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  • Criticism Mounts Over Cool Japan Fund’s Investment List — Includes a Project That Burned Through ¥3.3 Billion Without Ever Launching

    It’s come to light that some of the projects funded by the “Cool Japan Fund” — the organization you might recognize from TV — racked up roughly ¥3.3 billion in losses without ever managing to release a single thing. On 5ch, criticism poured in over how sloppily these investments were vetted, with comments like “Go collect the money back!” and “Nobody takes responsibility even after losses like this” piling up, fueling widespread frustration over how tax money is being spent.

    7AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:08
    Re: #1
    Honestly, the least the bureaucrats could do is nothing at all — just cut corporate taxes instead.
    8AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:08
    Hey now,
    they spent every last yen of it properly, so nobody's got any right to complain, right? (sarcasm)
    10AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:09
    Milking tax money by riding on the popularity of Japanese manga and anime (lit. "tax teat-sucking," slang for leeching off public funds)
    Were all these companies really unknowns, and did they really need to set up brand-new companies and ventures for this? Instead of putting the money into companies that are already thriving
    the whole process behind how funding decisions get made is just baffling
    12AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:10
    Re: #10
    It's just handouts to their buddies, isn't it.
    11AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:09
    They already failed once with third-sector (public-private) ventures, and they still haven't learned a thing.
    13AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:11
    Re: #11
    What's the point of learning a lesson?
    They still get to keep milking the money, don't they?
    14AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:13
    What exactly is "cool" about any of this?
    If they know who they invested in, they should be able to claw the tax money back
    Go collect it!
    I remember seeing "Kumo no Su" (Spider's Web) on TV — did that one flop too?
    15AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:13
    Seriously, tax money never gets put to any decent use.
    19AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:16
    Never managed to release a single thing ← so what did they even spend the money on…?
    29AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:22
    Re: #19
    And on top of that, a ¥3.3 billion loss — what were they actually doing?
    22AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:18
    So Poupelle was Cool Japan-funded too, huh

    28AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:21
    The media should be reporting on stuff like this every single day.
    35AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:23
    Re: #28
    Some mysterious force steps in and nobody ever digs any deeper.
    48AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:30
    Instead of building something like Junglia, they should've just built Dragon Ball Land.
    55AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:32
    Re: #48
    Sounds like it's actually going to be built in France, funded by Saudi Arabia.

    52AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:31
    What were they doing every single day if they never released anything even once
    Just eating and sleeping, probably
    Can I get in on this gig too?
    56AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:32
    Re: #52
    They were probably just sightseeing under the name "on-site research."
    62AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:36
    Is there even a single success story in the bunch?
    67AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:37
    Never managing to release anything even once — are they stupid or what.
    71AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:39
    Re: #67
    It's just bureaucrats playing around on the taxpayer's dime.
    78AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:41
    Even after losses this big, nobody takes responsibility.
    86AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:42
    Re: #78
    There's responsibility, but no one who's actually responsible.
    91AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:45
    At this point I wish they'd publish a ranking of tax-funded projects broken down by individual Diet members or their families — a leaderboard of how much tax money each one burned through while in office
    Of course, this would have to include investments past prime ministers decided on the spot in conversations with foreign presidents, so it's a given the top of the list would run into the tens of trillions of yen
    That would go viral worldwide, no doubt about it
    94AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:48
    Re: #91
    Somebody make a website for that.
    92AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:46
    By the way, the successor organization is currently pouring money into "Hateshinaki Scarlet" (Endless Scarlet).

    95AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:48
    Re: #92
    Well, that one can't really be helped.
    97AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:49
    Re: #92
    Is it on purpose that it's nothing but garbage at this point?
    99AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:50
    The Tokyo Olympics were Cool Japan Fund too.

    Background and Key Points

    The Cool Japan Fund (officially Cool Japan Fund Inc.) is a public-private investment vehicle set up by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2013, seeded mostly with government money, to help “cool” Japanese content — anime, manga, food, fashion, tourism — expand overseas. Unlike a subsidy, it’s structured as equity and loan investments meant to be repaid with returns, which is why a single project burning through ¥3.3 billion without ever releasing anything is notable: that’s investment capital effectively gone, not a grant that was merely spent. The fund has drawn Diet scrutiny for years over its track record, and posters clearly assume this is part of a longer pattern rather than an isolated incident.

    Where the thread actually splits is less about whether the fund is wasteful — that’s near-unanimous — and more about who’s to blame: some posts (10, 12) frame it as cronyism, money funneled to new shell ventures instead of already-successful companies; others (11, 13, 71) frame it as structural, comparing it to Japan’s earlier failed “third-sector” public-private projects and arguing bureaucrats simply can’t be made to learn since no one is personally penalized.

    What’s likely to mislead outside readers is post 99’s claim that the Tokyo Olympics were “Cool Japan Fund” — the Olympics were funded through an entirely separate public budget, and no source in the thread substantiates that link, so it reads as a joke or conflation rather than fact. Also unaddressed: the fund’s successor restructuring (mentioned in 92) is a real, ongoing government response to this exact criticism, which the thread treats mainly as more of the same rather than as reform in progress.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyou G) thread “[Images] The List of Investments Behind Cool Japan’s Massive Flop Is Insane lolololololololol.”

  • Why Do Kansai People Always Give You Candy? Ex-Flight Attendant’s ‘Kansai Survival Tips’ Strike a Chord

    A former flight attendant’s post about “things to watch out for when living in Kansai” was picked up by a news site, and on 5ch it sparked a wave of stories about the region’s haggling culture, the ubiquitous “ame-chan” candy, and its distinctive habit of tacking “-chan” onto everything. While some said “fewer young people haggle over prices these days,” others chimed in with tidbits like “there’s a fancy restaurant that only serves candy,” fueling a lively discussion about Kansai’s quirky customs.

    Why Do Kansai People Give You Candy? Kansai-Born Ex-Flight Attendant’s “4 Things to Watch Out for in Kansai” Strikes a Chord

    Akko_san_dayo, a former flight attendant now working as a secretary, has been gaining attention lately for a variety of posts on TikTok and Instagram (akko_excrew_channel) sharing airplane trivia and other interesting tidbits.

    This time, we’re introducing the “things to watch out for in Kansai” that Akko_san_dayo posted.

    Source: limo.media / Original article here

    2AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:48
    They really do haggle, huh
    Everywhere, all the time
    20AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:59
    Re: #2
    Lately with fixed-price systems and stuff, they won't cut you a deal anymore
    24AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:00
    Re: #2
    That's outdated now
    Young people don't haggle at all
    78AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:13
    Re: #2
    Trying to haggle at a convenience store — even in Kansai, that's an Osaka-only move
    4AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:49
    More than that, it's weirder how they slap '-chan' on everything
    174AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:20
    Re: #4
    They add '-san' a lot too
    Like 'oage-san' (fried tofu) or 'okai-san' (rice porridge)
    176AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:22
    Re: #4
    W-wait, 'Makudo-chan'?? (McDonald's, with '-chan' tacked on)
    13AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:55
    Sure, asking where someone lives is one thing, but asking their rent? That's not normal — you're just prying into their income
    149AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:59
    Re: #13
    It's just a conversational icebreaker
    If you actually live there you already know the going rate anyway — it's more like a filler phrase to keep things moving and open up the topic
    You don't have to answer honestly, just throw out a rough figure
    Then you say 'some places are pricier, some cheaper' to keep the chat going
    Kansai people speak their minds, after all
    19AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:59
    It's not just candy —
    Osaka people even put '-chan' on poop…
    80AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:14
    Re: #19
    Young women get 'nee-chan'
    Young men get 'nii-chan'
    Older women get 'oba-chan' (auntie)
    Older men get 'occhan' (uncle)
    34AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:02
    It's just like the millet dumplings in the Momotaro folktale — it's basically marking you as 'you're my underling starting today'
    100AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:29
    Re: #34
    I've never gotten millet dumplings in Okayama, Aichi, or Kagawa
    But I have gotten candy in Osaka
    36AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:02
    I've never actually gotten candy from a Kansai person. And I really hate the term 'ame-chan.' At least it hasn't taken over Tokyo yet
    44AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:03
    Re: #36
    It'd be terrifying if Osaka aunties started popping up everywhere over here
    46AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:04
    It's just Osaka people speaking for all of Kansai on their own

    Don't lump Kyoto and Kobe in with that
    47AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:04
    If you just say 'ame' (candy) in Kansai without the '-chan,' do people snap 'Add the -chan, you dummy!'?
    56AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:06
    Re: #47
    It's Osaka people who go around spreading this 'ame-chan' thing and the crude Kansai image all on their own

    I'll say it again
    It's Osaka people who spread the 'Kansai = Osaka' image all on their own
    51AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:05
    People are just exaggerating it for laughs
    Kansai people are all different, you know
    66AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:08
    They keep recycling this same bit, but isn't it way too stale by now?
    177AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:23
    Re: #66
    But

    Barging in without any tact
    Repeating the same phrases
    Always talking about money

    — none of that has changed, then or now
    Honestly, I'm sick of it
    84AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:20
    Remembering that not all Kansai people are like that
    is what it takes to be a decent, ordinary Japanese person
    91AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:25
    Re: #84
    Yeah
    When a Kansai person says 'in Kansai,' it's often really just about one small part of the region
    104AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:35
    Like in Tobita (Osaka's red-light district), a Fujiya Pop Candy is the signal that your time's up, right?
    157AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:04
    Re: #104

    It's the marker the touting auntie uses to signal it
    114AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:38
    Apparently there's a fancy restaurant in Osaka that serves nothing but candy
    160AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:05
    Re: #114
    Well, it's technically a special-service restaurant, so if a customer asks for it, they'll bring it out

    Background and Key Points

    Kansai’s haggling and candy-giving culture is real but geographically narrower than the thread suggests: most of these customs — the “ame-chan” habit, aggressive price haggling, and the “-chan”/”-san” suffixing (oage-san for fried tofu, okai-san for rice porridge) — trace specifically to Osaka’s merchant-city history, not to Kansai as a whole. Osaka was Japan’s commercial capital during the Edo period, and its identity as a city of traders (akindo) is still the source of these stereotypes, distinct from Kyoto’s court culture or Kobe’s port-city cosmopolitanism. Handing someone a piece of candy while chatting or doing business is a small goodwill gesture rooted in that merchant friendliness, not a formal custom.

