Derek Grebe comments

Face it folks - we've had it.

No point in saving for retirement if you're under 40. We're doomed - doomed, I tell ye.

Has anybody ever travelled around the world to take part in such humdrum dreariness?

There are plenty of places you can go to a convenience store. They often stock a far wider variety of confectionery and snacks elsewhere, too.

Gachapon? Come to Japan and push coins into slots for some crap made in China which is unfit for anyone of school age or above? Behave yourself.

Squeeze into a ramen bar which is far too small, reeking with cig smoke and unless you learned kanji before coming on holiday for a fortnight, 9/10 times incomprehensible. Eat noodles in fatty salty broth, then get the squirts half an hour later. Pass.

Buy drinks from a machine? How bored do you have to get before this becomes a pastime?

Eat sushi - OK this one's valid. Just don't think about the sea dying while you're enjoying it.

I'm glad the article didn't suggest "enjoy hilarious Variety TV shows", or I would have put my foot through the laptop and sent JT the bill.

I really hope Sakamoto-san will stand his ground and for once the LDP will have to do something to earn the support of the farming and fisheries industries.

However, having been here for quite a while now, one can't help suspecting that a few very well-stuffed brown envelopes to the requisite people will be sufficient to make this anxiety about polluting Japan's waters for the next 10,000 years suddenly go away.

I hope I'm wrong.

It means "Here is a distraction for the simple -minded, scared micropenised White men with no skills, to stop them ever thinking about how the GQP is hell-bent on keeping them poor, uneducated and shot at".

The LDP have presided over the steady decline of Japan for the best part of the last 30 years.

An unending parade of scandal (Dentsu, Abe land deals), corruption (Abenomasks, Olympic bribery), incompetence (Minister for Cybersecurity proud of the fact he's never used a computer) and ossification.

Why are the opposition parties unable to present an appealing alternative?

Japan, you need to hold your leaders to higher standards.

There are no risks involved in calling an election.

The serfs will pay obeisance to their feudal overlords and sign the contract.

Dentsu will get a nice payday for all the posters and flyers.

Japan will continue its slow march to extinction.

Democracy never happened here.

Probably even the LDP are having second thoughts about increasing tax on the workforce during the same financial quarter their bumchums at TEPCO are going to increase energy bills by 40%.

One step at a time, boys. We'll squeeze every last drop out of the serfs sooner or later.

No monetary questions.

No Criminality questions.

No point whatsoever i this entire kabuki.

I am reliably informed that Jimmy Savile investigated Gary Glitter under similar circumstances and everything was just peachy, no need to worry your heads about this kind of stuff, just look at the pretty boys.

"Johnny's talent agency to investigate other cases"

Correction: Johnny's talent agency to investigate other cases, find everything is just fine, destroy all records and maintain stranglehold on Japanese anodyne "talent" industry.

Bring on a shouty fat man in a colourful suit!

Now some boys who look like girls!

Everything is fine, stop asking questions.

Doubtless, this new policy of urging change will be just as effective as the revolutionary Premium Friday Campaign we had a few years ago.

All talk, no change, just a nice fat publicity campaign Bonanza for Dentsu.

He should try the "I mistook the gas pedal for the brake pedal" line which works so well for our venerable retired community when they risk lives with incompetent driving.

So the people who paid the bribes go unpunished.

And Takahashi, the Dentsu exec who took the bribes (and at least ¥78 million more) has also not been punished.

And Yoshiro Mori, the failed PM who ran the whole scam from top to bottom will never be punished for anything, and feasts nightly at our expense.

Don't you just love Japanese justice?

I will be 149 years old by then.

Probably still allowed to drive in Japan, though, because I will be so venerable, you see.

Gee - do ya think so?

How much did they fleece us for that bit of Sherlockian deduction?

Well now, isn't that a surprise?

LDP introduces deeply unpopular ID card scheme, ballses it up royally - a pound to a penny the Chinese have every last scrap of data on the system, then enacts mission creep to make sure nobody dares think of not bowing down and taking up the Khyber.

