DanteKH comments

Japan should lead by example, and prove that they are now the good guys. This action just give more "ammunition" to the Chinese for their propaganda against Japan.

Those political games seems to be run by retarded 13 years olds...

Japan, the only country in the world with those kind of services. That tells a lot about how mentally weak a lot of people are, if they don't even have the courage to properly resign a stressful job. I never heard a foreigner in Japan or otherwise, not to be able to handle by hymself those kind of situations. Then again, foreigners living in Japan need to have a very strong mental attitude in order to survive and thrive on a country that constantly looks down to them and always treat them as 2nd hand citizens.

Please down vote this comment if you think Japan's economy is going down to toilet, Kishida is the worst PM of Japan since Abe the Destroyer, with his Abenomics abominations, and also if you think Japan is fast forwarding to a 2nd World Country, with toilet paper currency due to very obedient and complacent population.

In any other country, like France for example, there would have been mass protests and strikes for the steep downgrade of the living condition.

Shoganai Japan.

With the government planning to resort to tax hikes to fund the rise in defense spending, the failure to use up the budget could come under fire and hamper progress in discussions to revise the tax system toward the end of the year.

Rest assured, the tax hikes will still going to happen, except the money will go into the endless pockets of LDP and it's acolytes.

This just proove that the budget is more than enough to sustain all industry and departments, however never enough to satisfy the greed of the Politicians.

So how do you abbreviate in Japanese? Give us some examples!

I hope is not too little too late.

Nvidia, which has between 70% and 95% Market Lead in A.I. will be very tough, not to beat, but even to compete with. They are an almost 4 Trillion USD company, and the biggest company in the world.

Hopefully Japan can gain the lost fame they had in the 80's and 90's, but it will be extremelly hard, especially they lost it all in the face of Korean, Chinese and American companies.

No argues here, but how about the "laws" of some Japanese Universities or Schools, like those Medicine or Law schools who got fined a couple of years ago (just very minor fines, mind you), for on purposely down grading the exams and entry tests for women in order to keep the percentage of males way higher? How about those??

Good article.

Ryohei Mogi is correct on his assessment. However, there is still one big problem. Seems like nobody is tackling the exact root cause of this population decline. Root cause such as introvertism of modern Japanese people, the extremely poor social skills involving dating, and similar. Then there is the financial incentive. As a man who already has 2 kids born and raised in Japan, let me tell you right aways. There is absolutely ZERO support from the government. They are totally clueless on how much money nowadays are required not only to raise a baby, but also to bring one onto this world. I can perfectly understand why in Japan nobody wants to have babies and children anymore.

Looks like nobody in Japan wants a change for the better...

Those elections were the most useless event this weekend.

Unfortunately another 4 years wasted for the future of Japan.

I guess some things never change in Japan...

There are some things my mind cannot comprehend to understand.

Why was this kid even allowed in a pool with higher depth than his height if he cannot swim?? Actually, even the kids that are allowed to swim should not stay in deep depth all the time.

This is the nr 1. responsabili of the teachers. How come none of them saw the little kid drowning?? Is not like he is drowining instantly, he must have struggle for a while.

This is incompetence and careless at its highest peak.

On JapanTimes you get down voted hard or even temporary blocked, for criticizing the JP Government. I wonder how long this comment is going to last...

Bullying in Japan is part of the DNA sadly.

The atrocities during WW2, the school bullying, job and office bullying, police bullying, everything is perfectly masked under the omotenashi rug, under the totally fake politeness, and Honne/Tatemae cultural thing.

It's sad really...

Wait, those regulations are 73 years old?? And nobody decided to update and change them over the years?

Well, no wonder those are still in place when you have medieval laws such as giving up the dual nationality when a child turns 18...

Funny how those Michelin rates are only given to overly expensive hotels and ryokans.

For example, the Gora Kadan in Hakone, has the cheapest room available for 125,700 JPY, while one on the expensive side at 269,700JPY (https://go-gorakadan.reservation.jp/). Yes, 780$ for 1 single room for a night might not sound too much for the rich foreigner, but for the average Japanese tourist that's the salary for 1 week.

So for every 100,000¥ worth of gross salary, you might receive an extra 5000¥ taxable...

