon-datara (a one-legged yokai), the one-eyed Hyottoko (the squint-eyed "fire man" mask), and the club-wielding oni — there are actually quite a few theories that these were modeled on iron-working communities.
    27AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:48
    Re: #24
    Why would people digging up iron sand end up with one leg?
    28AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:49
    Re: #27
    Remember the tatara ironworks in Princess Mononoke?
    The tatara is the foot-pumped bellows used to blow air into the furnace.
    Pumping it too much could wreck one leg — or alternatively, people born with a weak leg were the ones put to work at the tatara.
    29AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:50
    Is this some "Baa-ra-baa-ra-baa-ra-baa-ra-dan-baraa" style troll bait?
    Playing dumb about Yama-jijii like that…
    30AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:51
    Re: #24
    Searched it with AI and it's actually true lol

    Apparently the leading theory is that it's modeled on the brutal working conditions of tatara smiths.
    31AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:51
    Re: #28
    Oh, thanks lol
    Just ran my own AI search too
    Thought it had to be a joke, but it's actually true lol
    38AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:54
    Just make up your own yokai and spread it yourself.
    42AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:55
    One-Eye, One-Leg: In folklore from Tosa (present-day Kochi Prefecture) and elsewhere, this creature is often described as "Ichigan" ("One Eye") — with one large, glowing eye and one tiny eye — or as "Ichigan Issoku" ("One Eye, One Leg").

    Background and Key Points of This Topic

    This is actually a topic folklore studies touch on too. A male yokai called “Yama-jijii” (Mountain Old Man) does exist, but he’s far less well-known than Yamanba, and he’s usually portrayed as mild-mannered — more often the one getting tricked by people than the other way around. The theory raised in the thread — that one-eyed, one-legged yokai like the “Ippon-datara” were modeled on the craftsmen communities who worked tatara ironmaking in the mountains — is a fairly well-known hypothesis that’s long circulated in folklore studies, but it remains just one theory, not settled academic fact. Likewise, the “oni = foreigners” theory is one of the popular legends that spread from the Edo period onward amid wariness of Russia’s southward expansion, and it has no historical proof behind it. Note that the latter half of the thread devolved into mutual sniping at specific posters, so this article has been edited down to just the parts relevant to the folklore discussion.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “Yamanba Exists, So Why Doesn’t Yamanji?“

  • The ¥70,000 School Uniform: Keio Professor Exposes Japan’s ‘Hidden Education Costs’ — “Designated Items Face No Price Competition, So They Stay Expensive”

    An article about how families are forced to buy neckties in two different colors, or spend ¥70,000 on a full uniform set — the reality of Japan’s “hidden education costs” — pointed out by a Keio University professor, became a hot topic on 5ch’s newsplus board. The claim: school-designated uniforms and gym clothes are restricted to specific vendors, creating a structure where price competition rarely kicks in. In the thread, the suggestion “just have Uniqlo make them” was met with pushback — “even Uniqlo is pricey these days” — and the discussion spread to cover surprise that costs balloon even at public schools, the realities of the designated-vendor business, and even whether uniforms are necessary at all, with opinions split.

    “Buying Two Colors of Necktie,” “¥70,000 for a Uniform” — The Reality of “Hidden Education Costs” Squeezing Household Budgets… Keio Professor Points Out: “School-Designated Items Aren’t Subject to Fair Competition, So Prices Stay High,” “Shirts, Socks, and Bags Could Just Be Off-the-Shelf”

    10/17 (Sat) 11:30 JST

    ABEMA TIMES

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

    3AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:39
    Just get Uniqlo to make them
    9AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:42
    Re: #3
    Even Uniqlo is pricey these days too
    178AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:47
    Re: #3,9
    Alright, let's get Shimamura to make them then (a budget clothing chain)
    221AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:11
    Re: #3
    Wasn't there a school that already did this?
    4AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:39
    Keio's always been a rich-kids-only school anyway
    7AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:41
    Re: #4
    It's just that a Keio professor looked into it — the real point is that even public schools have expensive uniforms and the like
    6AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:40
    Uniforms have always been pricey, you know
    13AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:42
    Re: #6
    That's because there's never been any competition
    225AnonymousOct 17, 2026 17:12
    Re: #6
    The fabric wasn't even that great — heavy, and getting caught in the rain was a disaster. Girls had to shove the pleated skirt under a futon and press it flat whenever the pleats came out, what a hassle. Expensive no matter how you slice it
    12AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:42
    Randoseru backpacks (the stiff leather school backpacks) are cheap if you buy last year's model, but people want to show off with the pricey ones, right?
    119AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:23
    Re: #12
    Leftover stock from famous brands' last year's line is dirt cheap
    17AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:44
    ¥70,000 for a uniform — isn't that just the jacket alone?
    78AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:08
    Re: #17
    For a full top-and-bottom set, that's not actually expensive
    88AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:11
    Re: #17
    For a full top-and-bottom set, that's not actually expensive
    21AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:45
    There's always that local sporting goods store that clearly doesn't sell a single regular item on any given day, but somehow stays in business purely because it holds the exclusive contract for gym clothes and indoor shoes at a few nearby schools
    39AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:55
    Re: #21
    Once you get a foot in the door with the school system, that alone can support you — uniforms, gym clothes, club gear, even tea-ceremony supplies. There are fewer now, but back in the day even the photo shop (camera store) got steady annual sales from school photos. No doubt it's a sweet deal businesswise
    30AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:51
    There was buzz about a school that switched to off-the-shelf Uniqlo as its uniform, but since no other schools followed suit, I guess a lot of people still want a properly designated uniform — or see it as a status symbol
    34AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:52
    Re: #30
    Sounds like nobody's rushing to copy that school with Armani uniforms, though
    173AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:45
    Re: #30
    Back in the day it was off-the-rack school uniforms, so going into the city to buy a customized/modified one was one of the fun things students did. This is basically the same thing, just swapped out for Uniqlo
    47AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:56
    Both schools and PTAs hold used-uniform and used-gym-clothes resale events, don't they? Stop saying you don't want to join the PTA and actually participate
    147AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:35
    Re: #47
    Those are basically a lottery — if you lose, you can't buy anything
    51AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:57
    ¥70,000 for a uniform — who's raking it in here?
    84AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:10
    Re: #51
    A salaryman's polyester suit runs about ¥10,000, right?
    52AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:58
    Re: #39
    These days a lot of uniform shops and local sporting goods stores are going out of business. The generic black stand-collar uniform died out and each school has its own unique design now, so of course it costs more
    155AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:38
    Re: #52
    When the elderly couple running the local elementary/middle school's uniform shop near me had no successor and had to close up, someone heard about it and immediately opened a new shop to take over the business. Depending on the area, it's still a rock-solid trade
    56AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:59
    Just make public schools use the same uniform nationwide and keep it cheap
    65AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:02
    Re: #56
    What communist country do you think this is?
    60AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:59
    If you open this up, local school-uniform shops would probably get wiped out by cheap Chinese generics… ending up sold on Temu for ¥2,000…
    83AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:09
    Re: #60
    That'd just be junk lol
    67AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:04
    If anything, uniforms exist precisely so kids don't feel economic gaps between each other
    107AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:19
    Re: #67
    Apparently boys these days get brand-conscious as early as middle school, so it costs a ton. Girls are the opposite — they compete over how cute an outfit they can find for cheap ("puchipura"/budget chic), so it ends up costing less. Uniforms are probably the safe choice on that front, but the problem is the uniforms themselves are too expensive
    163AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:41
    Re: #67
    Just do what China does — tracksuits and polo shirts are fine
    143AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:32
    This isn't even a private school — do public high schools really cost this much on top of tuition these days? Poor families can't afford to send their kids
    145AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:34
    Re: #143
    It's an exploitative "black" society, after all~ Everyone's only thinking about how to squeeze money out of people
    148AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:35
    Re: #143
    With the falling birth rate, the education budget should have money to spare, but something's off. Either it's price-gouging or they're loading up on unnecessary supplies. School lunches are reportedly bad too, so where's all the money actually going? Teacher salaries, maybe lol

