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Background and Key Points

Seikima-II formed in 1982 as a self-described “demon rock” band, performing in full corpse-paint-style makeup and never breaking character in public: each member holds a “Demon World” rank (Denka, Kakka, Chōkan, Sanbō) and a fictional age in the tens of thousands of years, a bit sustained for over four decades on Japanese TV and radio, including Demon Kogure’s well-known late-night radio show that shaped a generation of Shōwa-era listeners. Zenon Ishikawa’s title, “Oshō” (a Buddhist priest’s honorific), fits that same in-character device, and the band’s official announcements lean into the lore too, framing member deaths as members “returning to the Demon World.”

The thread doesn’t really divide into opposing camps; it moves between two registers on the same news. One is pure gag material, riffing on the gap between an illness and a “100,000-year-old demon,” and joking about how the band would eventually announce a death. The other is quieter and sincere: posters from the original radio-listening generation recalling how much the act meant to them, alongside people surprised that the members have real, searchable faces once the makeup and stage name are set aside.

What the thread glosses over is that Zenon Ishikawa Oshō’s title isn’t just in-universe flavor text — he is in real life an ordained Buddhist priest, which is why that particular stage name was given to him rather than invented from nothing, unlike the purely fictional Demon World ranks the other members carry.

Background and Key Points

Ise Grand Shrine—split into the outer Gekū and inner Naikū and rebuilt every 20 years in a Shinto rite called shikinen sengu—is one of Japan’s holiest sites and costs nothing to enter, as do the other stops on this itinerary: Futamiura’s wedded rocks, the Chokokan history museum, and the Okage Yokocho shopping street outside the shrine. JR Tokai, the railway that runs the Tokyo–Nagoya–Osaka bullet line, periodically pairs these regional promotions with Hello! Project idols to drive tourism traffic, and it’s using Ise Suzuran, a member of Hello! Project whose stage name literally puns on the city’s name, to front this one. The tour is billed as a “monitor tour,” a discounted-fare format where a company gathers consumer feedback in exchange for a lower price, which is part of why fans expected it to be cheap.

The thread’s disagreement wasn’t over whether ¥33,000 is a lot of money in the abstract — it’s over what that price is supposed to buy. Posters who called it fair were pricing it as a normal bus-tour day trip; posters who called it a “shakedown” were pricing it against fan-event norms (two-shot photos, handshake lines, a live set), none of which this tour includes, and against the fact that every listed stop is free to the public anyway. A third group just noted the meeting point effectively forces an overnight stay near Ise, since no same-day train from Tokyo arrives in time — making the real cost of attending considerably higher than the sticker price once travel and lodging are added in, a point the thread raised but never priced out.

Background and Key Points

Shimofuri Myojo is one of Japan’s most successful manzai duos, having won the prestigious M-1 Grand Prix comedy competition in 2018; Seiya, one half of the pair, is a frequent guest on variety shows like TV Asahi’s “Ariyoshi Quiz,” hosted by veteran comedian Hiroiki Ariyoshi. The “celebrity” itself is never named in the segment, but posters converge on cosmetic surgeon Dr. Katsuya Takasu, an over-80 TV fixture famous for eccentric on-camera eating habits (he runs a YouTube channel, “Shimofuri-Tube,” and has a son, Mikiya, who is also a doctor and media personality) — worth flagging as informed guesswork, not confirmed fact. The backdrop that matters for non-Japanese readers is Shinkansen food culture: eating elaborate meals on Japan’s bullet trains is completely normal and even celebrated, built around ekiben (regional boxed lunches) and local specialty snacks sold at every station — nobody bats an eye at food on board, unlike in many countries.

The thread’s actual fault line isn’t food-on-train per se, but smell etiquette: whether a Big Mac’s odor is more or less acceptable in a shared car than infamous “loud” foods like 551 Horai’s pork buns, and whether framing this as classy at all sets the bar too low. A second split is what’s actually impressive — his ordinary taste despite wealth, or simply that someone in their eighties can still put away a full fast-food meal.

What the thread misses: no JR rule actually bans bringing outside food aboard (one poster’s “banned” claim goes unverified and is directly challenged) — this is pure social etiquette, not regulation.