    The thread’s actual fault line isn’t whether these traits exist, but who they belong to. Several posters (46, 56) object that Osaka behavior is being mislabeled as “Kansai” behavior wholesale, lumping in Kyoto and Kobe unfairly, while others (24, 20) argue the stereotypes are simply outdated, since fixed pricing has killed haggling among younger generations. That’s a real generational and regional split, not just online exaggeration.

    What outsiders likely miss: post 104’s mention of candy as a signal in Tobita Shinchi refers to Osaka’s famous licensed red-light district, where a Fujiya Pop Candy handed to a customer by the storefront “auntie” traditionally marks that the visit’s time is up — a very different, transactional use of candy from the friendly ame-chan habit discussed elsewhere in the thread. Readers unfamiliar with Osaka geography could easily conflate the two customs as one quaint regional quirk, when they come from completely different contexts.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “Why Do Kansai People Give You Candy? Kansai-Born Ex-Flight Attendant’s ‘4 Things to Watch Out for in Kansai’ Strikes a Chord”.

  • ‘Men Earning Under ¥6 Million Are Off the Marriage Table’ Sparks Backlash — 5ch Erupts Over Marriage and Income

    A post on 5ch’s News VIP board — a woman in her early 30s declaring that “men earning under ¥6 million a year are off the marriage table” — kicked off a heated exchange between men and women over financial standing and marriageable age. Terms like “basement-dwelling uncle” (a jab at grown men still living with their parents) and “otaku uncle on ¥4.5 million” flew back and forth, and the thread spiraled into debates over the risks of late-life pregnancy and preferences for stay-at-home spouses.

    1AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:27
    Honestly, if a guy's over 30 and not pulling in ¥6 million a year, that's just not enough effort on his part. I don't make crazy money myself, but if I'm getting married, I want to keep a decent standard of living. When some guy at a matchmaking party comes up to me like "my hobby's anime, I make ¥4.5 million," it's an instant turn-off. I'm putting in the work to look young, so the least a guy could do is have his finances sorted. Why are men these days so lacking in backbone (kaishō — the traditional expectation that a man provide for his family)? Give me some advice here.
    16AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:36
    (´・ω・｀) Come on, "man-san"… (a mocking nickname for women)
    18AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:37
    Re: #16
    Oh, basement-dwelling uncle…
    You call that a comeback? lol
    Go back and read my post from the start again.
    21AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:40
    Re: #18
    Re: #16 really got hit where it hurts lol
    23AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:41
    Re: #16
    This is genuinely hilarious
    26AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:43
    Now that men and women are equal, I don't think women can ever win this fight.
    If they say "under ¥6 million and you're off the marriage table,"
    then men can say "under ¥6 million and you're off the table too, and working in the sex industry is a hard no" —
    and 90% of women would have nothing left to say.
    31AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:46
    Re: #26
    leading into
    Re: #28
    and 90% of women get juggled by an aerial full combo,
    ending with a giant "K.O." flashing across the screen.
    28AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:45
    And the finishing blow is:
    "When we get married, we keep our finances separate."
    29AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:45
    Re: #18
    I read your post, but
    doesn't that just lead to the conclusion that men will pick younger women?
    Also, 35 and up counts as a late-life pregnancy.
    I keep seeing "my friend did it," "that celebrity did it," "plenty of people have kids past 35," but statistically it's still classified as high-risk.
    32AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:47
    Re: #29
    And there it is — the classic move of scaring women with "late-life pregnancy" (lol). Well let me ask you this: isn't it because men in their 30s can only manage ¥4.5 million that women can't afford to give up their careers, which is what delays marriage in the first place? That's the real cause of the falling birthrate. If men could pull in around ¥10 million in their 20s, everyone would marry young and have kids in their 20s. Could you stop blaming women's age for your own lack of provider-ability? And no way is a young girl choosing some ¥4.5 million otaku uncle. Get real.
    42AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:58
    Re: #32
    First, 35-and-up being classified as late-life pregnancy is just statistics, not a threat.
    Second, men only earning ¥4.5 million is delaying marriage because women can't give up their careers? Where's the data for that?
    These days, in the Reiwa era, the default is working while doing marriage-hunting (konkatsu) and getting married.
    Also, just like you fixate on men's income, men fixate on women's age because of childbirth and childcare considerations.
    The source for all this is women like you — in their early 30s, still doing konkatsu and still not married.
    Instead of rambling on here, maybe reassess Reiwa-era common sense and your own market value?
    46AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:02
    Re: #42
    Sorry, but no matter how desperately you cite statistics, every decent man I've met has just naturally told me "don't worry about money." So this "Reiwa-era common sense" you keep talking about looks like it's from a completely different world to me. What you're describing is basically "two low earners compromising into a cash-strapped dual-income marriage," right? I was never aiming for that kind of bottom-tier life to begin with. No wonder we're talking past each other.
    34AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:50
    Men should just throw the counter back at them.
    If she says under ¥6 million is off the table for marriage,
    men should just as flatly say under ¥6 million women are off the table too.
    Add "absolutely no night-work/sex-industry history" and "we keep finances separate after marriage,"
    and it's K.O. lololol
    Then spit out the winning line: "Guess you just didn't try hard enough?"
    37AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:53
    Re: #34
    You think that's a counter, but you're fundamentally missing the point, lol. Women carry the biggest role and risk of all — risking their lives to get pregnant and give birth, and putting their careers on hold. Men can't do that, right? So a man securing financial stability isn't a "condition," it's simply an "obligation." A man who ignores his own risk and just says "women should earn ¥6 million too! Separate finances!" has zero qualifications to be a father. What woman out there is desperate enough to marry a cheapskate like that and have his kids? Enjoy spitting out your "winning lines" (lol) alone for the rest of your life.
    103AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:43
    Re: #34
    Higher-earning women actually do get married more easily too —
    though if they earn too much, they stop getting married at all.
    36AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:52
    Man, the era of male dominance was great, lol.
    Back then a woman earning ¥2 million could still say she wanted to marry a man making over ¥10 million, lol.
    Now that we've got gender equality…

    why exactly does a man have to marry a woman who earns less than him?
    40AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:54
    Re: #36
    You're desperately listing conditions and celebrating "K.O. lol," but all you're doing is piling up more reasons you'll never get married. Notice that? (lol) Why would some conveniently perfect high-spec woman — young, in her 20s, earning over ¥6 million, no sex-work history, fine with dual income and separate wallets — ever pick a ¥4.5 million anime otaku uncle? You seem to think you've owned me, but you're the one who's actually cornered in the real world.
    38AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:53
    Nothing's uglier than a bunch of childless people with too much time on their hands arguing with each other.
    39AnonymousAug 26, 2026 16:54
    Re: #38
    Honestly, if these two just married each other it'd probably work out great.
    Such a waste.
    44AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:01
    That's right, women have an expiration date at 35, lol.
    And since it's gender equality, obviously she should earn the same income too, right? lol
    Just use the counter, lol.
    If she says ¥6 million,
    men should just say "I'll only marry a woman earning ¥6 million too."
    Then say "absolute no on night work/sex industry."
    And finish with "we'll keep finances separate after marriage, right?" lololol

    Ladies: K.O., you lose. lol
    49AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:04
    Re: #44
    Oof… you've completely lost it and can only type "lolololol" now. Guess it really stung, huh. Sorry for breaking you a little? Picturing you red-faced on the other side of the screen, furiously mashing your keyboard yelling "K.O., you lose lol" — honestly, it's starting to feel kind of sad. Close the browser and go have some tea until you calm down.
    50AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:04
    Re: #44
    Yeah, sure, totally. I think men should go ahead and pick "a woman in her 20s, earning over ¥6 million, no sex-work history, fine with separate wallets" too. So, what percentage chance do you think that high-spec woman has of actually picking you? (lol) No matter how many perfect counters (lol) you invent in your online fantasies, as long as you're a real-life "¥4.5 million anime otaku," you won't be chosen by that high-spec woman, or by me, or by anyone. Glad you can win in your imagination at least. Congrats.
    45AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:01
    Re: #42
    Whoa… it's kind of off-putting how red-faced and worked up you are, writing a whole essay. Did the phrase "¥4.5 million" really cut that deep? Sorry about that (lol). You can cite all the data and "Reiwa common sense" (lol) you want, but at the end of the day, the fact that you're desperately lecturing a random woman in her 30s on an anonymous forum says everything about your real-world market value (lol). Are you really this fixated on my age and marriage prospects? Maybe you actually like me?
    52AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:05
    Re: #45
    Sorry, but I'm married with two kids, so I can't see you as a romantic prospect.
    What else… income, was it?
    My personal income is about ¥8 million, and household income is over ¥10 million.
    Though ¥10 million is treated as a kind of benchmark, once you actually get there, life isn't quite the dream you pictured, so I do wonder why it's held up as the bar.
    56AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:07
    Re: #52
    Lying like that is just embarrassing, quit it.
    61AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:09
    Re: #52
    Oh wow, household income over ¥10 million, so impressive (deadpan). But with all that money and two kids, you're clearly still completely unfulfilled inside. That's why you're glued to this board, desperately trying to "K.O. (lol) some random woman in her 30s." You may have cleared the financial bar, but spiritually you're still bottom-tier — genuinely sad. Thanks for being a cautionary tale of what not to become, even with money.
    51AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:04
    Woman: "When I get married I want to be a stay-at-home wife lol"
    Well, since it's gender equality, lol—
    Man: "When I get married I want to be a stay-at-home husband lolololol"