    Background and Key Points of This Topic

    School-designated items like uniforms, gym clothes, and randoseru backpacks are often sold under a “designated-vendor system” that restricts sales to specific shops — an arrangement still common in many regions — and Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has previously flagged this structure for making price competition difficult. The thread’s disagreement split along two lines: those questioning whether families should have researched costs in advance, versus those pointing to the system itself, where being “designated” makes comparison shopping nearly impossible in the first place. Also, the “Keio University professor” framing can easily be misread as a private-school-only issue, but the point actually applies to public schools too — a detail easy to miss unless you read the full article, since this problem can arise regardless of whether a school is public or private.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread ““Buying Two Colors of Necktie,” “¥70,000 for a Uniform” — The “Hidden Education Costs” Squeezing Household Budgets… Keio Professor Points Out: “School-Designated Items Aren’t Subject to Fair Competition, So Prices Stay High”.”

  • Atelier Karia Adds Body-Weight Changes — 5ch Reacts: ‘Who Even Wants This?’

    Koei Tecmo Games has published the results of a user survey for Atelier Karia: The Kingdom of Night and the Guidepost of Remembrance, and after 78.9% of respondents said they’d like to see body-type changes included, the company announced it has decided to implement a feature where protagonist Karia’s body shape changes depending on how much she eats. The feature can be toggled on or off, and there will reportedly also be an option to lock her body shape at whatever stage the player likes. The 5ch thread that followed was split: some praised the bold design choice, others mocked it with comments like “LOL she’s just fat,” some pointed out that the changes are unnaturally concentrated around the stomach, and others questioned just how much actual demand there is for this feature.

    Koei Tecmo Games has published the results of a user survey for Atelier Karia: The Kingdom of Night and the Guidepost of Remembrance.

    The survey results showed that 78.9% of respondents answered that they’d like to see (body-type changes) included, leading to the decision to implement a feature where Karia’s body changes based on what she eats.

    The body-change feature can be switched on or off according to player preference. When turned on, Karia’s body shape will reportedly change based on how much she snacks. Additionally, when the feature is on, there will be an option to lock her body shape at whichever stage the player prefers.

    Source: gamespark.jp / Original article here

    2AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:33
    Changing even her face is a bold move
    but if you're gonna do it, go all the way.
    4AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:37
    The people who are into this kind of thing are just a niche crowd
    this is gonna flop for sure.
    5AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:37
    LOL she's just fat
    make her face more like Torikaru's too
    8AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:39
    They're treating her purely as a sexual object, honestly

    wouldn't be surprised if they eventually let you fatten up just her thighs.
    9AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:44
    Lately the Atelier series has turned into a game that panders to niche fetishes.
    16AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:53
    Re: #9
    Trust in Atelier as an actual game has collapsed so hard that this is the only angle left that sells.
    11AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:46
    That chubby belly looks exactly like an actual fat belly, it's rough to look at.
    12AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:47
    I'd like a follow-up survey on how many people actually turned the feature on.
    13AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:48
    They clearly don't know what to do with this series anymore
    What you should've been building toward is an alchemy life that only a game can deliver
    not collecting every character's backstory

    Like, specifically: get stranded on a deserted island and somehow survive using local materials and alchemy
    That's where the dev budget and processing power should go — simulating a virtual world like that — instead of yet another puppet show set in generic web-novel fantasy-Europe ("Naroupa," slang for the cookie-cutter pseudo-European settings in isekai novels)
    66AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:30
    Re: #13
    Uh, Atelier has always been the exact opposite of whatever fantasy you're describing though.
    20AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:04
    Maybe they don't want to step on Ryza's whole identity, but come on, let us beef up the lower body too, don't half-ass it.
    21AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:09
    This is the same company that only fattens up thighs, so I don't think they fundamentally understand how a body actually changes when someone gains weight.
    23AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:16
    If she were chronically overweight the proportions would look off, but if it's just temporary weight gain from overeating, this is probably fine.
    24AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:19
    Rune Factory had a heroine who went from chubby to slim back in the day
    but doing a 'fat joke' gimmick like that in the Reiwa era probably won't land
    even that Rune Factory character never became popular anyway.
    27AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:22
    Way too much of the weight is going to her stomach
    make her gain weight evenly, damn it!
    29AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:30
    She's just fat, that's it
    who's even asking for this?
    34AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:42
    Re: #29
    There are people out there who are specifically into chubby girls, you know.
    30AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:33
    It looks unnatural without a double chin.
    32AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:37
    Re: #30
    Adding weight to the stomach doesn't turn people off that much, but adding it to the face instantly narrows the appeal down to a niche crowd of enthusiasts.
    33AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:41
    Re: #32
    Still, if you can fatten her up to a genuinely gross degree while leaving the face untouched
    then if you're going this far, you might as well change the face too.
    31AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:37
    It's not chronic obesity, it's the temporary kind on someone who slims back down quickly, so they probably didn't bother affecting the face.
    76AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:15
    Re: #31
    An athlete, maybe?
    40AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:57
    This is definitely going to drive away way more existing fans than it reels in new ones.
    43AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:05
    Letting you adjust breast size alone would cause an uproar, so they're using overall body type as a workaround.
    57AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:14
    You really need to be able to adjust size and thickness part by part
    but then it just turns into a character creator
    which doesn't really fit a game with a fixed, named protagonist, I guess.
    60AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:23
    Re: #57
    Being able to fully customize everything kind of kills the appeal, I'd rather it just be tied to in-game actions like eating and dieting 🥺
    100AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:11
    If eating makes her fat, does never eating gradually slim her back down?
    Also, is there no on/off setting for the party members?
    101AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:23
    Re: #100
    The weight gain thing comes from Karia's unique ability to eat items, so it has nothing to do with the other party members.

    Background and Key Points of This Discussion

    The Atelier series has built its fanbase partly on its character designs, and what stands out about this new body-change feature is that it was implemented as an official decision based directly on user survey results. The main point of contention in the thread is the imbalance of the change — it’s concentrated almost entirely in the stomach area, with little to no effect on the face or limbs. Supporters frame this as a deliberate limitation tied to the “temporary overeating” premise, while critics see it as lazy design. Some also read the feature as a way to tone down sexualized content rather than enhance it, and opinions split depending on whether people saw the feature’s intent as “showing off” or “toning down.” Just how many users will actually turn the feature on can’t be determined from the published survey results alone.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “[Good News] Atelier Karia’s ‘Chubby Mode’ Confirmed for Implementation!“

  • Is the Gaming Industry Dead? 5ch Says ‘Only PlayStation Is’

    A thread titled “Isn’t the gaming industry already dead?” on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (“Geha”) board sparked a wide-ranging debate over the growth of mobile gaming versus the struggles of the console and PC markets. Posters pointed to the “memory shock” — the surge in DRAM prices driving up PC component costs — and noted that in Japan the Switch 2 is selling only about 20,000 units a week and the PS5 around 10,000, while others pushed back by citing the Famitsu Game White Paper to argue the mobile market is still growing. Opinion split over whether the industry as a whole is declining, or just certain hardware platforms.

