Tag: Japan

Gimme my damned burger!

An assistant public prosecutor was arrested after an argument at a fast-food joint in Kyoto turned ugly when staff wouldn’t accept his expired coupon for a free burger. The enraged-and drunk, naturally-man grabbed the assistant manager and slammed him against a wall.

Speaking of the munchies, Russian sumo wrestlers Roho and his brother Hakurozan were both booted out of sumo after testing positive for cannabis. This came on the heels of another Russian sumo wrestler, Wakanoho, being tossed from the sport after getting caught with a joint.

The sumo brothers initially denied possessing any weed, but Roho later came clean, telling a JSA committee, “I obtained marijuana from a black singer during the tour of Los Angeles [in June].”

Roho reportedly confessed after the committee told him, “We want you to tell the truth; we won’t tell your stablemaster.” Sure hope his stablemaster doesn’t read newspapers or watch TV.

In a related development, the Japan Sumo Association went even further to pot when chairman Kitanoumi resigned his post over the ganja flap

Well, duh

An internal affairs ministry survey found that annual household expenditures on sports, including purchases of equipment and fees for gym memberships, rise in proportion to Japan’s success in the Olympics.

It was reported that 24 Ground Self-Defense Force recruits had to be rushed to the hospital after “a supervisor urged them to lick plastic explosives during a blast drill.”

Four Upper House lawmakers who tried to form their own political party were stymied when a fifth member got cold feet, leaving the group one shy of the minimum number of pols needed to start a new faction.

A consumer group in Kansai sued an eikaiwa chain called Global Trinity for engaging in “coercive tactics” to enroll new students, including locking them in offices at the schools.

An Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry survey found that 52.9 percent of restaurants are using more domestic vegetables than they used to.

Seventy-year-old rakugo storyteller Tsukitei Kacho was fined ¥300,000 for stalking his ex-girlfriend. The court found that during one 24-hour stretch in early August, he called the woman’s mobile phone 13 times and tried to win her back by telling dirty stories.

Toad rage

Former pitcher Hideki Irabu, once famously christened a “fat toad” by New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, was arrested in Osaka after going berserk when his credit card got rejected at a bar. Irabu reportedly grabbed the barkeep by the neck, pulled his hair and started tossing ashtrays and bottles. In his defense, the erstwhile pitcher said he had pounded back 20 jugs of beer, which you have to admit is pretty impressive.

Speaking of things boozy, it was reported that the value of seishu, or refined sake, exported to South Korea from Japan has increased from ¥65 million in 2002 to ¥465 million last year.

The Japan Sumo Association gave 20-year-old Russian wrestler Wakanoho the boot after he was found to have pot-smoking paraphernalia in his room. The rikishi’s drug use came to light when someone turned in his lost wallet and the cops found a joint in it.

Two men on board a light plane were a little banged up but otherwise fine after they crash-landed on a highway in Osaka.

A group called the Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development found that Japanese youths aged 15-19 participated in an average of 15.6 leisure activities, such as “karaoke, travel and driving,” down from 21.6 activities ten years ago

Oops

It was reported that officials at Nagoya city hall accidentally broadcast an alarm signaling an imminent missile attack to civil servants throughout Aichi Prefecture.

The Japan Council for Quality Health Care reported 209,216 blunders that “came close to becoming medical accidents” last year, an increase of 13,600 from 2006. Incidents include wrongly prescribed drugs and misused equipment.

Investigators at a nuclear power plant in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, discovered that a crack in a primary coolant pipe was five times deeper than previously suspected.

It was reported that a woman in her 40s who had a healthy breast accidentally removed at a hospital in Okayama last September has refused the medical center’s apology.

The industry ministry said that two fires that occurred in Tokyo this year were caused by “overheated” iPod nanos.

MATTER OVER MIND

Brazilian psychic Jucelino Nobrega da Luz had some Tokyo residents on edge when he predicted a 6.5-magnitude earthquake would hit the metropolis on August 6. Didn’t happen, fortunately, but a minor quake did rumble the city a couple of days later.

And here’s hoping that another of Jucelino’s predictions fails to come true: he’s on record as saying that an 8.4 quake will rumble through Tokyo and Yokohama in September 2010, killing 70,000 people.

In a bit of good news for semi-blind flyboys, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces announced it would relax some of the physical requirements for aircraft pilots due to a drop in the number of applications. People wearing glasses are now free to apply.

Wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was in charge when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and who was executed for war crimes in 1948, was not the type to go quietly into the night. In recently released papers written during the final days of World War II, Tojo made it clear he thought government leaders and the general population were “spineless” for supporting unconditional surrender to the allies.

Nippon TV was left with egg on its face when it overstated the amount of food that competitive eater Tomoko Miyake quaffed down on its News Real Time program. After a weekly magazine accused NTV of padding its stats, the network went to the videotape replay and subsequently downgraded the number of plates wiped clean from 48 to 39.