    Counter unleashed lolololololololol

    K.O. lolololololololololololololol
    53AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:06
    Re: #51
    Yeah, I mean…
    honestly I'm getting too tired to even keep arguing back at this point 😅
    78AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:27
    It's baffling how someone fully planning to live off a man's income for the rest of their life still talks down to men like they're the ones doing the choosing.
    84AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:30
    Re: #78
    I already said it's not dependence, it's "division of labor." Do you understand what words mean? Women risk their lives to give birth and carry humanity's future forward — a monumental job men could never do no matter how hard they tried. So a man supporting that with his financial power isn't optional, it's an "obligation" for survival, basically "infrastructure" for society. Nobody gets mad at tap water or electricity yelling "you depend on me!" — and it's genuinely bizarre, lol, for infrastructure (men) to get mad and shout "don't depend on me!" Of course the user (women) has every right to carefully vet and rank the performance of the infrastructure (men) from a position of judgment.
    85AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:31
    Re: #78
    It's not baffling at all. Look at biology. In every corner of the animal kingdom, it's the female — the one who risks her life to bear and raise offspring — who evaluates and chooses the male. The male is the one desperately putting on a display to get chosen. That's the natural order. It's only in the human world that men get all puffed up about "earning it for you" (lol), but a man who never gets chosen by a woman is just a "loser" who fails to pass on his genes and gets weeded out. So me judging from above and declaring "under ¥6 million, no chance" is simply me acting like a perfectly normal biological creature. If you want to be chosen, quit complaining and go earn like your life depends on it.
    134AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:26
    Re: #131
    I'm not asking for a youthful look.
    I'm asking for actual youth.
    137AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:29
    Re: #134
    Same thing.
    141AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:35
    Re: #137
    Then you'd be fine with a guy who earns ¥1 million but looks like he earns ¥10 million, right?
    Same thing, isn't it?
    146AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:38
    Re: #141
    No, no, lol, that analogy is so bad it's basically broadcasting how dumb you are. You okay? (lol) A "man who earns ¥1 million but looks like ¥10 million" is just a show-off deadbeat one step from bankruptcy. But a "beauty in her 30s who looks like she's in her 20s" can actually use her looks and youth — real assets — to snag and get supported by an actual high-spec man earning ¥10 million or ¥30 million. In other words, just looking like she's in her 20s is worth tens of millions of yen to a woman in practice. You can't tell the difference between a man's cardboard facade (lol) and a woman's actual asset value, which is exactly why you're capped out at ¥4.5 million. Maybe go study up a bit more?
    147AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:39
    Re: #141
    You just really wanted to brand me as "low-spec" (lol), so you cooked up that whole extreme, twisted logic and posted it. Cute. You can say "same thing, right? (smugly)" all you want, but it doesn't change one bit of the reality that I actually get mistaken for early-20s and get plenty of male attention. While you're off in a corner of the internet chanting your little curse of "she's the same as a ¥1 million earner!", I'm out here getting treated to nice dinners by high-spec men I've charmed. Good luck keeping up that hollow mental gymnastics. (lol)
    136AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:27
    Hold on… did the VIP rule of "everyone's assumed to be a middle-aged guy until proven otherwise" stop being a thing?
    139AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:30
    Re: #136
    Bringing up some ancient, nobody-cares-anymore 2ch "unwritten rule of VIP" (lol) — a genuine fossil of an old man (50s) must have wandered in. You got so thoroughly demolished by me in reality that you've now retreated into telling yourself "she must be some middle-aged guy! My pride depends on it!" as an escape from reality. Whether I'm a middle-aged guy or a beauty doesn't change the cruel fact, not one bit, that you're a "¥4.5 million basement-dwelling uncle" who nobody picks. The fact that you haven't noticed that is the funniest part of all. (lol)
    142AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:36
    Re: #136
    Idiot, taking the bait full-force is what being a VIPPER (regular of the VIP board) is all about — why are you acting all too-cool-for-this?

    Background and Key Points

    Japan’s ¥6 million (roughly $40,000) threshold sounds arbitrary to outside readers, but it sits well above what most Japanese men actually earn — national tax agency wage surveys put the average for male salaried workers closer to ¥5.5–5.7 million, and far lower once part-time and irregular workers are included. That gap is why the original poster’s line landed as elitist rather than modest. The exchange also draws on specific cultural vocabulary: “kaishō,” the traditional idea that a husband’s worth is measured by his provider ability, and “konkatsu,” the now-normalized practice of organized marriage-hunting and matchmaking parties (gōkon), where income, age, and appearance are openly screened as if on a spec sheet. Behind all of it looms Japan’s shōshika (birthrate collapse) crisis — births fell below 730,000 in 2023, a record low — which is why arguments about who is “unmarriageable” carry more weight in Japan than they might elsewhere.

    The thread didn’t split cleanly along gender lines so much as on whether an income floor is a legitimate preference or a demand that comes with no matching obligation — posters kept testing whether the same standard (income, age, no sex-work history) applied reciprocally would be accepted, and whether it should be.

    What outside readers should know: this is one anonymous post on 5ch’s News VIP board, historically governed by the in-joke that every poster is assumed to be a middle-aged man unless proven otherwise — several replies invoke that rule directly. Nothing here is survey data, and no one in the thread cited any.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News VIP) thread “[Sad News] Woman in her 30s: “How do men earning under ¥6 million even survive? They’re off the marriage table for me”.”

  • Backlash Over Yudetaro’s ‘Foreign Employees Are Excellent’ Remark Sparks 5ch Wage Debate

    Backlash erupted after the head of soba/udon chain Yudetaro praised foreign employees as “excellent,” sparking a heated back-and-forth in a 5ch thread.

    The president reportedly holds the position that foreign trainees should be paid the same wages as Japanese employees, and the thread’s discussion expanded from there — touching on why Japanese workers tend to shy away from low-wage jobs, and suspicions that management in labor-short industries like trucking would rather import cheap labor than raise wages.

    13AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:56
    Most foreign employees at places like convenience stores do their jobs just fine.
    If anything, the staff who actually piss me off are almost always Japanese.
    Though I guess that's my own bias talking.
    27AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:01
    Re: #13
    Their work ethic seems solid, but they barely speak Japanese…
    Makes me nervous whether paperwork like certificates is even being handled correctly. You need at least one native-level speaker on staff or it's a real problem.
    21AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:59
    Gotta respect anyone doing convenience store part-time work in Japan.
    24AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:00
    Re: #21
    The Lawson near me has a Japanese owner and that's it — every other staffer is South Asian.
    23AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:00
    Work 'em cheap, toss 'em when they wear out, and rake in the subsidies. 🤗
    40AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:04
    Re: #23
    Foreigners who land jobs in food service and other customer-facing industries are basically the elite, since Japanese-language communication skills are such a high bar. And at Yudetaro they're paid the same as Japanese staff anyway.
    35AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:03
    If they can even learn Japanese, they're already more capable than your average "weak man" (弱者男性, a self-deprecating slang term for low-status, unsuccessful men).
    44AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:05
    Re: #35
    Wait, there are Japanese people who can't even speak Japanese?
    42AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:05
    This is really about what "excellent" means to a business owner.
    It's not about being smart or good at the job —
    obviously they'd rather have someone who works cheap and keeps their mouth shut.
    50AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:07
    Re: #42
    That's not even true anymore.
    The ones working now out-earn Japanese employees. Quit outing yourself as an out-of-touch boomer.
    52AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:08
    Re: #40
    If it's elites lining up to come work here, they can toss 'em out just as fast, lol.
    55AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:08
    Re: #52
    Lol, acting like some kind of master strategist.
    63AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:10
    Hiroyuki basically dismantled this argument.
    His point being: isn't this really just about keeping labor costs down with cheap workers instead of ever raising wages?
    69AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:11
    Re: #63
    But what other option is there, really?
    74AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:14
    Re: #63
    Hiroyuki calls himself a businessman and criticizes other business owners for not paying decent wages, but he's never once disclosed what he pays his own employees, has he?

