JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Core Developer - コアディベロッパー
- Midokura Japan K.K. - ミドクラジャパン株式会社, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥4.0M ~ ¥10.0M / Year Negotiable
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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mnemosyne23
I agree that the "mobilization" of forty cars and one hundred officers probably means something along the lines of a wide search pattern rather than a pinpointed chase through the rice fields of Saitama, but it's still a ridiculous waste of resources. Folks, COPS AREN'T FREE. Who pays for the gas all those cars used? Taxpayers. Who pays for the helicopter? Taxpayers. Who pays the salaries for all those cops? Taxpayers. Dispatching that many officers over what amounts to a petty crime is ridiculous. They'd have been better served by alerting police in the immediate area, not exceeding maybe five cars, with a description of the two, and then letting them patrol. That leaves the remaining 35 cars and 80+ officers free to respond to any REAL emergencies that might crop up. I mean, they called out a HELICOPTER over a hit-and-run caused by a couple of purse snatchers, one of whom is a handicapped sixteen year old girl! That doesn't feel a LITTLE overboard to you? Given the number of hit and runs in Japan, the police coffers would be drained within a month if they sent out the chopper every time, let alone "mobilizing" 100+ officers and setting 40 police cars on alert. Talk about overkill!
What if you stole somebody's wallet, then went and ran a stop sign as you made your getaway? What are they going to do, call out the F-16s?
Posted in: 40 police cars, 100 officers, one copter mobilized to chase 2 thieves
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mnemosyne23
First off, can I PLEASE reiterate that children this young shouldn't be out by themselves, especially at night? What worked in the past doesn't work anymore. There are too many weirdos, sickos, and creeps out there. Parents, keep your kids at home. There definitely needs to be more education here around the issue of child safety, for the parents AND the children!
Secondly, can someone please help me here? The girls were "picked up" around 6pm, then "released" at 10:40am when they were spotted by police walking near a grocery store approximately one kilometer from Goto's home. Earlier in the story, the author stated that "One girl lived nearby Goto and had met him before..." So these girls were wandering the streets with Goto in and around the vicinity of his home, which presumably would then be in and around the vicinity of the one girl's home, and it still took until 11am for anyone to spot them? They're a group of four young girls and a grown man; surely that would have stuck in somebody's memory. "Oh yeah, there were these four young girls in here a few hours ago, officer. They were with a man; he bought them ice cream cones. I assumed he was their father."
Does that make sense to anyone else?
Posted in: Man arrested for abducting four young girls for 17 hours
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mnemosyne23
Methinks it's time to get a bigger sign on that street.
But seriously, these officers weren't familiar with the time restrictions on the street? Wow. Honestly, I don't know if I should applaud the Jcop for calling in his own fine or laugh at the whole situation. I think I'll choose to applaud while chuckling; then all my bases are covered.
Also, that pedestrian must have nerves of steel to flag the Jcops down and inform them they were breaking the law. Either he was very drunk or very brave. I don't think I'd ever have the guts to do that!
Posted in: Policeman fined for driving in no-entry zone in Shimane
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mnemosyne23
I echo moonbeams' post -- this is not cool. If you have a problem with the noise, either file a complaint, sleep with earplugs, or live with it. Yes it sucks, but its one of life's little aggravations, like radio stations that play the same song fifty times a day or weather forecasts that are wrong ALL THE TIME. Find a way to live with it. Don't put someone's health and safety in jeopardy because of it. You may win yourself a brief respite, but that person has to make a living somehow, and they'll be back on their scooter as quickly as possible to deliver papers. Only now the bike will probably be even LOUDER than before because the accident damaged the engine, and the lost work time and wages means the rider doesn't have enough money to get it repaired. It's a vicious cycle (no pun intended).
If this was the work of some kids looking to cause a little mayhem, SHAME ON THEM. I hope they're found and properly punished. I know kids will be kids, and teens will be teens (which usually involves acting even more childish than a child), but setting out to cause deliberate harm to people or property is both disrespectful and criminal. Regardless of their reasons for choosing their target, they are guilty of injuring this woman and probably damaging her bike, and they could easily have injured someone else with their tripwire, too. Not such a thrill when the person you flip onto the street is some little kid out on his bike who ends up with a broken nose and a skull fracture from smacking his head on the pavement, now is it?
Jerks.