Summertime blues

A 51-year-old Nagasaki homeowner whose electricity had been cut off was busted for trespassing after sneaking onto a neighbor’s property and plugging an extension cord into an exterior wall socket. The man said he wanted to power an electric fan.

A thief using a stolen cash card managed to receive a ¥380,000 loan from the Japan Post Bank, even though he provided a false name, date of birth, telephone number and hanko.

A worker at a 24-hour fishing gear store in Sapporo was killed in a hit-and-run accident while chasing two shoplifters. Which begs the question: who the heck shops for bait at 3am?

Police suspect that a man who suffocated after being trapped under the automatic sliding shutter of a bookstore in Tachikawa had been out drinking with co-workers before the incident.

Cops in Hiroshima raided the offices of a company called Horkos on suspicion that it exported precision machine tools that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

It was reported that a foreign ministry official failed to pay a ¥15.38 million bill that he had racked up at a Tokyo hotel over 239 days from June 2006 to April 2007.

A 31-year-old woman in Kawaguchi, Saitama, found a sewing needle in a watermelon purchased at the snappily named Belc grocery store. Police say it was the third recent tampering incident within a 1.5km radius.

WHAT’S ON THE MENU?

Something fishy was going on in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where a wholesaler was searched on suspicion of passing off fugu pufferfish from China as being homegrown. Probably poisoned them as well.

A canned eel drink called Unagi Nobori (Surging Eel) went on the market as temperatures rose in Japan.

“It’s mainly for men who are exhausted by the summer heat,” said a spokesman for Japan Tobacco, which produces the beverage. Guess it’s too hot for some guys’ eels to surge.

At the Ice Cream Expo in Yokohama, some pretty bizarre flavors were rolled out, including ox tongue, sea urchin, eel and horse sashimi. Awesome… two scoops of raw horse, please!

Nobody was laughing when comedian Kenji Tamura held a press conference to apologize for a food-poisoning incident at his yakiniku restaurant in Nagoya. The eatery was shut down after four customers got sick and one was hospitalized following their meals.

A dozen people were taken to the hospital with possible carbon monoxide poisoning caused by an apparent lack of ventilation at a bakery in Osaka.

That’ll show ’em

In response to a surge in cellphone-based fraud, Japan’s big five carriers have agreed on a variety of new measures, including a limit of five keitai per customer, improved ID verification, and sharing information on users whose services have been suspended.

It was announced that the National Police Agency has proposed the first revision to the Firearms and Swords Control Law in 46 years following the June stabbing spree in Akihabara.

Pipe down!

A court in Okinawa ordered the government to pay nearly ¥150 million compensation to locals who had sued over noise pollution caused by US military choppers based at Futenma Air Station in Ginowan.

This beat definitely won’t go on: taiko drum master Daihachi Oguchi, who performed at the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in 1998, died at age 84 after being hit by a car as he crossed a street in Nagano.

The Mainichi Daily News disciplined several staffers and nixed the popular and titillating WaiWai column after fielding complaints about “inappropriate” content. Damn! No more classic headlines like, “Hooker Housewives redefine a Hard Day’s Work” and “Fast Food Sends Schoolgirls into Sexual Feeding

What were they thinking?

Police arrested a man for slashing a cop with a knife in Akihabara, the same area where

a stabbing spree last month left seven people dead and 10 wounded. The officer had stopped the copycat perp for questioning on “an intuition.”

Citing gifts ranging from beer to takoyaki, a government survey decried the widespread practice of public officials accepting presents from the drivers of “pub taxis,” with 1,402 bureaucrats from 17 ministries and agencies involved.

A disgruntled 61-year-old Osaka man, who later told investigators he was “upset with insufficient social security benefits for my common-law wife,” was arrested after ramming his car into a government building and injuring an office worker. He also tried to light a Molotov cocktail, and police found three propane cylinders in his car.

It was observed that a nail salon in Odaiba staffed by a pair of perky young Japanese women has a sign out front reading “Nail me!”

The Ministry of Finance asked Japanese diplomats abroad to spend less money on tableware, saying they don’t need to use dishes and glasses bearing the paulownia flower, a symbol of the Japanese government.

Authorities discovered about 160 times more asbestos than allowed under the Building Standards Law at a parking lot in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward.

Tokyo University was ordered to pay back taxes on about ¥3.3 billion in illegal payments it made with research funds in fiscal 2004.

A hired driver was found with a knife sticking into his chest in an underground parking lot in Ginza, and astute police officers were able to determine that “there was a high possibility he had been stabbed by an assailant.”

Unkind cuts

Cops in Wakayama are trying to figure out who beheaded an ancient statue called Gyuba Doji, which lies along the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route, a World Heritage Site.

It was reported that a 40-50cm-high cleft in the earth stretching some 15km has appeared following last month’s Tohoku earthquake.

The owner of a hot spring near the epicenter of the quake reported that the water temperature rose about 5°C in the month before the trembler struck.

The Meteorological Agency said it feared that so-called “quake lakes”-areas where landslides had dammed rivers-could cause severe flooding as rainfall hits local areas.