In the past 4 years, the Japanese Yen went down from a value of 100 to 1$ to 161 to 1$,thsts more than 60% loss in value. Prices of everything, including food, living expenses, etc more than doubled, while the rest saw an increase of at least 20-30% on average.

So this meangless 5% "increase" is just a slap on the face of the Japanese workforce.

Japan is the only country in the world, to shy and weak to take any steps against the System, such as going into strikes, protests, demonstrations, gatherings against the Government, etc. If this would have happened in Europe, USA, etc, theat would have been mass protests and strikes against the callous Government making the life of Japanese people more and more difficult and hard.

Because you vote for LDP since BigBang.

I have almost the same salary as I did 5 years ago, however in 2019, I was able to afford going to trips, hotels, save money, etc. Now the value of my salary almost halfed due to hyper inflation, and I can no longer afford going to hotels, trips, etc. I pay now more than double for food, expenses, etc.

Tell me again how Japan is not becoming a poor country?

I thought they were discussing about adding more busses for the tourists routes only, therefore freeing some routes used by daily comuters. This is the best idea so far.

Sadly I guess that's the "price" to pay when you are under US occupation for almost 80 years. Not that Japan has a choice on the matter, especially after loosing the war as the main aggressor, and now have 3 "friendly" neighbors (China, NK, Russia) , who would wipe Japan out of the map if not for all those USA bases out there.

In an ideal world, those US criminals should receive a double severity penalty, especially they are active service and supposedly be disciplined...

What's wrong with proper bullet climbing?

If you don't want to wait for the slow pace of untrained tourists, is it called bullet climbing. Those pro climbers can do the trip up/down 3 to 4 times faster that the average Joe climbing mount Fuhi for his Instagram albums.

And this it what Yen collapse is bringing to Japanese local population:

Hyper inflation, price increase of everything including living expenses, bus most of all, sharp decrease in the quality of life.

"Is OK, as long as we don't travel outside Japan, we don't care." are saying those who do not care nor understand what a sharp depreciation of the local curency means.

Congrats!

When are we going to see a Japanese rocket taking Austronauts in space?

Unfortunatelly mental illness is still a taboo in Japan. You can see all kind of disturbed mental issue people in trains or on the streets, instead of being inside a specialized care center.

Hopefully the old vending machines, parking booths or similar are going to be upgraded very soon, since there are still millions of them not accepting the new 500¥ coin which is extremely annoying.

Also,

The value of cashless payments has been increasing in the country, but was still shy of the government's target of around 40 percent in 2023.

The government should fine the banks then, who are getting the biggest transaction percentage in the world, therefore making the transition very slow sadly.

The fish market was moved, because some "smart investors" need to make some serious cash out of that area. Most likely it will be another playground just for the very rich Asians, attracted to Tokyo due to Yen collapse and cheap investments that follow it.

This right here, is the main problem with the Japanese companies. They are too slow to adapt to the Market changes. They never innovate. Why do you have to fire those people, instead of re-train them for other areas which you need to develop. Areas that you have to hire new people anyways.

@N. Knight

Thst is correct. However, just to be clear, the number of domestic rude and entitled customers is way way much larger than problems with foreigners travelers. It's logic and normal. 99% of the travelers are Japanese on the internal router and more than 85% on International ones.

Those "official" numbers are at least 3 zeros (0) off. Most of Japan working force, salary men, and the rest of drones, have 1 form or another of depression. The overtime culture needs to die, also taking bullying and sexual abuses from your bosses.

Dentsu is notorious for probably the worst working environment in the world.

Even if the support for LDP will be lowest from history, the Japanese still going to vote for this incompetent and corrupt party, due to the cultured part now "fear of change". Since younger generation don't give 2 squats about elections, 95% is most likely that LDP will won again.

Just dear Japanese people, don't be surprised in the Japanese =Yen will devalue even more after reaching 200 for 1 USD.

@N.Knight

Then you will be surprised to find out that 99% of JAL's and ANA's abusive customers are the entitled and demanding Japanese ones, following that "Okyakusama = Kamisama" culture.

No need to take my word, just search YouTube and similar videos.

BTW, from this pov, except Chinese and Koreans, foreigners are less likely to cause scenes, because anywhere else you can quickly get kicked out of your flight or even get ridiculous fines if you grously misbehave.

So stop blaming foreigners for all the problems.