· October, 2008

Stories about Japan from October, 2008

Japan: Thoughts on Itochu trading scam

On October 10th, Itochu Corporation announced that it had paid close to one hundred billion yen in false transactions valued at nearly 100 billion yen to Mongolian suppliers for construction machinery and materials. One blogger and chartered accountant offers their thoughts on what happened inside Itochu.

31 October 2008

Japan: Spam mail from a chimpanzee

id:crystaline reports [ja] that she discovered a spam mail with the title: “It might seem unbelievable, but I am a chimpanzee”. The ‘chimp’ explains: “At first, I thought I was...

31 October 2008

Japan: Marriage with anime characters

(the) Road to the Deep East blogs about a signature campaign by a Japanese man demanding Japanese government to permit the marriage with anime characters, legally.

29 October 2008

Japan: Refunds from Saizeriya

News that Saizeriya [ja], a Japanese restaurant chain offering low-cost Italian food, is offering refunds for people who ate pizza with melamine-tainted dough — without asking for receipts — has...

29 October 2008

Japan: Meeting Tatsuhiko Takimoto

id:y_arim describes [ja] meeting Japanese author Tatsuhiko Takimoto, known for his fictional work about hikikomori entitled Welcome to the N.H.K, at a bar in Akihabara. When they met, Takimoto declared...

26 October 2008

Japan: You call that “art”?

Blogger aiki_tachibana, in a post entitled “Don't call that ‘art'!” [ja], reacts to news about a controversial art performance in Hiroshima on Oct. 21st. According to reports [ja], a group...

25 October 2008

Japan: The Illegal Download Explained, on 2-Channel

Over the last years, the sometimes raucous nature of the Japanese Internet has repeatedly come under fire over concerns about issues such as harmful content and copyright infringement. Now the spotlight is back again, with news that legislation to ban downloads of copyrighted content is moving ahead as planned, despite earlier delays.

23 October 2008

Japan: Outlawing Illegal Downloads

id:seshiapple picks up [ja] comments from a thread on Japanese bulletin board 2-Channel in which IT journalist Daisuke Tsuda asks 2-channelers: “The outlawing of [illegal] downloads is almost finalized, do...

22 October 2008

Japan: Insiders foretell Yamato Life's bankruptcy on 2-Channel

The effects of the American subprime loan crisis have arrived in Japan, and the first company fall victim to the outfall is Yamato Life Insurance Co. The Japanese mid-size insurer filed for bankruptcy on the 10th of October and applied to the Tokyo District Court for bankruptcy protection. Many bloggers, however, have been writing about a different angle to the story: at a thread on 2-Channel, Japan's largest bulletin board, insiders apparently reported the bankruptcy before it actually happened.

22 October 2008

Japan: Media Bias in Potato Field Eviction?

Images appearing on Japanese TV of government forces evicting crying nursery school children from potato fields in Osaka, part of plans to extend a highway (the Second Keihan Highway) between Kyoto and Osaka, has sparked many on the Japanese net to respond with accusations of media bias.

19 October 2008