    1AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:46
    It was already over around when the PS3 came out.
    Nintendo bought it some extra life with the DS, but even that's hit its limit now.
    That whole "better hardware specs = more customers" idea…
    10AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:06
    There was data showing Gen Z basically only games on smartphones now.
    Apparently it's the same trend overseas, not just in Japan.
    Console gaming is probably going to fade out the way TV did.
    43AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:39
    Re: #10
    A guy in his 20s at my company said smartphones or the Switch are good enough for him too.
    Same with PC gaming — he said he just doesn't feel like playing something that takes that much time anymore.
    AAA titles still have their place, but developing quick, low-budget games might actually fit the times better now.
    The more complex games get, the higher the barrier gets for beginners.
    28AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:30
    PCs are dead from the memory shock, consoles are on life support from price hikes too, and smartphones are the only ones surviving — probably because they're the one gaming device that's also a daily necessity.
    Honestly, I think a cheap, lower-spec console would sell just fine.
    33AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:34
    Re: #28
    They should've just kept milking the PS4/Switch generation.
    Graphics have barely evolved anyway.
    44AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:39
    Re: #28
    Even calling it "surviving" — that's not new hardware selling, and it's not the industry growing,
    it's just existing devices holding steady, right? I'll say it again:
    there's no standout hit game or anything, it's just people killing time with some random no-name puzzle game.
    30AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:31
    Only PlayStation is dead, don't drag the Switch into this.
    Steam games on PC are doing perfectly fine too.
    36AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:36
    Re: #30
    In Japan specifically, Switch 2 sells about 20,000 a week and PS5 about 10,000 — neither is selling well.
    As for PC, with the double whammy of the strong yen and the memory shock, I'd bet there are basically zero new gaming-PC buyers right now.
    37AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:36
    Re: #30
    Are home consoles (mockingly nicknamed "house trash" online) even still alive?
    51AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:45
    A handful of quick dopamine-hit minigames feels like plenty these days.
    Story-driven games are losing their reason to exist as games too — one by one, games are running out of selling points.
    53AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:49
    Re: #51
    It's not that games don't need a story — it's that these people were never interested in story to begin with, were they?
    Manga and other media aren't exactly thriving either, and these dopamine-brained brats have gotten so used to skipping ahead on the seek bar even for videos, all in the name of "tapa" (time efficiency/"time performance").
    It's basically the same as saying "I'm not really interested, but I'll pretend to watch it anyway."
    In short, people are getting dumber and dumber, and there's a whole culture now that validates being dumb.
    Of course the industry withers away when that's the crowd it's catering to.
    60AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:59
    Gaming is basically the poster child for a hobby you can't keep up once you get older, so the decline shows up more starkly here.
    Kids are a lost cause thanks to the falling birth rate and dopamine-brained kids.
    Old folks are a lost cause physically.
    63AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:03
    Re: #60
    Not cool how you're ignoring the fact that Yuzo Kayama and a former TBS announcer, both over 70, made news for playing Resident Evil ("Bio").
    Koichi Sugiyama (the Dragon Quest composer) was still at it right up until he passed away too — I don't get why people just assume old folks can't do it.
    66AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:06
    Re: #63
    Citing a few exceptions doesn't really prove anything.
    As a general trend, older people deal with declining motivation and physical decline like presbyopia (age-related farsightedness).
    69AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:09
    Re: #63
    So what percentage of that generation is actually on the same level as those old guys you mentioned?
    61AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:00
    Centered on the mobile (smartphone) market, which is the largest segment, the console and PC game markets are also growing steadily, so the idea that it's dead is wrong. Source: the Famitsu Game White Paper.
    64AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:03
    Re: #61
    The Switch 2 price hike that tanked the console market only happened this year, so the real results won't show up until next year.
    67AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:08
    Re: #1
    It's not over, but sales figures have definitely been dropping lately — especially in Japan.
    76AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:19
    Re: #67
    Nintendo hardware isn't actually declining once you include digital downloads, per Re: #13 — so are you saying it's everything else that's bad?
    68AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:09
    PC gamers just haven't felt the impact yet because a lot of them bought their rigs back when prices were cheap.
    Once their parts break down or go obsolete and they need to replace them, there's going to be a huge surge of people who can't afford it because parts have gotten too expensive.
    79AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:23
    As long as you've got a smartphone, you've got something to kill time with — you'll be fine.
    98AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:41
    Re: #79
    Yeah, it's a hobby you can jump into easily just to kill time.
    83AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:24
    What brought about the end is political correctness.
    There's no other explanation for why Ubisoft went under.
    84AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:26
    Political correctness is out there to crush and rot content, sure, but I think that's a separate issue from the industry itself.
    86AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:29
    Re: #84
    If you're as big as Disney, you can take any amount of damage and still stay standing, but…
    that's only because it's Disney.
    If you just look at the famous names, it's easy to think "see, everything's fine!"
    but nobody actually knows the real scale of the damage.
    90AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:35
    It's not that the gaming industry is dead — it's just going through more natural selection.
    RPGs went through the same selection process, and in the end only Pokémon survived.
    Jump-action games too — only Mario survived.
    At the end of the day, it's only the strongest that survive.
    100AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:45
    Re: #90
    Isn't that not "selection" so much as people just leaving?
    If games lose their appeal and political correctness has taken up permanent residence, nobody's going to want to play.
    91AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:35
    Re: #68
    Globally, the Chinese market is barely propping up PC gaming, but if we're talking Japan specifically, the gaming PC market has already been wiped out since the memory shock.
    If parts prices keep climbing like this, it's easy to see the PC market shrinking as American and European users become unable to afford upgrades or replacement parts.
    101AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:45
    Re: #95
    That graph doesn't really make sense.
    It's hard to tell which side is growing by how much, and it's easy to misread.
    It's labeled as console packaged sales, but that means console digital downloads are missing entirely.
    Is this some manufacturer's cooked-up PR data too?
    103AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:50
    Re: #100
    What do you mean? I don't get the cause-and-effect here at all.
    108AnonymousOct 17, 2026 16:01
    Re: #103
    I just don't think healthy competition is happening in the game industry right now.
    Even if you call that "selection," I don't think there's much of a future in it.

    Background and Key Points of This Debate

    In recent years, the gaming industry’s profit environment has been affected by the “memory shock” — the surge in DRAM prices — and the thread repeatedly brought up the rising cost of PC components as a result. At the same time, the Famitsu Game White Paper data cited in the thread represents the combined market size of mobile, PC, and home consoles — a different metric from the rise and fall of individual hardware sales figures, a distinction that’s easy to overlook. The real divide in the thread wasn’t “is the overall market shrinking” but rather “can hardware other than smartphones survive,” with differing interpretations of the Switch 2’s and PS5’s weekly sales figures at the core of the debate. Claims that the industry is shrinking and claims that it’s merely undergoing natural selection coexist side by side, and it’s worth noting that both sides are backing their arguments with only partial data.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [“Geha”]) thread “Isn’t the gaming industry already dead?.”