    And for that matter, KADOKAWA — which Hiroyuki has championed — has also been called out for stiffing its writers on payment.
    78AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:15
    Re: #63
    Of course a business owner would think that way.
    If someone has the sales ability to actually drive revenue, they end up holding the leverage instead.
    65AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:10
    Their circumstances are different — anyone coming from a country that bad would have a different mindset too.
    Management is just exploiting that, calling cheap workers who grind away without complaint "excellent" while squeezing them.
    There's zero downside for the company even if those workers flee or turn to crime.
    Before complaining about "Japanese people," ask yourself if you ever even tried.
    71AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:13
    Re: #65
    The Yudetaro president's actual stance is: "It's the law that foreign trainees must be paid the same as Japanese employees. Companies that ignore that and pay trainees less shouldn't be allowed to hire them at all, and the government needs to enforce this properly."
    113AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:23
    Re: #71
    Japanese people don't apply precisely because the pay and conditions are bad.
    The second you're demanding foreign workers get brought in instead, you're no better than the people you're criticizing.
    67AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:11
    Eventually udon shops and convenience stores are just going to go fully self-service, right?
    105AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:21
    Re: #67
    Fully self-service convenience stores have been trialed for over a decade now and still never rolled out — that tells you everything.
    I'm just glad Lawson has self-checkout at all.
    Though it's annoying that items with discount stickers can't go through self-checkout.
    122AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:26
    Re: #67
    The irony is that convenience stores haven't even managed to go self-service because Japanese people's own civility (民度) is too low — so they're relying on foreigners to make up for it.
    75AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:14
    People online are being absolutely hysterical about foreigners lately.
    But then they can't muster any respect for Olympic gold medalists either.
    They're just stressed out and taking it out on whoever's nearby.
    82AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:17
    Re: #75
    Complaints about society online are, at the end of the day, just people offloading their frustration with their own inadequacy onto someone else.
    88AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:18
    This whole thing is just "foreigners are excellent (because they'll work without complaint even in low-paying, exploitative conditions)" — pure capital's-eye-view stuff.
    Which is another way of saying Japanese workers who complain and demand higher pay are garbage employees.

    So it's not about minority rights at all — they're just being valued as convenient, easily-used pieces on a board.
    97AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:19
    Re: #88
    Inventing an opinion someone never actually stated and then attacking them for "secretly thinking that" — classic move from the anti-foreigner crowd.
    100AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:20
    Re: #88
    The real problem is that Japanese people won't take on troublesome jobs even when the pay is good.
    103AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:20
    Re: #100
    Yeah, construction's exactly like that too.
    123AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:26
    Re: #103
    Trucking's another one. If you want to raise pay for drivers and sorters in logistics, the only way to fund that is by raising shipping fees — but Japanese customers immediately complain "shipping's too expensive!" So then (even though it's backwards) companies end up hiring foreign workers willing to work cheap just to hold shipping costs down. If you don't want foreign drivers, you need to be willing to accept shipping fees going up 20-30%.

    Background and Key Points

    Yudetaro is a nationwide soba/udon chain, and the “foreign employees” in question are mostly on Japan’s Technical Intern Training Program (技能実習制度) — the visa scheme that brings in labor from Vietnam, Nepal, Indonesia, and similar countries for sectors chronically short of workers, including food service, construction, and trucking. Crucially, Japanese labor law already requires trainees to be paid the same wage as Japanese staff doing equivalent work; the loophole isn’t the law but enforcement, which is exactly the point the Yudetaro president was making — his “excellent” comment was paired with a call for the government to crack down on companies that underpay trainees, not a boast about cheap labor. That nuance is why the backlash reads as ironic to some posters. It’s also worth knowing Japan is phasing this program out in favor of a new “Employment for Skill Development” system by 2027, precisely because of years of exploitation scandals tied to it.

    The thread didn’t really split over whether foreign workers are competent — nearly everyone conceded that. It split over motive: is “excellent” a genuine compliment, or corporate code for “won’t complain about bad conditions,” with the implication that Japanese workers who do complain get labeled difficult? That reading, amplified by a comment attributed to Hiroyuki (the 2channel founder turned pundit, frequently invoked in these threads as a contrarian authority), pushed the discussion toward wages versus automation versus import-cheap-labor as competing fixes for sectors like trucking and construction.

    What’s easy to miss: nobody in the thread mentions that equal-pay-for-trainees is already the legal baseline, not something Yudetaro is generously offering — so framing this as corporate generosity, or as exploitation, both slightly misstate the starting point.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] Yudetaro Gets Absolutely Slammed Just for Saying Foreign Employees Are Excellent.”

  • Sony Accused of Blacklisting Media That Criticized Disc Discontinuation

    Following reports that Sony is restricting interviews and information access for overseas media outlets that covered the PS5’s move away from physical discs, Japan’s 5channel gaming board (Geha) erupted into debate over the truth and intent behind the move. The thread also saw arguments over alleged retailer blacklisting, comparisons to Nintendo Switch 2’s key-card system, and disputes over how to interpret images claiming to show which titles are being snubbed.

    Some media outlets that reported on Sony’s plan to move away from physical discs for PlayStation games

    are reportedly having their access to games and information needed for reviews and interviews restricted by PlayStation’s local subsidiaries.

    Source: sumahodigest.com / Original article here

    4AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:48
    But hey
    from the media's point of view, PlayStation just isn't 'needed' anymore, right?
    5AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:49
    That's weird…
    whatever happened to that 95% approval rating?
    6AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:50
    That's because the download rate is 95%
    who needs the 5% who still want discs anyway
    10AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:51
    Even in the Reiwa era, the industry's cancer never stops promoting itself
    11AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:51
    There were outlets that should've just reported the facts but went full emotional and started bashing Sony instead
    piss off your best customer and this is what happens
    12AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:52
    'Play it and you're one of us' (they said)
    'Criticize it and you're the enemy' (they never actually said that)
    14AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:53
    Why not just start a 'PS Central Times' and put out their own press releases? Get that walking Sony-encyclopedia auntie to be the anchor. (a jab likening it to a state-run propaganda outlet)
    15AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:53
    Same old embarrassing stuff as always
    16AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:54
    There's probably a retailer blacklist too
    GEO's probably at the top of it (GEO = major Japanese used-game/media retail chain)
    19AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:56
    Re: #16
    Is there even a difference between being blacklisted and not, lol

    either way they're pulling out of stores anyway
    39AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:11
    Re: #16
    it's not like it's a product anyone's desperate for anymore, so no real damage, lol — cutting ties might even be a plus
    it's not like some 'PS6' is gonna turn things around either
    20AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:56
    Re: #1
    they've been doing this forever
    back in the Famicom era tons of gaming media and retailers sprang up, then got crushed en masse once the industry threw up barriers
    22AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:56
    From now on, everyone who buys discs to save money and manage the risk of getting a dud game is gonna move over to the Switch 2
    you'll see what that means soon enough, lol

    honestly I figured I'd keep my PS5 around if I could still save money buying discs
    but now they're killing that off
    and mid-cycle for the PS5, no less

    a PS5 with no discs is just a crappy PC with no reason to exist, lol
    23AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:57
    Now I get why they swapped the circle/X confirm-cancel buttons around
    they shut Japan out without even explaining that one either
    25AnonymousAug 26, 2026 17:57
    This is a company that, when DS or Switch looked like they might overtake its install base, shamelessly padded its PS2 sales figures without a shred of shame
    doesn't seem like a legit company to me
    54AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:21
    What's this company gonna do without the media's backing?
    55AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:22
    Re: #54
    they're not trying to eliminate the ones who actually hold power though
    62AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:32
    This is clearly not the kind of move a company doing well would make
    just admit it already: 'our revenue model's changed, games aren't selling'
    63AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:33
    Re: #62
    so what kind of move do you call Nintendo's key-card system then
    you've gotta separate 'trends of the times' from 'a company's momentum,' or it just becomes dead weight
    68AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:37
    Re: #63
    key cards? you can still resell those used
    totally different from a code-in-a-box
    69AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:37
    Re: #63
    if anything, Nintendo only looks better by comparison now that PS has killed off discs
    even while shifting toward digital, they're doing it gradually
    and it's not just key cards — with amiibo and handheld-specific peripherals, they're keeping a retail sales channel open too,
    making sure stores have a reason to stock hardware that isn't profitable on its own
    it's the exact opposite of a hardware maker abruptly axing discs
    74AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:43
    Re: #69
    before any of that, they're getting snubbed left and right — makes you wonder what 'evaluation' even means
    tps://i.imgur.com/0DXIRSP.jpeg
    78AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:47
    Re: #74
    I'm asking everyone who keeps posting that list — pick a title from it you're actually interested in and explain what it's about
    and beyond that, you need to explain how a hardware policy connects to a multiplatform title list in terms of evaluation criteria

    without a convincing explanation on both points, this just looks like some 'breaking news' guy who got clocked by a solid point in Re: #69, couldn't argue back, and self-destructed trying to flex with some random overseas title list he doesn't even understand
    108AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:24
    Re: #74
    what are you even trying to do posting a list that has nothing to do with evaluating key cards
    you just really wanted an excuse to post that image, didn't you
    77AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:47
    Re: #62
    because this doesn't look like a positive evolution
    the reason being they were sitting on the fence at PS5 launch and then suddenly lurched to one side
    the structure wouldn't look any different even if it were, say, 'server costs shot up so we're axing downloads instead'
    it just screams 'we don't have a vision, we're just getting swept along'
    if they'd instead said 'starting with PS6 we're going digital-only, and cross-gen releases will follow the same policy,' this wouldn't be getting this kind of reaction
    109AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:25
    Re: #77
    maybe they scheduled this to line up with PS6, and global circumstances just threw the timing off
    87AnonymousAug 26, 2026 18:59
    Sony really is a master of the information war, as always
    Nintendo puts its weight behind Nintendo Direct and TV commercials, so it's not that great a customer for gaming media
    meanwhile nearly all the AAA publishers dropping huge ad budgets are on PlayStation's side, so gaming media can't afford to cross Sony
    90AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:04
    Re: #87
    they used to pull this stuff without getting caught
    the fact that it's getting caught now probably means Sony's influence has weakened quite a bit
    89AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:02
    Re: #78
    even if you tell me it's 'the right call,' I can't accept it if adoption ends up failing
    and if that's the standard, then you'd have to accept following the PC/smartphone model too, which is essentially fully digital already
    95AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:11
    Re: #89
    what are you even talking about — this is hardware in only its second year with one of the fastest adoption paces around… oh wait, sorry, were you talking about that OTHER hardware that might not even hit 100 million units? my bad
    and you're still dodging the whole 'you confidently posted that list even though you don't care about the content' thing — classic breaking-news-guy move