Posted in: Woman on minibike injured after run-in with rope tied across road
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mnemosyne23
Tommygun wrote:
Amen and hallelujah! Seriously, folks, you can't LEGISLATE an end to violent crime. A waiting period to purchase a KITCHEN KNIFE? Do you HEAR how ridiculous that sounds? What about after you've bought it and it's sitting in your kitchen drawer? Do you have to register it with the local authorities every year? Perhaps some sort of lending program where you go to a depot at the center of town and sign out only the utensils you'll need for that day, then bring them back at the end of the day to be logged back into the inventory. But then who minds the depot? You'd have to have two guards who watch each other, because if you leave just ONE guard he might get it into his head that his buddy Jun was a real jerk the other night, and hey, I've got all these nice sharp stabby things here and no one else is watching...
Laws can only do so much, and making an ACT illegal and punishable is different from making an OBJECT illegal. It's one thing to say that murdering your friend with a kitchen knife is illegal. It's another thing entirely to say that ownership of the kitchen knife is illegal without a permit. The former makes sense; the latter is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. If you're in the state of mind where you think you're entirely justified to kill your friend by stabbing him in the neck because of a fight over car repair costs, then you aren't going to care much about where you get the knife. If you don't have one, the friend probably does; just grab it out of the cutlery drawer after you've broken into his house. Or borrow it from your mother, or sister, or brother, or next door neighbor, etc. And if worse comes to worst, you can always forego the bladed weapons entirely in favor of a blunt object: baseball bat, golf club, or, failing anything else, a brick.
The point is, telling people they can't own a particular kind of weapon will only go so far. Needing a license? For certain weapons, absolutely. I don't want you owning a flamethrower unless I know you're licensed and trained to handle it properly and aren't going to light me, my home, or yourself on fire. But kitchen knives? What are you going to do about all the other household items that can be put to nefarious purposes? Will you need a license to purchase bleach, even though you might use it to poison someone? Do you need to register your pillows, in the event that you end up using them to smother someone? Perhaps you should be required to put airbags in your banisters, so that you can't kill Great Aunt Mabel by pushing her down the stairs when you're tired of her insulting your omurice recipe.
If you want to actually make a positive impact on crime, you need to get at the root of the problem: the mental and psychological health of the people involved. How many of the murders reported here at JT are committed by otherwise normal individuals over some mindlessly inconsequential matter? Car repair costs; a remote control; the volume on your sister's stereo. When a person snaps over something so minor, to the point that they're willing to commit MURDER because if it, then there is a BIG PROBLEM somewhere.
People need to learn how to talk to each other! The brother needs to learn to say, "Sis, can you please turn down your stereo? I'm having a really hard time concentrating." The son needs to say, "Mom, come on, can I please have the remote back? I'm sorry if I offended you." And the friend needs to say, "Look, guy, you crashed my car. You can either pay up, or I'll see you in court." There are ways to de-escalate that gnawing feeling of being disrespected, degraded, and dismissed, but too often it seems these people bottle up those feelings until the smallest aggravation becomes the straw that broke the camel's back. They snap, they act, and everybody loses.
How often could these tragic stories be prevented if someone, at some point, opened their mouth and said, "You know... I'm feeling really crummy about myself and other people right now. I don't know what to do about it. Please help me."
And then having the person they were talking to look them in the eye and say, "Okay."
Posted in: Man arrested for stabbing friend with kitchen knife in Mie
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mnemosyne23
I love reading stories about "seasoned" citizens giving these whippersnappers their comeuppance. Good on you, oba-san!
Posted in: 77-year-old woman scares off would-be robber in Osaka
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mnemosyne23
Quite possibly he felt a bike and some tape were perfectly serviceable weapons when attempting to abduct a seven-year-old girl. Who expects a little girl to actually have enough presence of mind to get the heck out of danger? Thank God she did, and thank God this man was caught. He might not have been teh brightest bulb on the tree, but most criminals will start small and then escalate their crimes as the thrill wears off.
Posted in: Man arrested for binding girl's arms with tape
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mnemosyne23
Unfortunately, 119 operators (just like 911 in the States) are duty-bound to treat every call like a real emergency. Frivolous calls like this not only tie up resources, but also cost a LOT of money. Ambulances and fire trucks and EMTs and police don't pay for themselves. Someone needs to buy the gas, pay the salaries, and maintain the vehicles. The more they're dispatched on pointless calls, the more the taxpayer takes it in the wallet.
