Karoshi Mystery

This familiar scene on Japanese trains appears innocent enough. But it’s not, according to the An Englishman in Osaka blog. Because one of these salarymen is actually dead.

That’s right, on their way home one of these guys drifted into a light sleep before passing peacefully away, moving on to that great office in the sky (where 20-hour working days are the norm).

But, which one? The Englishman in Osaka means to disclose the answer soon–but in the meantime, if you don’t cheat, we can play too! It’s actually kind of hard to say — they all look dead to the world, although I guess one of them is a bit more so.

However, as one of the commenters justly notes (all the comments are pretty amusing): “Dying while sleeping on the train sure beats dying while jumping in front of it. “

18 Responses to “Karoshi Mystery”

len Said:

D… but maybe E.
Hmm, I’ll go with D.

robin Said:

I’m going ‘F’ just cause of the way his arms & hands are positioned.

kaminoge Said:

Assuming this isn’t a joke, it’s nice to see that the death of a human being can be so amusing to so many people. I assume the Englishman is waiting for the deceased’s last shred to dignity to taken from him before revealing the answer.

The Overthinker Said:

I too hope this is a joke. It would be a surprising coincidence if such a quality (non-cellphone, by appearances) photo just happened to catch a dead man (not impossible of course). If it is not a joke, it is very sick.

RYO Said:

Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t seem to figure out what the marginal (black) comedic payoff from temporarily withholding the information is. For that matter, I can’t figure out what the payoff would be regardless of when the information is revealed. I mean, just tell us, Mr. Englishman in Osaka…

Papigiulio Said:

strange! but I would say F. altho it’s a bit strange a dead man would possibily sit there. If a body dies all muscles lose strength so a body would drop with the nearest shock or bump. While sleeping you subconsiously feel when your body moves or is about to drop so you resist that.

Or at least that my vision on this matter.

overoften Said:

I think some people are taking this a bit too seriously. Read the rest of his blog and you’ll see he’s almost certainly just having a laugh.

ghoti Said:

It’s a pretty funny blog. I bookmarked it for that reason. I liked his post about Koizumi’s hair defecting to North Korea.

shunter123 Said:

Just took a look at Englishmans blog. It’s funny. If you believe one of those salarymen is really dead, then you’ll probably also believe the post about windowless offices…..
http://anenglishmaninosaka.blogspot.com/2006/04/windowless-offices.html

kaminoge Said:

You’re right, the Englishman’s tasteless attempt at humor shouldn’t be taken so seriously. (Besides, the answer is probably going to be something lame like “All of them”). So here are some more fun suggestions for the Englishman to put on his blog:

1.) Show several pictures of children in locked cars. Try to guess which child will die an agonizing death while his parents are off playing pachinko. Har, har!
2.) Look at different photos of school kids walking home alone, obviously dejected. Pick which kid you think will commit suicide that evening because they can’t stand the bullying any longer. Yuck, yuck!
3.) Have a series of pics of black-and-blue foreign bar hostesses with their eyes closed. The trick is to identify which woman was beaten, raped and then murdered by her customer. Hee, hee!

What’s the point of having social problems if you can’t take the piss out of them from time to time, eh?

overoften Said:

To make a mountain -

Take one fresh molehill, add to an online forum and mix with a pinch of righteous indignation and plenty of thyme. Whip up until peaks of outrage form.

Serves the entire internet.

diamondback Said:

Damn. . . How do you people unpucker at the end of each day?

shunter123 Said:

Kaminoge has listed three serious social problems in Japan. Since when has six salarymen sleeping on a train been a social problem? I think we can conclude that kaminoge had a sense of humor bypass somewhere along the line…wait a minute, perhaps he was trying to be funny!

kaminoge Said:

The bypass operation went well, thanks. Wish I could say the same for shunter123’s lasik eye surgery. It seems he/she was unable to see the word “karoshi” in the title of this post. Either that, or they are not familiar with the word. While shunter123 is looking up “karoshi” in the dictionary, they might want to wander over to the “S” section and see what it says under the entry for “sarcasm”.

I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve read of some poor sod who passes away on a train, and then ends traveling around for hours before he is noticed. I tell ya, it never fails to elicit a chuckle! Classic comedy is timeless! As Homer Simpson once said, “It’s funny ’cause I don’t know the guy!”.

shunter123 Said:

You’re right, I didn’t see the word “karoshi” in the title of an Englishman’s post – because it’s not there. Have you looked at the title of the post on his blog? The word is not mentioned. Karoshi is not mentioned in the post either. So it seems your comments about his post (salarymen with their eyes closed) in relation to ’social problems’ are somewhat misguided, and should instead be directed toward Japundit, which used “karoshi” in its title. I bet those salarymen would’ve laughed at an Englishman’s post - apart from the dead one of course.

kaminoge Said:

I don’t know how I made that mistake. Hmm, I read the post on…Japundit. I commented on the post on… Japundit. I read the reactions of others on…wait for it…Japundit. Everything I’m doing this moment is taking place on…Japun…you get the picture.

You’re absolutely right, the word “karoshi” isn’t mentioned on the Englishman’s blog. Which could be why in my previous comment I didn’t refer to the Englishman’s blog, but instead pointed to the title as it appeared on a website called…never mind. The blog that belongs to a citizen of a nation that is part of the United Kingdom but whom is currently residing in Japan’s third-largest city in terms of population may not have linked the word “karoshi” with the photograph taken on the subway train, but someone who contributes to a person who gives opinions in an authoritative manner on the subject of Japan through the medium of the internet’s internet si…well, somebody drew a connection between the two, and that’s what was commented on in the commen…ok, enough of that.

It was one of the Englishman’s more pedestrian efforts. If we were talking about an album instead of a website, it would be one of the filler tracks. Either “Chlorophyll cleansing” or “Squeezing it in” would be my choice for the first single.

Public sleeping in Japan Said:

[...] know what it is with all the sleeping Japanese posts of late, but Kirai has posted a pretty big collection of images showing just that. . . Japanese people [...]

Leave a Reply

Design: Dao By Design | Powered by WordPress