A 27-year-old Saitama man who was found shoplifting at a CD shop in Nishi-Ikebukuro sprayed pepper gas in the store and sickened 11 people.

After being labeled “the Grim Reaper” by the Asahi Shimbun for ordering 13 executions in his first ten months in office, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama criticized the paper for keeping a “batting average” and claimed that executions are “hard to stomach for me.”

Citing a rise in the cost of ingredients such as whole milk powder and cocoa butter, the manufacturer of iconic Hokkaido omiyage Shiroi Koibito announced that it was raising prices for the first time since 1976.

Excuses, excuses

A 51-year-old Kyoto high school teacher who was arrested for DUI at 9:40am on a recent Sunday said “I didn’t think I was under the influence because more than eight hours had passed since I drank.”

After being busted for “fondling the buttocks” of a 20-year-old female university student on the Denentoshi line last month, a transport ministry official told cops, “I was sexually aroused. I’m terribly sorry.”

A 34-year-old Fukushima Prefectural Police sergeant who was arrested for paying a 14-year-old junior high school student for sex claimed, “I can’t remember a thing.”

A 56-year-old executive of the Asahi Shimbun who was nabbed for assaulting a 60-year-old taxi driver in Ginza said, “We got into a scuffle, but I didn’t hit him.”

The owner of an apartment building for disabled people who set a fire that killed three of the inhabitants said he had been harassed by the residents and an administrator.

GAMES GONE WILD!

The creators of the PC-based game Married Women Harem: This is the Married Women Paradise Inn have been using a set of fake boobs to draw customers. The game display at a shop in Akihabara features a cardboard cutout of a woman in sexy lingerie with large silicone-filled breasts and a sign that reads, “Squeeze all you want.”

In another diversion that allows players to put the squeeze on, a Japanese arcade game called Sub Marine Catcher lets people try to catch live lobsters in a tank with an electric claw.

The Japan Toy Association gave out its first Japan Toy Awards, and the Trendy Award went to Bandai’s green pea pod, otherwise known as a synthetic edamame, that can be “squeezed repeatedly.”

Ryozo Kato, a 66-year-old former ambassador to the United States and a big baseball fan, was approved by club owners to become the next commissioner of Nippon Professional Baseball.

After much debate, the Japan Swimming Federation wisely agreed to let Japan’s swimmers use the new Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit at the Beijing Olympics, despite an existing contractual agreement to use Japanese-produced suits. The move came after dozens of world records fell to Speedo-clad swimmers.

ODDS AND ENDS

Puzzled authorities discovered the body of a headless cat at a high school in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

A 12-year-old boy died when he fell through a skylight following a rooftop math class at a Tokyo elementary school.

A manta ray was born at an Okinawa aquarium, making it just the second ray ever born in captivity. The first was born to the same set of parents last year, but the youngster died when its father chased it into the wall of the tank. Thanks, dad!

A 47-year-old man was put to death in Oklahoma by lethal injection for killing a Japanese exchange student with a firebomb 13 years ago. Terry Lyn Short threw a Molotov cocktail into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment in 1995, and the ensuing blaze killed 22-year-old Ken Yamamoto, who lived one floor above her.

The Japanese government has vowed to provide nearly $3 million to Cambodia for the UN-backed trial of Khmer Rouge leaders, according to the Japanese Embassy in Phnom Penh.

At the Group of Eight finance ministers’ meeting in Osaka, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced that Japan would donate up to $1.2 billion (about ¥129 billion) for two multilateral climate-change funds it plans to launch with the US and Britain.

On that note, an Environment Ministry report claimed that global warming has already damaged agricultural production, the coastal environment and public health across Japan, and will pose an even greater threat from 2020 to 2030. Well, that’s something to look forward to, I guess.

The Hokkaido Agricultural Research Center has started growing multicolored potatoes, which come in red, purple and yellow and are supposed to be healthier as well.

Enough of that

In response to the knifing rampage in Akihabara that left seven people dead and 10 others injured, game-maker Konami canceled a launch event for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot, which features “a grizzled commando who shoots and stabs his way through enemy lines.”

The Japan Patent Office will distribute a handbook to local governments and companies after it was revealed that the names of 19 of the country’s 47 prefectures have been registered as trademarks-in China.

A 38-year-old member of the Matsuba-kai yakuza organization who was gunned down on a street in Adachi-ku was also found to have been stabbed twice.

Doctors in Chiba removed a softball-size towel from a 49-year-old man’s stomach that had been left there in an operation 25 years before.

STATS

0.02

Percentage increase in Japan’s fertility rate in 2007, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry

¥3 million

Yearly tuition at Rote H, a new Tokyo cram school that “prepares high school students for entry into Harvard University”

2

Number of students enrolled at the school

¥171.9

Average price of a liter of gasoline in early June-the first time in history that the figure has topped ¥170, according to watchdog group Oil Information Center

95,000

Cartons of milk intended for public schools in Chiba whose expiration date was misprinted, forcing a recall