FOXIE: I'm appalled! Thank God you obviously survived your situation. It's a sad day when emergency services puts you on a waiting list as if you were ordering a pizza.
Posted in: Woman arrested for dialing 119 on 157 occasions
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mnemosyne23
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to automatically side with Noriko here just because some people have inferred that she was the victim of a "two-timing" husband. Has anyone paid attention to the email Christopher presented to the judge?
That does not sound to me like the words of a woman who only wants to be a loving mother to her children and see them in a loving home. That sounds to me like a Japanese woman who wants to make her Japanese/American children into Japanese clones of herself, and the best way to do that is to raise them in Japan. I'm sorry, but that doesn't fly with me. Her words and subsequent actions smack of the infamous Japanese xenophobic isolationism that has haunted the archipelago for centuries.
The children deserve to grow up understanding and displaying BOTH sides of their cultural identity -- the American and the Japanese -- without one being made to feel inferior to the other. If Noriko didn't want them to lose their Japanese identity, then she should reinforce that identity at home. The courts had already shown a willingness to allow the children to continue to experience their Japanese heritage by permitting Noriko to take them on vacation there despite the flight risk that exists because of Japan's lack of international custody regulations. It's not like anyone slapped a restraining order on her right to teach her children the pride of their lineage.
What I see here is a woman who was unhappy having to live in the United States, didn't want to stay, and didn't want to shuttle back and forth to see her kids. So instead of doing what a good parent would do -- which is abide by the court's ruling, suck it up and deal with it on behalf of her children -- she selfishly chose to flee the country and return to her own home with her children illegally in tow. Sorry, no. Being a parent isn't easy, and sometimes you have to make painful or difficult sacrifices for your children. In this case, Noriko's sacrifice was living in the United States instead of her native Japan, at least until the children were adults. If you're not prepared to make those kinds of sacrifices, then you aren't prepared to be a parent.
Look, I don't think Mr. Savoie walks on water, and I think these children are going to get a raw deal regardless of where they live because divorce sucks, period. But by taking the children and absconding from the country like some thief in the night, Noriko has done nothing but make herself look like a selfish, narcissistic harpy and put her children's welfare through a cheese grater. If she had a genuine, legitimate reason for taking the children -- if she feared for their safety, for instance -- then I might have some sympathy for her. As it stands right now, I have none.
What's wrong with Mr. Savoie's new wife taking an interest in his children? You'd prefer she was a wicked stepmother who tried to feed them poison apples? Mr. Savoie's interactions with his children after the divorce were just that -- his interactions WITH HIS CHILDREN. We aren't talking about some kind of monitored visitation that requires the primary custodial parent to remain with the children when the other parent is visiting, as would be the case in a situation where there was a risk to the children's health, safety or well-being, or a flight risk on the part of the visiting parent (talk about irony in this case). Noriko's only role during Mr. Savoie's time with his children would have been to shepherd the children into his care and then pick them up again when it was her turn to take them back. No one said she has to try and make small talk with the new wife. No one said she even has to acknowledge the other woman's presence if she doesn't want to. But the new Mrs. Savoie has every right to meet her husband's children, and they have every right to spend time with her. Does that mean they're going to become as close as blood relatives and love each other like biological parent and child? No. But that doesn't mean they WON'T, either.
Posted in: American father arrested in Japan had asked Tennessee court for help
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mnemosyne23
Unrelenting sadism and humiliation is not art. Pushing the envelope of the splatter genre is not art. Trying to re-create the same or greater negative reactions as the "Guinea Pig" series is not art. It's sensationalism. Art would involve actual story and character development, not non-stop, incredibly brutal violence. There's a reason snuff films are illegal, and these "torture porn" movies are just another kind of snuff film. I don't like censorship, but my God, there's such a thing as TASTE.
Posted in: Bathed in blood
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mnemosyne23
The skirts are much too short, that's for sure. But I again have to go back to impulse control. If the guy gets a thrill looking up high school girls' skirts, then he should just go stand on the train station steps and look up. Plenty of opportunity, though he'd probably get arrested for loitering. Taking a picture, though, takes this kind of leering straight from creepy and disgusting to full-blown invasion of privacy and kiddy porn levels. I'm getting pretty sick of reading about these perverts and their groping, pic-snapping tendencies. Hey, skirt!wearing!girls -- if you want to really mess with these guys, wear wooly longjohns under your skirts. Warm, practical, and about as alluring as a dead rat.