    and here's a fresh problem for you: those fully-digital smartphones and PCs are products that can earn incentives on the hardware alone, right?
    if you're planning to sell PS6 that way, it's not gonna stop at 100,000 yen, lol
    110AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:26
    Re: #108
    that's exactly the point being made, and it's still not actually a response (see Re: #89)
    98AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:13
    Re: #95
    that pace already dropped a while back — PS5 has overtaken it in worldwide monthly sales
    and there's a price hike coming in September, so its chances of spreading further are only going to keep shrinking
    100AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:14
    Guess the die-hard Sony-fanboy spirit ('uchi-Sony') is still alive
    102AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:16
    Re: #100
    that's basically their company motto
    104AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:18
    Re: #78
    the point was that they're getting snubbed across the board from games announced at major global game shows,
    and you're talking about personal interest instead — that's probably why nobody's taking you seriously
    105AnonymousAug 26, 2026 19:21
    Re: #104
    says the guy who's been milking GTA6 and Persona this whole time
    I've never seen you flex with any other title — have you?

    Background and Key Points

    Sony’s PlayStation division has spent the PS5 generation quietly walking back its old commitment to physical media: the console launched in 2020 with a disc-drive model and a cheaper Digital Edition side by side, and Sony has periodically pushed publishers and retailers toward download-first releases since. What’s unusual in the story the thread is reacting to is not the shift itself but the alleged retaliation — foreign outlets that reported critically on Sony curbing physical releases say their access to review copies and interviews from PlayStation’s regional subsidiaries has since been cut. Readers unfamiliar with Japan’s retail landscape should also know GEO is one of the country’s largest chains for used games, discs, and media, which is why posters flagged it as a likely target of any retailer-side blacklist.

    The thread didn’t converge on whether the blacklisting reports are true — nobody there has independent confirmation — but on whether abandoning discs is a defensible business move at all. One camp treated it as an inevitable trend Sony is simply riding; the other, invoking Nintendo’s Switch 2 “key-card” system, argued Nintendo is managing the same digital shift far more gradually, keeping retail shelf space alive with accessories and resellable cards, while Sony is cutting discs abruptly mid-cycle.

    What’s easy to miss is that no post actually cites a verified digital-sales percentage or an official Sony statement — the “95%” figure being argued over originated as a jab, not a disclosed number, so the entire debate rests on assumption rather than confirmed data.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5channel (Hardware/Industry (Geha)) thread “Sony Accused of Blacklisting Media Critical of PlayStation Disc Discontinuation; Blacklist Suspicions Surface.”

  • “Nintendo Games Are for Kids”? Backlash Erupts — Gamers Say That’s Just “PlayStation-Generation Bias”

    On 5ch’s hardware/industry (“Geha”) board, a thread went up titled “If you’ve got normal sensibilities, you grow out of Pokémon and Mario by middle school.” Posts dismissing Nintendo titles as kids’ stuff drew a wave of pushback, with users arguing it’s “just the mindset of people who grew up on the Super Famicom and moved on to PlayStation.” The thread spiraled into back-and-forth citing specific titles like Xenoblade, and eventually into a circular debate over what “games for adults” even means in the first place.

    1AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:06
    Grown adult gaming on a Switch instead of a PS5 (lol)… seriously, it's about time you realized how bad that looks lmao
    3AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:08
    Another old-timer having a meltdown, convinced that whatever was popular when they were a kid must automatically be "for kids"?
    13AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:13
    Re: #3
    Seriously, this is exactly it. It's only the old guys who grew up on the Super Famicom and switched to PlayStation to play Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy who are still stuck thinking "Nintendo is for kids."
    5AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:09
    Re: #1
    Did you buy Fire Pro Wrestling ("Toukon")? What about Marathon? Show us your trophies.
    6AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:11
    Normal people be like: "Adults don't play video games."
    7AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:12
    Don't you dare mock Xenoblade, that has-been game for creepy otaku.
    9AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:12
    Don't you dare mock Xenoblade, that has-been game for creepy otaku.
    31AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:33
    Says the guy starting threads like this at his age — you're probably over 60, aren't you?
    36AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:38
    Too much hassle to argue, so I'm just going by CERO ratings! Ask me if Mario Odyssey and Paper Mario are for adults, and I'll say yes! Because they're rated CERO B! (Japan's equivalent of a Teen rating)
    38AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:39
    You're really hung up on this… did you go through something traumatic or what?
    39AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:39
    I mean sure, you drift away for a bit in middle school, but every other game ends up feeling so shallow that you come crawling back to Nintendo.
    40AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:39
    Same thing every time — people throw out specific names like Pokémon and Mario, and all the other side can counter with is a vague phrase like "games for adults." You're not even standing on the same ground. Next time, put actual game titles in the thread title.
    42AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:41
    It's not like "the adult-oriented lineup went multiplatform and hit Switch too, so now it's PS5's turn!" Please update your worldview — we're not still living in the PS2 era.
    43AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:45
    Re: #13
    It's pretty wild that you think PlayStation is somehow the one exception to all this.
    44AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:47
    What exactly counts as a "game for adults," specifically?
    92AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:05
    Re: #44
    A game that flips Nintendo the bird.
    45AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:48
    AAA titles that never come out on Switch.
    56AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:56
    So it's Switch-exclusive AAA titles specifically, Re: #45? If any AAA game that released on other hardware counts as an "adult game," then yeah, you really are an idiot… lol
    60AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:08
    Re: #45
    Games that never came to Switch but still sold well on PS in Japan — isn't that basically just Chinese mobile games, FF, and Monster Hunter? Is that seriously all there is to "adult games"? If there's more, you guys clearly aren't even buying them properly.
    52AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:52
    Seriously, what even is a "game for adults"?
    55AnonymousAug 26, 2026 23:55
    Re: #52
    Some mysterious thing that nobody actually buys.
    87AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:52
    That kind of thinking from top to bottom is exactly why things have withered down to the state they're in now.
    94AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:12
    Re: #87
    Well, they're basically bandits at the end of the day. The boss just throws some random underling under the bus and bolts.
    95AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:32
    Honestly though, if you saw some middle-aged guy playing Pokémon or Mario in public, you'd cringe a little, right?
    96AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:39
    Re: #95
    Fair enough. But if you've got a family, there's barely any stigma attached… guess being single really is the crime here!!

    Background and Key Points

    Nintendo has been Japan’s dominant console maker since the Famicom (1983), but the “kids’ company” label dates to the mid-1990s, when Sony’s PlayStation captured the market with Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Quest VII, positioning itself as the choice for teens and adults who’d outgrown the Famicom/Super Famicom. That generational split — SFC kids who “graduated” to PS — is exactly what poster >>13 names as the source of the “Nintendo is for kids” mindset, and it’s the crux the thread never resolves. CERO, Japan’s ESRB-equivalent ratings board, is real and A/B/C/D/Z ratings do exist, but citing a CERO B rating (post 36) as proof a game is “for kids” is a joke, not an accurate use of the system — CERO ratings track content like violence and language, not audience maturity or design sophistication.

    The thread splits less on whether Nintendo makes good games than on what “adult game” even means, and it never gets an answer. One side keeps naming actual titles — Pokémon, Mario, Xenoblade — while the other retreats to a vague, undefined category (“games for adults”) that, as poster >>40 points out, was never operationalized. When someone tries to pin it down (>>45: Switch-exclusive AAA titles that never ported), it collapses immediately, since Switch’s biggest “adult-skewing” gaps in Japan are arguably just Chinese mobile gacha, FF, and Monster Hunter — hardly a coherent genre.

    What outside readers likely miss: this is a distinctly Japanese domestic framing. Switch is the best-selling console in Japan by a wide margin, and family/multiplayer titles dominate its charts there in a way that doesn’t map onto Western “Nintendo = kids” stereotypes, which stem from different marketing history (the 1980s American NES relaunch as a toy, not a 1990s PS/Nintendo split).

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “If you’ve got normal sensibilities, you grow out of stuff like Pokémon and Mario by middle school and play games for adults.”

  • Bruce Willis, with dementia, is forgetting he was even an actor — the early signs even his wife missed

    An article reporting that Bruce Willis, diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), is beginning to forget that he was ever an actor became a hot topic on 5ch.

    His current condition — following his retirement in March 2022, prompted by an aphasia diagnosis — drew both shock and sorrow from longtime fans, while other users shared personal experiences noting dementia can happen to anyone, and a heavier discussion unfolded around the process of losing one’s memories.

    Bruce Willis, due to dementia, is “forgetting he was even a Hollywood actor.” The “early signs” even his wife missed — how frightening is the “frontotemporal dementia (FTD)” that’s becoming more common among people in their 40s?