  • The Manga CLAYMORE: The ‘Strongest’ Stayed Strongest to the Very End — 5ch: ‘Teresa Really Was Strong the Whole Way Through’

    A thread on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board blew up around the idea that in the manga CLAYMORE, “the strongest character stayed the strongest from beginning to end.” Posters discussed the strength of Claire’s allies and enemies, the lore behind the Awakened Being system, and the origin of Teresa’s epithet “the Smile.” There were also calls for an anime continuation and comments pointing out how hard it is to visually tell characters apart given the silver-hair, silver-eyes restriction. The thread turned into a round of favorite-character shoutouts, showing just how much love fans still have for the series.

    1AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:06
    Love it
    5AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:09
    Wish they'd make another anime
    A female lead like this would actually blow up nowadays
    7AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:11
    Re: #5
    Looks cool and aloof but she's such a brat underneath
    Claire surrounded by the big-sister squad is genuinely adorable
    8AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:13
    I liked Flora, but she got sliced clean in half
    11AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:15
    Re: #8
    Windcutter was properly strong too, but she drew a terrible opponent, it's a real tearjerker
    Every male Awakened Being is strong
    9AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:15
    While Claire was off slacking, Miria went and single-handedly wrecked the Organization for everyone
    12AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:17
    Re: #9
    Thought Miria got hacked to pieces, then she shows up again with a nice clean scar on her face — that's kind of hilarious, love it
    And she just stays strong and badass the whole time, love love love it
    10AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:15
    Enemies are so overpowered the allies drop like flies
    Really want the anime to cover the rest
    15AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:19
    Re: #10
    Wasn't the anime's final stretch right around where it was about to catch up to the manga?
    Would be great if they remade it with that same energy
    14AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:18
    Love the main character's awakening scene right at the very end
    16AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:21
    Re: #14
    When Claire's Yoma side awakens, she turns into whatever evolved form she wills herself into, like in the Northern War; when her Teresa side awakens, she becomes the ultimate super-powered Teresa
    Teresa really does stay strong the whole way through
    22AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:31
    Why is Teresa even that strong
    23AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:31
    Re: #22
    Why do you think a tiger is strong?
    26AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:37
    Re: #22
    It's kind of stylish that she's so ridiculously strong across the board that she ends up with no standout trait, so her epithet is just 'the Smile'
    She's basically a genuine statistical outlier
    27AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:38
    Re: #22
    Isn't the final Teresa basically fans' own 'my strongest possible Teresa'?
    29AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:39
    Obligatory reminder that I can never match the faces to the names
    35AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:44
    Re: #29
    Who's your favorite?
    Mine's Cynthia!
    37AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:46
    Re: #35
    I've forgotten like 70% of them
    Who the heck is Rene
    56AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:01
    Re: #35
    I'm riding for Octavia from Pieta!
    30AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:40
    Still, what kind of apocalyptic war does a continent need bio-weapons like that for
    33AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:42
    That's all set on one particular island, so I want a version that covers the whole continent
    36AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:46
    Re: #30
    Re: #33
    A continent trying to weaponize Claymores, Yoma, Awakened Beings, and Abyssal Ones is terrifying
    45AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:50
    Re: #30
    The whole premise is that the Dragon Descendants got too strong and had to be dealt with somehow, so it's not really a back-and-forth arms race between two sides
    43AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:49
    Seeing them all lined up really shows how hard it is to tell the characters apart
    Isley's Awakened form is my favorite
    48AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:53
    Re: #43
    Beautiful… it's a little sad that he lost to Priscilla, but he had dignity from start to finish
    57AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:01
    Well, when it comes to telling characters apart, you can't change the most obvious markers — hair color and eyes — so there's only so much you can do
    If they really went bold with the designs you'd end up with something like Rookie the gorilla-looking guy
    65AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:06
    Re: #57
    The silver-hair-only rule is genuinely brutal
    Maybe that's why Riful stays cute throughout
    The main cast is distinctive enough that it's not too hard to follow while you're actually reading, though
    64AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:05
    Love the theory that Irene gave her keepsake cloth to Claire and then couldn't wipe herself anymore, so she had to clean up by shaking her butt super fast in the river (she'd given Claire the cloth as a parting memento before dying)
    69AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:09
    Re: #64
    Just picturing it makes me laugh
    89AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:20
    Re: #64
    They basically only eat a few nuts and berries, so they probably don't need to go much anyway
    70AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:09
    Anastasia's cute
    Miata's cute too
    Galatea mom…🍼👶 *suckle suckle*
    76AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:12
    Re: #70
    Galatea as mom, Flora as big sister, little sister Riful — that's the dream family😋
    78AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:13
    Re: #70
    I was genuinely sad when Miata disappeared
    Even though while I was reading I kept thinking 'wait, who even are you people'…
    93AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:24
    Re: #78
    Miata's the one who didn't disappear
    The one who disappeared was the colored version of Miata's mom
    96AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:25
    Re: #93
    Right, Clarice-mom
    97AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:26
    Re: #93
    Oh that's right, the one nursing her was Miata!
    My memory's surprisingly hazy on this, might reread from the start
    101AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:28
    Black-haired Claire is cute, right


    113AnonymousOct 17, 2026 15:38
    Re: #101
    Angel Densetsu, now that's nostalgic
    It's set in Okinawa with a ton of characters who actually have Okinawan features, which is great

    Background and context for this discussion

    CLAYMORE (by Norihiro Yagi) ran as a manga until 2014, while the 2007 anime adaptation diverged from the source material partway through and wrapped up with its own original ending. The thread’s calls for “I want the anime to cover the rest of the story” and “remake it with that same energy” reflect fans’ hopes for an adaptation of the manga’s later, never-animated chapters that the anime couldn’t catch up to at the time. Where opinions split wasn’t so much over how strong each character is, but over an art-related point: the difficulty of visually distinguishing characters given the silver-hair, silver-eyes constraint. Defenders countered that “the main characters are distinctive enough that it’s not an issue while reading.” There was also a shared interpretation that Teresa’s epithet, “the Smile,” reflects the flip side of having every ability at a uniformly high level with no single standout trait — a nuance that may be a bit hard to grasp for readers unfamiliar with the series’ Awakened Being system and Claymore (warrior) lore. This article excludes personal insults and sexually charged posts, focusing instead on character commentary and discussion of the series’ structure.

    ※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “That manga called CLAYMORE where the “strongest” stays strongest from beginning to end lol.”

  • High Schooler Says ‘I Want the Giants’ — NPB’s Draft Lottery Says Otherwise, Fans Split

    Even when a high school player hoping to go pro says “I want to join the Giants,” NPB’s rookie draft meeting decides which team he actually lands on by lottery — his personal wish doesn’t factor in at all. A thread on 5channel’s “Live Breaking News G” board spiraled from questions about whether this system might run afoul of the law into talk of disparities in team strength and salaries, and even the history of the old “self-nomination” system that was scrapped after a slush-fund scandal. Opinions are split on how to balance the gap between players who land their preferred team with a first-round pick and those who miss out and get scooped up lower in the order.