Posted in: GSDF officer arrested for filming up student's skirt
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mnemosyne23
Good on the clerk! Though yelling at a potential robber is a pretty dangerous thing to do. My guess is this guy really didn't want to rob the store in the first place, gave up at the first sign of resistance, then turned himself in because he couldn't fight his guilty conscience anymore. Glad no one was injured, and now the oba-san has a neat story to tell her grandkids someday.
Posted in: Would-be store robber gets yelled at by employee; calls police himself
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mnemosyne23
This is an awful situation across the board, and I find it patently ridiculous that Japan STILL has not signed onto this particular Hague Convention despite it's place as one of the world's first world nations. There is just no reason for it. I am particularly disgusted by the original Tennessee court's acquiescence to allow the mother to take the children to Japan for vacations and holiday trips, when it is widely known that Japan IS NOT a Hague signatory in regards to custodial rights. My heart goes out to this father that he felt the only remaining recourse he had left was to reclaim his children on his own, and also to the children who are caught up in this mess.
For an American take on this story, you can check out the article posted on CNN.com entitled "American Jailed in Japan for Trying to Reclaim His Children."
Posted in: American arrested in Fukuoka for kidnapping own kids from ex-wife
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mnemosyne23
I agree with just about every comment I've read on this story, which might be a first for me!
There is NO excuse for Japanese parents ceding the responsibility for their child's welfare to a school or a teacher. Teachers have dozens of students that rotate year to year, but parents will only have ONE little Billy, or Amy, or Yuki, or Ken. It is the PARENTS who are responsible for making sure their child grows into a productive, confident member of society, not the schools. The schools teach the math, the history, the grammar; they teach the kids to be good students. But it should be the PARENTS who teach the children how to be good people.
Everybody's busy and time is always at a premium, but just making the effort and letting your child know you're SINCERE in caring about his or her welfare will do immeasurable good. It's one thing to offer lip service and a jovial, "Ganbarre!" and quite another to actually LISTEN to your child's problems, offer support, advice, and reassurance, and actually take action when necessary. Admitting to fear, sadness, worry, or depression is SO hard, and even the most secure, self-confident person in the world can have trouble asking for help when they need it. But a child should know that they can ALWAYS go to their father, mother, brother, sister, grandparent, uncle, whoever, and get the love, support, and help they need, no strings attached. I'm not saying this unconditional love wasn't available to this boy, but if it was, he didn't know how to use it. If someone had asked him, "Son, how was school today?" maybe this wouldn't have happened. We'll never know, and I can't begin to understand the pain and trauma his mother must have felt when she found him. It just breaks my heart.
While we're talking about reforming family attitudes, let's not forget the parents of bullies as well! For every bully who is made into a bully by a bad family situation and/or role model (timorborder, that sounds like a contributing factor in your case with that thug father!), there is another bully who is the product of coddling parents who let their little darling get away with blue bloody murder without a lick of proper discipline, expecting the schools to take care of it for them. That's failing your child, and failing every other child your bullying son or daughter will pick on until someone finally takes the little brat to task. Parents are just that -- parents. You aren't there to feed your child's ego. You are not your child's best friend. You have a responsibility to teach them right from wrong, and that means making them own up for their bad behavior, not indulging them. Just as parents should listen to their children and support them through difficult times, they should also observe their children's behavior and correct it when necessary.
Please note I'm talking about DISCIPLINE, not abuse. Too often people make the mistake of believing the two are synonymous, and nothing could be further from the truth. Discipline is the correction of negative and/or anti-social behavior through punitive measures that are reasonable in relation to the offense. This means that if your child throws a tantrum because he or she doesn't want to eat peas for dinner, you send the child to bed without dinner, or you don't let them have dessert. You do NOT give them a black eye and a split lip. Any reasonable person should know the difference, and if you DON'T know the difference then you shouldn't be allowed to have or keep your children.
Poor child. RIP, ototo-kun.
Posted in: Student hangs himself in Hokkaido; note hints at being bullied
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mnemosyne23
Stabbed the mother and lit the apartment on fire, hmm? I'll be interested to learn the motive. Was it selfishness on the part of the daughter (such as bobafett's "sugardaddy" example) or was it due to genuine mistreatment and abuse on the part of the mother? I'm not going to place blame on either party until I get those details.