    Bruce Willis, a leading figure in Hollywood known for classics like “Die Hard,” “The Sixth Sense,” and “Armageddon.”

    It became major news when he retired from acting in March 2022 following an aphasia diagnosis.

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

    3AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:40
    Re: #1
    Just the other day I suddenly thought of Bruce Willis, looked him up, and found a news article about him attending his daughter's wedding.
    It's genuinely shocking that such a huge star had to retire at 60 because of dementia.
    4AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:42
    Some people live more than 10 years with it, while others go less than 2 years after diagnosis — that's rough.
    Guess Bruce Willis, 10 years on since retiring, has actually lasted a long time… Re: #1
    5AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:42
    Weren't you a cowboy, McClane?
    Did you forget?
    6AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:43
    Apparently he can't even hold a proper conversation anymore — no matter what you ask him, he just smiles.
    That's so sad.
    7AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:44
    Forgetting he was a ghost too (Sixth Sense spoiler)
    14AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:48
    Re: #7
    If he forgets that, the movie doesn't work
    90AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:26
    Re: #7
    That's a brutal spoiler.
    Seriously, not cool.
    8AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:44
    Whatever happened to that drug for clearing out the 'junk' in your brain? Hurry up and finish it already
    49AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:04
    Re: #8
    That'd be amyloid beta, right? If they could clear it out, the prognosis would probably improve a lot — though if everyone ends up living longer, that might accelerate humanity's food crisis. Still, I want my own parents to stay sharp until the day they die.
    10AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:45
    He was appearing in all sorts of random, nonsensical movies late in his career — maybe he was just trying to earn as much as he could while he still could
    11AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:47
    Dementia turns you into someone who isn't really the original person anymore.
    They still look like themselves, but the memories are gone.
    12AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:47
    He's not even a Hollywood actor —
    the reverse of the emperor's new clothes, believing it anyway
    13AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:47
    Even so, his body should still remember how —
    he ought to still be able to plant a nuke on an asteroid headed for Earth (Armageddon reference)
    15AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:48
    Guess he caught the 'Bruce virus' — scarier than the coronavirus (pun on Bruce/virus)
    16AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:48
    John McClane getting FTD… goddammit
    18AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:49
    Even if you catch the early signs, dementia can't be stopped.
    Modern medicine doesn't even know the root cause yet.
    19AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:50
    Oh, it's not Demi Moore (his current wife is Emma Heming)
    51AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:05
    Re: #19
    Apparently she's helping out with his care
    20AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:50
    Even someone that busy still ends up like this?
    21AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:50
    Reminded me of Kazuki Kosaka's impression of him (Japanese comedian known for celebrity impressions)
    22AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:50
    Well, it's the road all of humanity walks.
    Everyone loses their mind before they die.
    23AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:51
    Even normal people forget things from just a few years back if they don't write them down.
    I can't remember either.
    Makes me wonder if even the author of One Piece has forgotten what's going on in his own story.
    24AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:51
    Maybe he spent all his life's luck becoming a star (lol). People who stay stars their whole lives really are amazing.
    25AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:52
    FTD —
    in pro-wrestling terms,
    'Face… Turned to Damage'? (a stretch at a wrestling-style acronym joke)
    26AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:52
    I never know when I might get dementia myself, so I try to stay alert for any suspicious symptoms so I can catch them early
    30AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:54
    Re: #26
    And even if you noticed, what would you actually do about it?
    33AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:56
    It looks sad from the outside, but—
    he's successful, has more than enough money to live on, and a loving family,
    and if on top of that he's lost the fear of death, maybe that's a kind of happiness in its own way.
    86AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:21
    Re: #33
    Well, sure. Dementia is nothing to the person themselves — it's the people around them who have it rough lol
    40AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:59
    Maybe I've got dementia too.
    Can't remember what I ate yesterday.
    45AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:02
    Re: #40
    That's just normal aging.
    It's only a problem if you can't even remember whether you ate at all.
    46AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:02
    I wonder what happens to your sense of self once dementia sets in.
    Apparently people can still recognize their own son but suddenly scream 'get out!' — like their whole personality changes.
    53AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:06
    Re: #46
    Once your mind goes, that's the end of the self.
    It forms around age two and eventually fades away —
    just the fate of being an animal.
    69AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:12
    Losing your memory is true of everyone.
    It's only a matter of individual differences — eventually you too will lose the memories of your life.

    Human memory comes in two kinds.
    Short-term memory, which is temporary, and long-term memory, which lasts.
    Short-term memory is the first to go.
    You stop being able to recall what you were doing a moment ago.
    At work you can cover for it somewhat by taking thorough notes.
    But gradually, even that stops working.
    You accept it.
    And you can still go on living.
    Eventually you can't even remember the past anymore.
    Long-term memory goes too.

    A person's death isn't something that happens suddenly one day.
    It begins gradually, starting from when you're young.
    87AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:22
    Re: #69
    By that logic, death starts the moment you're born.
    Who do you think you are, coming out with something so deep and philosophical?
    You've never been able to remember what you had for dinner two nights ago anyway.
    70AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:12
    Re: #1
    I've been having trouble getting words out lately too — is that bad? Names of people and things just won't come to me. I'm not even 50 yet.
    84AnonymousAug 27, 2026 02:21
    Re: #70
    Which would you rather have — a professional diagnosis, or my half-baked opinion?

    Background and Key Points

    Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a distinct disorder from the far more familiar Alzheimer’s disease: it attacks the frontal and temporal lobes rather than being driven primarily by amyloid plaque buildup, and it typically strikes earlier — commonly in the 40s to 60s rather than in advanced old age — with language loss (aphasia) and personality change as hallmark early symptoms rather than short-term memory loss. Willis, born 1955, first announced an aphasia diagnosis and retirement in March 2022; the FTD diagnosis followed in 2023. His current wife, Emma Heming Willis, has become the public face of his care, while his ex-wife of the 1990s, Demi Moore, remains an active part of the extended, blended family looking after him — a detail one poster flagged since many casual fans still associate “Bruce Willis’s wife” with Moore rather than Heming. For a non-Japanese reader, it’s also worth knowing the thread’s stray references are local color: Kazuki Kosaka is a Japanese comedian famous for a Bruce Willis impression, and the One Piece aside is a joke about Japan’s longest-running manga, not a real claim about its author’s health.

    The thread didn’t really split over facts so much as over how to feel about them: one strand treated his decline as pure tragedy for a beloved action star, while another pushed a more detached, almost consoling framing — that with wealth, family support, and no more fear of death, his situation isn’t unambiguously sad — which drew immediate pushback that dementia’s real burden falls on caregivers, not the patient. What nobody in the thread mentioned is that the amyloid-clearing drugs one poster hoped would help (like Leqembi) target Alzheimer’s pathology specifically and aren’t established treatments for FTD, which involves different proteins (tau or TDP-43) — so that hope, while understandable, doesn’t map onto Willis’s actual diagnosis.

    *This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Bruce Willis, due to dementia, is “forgetting he was even a Hollywood actor” — the early signs even his wife missed, and the “FTD” on the rise among people in their 40s.”

  • Chunichi’s Ryuku Tsuchida Suffers Depressed Fracture of Right Shoulder Blade After Being Hit by Kirishiki’s 147km/h Fastball in the 8th Inning vs. Hanshin

    In the 8th inning of the game against Hanshin, Chunichi’s Ryuku Tsuchida was struck in the back by pitcher Takuma Kirishiki’s 147 km/h fastball and diagnosed with a depressed fracture of his right shoulder blade. On 5ch, complaints flew about Hanshin’s frequent hit-by-pitches alongside defenses of Kirishiki as “just a rookie,” while the discussion spread to how Chunichi would rebuild its infield defense without its regular shortstop.

    ◇ August 26 — Chunichi 4, Hanshin 0 (Vantelin Dome Nagoya)

    Chunichi manager Kazuki Inoue revealed on the 26th, after that day’s game against Hanshin (at Vantelin Dome), that infielder Ryuku Tsuchida — who was hit by a pitch in the 8th inning — had been diagnosed with a depressed fracture of his right shoulder blade. Tsuchida had reportedly been sent to the hospital during the game.

    “It’s not good news. The trainer’s report was, ‘It’s the same as Muramatsu’s case.’ Tsuchida will come here [to Vantelin Dome] tomorrow, but we’ll see how things go… What’s happened has happened. We’ll work out a plan,” the manager said, his face twisted with concern, before heading home.

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

    6AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:23
    How many times do I have to say it — he's just showing his back, he's not dodging at all
    10AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:23
    When a Hanshin pitcher hits someone, it's apparently a 'clean' hit-by-pitch
    35AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:47
    Re: #10
    Exactly this.
    They complain the second they take a hit-by-pitch, but have no problem drilling the other team.
    13AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:25
    I don't want to sound crude, but I'd at least like to see them show some anger
    15AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:28
    Hanshin (mockingly nicknamed "Chin") loses it when their own guys get hit but has no problem beaning others? Pathetic.
    16AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:28
    It's a hit-by-pitch war!