    1AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:41
    High school player: "I've been a Giants fan since I was a kid — joining the Giants was my dream."
    NPB: "Nope."
    High school player: "…Huh?"
    3AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:45
    The Giants are one thing, but being forced onto a team like Rakuten or Lotte sounds rough.
    48AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:21
    Re: #3
    Tanaka "Ma-kun" and Roki (Sasaki — the nickname "労基" is 5ch shorthand for Roki Sasaki) really had it rough.
    Roki aside, Tanaka did great with a team like that — yet some flimsy, speculative tabloid story trashed his image and basically got him run out of the club. Pretty miserable.
    100AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:17
    Re: #3
    Then again, it's a bit like Ohtani joining the Angels — sometimes it's precisely *because* it's a weak team that they'll actually use you and let you get away with crazy stuff.
    If he'd gone straight from high school to the Dodgers, I bet they'd have stripped him of the two-way thing entirely.
    5AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:48
    Even some legal experts say "isn't this kind of messed up?" so OP's point isn't wrong.
    But if you let players pick freely, the rich teams hoarding all the talent gets way worse.
    14AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:53
    Re: #5
    Sure, you could do that, but then deregulating the foreign-player roster limit would have to come as part of the package too.
    7AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:49
    In reality, no matter what you do with the draft, it always ends with SoftBank just poaching already-finished players and staying dominant.
    8AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:49
    "I want to go to the majors eventually, so any team's fine" — that's basically all you hear now.
    Komada was the same.
    12AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:51
    Re: #8
    Wouldn't a player like that just pick a team that promises to approve a posting at 25? Specifically, teams like the Fighters, the Buffaloes, or the Swallows.
    13AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:51
    Re: #8
    Then I'm throwing you into a horde of zombies.
    19AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:58
    Shouldn't first-round-caliber guys at least get to choose freely? If your lifetime earnings swing that much depending on which team you land on, I couldn't stand it if I were in that position.
    22AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:00
    Re: #19
    Hell for whoever's picked 11th or 12th in the first round — the gap versus someone who gets his favorite team at the top of round two ends up way too big.
    26AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:03
    Even America, the land of the free, has a draft…
    30AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:08
    Re: #26
    They draft a huge number of players, and teams can trade draft picks with each other — totally different environment from Japan, where there are only a handful of genuinely promising prospects at draft time.
    32AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:09
    Re: #30
    Lol, that's not even a reason.
    87AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:56
    Re: #30
    MLB rookie: "I want to go to the Rays, Dodgers, or Yankees."
    Angels: "Nope, we drafted you, so too bad~ 🤪"

    That's exactly how it'd play out.
    28AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:07
    Idiots keep defending the draft, but legal scholars generally lean toward "this is a problem."
    35AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:11
    Re: #28
    Opinions are split, so you can't just say it leans toward being a problem. We won't actually know until someone sues.
    33AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:10
    I've seen the "teams are basically just departments [of one big NPB enterprise]" theory more times than my own parents' faces — but if that's the logic, at least standardize the pay/evaluation criteria across every team. Right now it's just dumping the burden on players while calling it "balance."
    41AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:15
    Re: #33
    2017 Seiya Suzuki:
    .300, 25 HR, .936 OPS, Best Nine, Gold Glove
    ¥60M → ¥90M
    Doesn't even crack ¥100M. Cracks me up every time I see this.
    45AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:19
    Re: #41
    What really stands out is how, during that golden stretch when the team's core players all happened to peak at once while the rest of the Central League simultaneously got weaker, the club got cocky, neglected to make itself more attractive, lowballed Maru's evaluation, and just let him walk.
    The sneaky part about Hiroshima is they deliberately kept the first-year base salary low, so even with comparable performance, hitting ¥100M would always come later than it should.
    51AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:23
    Re: #41
    Normally that kind of performance gets you ¥200M.
    37AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:13
    Are there really so few motivated high schoolers who'd say "I'll go pro with any team"?
    40AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:14
    Re: #37
    It's less about motivation and more that these are players whose dream stops at just "becoming a pro baseball player," full stop.
    42AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:16
    Re: #37
    These days the gap between teams isn't as brutal as it used to be, so more players are fine going anywhere.
    That said, there's always talk that plenty of quiet "no thanks" happen behind the scenes.
    43AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:17
    A player who'd be a lock first-round pick anywhere else can end up rotting in a rich team's farm system, or just fizzle out as a nobody.
    Take Osada (Giants → Orix), Nishioka's draft classmate — he declared he'd go nowhere but the Giants and got in with a 4th-round pick, even though he was rated higher than Nishioka back in high school.

    Well, if the player himself ends up happier than he would've been as a starter on some poor team — even living off just the "incidental expenses" stipend — maybe it's fine for him personally, but it's a loss for the sport as a whole.
    47AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:21
    Re: #43
    That said, while rotting on a rich team's bench draws easy criticism, it's not like playing time on a weak team automatically means happiness either.
    With a weak team, goals are hard to set so motivation doesn't rise, the roster's too thin so opposing defenses key in on you and it's hard to shine, you get overworked, and you're more exposed to heckling from the stands.
    And if you rack up playing time at a weak club and then leave via free agency, you risk getting blasted for "leaving the moment you grew up."
    55AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:27
    That's exactly why they turned it into the de facto self-nomination/free-agent-slot system to create open competition — but market forces kicked in, and slush money shot up even for mediocre 2nd-3rd-round-caliber players, while yakuza and semi-gangster types swarmed the star prospects. After the Ichiba scandal (a 2006 bribery case involving a draft pick), even the Giants — the team that had pushed for the system in the first place — finally couldn't take it anymore and brought back the lottery.
    61AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:34
    Re: #55
    The self-nomination/free-slot system's place in history is complicated.
    On the surface it looks like it wrecked the old draft's balance and became a hotbed of slush money and talent-hoarding — but actually, the era *before* self-nomination was introduced was the worst period for rampant slush money and hoarding.
    Things like "undrafted" signings, "trainee" contracts, hiring guys as team employees, or getting players to publicly announce they were going to college or taking a job and then blindsiding them with a surprise pick — that's the famous playbook. The Seibu Lions built their golden era on exactly that.
    Self-nomination, despite looking like a reckless, destructive system at first glance, actually curbed the hoarding somewhat.
    But everyone just burned out from the slush-money arms race and mutually agreed to scrap it in the end — that's basically what happened.
    57AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:31
    If players could go wherever they wanted, you'd get a flood of kids rushing to join the wildly popular Chunichi Dragons, and that'd be a whole mess.
    64AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:37
    Re: #57
    Yeah — it's the kind of popular team that a superstar like Fukudome, who had zero ties to Aichi and was fought over by seven clubs, refused to sign anywhere else and used the self-nomination system just to join.
    65AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:37
    Getting stuck with the Chunichi Dragons ("Chuni-Dora") basically means your life goes dark.
    70AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:38
    Re: #65
    Yeah, especially seeing Kanemaru get flak for "bad tempo" and whatever else, when he's only losing because the team around him is garbage.
    88AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:57
    Re: #65
    Even a third-rate player can coast along in his pro career forever as long as he's a local boy — best environment ever.
    79AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:52
    These days, a lot of players with MLB ambitions probably want to avoid the Giants and SoftBank, since they don't approve postings.
    85AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:55
    Re: #79
    You don't know about Okamoto?
    96AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:13
    Re: #79
    The Giants have approved postings plenty of times.