I'd also like to ask for some clarification on something. It says the authorities were called when neighbors reported an apartment being on fire. But when the authorities arrived, they found the girl running out of the second floor apartment. Okay, what? I've heard of quick response times, but unless the cops and firemen were able to teleport to the scene, that means the girl stayed in the burning apartment until the authorities arrived, THEN decided to bolt. Does that make sense to anyone? Call me crazy, but if I'd just stabbed my mother and set my own home on fire I'd have booked it so fast you wouldn't see me for dust. There's more to this story that we aren't privy to, that's for sure.
Posted in: Girl held for setting apartment on fire after stabbing mother
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mnemosyne23
Disgusting. Just disgusting. I hope they DO choose to charge him as an adult, because he clearly thinks of himself as one.
Just one more reason never to walk home alone at night, especially if you're a woman. I hope the victim is able to recover and gets to see this pig locked away for the better part of his life. The latter is probably unlikely (though we can always dream), but I'll keep my fingers crossed for the former.
Posted in: 18-year-old university wrestler arrested for rape in Yokohama
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mnemosyne23
head tilt I don't know the first thing about this actress, but she's trying to make a comeback at 23? Wow.
Reading some of the comments it sounds like she's had a bit of a checkered history in the spotlight, but given her youth I'm wondering if it's less that she's always been a brat and more that she's fallen into the same celebrity trap that so many young stars encounter. Namely, they're thrust into the limelight, everything's aces and candy, then the bloom starts to come off the rose and they find themselves fighting to stay afloat. It happened to Britney. It happened to Lindsay (and hasn't particularly STOPPED happening for her). Just because Sawajiri is Japanese doesn't mean the same thing couldn't happen to her, nor to all the other "pretty young things" (male and female) who hitch a ride on the "tarento" wagon in Japan.
Also, I think it's pretty ridiculous that rumors of drug use "abound" just because she and her husband attended a party that was ALSO attended by Noriko Sakai. SHOCK. Give me a break, people. If drugs are involved, then make the case with something other than "She was in the same place as so-and-so!" Last I heard, you don't catch drug addiction like the flu, just from being in someone's vicinity. Geez.
Posted in: Erika Sawajiri loses comeback movie role as contract termination looms
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mnemosyne23
The fact that the article mentions the police investigating the man's mental competency to ascertain criminal culpability leads me to believe this is more than a 40-something NEET who got sick of eating his mother's omurice every morning, and more that he has some kind of genuine mental deficit. That said, even if he DOES have a psychological or developmental disorder, this crime is heinous. I echo the hope that the poor woman didn't feel any pain, though I doubt she had such luck.
If he's found to be in possession of his full faculties and therefore criminally responsible, then I hope they throw the book at him. If he has some kind of mental disorder, though, I'd have to hold this up as yet ANOTHER example of tragedy resulting from Japan's paltry social services.
Posted in: Man arrested after killing mother with wooden sword in Tokyo
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mnemosyne23
The man walked into the pub HOLDING the knife? And no one thought to call the police? Did anyone WARN the proprietor that the customer who wanted to see him was drunk and wielding a knife? Call me crazy, but if some drunk guy came wandering into my establishment holding a 10 inch blade and asking to see the manager, I'd get the cops on the phone PRONTO.
Good on the other patrons for trying to get the knife away from the man, though it would have been nice if they'd done it BEFORE Tsujimoto-san was stabbed. But hey, at least he wasn't able to abscond into the night with a bloody knife and disappear. I'll be interested to find out the motive behind this crime.
RIP, Tsujimoto-san.
Posted in: Izakaya owner fatally stabbed by customer in Saitama
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mnemosyne23
ThonTaddeo: I agree that the government has no business tweaking people's home software, but the software companies would do this of their own accord even if there was no kind of government pressure. It does companies like Adobe and Xerox no service to create programs and machinery that can assist counterfeiters refine their craft. It behooves them to thwart those efforts proactively, or LOOK OUT for government interference!
I almost feel bad for this kid. He got busted for buying a USED book for FIFTY YEN. That would be like getting busted for accidentally getting two bags of chips for the price of one out of a vending machine. Talk about a cruddy way to get caught. Hopefully he'll learn his lesson, though, and not try this kind of thing again. we can hope.
Posted in: Student arrested for using counterfeit money at flea market