    Hanshin vs Giants
    Hanshin vs Carp
    Chunichi vs Swallows
    Hanshin vs Chunichi — new!
    17AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:28
    How many more Chunichi players are gonna get wrecked at this rate
    18AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:29
    How do you even immobilize a shoulder blade, it's a floating bone to begin with
    Guess it's surgery then
    21AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:31
    Yikes
    They've got no shortstop now
    Can Kanya Tanaka handle it?
    If possible I'd like to see Ishikawa and Fukunaga in the starting lineup
    50AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:00
    Re: #21
    There's still Nene
    23AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:33
    A depressed fracture of the shoulder blade…
    Well, they say shoulder blades heal easily, but
    that's not really the point here
    24AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:34
    Ukyo Maekawa also had a shoulder blade fracture before
    Though he came back pretty quickly
    25AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:35
    An injury to the back is called a 'mukou-kizu' (a wound to the far side) — traditionally seen as a shameful mark of cowardice
    26AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:35
    Furious when it happens to them, smirking when they're the ones doing it
    27AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:37
    He should honestly just be glad it was the shoulder blade that broke — if it had hit slightly differently it would've been way worse.
    (Speaking from experience)
    28AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    Turns out the whole 'taking it on the back means you dodged well' thing was uso-matsu (obvious BS/an exaggerated fake story)
    29AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    Why target Tsuchida of all people? And from a 5th-place team, no less
    30AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:42
    Who cares if a B-class (bottom-half) team gets an injury
    31AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:43
    In principle this kind of thing is just part of the game and can't be helped, but Fujikawa specifically won't be forgiven for it — this is going to blow up big time
    How you carry yourself day to day really matters
    32AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:43
    Kirishiki's just a rookie, cut him some slack
    39AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:51
    Hanshin hits plenty of batters themselves
    They've just got way too strong a victim complex
    42AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:54
    Hanshin already does this stuff themselves, so why does Fujikawa always fly off the handle about it?
    Is it just an act?
    44AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:55
    This is exactly why acting tough for no reason is so lame
    Fujikawa's the manager and he's out there posturing right along with his players — incredibly embarrassing, he should seriously reflect on himself
    53AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:03
    Re: #44
    But it's surprisingly effective though
    When he comes out acting tough like that, opposing pitchers genuinely stop attacking the inside corner for a good while afterward
    67AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:33
    Re: #53
    Not 'surprisingly' — of course it's effective
    Oshiro even got sniped twice in a row in retaliation
    This is pure intimidation baseball
    69AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:36
    Re: #53
    If that's really the goal, Hanshin is way too cowardly — it's laughable
    45AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:56
    Hanshin, what have you done… they're completely out of shortstops now
    47AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:57
    This is exactly what they have Rodriguez for
    He's been training for years at Otobashi (Chunichi's practice facility), he'll come through
    Still stings though, since Tsuchida's defense was something special
    51AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:00
    It's always Hanshin causing drama over hit-by-pitches
    They go on about 'the Giants do it too,' but I've never once seen another team accuse the Giants of this
    Amazing Hanshin can still play the victim after all this
    61AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:20
    Re: #51
    Their actual starting shortstop is the one who just got wrecked though
    64AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:28
    The moment they put Tanaka at short he got injured, so does that mean he has to play through it anyway
    Or maybe it falls to Nene
    72AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:40
    There's zero reason for Hanshin to intentionally hit a Chunichi batter, so the fact that it's just an honest mistake makes it sadder

    Background and Key Points

    Chunichi and Hanshin are two of NPB’s Central League teams with one of Japanese baseball’s oldest rivalries — Chunichi based in Nagoya, historically a defense-first, low-scoring club, and Hanshin the Osaka-area team known for its fervent Koshien fanbase and a bench that plays up rivalry theatrics. Hanshin’s manager, Fujikawa Kyuji, was himself a hard-throwing closer known for pitching inside, which colors the thread’s read of his reactions now. A “depressed fracture” (陥没骨折) of the scapula means the bone was driven inward by blunt force rather than simply cracked — a serious, likely season-ending injury even though the shoulder blade is a “floating” bone not attached by a joint, which is why several posters found it strange to treat and slow to immobilize. The 147km/h pitch is fast but not exceptional by current NPB standards; what made it notable is that it came from a rookie (Kirishiki), which is why some posters extended him leniency while others didn’t.

    The thread didn’t split on the injury’s severity — everyone agreed it was bad — but on intent and hypocrisy: whether this was a harmless, apologize-and-move-on rookie mistake, or the latest entry in a pattern where Hanshin pitchers hit opposing batters freely but Fujikawa reacts furiously whenever his own players are hit, which several posters read as manufactured intimidation baseball rather than genuine outrage.

    What the thread never addresses is process: NPB umpires can issue a formal warning to both benches after a hit-by-pitch, restricting further inside pitching under threat of ejection — whether that was invoked here would clarify if the umpires themselves judged this incidental or worth flagging, and no post mentions it either way.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geisoku+) thread “[Baseball] Chunichi’s Ryuku Tsuchida Suffers Depressed Fracture of Right Shoulder Blade After Being Hit by Kirishiki’s 147km/h Fastball in the 8th Inning vs. Hanshin.”

  • Formaldehyde-Soaked Cabbage: Health Ministry Says China Confirms ‘No Exports to Japan’

    It emerged that napa cabbage was being shipped after being soaked in a formaldehyde solution in Hebei Province, China. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare explained that it inquired with the Chinese government and received a reply stating that none of it was exported to Japan.

    On 5ch, questions piled up over whether it’s really reassuring to ask the very party committing the wrongdoing and simply be told “there isn’t any.” Other posts described avoiding Chinese-made processed foods and pickles, explained the toxicity of formaldehyde, and brought up the past melamine-in-baby-formula scandal.

    Cabbage Shipped After Being Soaked in Formaldehyde Solution — Discovered in China, “None Exported to Japan”

    In Hebei Province in northern China, it was discovered that napa cabbage had been shipped after being soaked in the chemical formaldehyde.

    (omitted)

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

    5AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:38
    'Oh good, that settles it then~'
    Yeah, as if!
    6AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    They asked the very people doing the fraud and got told it's fine, so that's the conclusion — no problem?
    This is exactly why Japan's Health Ministry is hopeless.
    7AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    To begin with, 100% of napa cabbage sold in Japan is domestic.
    The issue is processed foods.
    Well, processed foods get treated beforehand, so there's probably not much residue left anyway.
    8AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    Not worth trusting m9(´・ω・`)
    10AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    Taking that at face value is seriously gullible.
    11AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    If anything, it's being routed in through South Korea to dodge this.
    13AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:39
    Those trendy málà tāng (spicy Sichuan soup) shops everywhere right now sound terrifying.
    69AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:51
    "We asked China and confirmed none was shipped to Japan"
    That doesn't cut it — not from anyone with a shred of professional sense.
    109AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:57
    Re: #69
    Nothing but anxiety here.
    103AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:56
    Probably best to avoid Chinese products for a while.
    147AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:09
    Re: #103
    Do that and you'll have nothing left to buy.
    167AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:16
    Re: #103
    Ever since that gyoza pesticide-contamination incident, I've made an absolute rule of never buying Chinese products.
    Daiso's gummies are increasingly made in China now, but I refuse to buy them!
    A lot of peanuts are Chinese too, but I refuse!
    90% of store-bought jelly cups are made in China too, so I skip those.
    Pineapple jelly I'll buy since some uses Taiwanese pineapple.
    Mandarin orange jelly is 100% Chinese, so no thanks.
    112AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:58
    Can't you just wash it off and call it good?
    206AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:28
    Re: #112
    If formaldehyde is ingested orally, it causes severe corrosive damage to the digestive tract, plus acute systemic poisoning from the formic acid it's metabolized into in the body.
    Aqueous formaldehyde solution is extremely toxic — even a small amount can cause serious, life-threatening harm.
    120AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:00
    I make a point of never buying Chinese-made pickles.
    I always throw out the pickles that come with bento boxes.
    122AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:01
    Re: #120
    You wouldn't know if the country of origin were faked, though.
    Restaurant chains probably fake it all the time too.
    135AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:05
    Of course they'd say that.
    Of course they would!
    142AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:07
    Re: #135
    Exactly this!
    I'd like them to explain exactly how they "confirmed" it.
    155AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:11
    There was also that time they put melamine in baby formula.
    189AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:22
    Re: #155 Seriously, what an awful country.


    In 2008, the harmful substance melamine was found mixed into infant baby formula in China, causing kidney stones and other health damage in a huge number of infants and toddlers.
    According to China's then General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (now the State Administration for Market Regulation), by September 17 melamine had been detected in products from 22 of the 109 raw milk powder makers investigated.

    By the Chinese government's own count, the incident killed 6 people, and more than 300,000 infants suffered health damage such as kidney stones. Victims' families have voiced growing anger, saying compensation of 2,000 yuan per person (roughly ¥26,000, about $170) is far too little.
    158AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:13
    Shouldn't Japan just halt imports of all processed foods containing Chinese vegetables for now?
    Suspend it for about a year until safety is confirmed.
    China itself halted imports of Japanese seafood over a political dispute, after all.
    179AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:20
    The water pollution there seems worse than even Thailand's.
    Chinese goods, processed foods…
    you'd have to be an idiot to trust them.

    Re: #158
    Agricultural products, processed foods —
    a total import ban would be fine lol
    184AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:21
    This isn't a country that tells the truth just because you ask.
    What is this, a kid running an errand?
    196AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:24
    Re: #184
    Even if their own investigation finds it's in there, they'll still tell us "we didn't put any in" lol
    203AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:27
    Chinese food products really are dangerous.
    218AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:32
    Re: #203
    Cars made in China are scary too.
    There was a case before where they used tar-based materials with benzopyrene and the owner got cancer.
    Same with lead turning up in Chinese-made tableware, and carcinogens in clothing.
    224AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:34
    The fact that something like this even leaks out suggests China's situation might be really bad.
    225AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:35
    Re: #224
    If one case gets exposed, there are probably around 100 more like it that never come to light.