    Background and Key Points of This Debate

    Japan’s draft system, introduced in 1965, has generally resolved cases where multiple teams compete for the same player by lottery. From 1993 to 2007, a “self-nomination/free-acquisition slot” system applied to university and corporate-league players, but fierce bidding for star prospects turned it into a hotbed for slush money, and after incidents such as the 2006 Ichiba bribery scandal, the system was scrapped in favor of the current full waiver/lottery format. The “self-nomination era” referenced in the thread refers to this period. MLB’s draft is structurally different — it selects far more players than Japan’s does, and teams are allowed to trade draft picks — so using the same words “draft” or “lottery” doesn’t make the two systems directly comparable. It’s also worth noting that most cases where a player publicly named his preferred team and ended up joining it happened because that team chose to welcome him, not because the system guaranteed his wish would be honored — a distinction that’s easy to miss.

    ※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (“Live Breaking News G”) thread “[Sad News] High Schooler Says “I Want to Join the Giants,” NPB Says “No, We’ll Decide by Lottery”.”

  • Hanshin’s Struggles Fire Up Giants Fans on 5ch: ‘Our Army Wasn’t Even in the Race Anyway’

    In the 179th installment of 5ch’s “Acting Giants Manager” thread, Giants fans riffed on Hanshin’s slump while the conversation ranged across pro baseball at large — reactions to news of Nippon-Ham’s coaching staff changes and Hiroshima’s hardline contract stance, predictions for next season’s rising stars and free-agent moves, and the ongoing debate over whether the Climax Series format should even exist. Midway through, the thread turned nostalgic, recalling how the year after the Giants’ 2002 pennant, manager Hara Tatsunori clashed with the team’s general manager and stepped down, followed by a slump under his successor Horiuchi Tsuneo — making the thread as much a trip through team history as a round of trash talk.

    26AnonymousOct 17, 2026 00:54
    Well, our army wasn't even in it to begin with! lmaooo
    29AnonymousOct 17, 2026 01:03
    Re: #26
    There's still Dalbec and Cabbage though
    34AnonymousOct 17, 2026 01:37
    That's minor-league caliber at best
    Hanshin's bottom order is just row after row of Kadowaki-level bats (Kadowaki Seiya, a Giants utility infielder known more for glove than bat)
    86AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:37
    Re: #34
    There might actually be a Kadowaki-for-Motoyama trade — Motoyama might've pulled some kind of blunder
    37AnonymousOct 17, 2026 02:05
    Tsuyoshi Nishioka set to become Nippon-Ham's infield defense and baserunning coach, tasked with fixing a defense that made 88 errors this season — farm team manager Inaba moves up to first-team hitting coach
    https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/6d74316998f7a56973163bebb276bdb5e0a65c9b
    40AnonymousOct 17, 2026 02:17
    Re: #37
    Whoa… that's kind of a turn-off, this guy
    58AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:10
    Re: #37
    Why'd he switch teams? Money?
    50AnonymousOct 17, 2026 07:10
    《Talk About Looking Down on People》Fans Aghast at Hiroshima Front Office's 'He Can Just Stay' Remark — Hardline 'Contracts Are Our Right' Stance Extended to Kozono Kaito Too
    https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/bdd5fbc89f9e60c7af330c094ed30416e6ffc144

    This is an even worse, more toxic culture than you'd see out of a cash-strapped team
    We'd better get serious and welcome Tokoda, Morishita, and Sakakura into our army
    52AnonymousOct 17, 2026 07:21
    Re: #50
    No joke: you can't land all three — 'Yukata' (nickname for Tokoda), the Morishita who isn't the Hanshin one, and Sakakura — all at once
    Two's the max you're getting
    59AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:19
    I'd like to ask the people demanding the Climax Series be scrapped

    Which outcome do you think actually gets us a higher-quality Japan Series?
    61AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:21
    Re: #59
    Obviously whichever team finished first in the league
    70AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:28
    Re: #59
    The CS draws good crowds, so there's no reason to axe it
    89AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:40
    Re: #59
    Basically I think the first-place team should be the one to go
    but Hanshin's so weak right now they couldn't even complain about losing their Japan Series spot
    65AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:29
    Reyes is gonna come out and say 'Can't win with Ham, so I'm headed to Yomiuri~,' just watch
    A 'broad agreement' can get overturned as many times as you like
    77AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:04
    Re: #65
    Guess you've made peace with it huh lol
    71AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:33
    Becoming 'the Giants' Own Morishita'! Hirayama Kota decides to copy the breakout blueprint for next season
    https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/874cd0c58dff15dd0f8ff6c8142a10a7f161a2e0
    87AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:39
    Re: #71
    Next season our army's lineup: 1. Hirayama, 2. Urata lol
    74AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:35
    You guys aren't watching the AL Championship Series?
    I mean, it hasn't even started yet though
    75AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:45
    Re: #74
    There are no games with Japanese players in them
    79AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:10
    Re: #74
    Apparently it's been called off
    103AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:45
    https://www.nikkansports.com/baseball/news/img/201810160000101-w500_0.jpg
    https://imgur.com/ofmRMC3.jpeg
    https://imgur.com/dAwsjVI.jpeg

    ↓

    https://imgur.com/nfpip2W.jpeg
    https://imgur.com/wjT2cgF.jpeg
    108AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:09


    125AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:40
    Even our army, the strongest team in 2002, fell apart the very next year just because Matsui left
    130AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:43
    Re: #125
    Man, the sense of loss back then was brutal — it carried over even once the season started
    132AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:48
    Re: #125
    Hara got into a huge fight with the team's general manager back then and got pushed out of the manager's seat after just two seasons
    And then his successor, 'Lord' Horiuchi, tore the team apart even worse
    134AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:52
    Re: #125
    Yeah, that happened
    There was this veteran pitcher, Kudo Kimiyasu, who — just as you'd expect — kept whining about this hurting and that hurting, and never actually pitched when it mattered
    143AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:07
    Guess I'll root for Hanshin today
    146AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:10
    Re: #143
    You don't wanna see a 36–0 blowout happen?? lmaooo
    164AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:39
    Does Hanshin actually have a good record against 'Azumax' (nickname for pitcher Azuma)?
    169AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:40
    Re: #164
    This season vs Hanshin:
    4 games
    0-3, 6.74 ERA
    176AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:43
    Re: #169
    That's a brutal matchup, isn't it
    Can Azuma even start against them
    178AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:44
    Re: #169
    From Morishita's perspective, Azuma's probably the easiest guy to hit
    He's tough on our army since we're all slap-hitters, but his stuff is light, so can the Tigers ('Chin,' a mocking nickname rival fans use) actually beat him?
    247AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:13
    You guys remembered to bring condolence money, right?
    248AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:14
    Re: #247
    Zero yen's fine, right?
    251AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:14
    Re: #247
    I put in 1000 yen myself
    252AnonymousOct 17, 2026 14:15
    Re: #247
    I prepared exactly 33-4 yen

    Background and Key Points of This Discussion

    The term “Chin” used in the thread is an old derisive nickname Giants fans use for the Hanshin Tigers — a fixture of 5ch’s baseball board, and distinct from an attack on any specific person. The debate over the Climax Series keeps coming up because the current format, under which the pennant winner isn’t guaranteed a Japan Series berth, reignites the same argument every year around this time. The reminiscing about the 2002 Giants is grounded in actual team history: the year after that title, manager Hara Tatsunori stepped down following a clash with the team’s general manager, and the club slumped under his successor, Horiuchi Tsuneo. The posts about Hiroshima’s front-office contract stance and Nippon-Ham’s coaching appointments are lifted directly from news articles quoted within the thread, not speculation from thread regulars — a distinction readers could easily miss. Overall, the thread mixes team-bashing, reactions to real news, and nostalgic looks back at team history.

