Meanwhile, in Japan...

Discuss anything and everything relating to that fascinating island empire of the east
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greg
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

Post by greg »

Big news here these days is the arrest of a 15-year-old boy who purportedly had plans to fly a drone at the recent Asakusa Shrine matsuri (festival). The problem is that he apparently never specifically said that he would fly a drone, but that he said he would video the event. He did, however, fly a drone at Zenkoji Temple in Nagano City (famous for a popular brand of shichimi togarashi pepper) earlier this month, and it fell into a crowd of people during a ceremony (oops).

Recently, somebody landed a drone on the top of PM Abe's building that contained radioactive material. I saw these drones for sale at the recent Shizuoka Hobby Show. The misuse of these things, whether accidental or deliberate, is becoming rather disturbing. I saw someone using one to video the 1:1 scale Gundam at Diver City back in September. While that's cool, what if there's a gust of wind and it bumps up against the statue and scratches it? I guess as with many things, these can be used for really cool purposes and for devious purposes. And since there are cameras involved, I am sure there are all sorts of pervy wheels turning in the minds of creeps here.
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greg
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

Post by greg »

Man, if I was to kill myself, I think setting myself on fire would be one of the least-preferable ways to do so. But that did not deter a strange, old man from setting himself on fire on a shinkansen bullet train on Tuesday. The train left Osaka, bound for Tokyo. He was pacing up and down the aisle of the cars, and even tried giving a bunch of money to a woman before he set himself on fire. Yikes. That must've smelled nasty in there.

When I first saw this on the news, I thought that there was some sort of electrical failure. JR really prides itself on safety, reliability, and punctuality, so at first I was very surprised that there was any problem with the train. It turns out that a man chose to burn himself to death on the shinkansen. Crazy.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

Post by _D_ »

greg wrote:Man, if I was to kill myself, I think setting myself on fire would be one of the least-preferable ways to do so. But that did not deter a strange, old man from setting himself on fire on a shinkansen bullet train on Tuesday. The train left Osaka, bound for Tokyo. He was pacing up and down the aisle of the cars, and even tried giving a bunch of money to a woman before he set himself on fire. Yikes. That must've smelled nasty in there.

When I first saw this on the news, I thought that there was some sort of electrical failure. JR really prides itself on safety, reliability, and punctuality, so at first I was very surprised that there was any problem with the train. It turns out that a man chose to burn himself to death on the shinkansen. Crazy.
Used to see a lot of this in Tibet when China got their mitts on it. Was ineffective though...
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

Post by greg »

Some Buddhist monks had set themselves on fire in Vietnam to protest the war, didn't they? I'd prefer suicide to be as quick and painless as possible. Burning to death really is gruesome.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

Post by usamimi »

oh gosh! Def. something wrong with that guy...I feel bad for whoever was on the train, esp. if there were any kids. That sounds like it'd be pretty traumatic. D:
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

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Actually, an innocent was killed due that that turd copter. I can understand wanting to kill yourself in some secluded area like a forest, but the desire to kill oneself in front of others and potentially taking people with you to the grave is something I cannot respect.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

Post by greg »

I love recycle shops in Japan, as they can be a treasure trove of nerdy goodness. You never know what may turn up. Heck, my friend found a Zillion bento box and chopsticks set brand new a couple of years ago. Last year, I bought a Sega Pico with five games for my daughter for only 1,000 yen.

However for one 6th grade girl this past weekend, her trip to a recycle shop was a nightmare. 20 minutes after arriving there, she told her parents that she had to use the restroom, which is located around back of the building. Witnesses could hear screaming, and only her sandal was found later. She had been abducted. When we saw this news, it was a bit frightening. Being the father of a cute girl who stands out, such news really makes me protective of her. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending, and the 26-year-old sack of crap child abductor was arrested the next day after binding the girl and confining her in his car. She was apparently unharmed when the police apprehended the man and rescued her. From what I saw on the news, the police acted very quickly, handing out pictures of the girl to passers by and spreading the word.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Japan...

Post by Daniel »

Originally written by Drew_Sutton on 2015/10/19, 18:38:20 PDT :

Re: Meanwhile, in Japan... :

Not to hijack your thread but I heard something unsubstantiated on the Internet a week or so ago and a friend linked me to the article today, so I thought I'd share. PM Abe named a new Minister of Education, Culture, Sports and Science recently - a man named Hase Hiroshi.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... o-Abe.html

Yes, a former pro-wrestler. A wrestler who had an embarrassing, limited run out of Japan but became famous in the wrestling world, at least upon his return for a very, VERY famous match with The Great Muta Mutou Keiji. Why is that match famous? Because Hase bled. A LOT. Hase bled so much, wrestling fans came up with a brand new scale of how to rate how much someone bleeds during a match, and then named it after his opponent.

Hardly the first pro-wrestler to hold office, I think being a cabinet member of a National government ranks on the protocol higher than a member of the House of Councillors Antonio Inoki or the governor of a US state Jesse Ventura .

Alright, I'll take my wrestledork talk elsewhere now...




Originally written by DKop on 2015/10/19, 20:21:11 PDT :

Re: Meanwhile, in Japan... :

I remember when I was in Japan last summer, some crazed fan of AKB0048 ran on stage and tried to hack off some singers arm in the middle of a concert or something. And they made a news report on how detrimental it was to add security metal detectors at the concerts there to protect fans and the singers. Is that still and on going issue, because the host family I was staying with was explaining that too me and im like Yea, its completely fine in America to have metal detectors at all events anywhere. I was curious if any other events like that have happened in the past year or so.




Originally written by greg on 2015/10/20, 16:28:09 PDT :

Re: Meanwhile, in Japan... :

quote Drew Sutton Not to hijack your thread quote
It's not technically my thread, but just for stuff going on in Japan.

quote DKop I remember when I was in Japan last summer, some crazed fan of AKB0048 ran on stage and tried to hack off some singers arm in the middle of a concert or something. quote
No, IIRC, what happened was that it was at a signing, and some doofus tried to poke a hole in two of the girls with a knife or something. He slashed at them, but they weren't severely injured.
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