    Background and Key Points

    Formaldehyde is a preservative and antibacterial agent long banned for food use in China under its Food Safety Law, but enforcement gaps have surfaced repeatedly since local vendors use it to keep produce looking fresh during transport from inland provinces like Hebei. Japan’s food-safety system relies heavily on this kind of diplomatic inquiry: the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare does not independently test every shipment from China, but asks the exporting government to confirm compliance, and only escalates to import suspensions or intensified customs sampling if a violation is found in goods that already entered Japan. This is the same channel used after the 2008 Chinese-made frozen gyoza pesticide poisonings, an incident 5ch commenters reference as the reason many now distrust Chinese food assurances by default.

    The thread isn’t really split on whether formaldehyde is dangerous — everyone agrees it is — but on how much this specific case should change behavior. Some posters treat it as confirmation that all Chinese food products should be avoided outright; others (post 147) point out that’s practically impossible given how deeply Chinese ingredients run through Japan’s supply chain, from Daiso snacks to jelly cups to peanuts.

    What the thread misses is that fresh napa cabbage sold in Japanese supermarkets is almost entirely domestic (as post 7 notes but doesn’t dwell on), meaning this particular contamination poses little direct risk to whole cabbage on Japanese shelves — the real exposure route, if any, would be processed foods or restaurant ingredients where sourcing is far less transparent to consumers, which is exactly why country-of-origin labeling loopholes worry posters more than the cabbage itself.

    *This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread「Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: “Cabbage shipped after being soaked in formalin solution — confirmed with the Chinese government that none was exported to Japan”」.

  • What Does It Mean to Be ‘Good at Flame Wars’? 5ch Users Weigh In

    A thread titled “What does it even mean to be good at flame wars (レスバ)?” sparked a debate over whether flame-warring is a technique for winding up your opponent so they stick around, or just a pointless, unproductive slugfest.

    In the end, it came down to everyone having their own personal definition of “winning” — from “it’s not about who’s right, it’s about who gets the last word” to “the safe bet is only jumping in when you can tell you’re backing the winning side.”

    1AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:43
    Does it mean someone with airtight logic, or just someone who's really good at pissing people off?
    6AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:48
    Anyone who's out here flame-warring has already lost, both sides.
    There's no such thing as "winning" that.
    9AnonymousAug 27, 2026 00:50
    Re: #6
    Exactly, it's a technique for winding people up so the thread stays alive longer.
    Post normally and the thread just dies instantly on dead VIP (a low-traffic board).
    17AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:02
    Re: #9
    There's no winning or losing in that.

    Both sides just walk away with nothing to show for it.
    44AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:14
    Re: #9
    This is just your own personal rule, you can't generalize it as "true for everyone" — testing out picking a flame war with that line.
    18AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:03
    Re: #17
    There is something to gain —
    you get better at figuring out how to bait people with your replies.
    24AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:06
    Re: #18
    A flame war is just people who like flame wars hurling insults at each other, that's all it is.

    It's the same insult-slinging over and over, not a skill.

    There's nothing to gain from it, you just repeat it day after day.
    20AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:04
    The moment you're flame-warring you might as well be shouting "I'm an idiot," right?
    23AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:05
    Re: #20
    Well, yeah.
    21AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:04
    Flame wars on an anonymous board aren't real flame wars.
    Go have a serious showdown somewhere you can't run away from, like X (formerly Twitter).
    25AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:06
    Re: #21
    I'm genuinely into watching flame wars as a hobby, but I think it's only old-timers with nowhere else to post but VIP who actually do this.
    The content really does reek of "old man."
    27AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:07
    Re: #21
    I get that a bit.

    Anonymity makes it too easy to just bail.
    28AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:07
    Re: #24
    You get to experiment — "this works on this type, let's try that on this guy."

    VIP's so dead now that if you troll with the same theme, you reel in the same guy every time.
    29AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:08
    Re: #25
    You're not just watching, you're also a participant in flame wars yourself, aren't you?
    31AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:10
    Re: #29
    I always run my replies past an AI before posting,
    and it told me the same thing —
    something like "you're crossing from observer into manipulator territory."
    30AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:09
    Re: #28
    Flame wars are all the same one note.

    "What middle school are you from? You know so-and-so senpai? Huh?"

    That's the level we're talking about, zero technique.
    34AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:11
    Re: #31
    Nope.

    You've already left tracks in this very thread showing you flame-war all the time.

    Can you spot it yourself?
    36AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:11
    Re: #34
    Yeah, I flame-war.
    Obviously.
    43AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:14
    Now that we've got an answer…

    so is a flame war just killing time, a pointless battle with no winner, loser, or payoff? Is that the verdict?
    45AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:14
    Re: #43
    Yeah, it's pointless.
    I just enjoy it, that's all.
    47AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:16
    Re: #43
    A flame war isn't about whose conclusion is right. Whoever posts the last reply wins. (＾ω＾)
    46AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:15
    Re: #44
    I wrote that as my own opinion.
    I'm not trying to shoot down anyone who feels differently.
    52AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:18
    Re: #46
    This thread's about what "good at flame wars" generally means, so just laying out your own personal rule doesn't get us anywhere.
    It needs to hold up as at least somewhat general.
    48AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:16
    Re: #45
    Because you were the one saying flame wars sharpen your technique, that it's a skill.
    54AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:19
    Re: #48
    Well, yeah.
    That's just how I enjoy it.
    50AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:17
    Re: #47
    By your rule, whoever has the most free time on their hands wins.

    That's not really "winning or losing," is it?
    56AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:19
    Re: #50
    I mean, it's not a debate, it's a flame war, right?
    51AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:18
    In a flame war, whoever doesn't lose wins.
    55AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:19
    Re: #51
    That's the psychology of it —
    if you think you won, you won.

    And there's nothing to gain from it, it's pointless.
    58AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:20
    Re: #55
    I'll give you a serious answer —
    I'd say the moment you engage, you've already lost.
    60AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:21
    You're strong if you only ever back the winning horse.
    When other people are already flame-warring and it's obvious one side has the logic and the momentum, jumping in to back them up is the smart move.
    Only get involved when you're guaranteed to win, and ignore everything else — that's the tried-and-true method.
    64AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:22
    Re: #60
    There's no such thing as "logic" in a flame war, is there?
    66AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:23
    Re: #64
    Sometimes there is.
    I won't deny it's mostly dumb bickering and name-calling at its core.
    So I steer clear of the ones that look like they'll turn into a slog.
    At the very least, that means I never lose.
    70AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:25
    Re: #66
    Fair enough.
    There are idiots out there who just keep repeating "got a source?"
    even for stuff you could find with a two-second Google search.
    72AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:26
    Re: #66
    How do you even decide who won, though?
    I don't think you can judge it objectively —
    you can't measure how annoyed each side got, and there's no shared rule for what even counts as a win in the first place.
    79AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:29
    Re: #77
    Back in the PC era there were way fewer of these pointless shouting matches than there are now.
    83AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:31
    Re: #79
    Not sure what you mean by "the PC era," but this stuff's been around forever.
    84AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:32
    Re: #83
    Wait, don't tell me you're still browsing 5ch on a PC?
    90AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:33
    Re: #84
    I only ever do it on a PC.

    Only when I'm sitting at my desk at home, too.
    95AnonymousAug 27, 2026 01:34
    Re: #84
    Funny how things flipped — people used to mock you with "what, you on a mo-shi-mo-shi phone?" (an old jab at mobile/flip-phone posters, back when browsing from a PC was the norm).

    Background and Key Points

    Flame wars (レスバ, “resu-ba,” short for “response battle”) are a fixture of 5channel culture, and the site’s mechanics shape how they play out. 5ch threads are anonymous, sequentially numbered, and can run to 1,000 replies before dying; VIP (livejupiter’s sister board, “Newsspeed VIP”) is one of the site’s oldest joke/chat boards but has bled traffic for years as users migrated to X and Discord, leaving mostly older regulars (“old-timers,” as one poster admits). That decline matters here: several posters frame flame-warring not as genuine anger but as a deliberate tactic to keep a dying thread alive with replies, since a normally-posted thread on “dead VIP” stalls out fast.

    The thread’s real fault line isn’t “is flame-warring good or bad” — nearly everyone agrees it’s petty and repetitive — but whether it has any instrumental value. One camp says it’s pure technique: a way to learn what bait works on which poster type, or a numbers game where you only jump in on the side that’s already winning. The other camp insists there’s no “winning” at all, since there’s no shared scoring rule, no way to measure who got more annoyed, and no stakes since anonymity lets anyone bail without consequence.

    What outsiders will likely miss is the PC-versus-mobile aside near the end — a callback to a much older 5ch hierarchy where PC users looked down on phone posters (“mo-shi-mo-shi” mocks old flip-phone email chimes), now reversed since PC browsing itself reads as old-fashioned. It’s a small detail, but it underscores the thread’s real subtext: this is less a debate about arguing technique than a snapshot of a graying userbase reminiscing about board culture as the platform empties out.

    *This article is compiled from excerpts of and a summary based on the 5ch (Newsspeed VIP) thread「What does it even mean to be good at flame wars?」.