Just wait for the Kempeitai to get revived .

"You! Show me your papers!"

Never fails to amaze me that, when winds are gusting at 90+ km/h, people still dash out to convenience store for a 500 yen plastic umbrella that will be in ribbons within ten minutes of opening it and dumped in the street the next morning.

It doesn't matter what people want. The LDP will do whatever they want.

The vast majority of people didn't want a state funeral for Abe, but the LDP laid on a ceremony which cost more than Queen Elizabeth II's send-off.

If Kishida's in the mood for an election, there will be an election.

And the voters, having just been shown that the LDP don't give a tuppenny t0ss about them, will turn out and vote them back in again.

Dentsu will get a nice little payday and we'll return to being told there isn't enough money to pay for daycare, pensions, etc. Inertia is in charge here.

What kind of drug?

Coke?

Fentanyl?

Meth?

Or weed, poppers etc?

It is a source of amazement to me that "drug is bad" is the extent of reporting on this issue here.

Drink it. Show us all how safe it is. Then and only then will TEPCO have a shred of potential credibility.

Where did the 2% increase in consumption tax monies go?

Where did the "reconstruction tax" monies go to help resolve the TEPCO disaster 12 years ago?

Where is the great blossoming economy we were promised in the wake of the Olympic boondoggle??

Get your hands in your pockets, serfs. The LDP - Concrete - Dentsu cabal wants more.

From 14% to 42%?

Correction - 42% across the board within 3 months.

AND TEPCO will flood the Pacific with radiation, no matter what you think.

Now shut up, pay up, and know your place, serfs.

Don't forget to vote LDP next election so you remain in your place.

What do you think this is? A democracy? You belong to J-INC, and don't you forget it.

Ok , we get the weapons contracts we don't want here.

When do we start to see the promised trade deal with the UK, which will give us crisps that taste of more than consomme, or some proper cheese, bacon and lamb?

The venerable retired community in my neighborhood could use this kind of lesson to alleviate their perennial vinegar scowls, with a side lesson on how wearing a mask on your chin, with both mouth and nose (and joyless grimace) open to the air is an exercise in futility.

Suspended sentence = cheat all you like, so long as it brings in the dough for J-INC and the LDP connections.

Even if we can't cover up the scale of your corruption, don't worry about it, you will never pay for your crime.

Where's Mori today? Feasting at our expense as usual, no doubt.

Feudal Kharzi.

When I am walking my dog I still get dirty looks from the venerable pensioners doing their Rajio Taiso every morning because I'm not wearing a mask, but they have masks the requisite 2mm below their bottom lips as they are puffing and panting all over each other to piano chords recorded when Hirohito was recently de-deified.

I took all sensible precautions when the pandemic was a pandemic. Unlike my idiot boss, who racked up tens of millions in disinfection charges by demanding sick people come to the office.

Now, vaxxed and boosted, I look forward to seeing the friendly scowls on the faces of my neighbours once again.

Divinda

80% of people opposed LDP tax hike for LDP defense plan.

> LDP will ignore the people and institute the tax hike anyway.

> People will re-elect LDP in next election because people have memory loss and opposition parties fail to remind people 1 and 2 had happened.

A perfect, if bleak, summary of what is almost guaranteed to happen. Well put!

Still waiting for a release date for RENFIELD.

The rest of the world got to see it a month ago. Sadly it would have offered competition for Crayon Shin-chan's new film, so it's been banished from these shores.

That said, it’s not as if there are absolutely no the number of Japanese homeless people

What?

JT, do you even have an editor?

Moderator: Thanks for pointing that out. It has been corrected.

I have yet to hear any convincing argument against simply arresting members of known organised crime syndicates.

"Are you a member of a yakuza gang?"

"Yes"

"Right, off you go, then".

In other words, pointless panel announced with established goal of doing nothing.

But I will bet you a pound to a Penny there will be plenty of claimable expenses while this kabuki is in session.