    ※This article was compiled as an excerpt/summary of the 5ch thread (posted, oddly, on the Hello! Project idol board) “Acting Giants Manager 179.”

  • Are ‘definitive edition’ re-releases driving players away? 5ch discusses: ‘Metaphor fell short of expectations’

    Does repeatedly using the “definitive edition” sales tactic (re-releasing a game with added content after its original launch) drive customers away? That question sparked debate on 5ch’s Hardware & Industry (Geha) board. The trigger was a remark at Atlas’s shareholder meeting suggesting this practice might be causing people to hold off on buying games. The thread also cited Atlas’s own admission that sales of its new title “Metaphor: ReFantazio” fell short of expectations, and pointed to Pokémon’s policy shift after Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon and the Tales series as examples — opinions were split on whether a real customer exodus is actually happening.

    1AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:20
    Nah, that's not really a thing.
    5AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:27
    Atlas already gets side-eyed for this — only the diehard fans buy their games anymore.
    8AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:31
    Re: #5
    But Atlas games are selling better than ever right now?
    7AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:30
    Atlas literally got called out at their shareholder meeting for this — that the 'definitive edition' tactic is causing people to hold off on buying.
    14AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:34
    Re: #7
    It's not unusual for off-base opinions to get thrown around at shareholder meetings though.
    36AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:20
    Re: #7
    It wasn't just someone pointing it out — Atlas themselves admitted it.
    Metaphor fell short of expectations.
    9AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:31
    Maybe they finally learned something after the mixed reception to Persona 3's "Episode Aigis" (the add-on epilogue) — the Persona 4 remake includes Marie from the start this time.
    13AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:34
    Re: #9
    Isn't the Aigis episode a different case since it was DLC?
    15AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:34
    Re: #9
    That wasn't originally standalone content to begin with.
    10AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:31
    Pump out definitive editions back to back → people wait for the definitive edition and stop buying the initial release
    Leave too long a gap → new players stop buying in
    Pump out duds back to back → customers leave
    18AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:38
    Re: #10
    I think the Tales of series checks every one of these boxes.
    Even people who used to love it mostly stopped buying for these exact reasons.
    17AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:37
    In the end, Hamuko (the fan nickname for Persona 3's female protagonist) just got written out, huh.
    20AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:39
    Re: #17
    She did show up in Persona Q2, so…
    22AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:41
    Re: #17
    It's not canon anyway, so it's basically a superfluous add-on.
    19AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:39
    The fact that Pokémon, the king of "definitive edition" sales tactics, stayed on top the whole time proves it has nothing to do with sales.
    It's just broke people throwing tantrums.
    21AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:40
    Re: #19
    Pokémon stopped doing that over a decade ago though…
    23AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:41
    Re: #19
    I mean, Pokémon also got hammered for Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, which barely changed anything, and that's why they stopped.
    24AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:46
    Re: #21
    I know that. That's why I said "stayed" (past tense).
    Even back when they were doing that, Pokémon was still on top the whole time, so there's no way it was working against them.
    25AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:51
    Re: #24
    If they were still doing it today, sure, but since they stopped ages ago, you can't really draw conclusions from that.
    Forget Pokémon, which isn't even relevant anymore — we should just be looking at Atlas, which is still doing it.
    28AnonymousOct 17, 2026 08:58
    If recent Megaten or Persona titles were flopping, sure, but it's the exact opposite.
    Users don't actually care whether a "definitive edition" exists or not.
    66AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:21
    Re: #28
    The last Megaten release was a definitive edition though.
    32AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:07
    Well, things are starting to get rough for Atlas and Inti Creates.
    67AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:23
    Re: #32
    Did Inti Creates even put out a definitive edition?
    38AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:21
    I could understand it if paying extra for DLC turned your game into the definitive edition, but if rebuying the whole thing is the only option, of course people are going to hold off buying.
    39AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:24
    Re: #38
    And on top of that, the save data doesn't carry over either.
    44AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:40
    Metaphor got slammed with this constantly —
    "They're just going to put out a definitive edition later anyway, right?"
    And since the publisher never gave a clear answer to that, of course everyone except the hardcore fans who had to have it on day one held off.
    47AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:51
    Re: #44
    That's just wishful thinking on your part.
    The reality is Metaphor sold like crazy.
    50AnonymousOct 17, 2026 09:58
    "The Tales series is finished!" (meanwhile the latest entry just had the best sales in series history
    52AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:05
    Re: #50
    The fact that the latest entry had the best sales in series history
    is probably thanks to it going multiplatform though.
    51AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:02
    Instead of the "definitive edition" tactic, it feels like publishers now just ship unfinished games and expect you to buy DLC.
    53AnonymousOct 17, 2026 10:10
    Re: #51
    That's pretty brutal too, so eventually everyone's going to migrate to free Chinese mobile games, don't you think?
    People can't keep affording this forever.
    62AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:10
    Calling those Pokémon releases "definitive editions" is kind of off the mark, isn't it? It's a collecting game to begin with.
    74AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:37
    Re: #62
    No, what Pokémon was doing was textbook "definitive edition" sales tactics.
    It's good that they quit after Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, but if they were still doing that in this day and age, it'd be the worst.
    69AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:25
    Since the content is only DLC-level, having to replay the whole game from scratch just so they don't get accused of a thin full-price release is rough.
    96AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:14
    Re: #69
    Yeah, I know the feeling — I got bored replaying Persona 5 partway through.
    If it weren't for the in-game calendar system, I think I could've managed it.
    71AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:30
    I think Atlas is still pretty gentle compared to Koei, though —
    they've started making "Complete Editions" on top of their "Power-Up Kits."
    79AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:46
    Re: #71
    There's a gap deeper than the Mariana Trench between a definitive edition of a game you replay over and over, and one you just play through once and you're done.
    72AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:36
    Metaphor flopped hard, after all.
    Customers who were sick and tired of Persona and Shin Megami Tensei just didn't buy it.

    Maybe it's because the Switch 2 version of Metaphor's list price is too cheap —
    now people are wary of a definitive edition coming for that one too, lol.
    78AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:44
    Re: #72
    How is a new IP selling over 2 million copies a flop?
    95AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:10
    I've stopped buying Atlas's new releases altogether.
    100AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:35
    Re: #95
    I'm definitely done buying Persona games.

    Background and Key Points of This Discussion

    “Definitive edition” sales tactics refer to the practice of releasing an upgraded version of an already-released title with added content. Pokémon is said to have abandoned this approach following criticism of 2017’s “Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon.” Atlas, meanwhile, has continued the practice with series like “Persona,” and the thread’s starting point was the fact that the company was reportedly questioned about its effect on consumer buying habits at a shareholder meeting. Where opinions diverged was in how to interpret the sales figures: some argue “Metaphor: ReFantazio” sold over 2 million copies as a brand-new IP, while others cite reports that Atlas itself said the game fell short of expectations — and which of those two facts you weigh more heavily determines whether you call it a “success” or a “failure.” Readers should note that the claims circulating in the thread — that this was “raised at the shareholder meeting” and that “Atlas admitted it” — are based on forum posts, and this article has not independently verified them beyond that. It’s also worth noting that the term “definitive edition sales tactics” itself gets used loosely: the impact on customers differs between turning add-on content into paid DLC right after launch versus re-releasing a whole separate package years later, and the thread blurred the two together throughout.

    ※This article is composed as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Hardware & Industry (Geha) board) thread “People who keep spouting this delusion that repeating the definitive-edition tactic drives customers away.”

  • “Skip the Company Drinking Party, Kiss Your Promotion Goodbye” — 5ch Debate Splits Opinion

    A post claiming that “anyone who skips the company drinking party doesn’t understand how organizations work” sparked a wide-ranging debate on 5ch about the link between promotions and attending after-work drinking sessions (nomikai). Some argued that evaluations hinge less on competence than on whether you’re liked by your boss, while others shot back that this amounts to harassment. Commenters noted that the old culture of forcing people to down drinks in one go (ikki-nomi) has faded since deaths from acute alcohol poisoning became a social problem, with more companies now making attendance optional. Still, plenty of pragmatic voices chimed in with takes like “you don’t have to come, but your evaluation will suffer” and “just grit your teeth for two hours” — and in the end, no consensus was reached.

    1AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:17
    The people who get promoted at a company aren't the ones who are good at their jobs — they're the ones who are trusted and whom others want to pull up with them.
    Whether you see drinking parties as a waste of time or as an investment in connections and trust,
    that difference in mindset is exactly what separates who gets promoted from who doesn't.
    2AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:18
    Re: #1
    Corporate lapdog lmaoooooooooooooooooooooooo
    10AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:21
    Re: #2
    You're just a stray dog then
    3AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:18
    So it's better to drink with clients instead, huh?
    5AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:19
    Eating meals or drinking with other people just isn't fun for me
    6AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:20
    You're free to skip the drinking party

    But then you can't complain if you don't get a good position,
    your boss doesn't warm up to you, or you don't get evaluated well as a result
    7AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:20
    Re: #6
    That's harassment, you know
    8AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:21
    Don't company drinking parties basically not exist anymore anyway?
    9AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:21
    Re: #7
    That kind of idealistic talk doesn't fly
    That's just what a company is
    12AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:22
    Re: #9
    What you're saying doesn't hold up anymore
    Excluding shady companies ('black' kigyo), of course
    11AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:21
    The smart ones who actually understand how organizations work
    show up to the drinking party without a second thought
    13AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:22
    Re: #12
    Anyone can spout idealistic nonsense
    18AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:23
    Re: #13
    Oh, so you admit it's a shady company then
    14AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:22
    Nobody feels sorry for a stray dog with no collar, even if it gets beaten to death
    15AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:22
    If it's a place you can stay at until retirement, a modest career with no big promotions is fine by me
    19AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:24
    Just showing up to the drinking party gives you that 'we ate from the same pot' camaraderie — such a cheap way to buy goodwill
    20AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:26
    Everyone should be evaluated equally whether or not they come to the drinking party!
    Getting marked down for it is harassment!

    Lol, sounds exactly like the kind of idealistic nonsense you'd hear from someone who's never actually held a job
    21AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:26
    It's a good era now that nobody forces you into drinking parties
    Back in the day, turning one down could get you threatened, frozen out of work, and in the worst cases pushed into quitting
    22AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:27
    So annoying that our department head, who came up through sales but now works a desk job, still forces golf on the rest of us desk workers too
    23AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:29
    I invited a subordinate to a Hello! Project (idol group) concert and got called out for harassment, took a pay cut over it
    24AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:31
    Obviously if you actually go to the drinking party and show the person who's rating you what kind of person you are and what your strengths are, you're more likely to get promoted
    You shouldn't even have to think about it to get that
    27AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:32
    Tunnels (a comedy duo) had a song called 'Ikki!' ('Chug it!'), and that was basically the normal mindset for everyone back then.
    These days that would be alcohol harassment ('aruhara')

    >For the lightweights who can't drink — rough 'em up, don't let them off with just a token sip
    38AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:54
    Re: #27
    And then deaths from acute alcohol poisoning became a social problem
    so the world shifted toward not forcing drinks on people who can't handle it
    29AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:43
    It's fine if you're communicating well in other ways, but the type who absolutely refuses to ever show up usually isn't
    32AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:47
    Honestly, the whole 'I don't want to go to the drinking party' mindset is kind of a mystery to me
    If you're on good terms with the people you work with, the drinking party ends up being a perfectly fun time anyway
    34AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:49
    Re: #32
    Once your seniority, department, or position changes, that often stops being true though
    33AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:48
    No matter how many arguments you line up, I'm never going, idiot
    35AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:51
    There's no way things run smoothly with someone who can't even show up to a drinking party
    Though if all you do is simple grunt work, I guess it doesn't matter either way
    36AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:52
    A drinking party's over in two hours tops, so just grit your teeth through it
    Nobody's going to complain these days if you skip the after-party anyway
    48AnonymousOct 17, 2026 12:04
    Re: #36
    If it's just that much, don't whine about people skipping it
    37AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:53
    At the end of the day, this is just whining from socially awkward people who can't score points at drinking parties
    If going gets you in your boss's good graces, skipping it is just leaving value on the table
    39AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:54
    I don't know if you'll ever get there, but you'll understand why drinking parties matter once you become a manager yourself
    Say Sales Section 1 has drinking parties and Sales Section 2 doesn't — Section 1 posts better numbers for the company, and it's Section 1's section chief who's getting promoted to department head, guaranteed
    Section 2 just ends up a dumping ground full of childish subordinates who flocked there specifically because they heard there were no drinking parties
    41AnonymousOct 17, 2026 11:55
    For someone who's already good at navigating office politics, a company drinking party is an absurdly easy win
    56AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:06
    Competent people don't need to go to drinking parties
    The problem is incompetent people take that at face value from some competent guy's livestream, copy the same move, and end up never getting a good evaluation and falling behind
    61AnonymousOct 17, 2026 13:21
    If every single employee were super competent, you wouldn't need drinking parties at all
    But when a company's full of incompetent people who can't communicate well with each other, you need something like a forced drinking party just to get enough communication flowing for work to run smoothly

    Background and Key Points of This Debate

    The relationship between attending in-house drinking parties and personnel evaluations is a legally murky area. The 2020 amended Act on Comprehensive Promotion of Labor Policies (Japan’s anti-power-harassment law) classifies forcing employees to attend drinking parties with no genuine business necessity, or penalizing them for not attending, as harassment — which is likely the context behind the thread comment “that’s harassment, you know.” That said, since drinking parties are themselves voluntary and outside working hours, there’s no regulation directly stating that evaluations can’t be lowered simply because someone didn’t attend, and actual evaluation criteria vary widely from company to company. The fact that the thread never reached a consensus reflects just that: how evaluation systems are actually run differs so much from company to company that there’s no single right answer. It’s also worth keeping in mind, as background to this debate, that the culture of forcing people to drink was reexamined after deaths from acute alcohol poisoning became a recognized social problem.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Anyone who skips the company drinking party clearly doesn’t understand how organizations work lmaooooo.”