It’s one thing to idolise someone who happens to be stupid. It’s quite another to idolise someone because they’re stupid.

Japan’s pushy mothers may be missing a trick by keeping her offspring in juku (cram school) until late at night every day, when there is a clear alternative - professional idiocy.

There used to be a time when we were pretty undemanding of our entertainers provided that they had at least one marketable skill or talent. You’d forgive a good singer for being daft as a brush. Likewise you didn’t hold it against a great actor if he couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket.

Arise, おバカイドル (o-bakaidoru - a portmanteau of ‘baka’, meaning idiot, and ‘aidoru’, meaning idol) - the professional idiot.

Take the trio Suzanne (スザンヌ), Yukina Kinoshita (木下優樹菜) and Mai Satoda (里田 まい). All equally as daft as each other, and all over your TV screen all the time. See them at their ‘best’ on FujiTV’s Quiz Hexagon, hosted by the ‘punchy’ Shinsuke Shimada, where they will be set up and mocked for your delectation.

So taken were they with the girls’ talents, FujiTV execs even made the girls into a pop trio called Pabo (which is apparently Korean for, you guessed it, ‘idiot’).

And to prove it’s not all bimbos, there’s quite a selection of himbos too. Check out Shuuchishin (羞恥心) if you haven’t been driven to distraction by their played-to-death current single already. They’re another baka trio made up of Takashi Tsuruno (つるの剛士), Yuusuke Kamiji (上地雄輔) and Naoki Nokubo (野久保直樹).

FujiTV, who are giving the phrase “mindless entertainment” an entirely new spin, has a lot to answer for.

It’s a situation that almost beggars belief, but a Nagoya man died on Sunday after having doused himself in kerosene and being given a lighter by police.

Police were called to a domestic disturbance on Saturday night in Atsuta.

Six officers were dispatched to the scene and the man walked out onto the road to greet them, carrying an 18-liter jerry can filled with kerosene. He walked about 200 meters along the road, pouring kerosene over his head as he did so on three separate occasions, using about 5 liters of the flammable liquid.

Incredibly, rather than arrange for the man to have a change of clothes, the police interrogated the man while he was still wearing the kerosene-soaked clothes. They then gave him cigarettes and a lighter when he asked them. The report then becomes a little unclear, but it appears he was then left alone in the interrogation room for 15 minutes during which time he smoked several cigarettes, without by some miracle setting himself alight. It was only later being interviewed by three more officers that the fateful spark occurred.

Deputy Chief Michiharu Kondo, in criticising the officers, added rather inappropriately that the man shouldn’t even have been given cigarettes because the police station has a no-smoking policy.

Hydrogen sulfide - is there anything it can’t do? You don’t just have to top yourself with it - you can threaten others with it too.

Being the current suicide aide du jour taking Japan by storm, it seems it’s now being touted as an offensive weapon.

An Osaka robber dropped in on a loan company on Wednesday, threated the staff with what was purportedly the oh-so-fashionable poison, and made off with a (small) pile of cash.

At around 1:10 p.m. on Wednesday, the man entered the Nankai-Nanba-Higashiguchi branch of Aifle Corp. in Chuo-ku, Osaka, showed three employees a transparent plastic bag containing a brown liquid, and demanded money, investigators said.

“This is hydrogen sulfide. Give me your money,” he was quoted as saying. He grabbed 77,000 yen in cash from the office before fleeing. Three employees at the office were unharmed in the incident. There were no customers in the office at the time.

Now, you might argue that I’m contributing to the problem by posting this (but I’d argue that at this late stage, and in this language, it makes little difference), but would this whole palaver not have grown so huge if it hadn’t been reported in such lurid detail? I guess you could argue that they would have happened somehow anyway, but I can’t help but feel that the rash of cases of hydrogen-sulfide-facilitated suicides across Japan recently, and now this, are partly the responsibility of those who are so eagerly printing the headlines.

Stories about misbehaving public officials are commonplace - they differ only in the details. But the details usually make interesting reading.

A Wakayama prefecture civil servant has made worldwide headlines with a feat of astonishing dedication.

Tax-payers in Kinokawa wish he could show similar dedication to his job. For it has been revealed in a 9-month period, the horny civil servant clocked up more than three quarters of a million hits on pornographic websites from his work computer.

His superiors were alerted to the problem only when his computer became infected with a virus.

The 57-year-old man, who has not been named, works for the city of Kinokawa in southern Japan.

That works out at almost 10,000 pages a day, or more than 20 each minute he was at his desk.

The BBC reports that his habit “reached its peak” last July with more than 177,000 page hits times during office hours.

The man has not been fired.

If you thought that hanami season finished when the last of the cherry blossoms fell, think again. Even though Japan’s most famous blossoms are gone for another year, there are still chances to enjoy a hanami picnic before the sultry heat of summer kicks in.

Following signs off the beaten track to the Hiyoshi shrine in Tamana, Kumamoto prefecture, we found the Yamada wisteria (山田藤). The many vines, some of them reputedly over 200 years old, form a canopy over the shrine’s grounds - a pergola in purple.

Golden Week is a perfect time to see it, occuring as it does right around the start of wisteria’s flowering season, and I’d imagine that that has contributed to the Yamada wisteria’s huge popularity.

The lawns under the fragrant flowers were packed with picnicking folk, enjoying an al fresco lunch on blue sheets.

One thing that Japanese politicians are always hoping to avoid, but are always causing, is ‘confusion’. And with Golden Week and the end of April approaching, Japanese motorists are getting reading for some ‘major confusion’.

Except of course, there is no confusion in the literal sense. It’s an absolute certainty that petrol prices are going to go up. And by more than a little.

The government are working to reinstate the so-called temporary petrol tax that ‘ran out’ at the end of March, leading to a drop in pump prices of ¥20-25. If they succeed, it’s likely to be slapped back on at the beginning of May. The beginning of May also coincides with Golden Week, when Japan goes on holiday en masse, and traditionally gets shafted by a pre-Golden Week price hike at petrol stations anyway.

When the ¥25 tax was removed at the beginning of April, prices round here fell, at the very most, by ¥20, and consumers waited for 3-5 days to see the benefit, as retailers waited to ‘finish stocks of petrol bought at the higher, taxed price’. Even so, there were grumbles from petrol retailers about projected losses.

With the start of Golden Week, the Japanese consumer can expect to get a three-way shafting - the now traditional ¥4-5 Golden Week hike, the continuing rise of global crude prices, and the reinstatement of the tax. And when the tax comes back, will it be (as cynics like me suspect) at a full ¥25 even at stations that only reduced prices by ¥20 or less? There’s potential for the added confusion of when retailers choose to readjust the tax/price - selling petrol that they bought at the lower price, will they maintain the lower price while they still have stock (just as they maintained the higher prices until they’d sold all their higher priced stock a month ago), or will that tax go back on the second it can?

Assorted media are mentioning prices of ¥160 or higher. For comparison, my nearest petrol station is currently selling at ¥122, so we’re talking about a rise of over 30%.

Will all this be enough to enrage the traditionally docile Japanese consumer? The pre-Golden Week price hike is the most interesting part of the equation. Just as everyone prepares get in their cars and go off on holiday, the petrol prices are raised. Every year, like clockwork, the captive audience gets shafted. And does little more than quietly grumble, and acquiesce and pay up. After all, what’s the alternative - vote for change, or something equally mad?

Hello Kitty Hell has uncovered further evidence, if any were needed, of the evil of Kitty-chan.

“This is what Guatemalan anti-narcotics police found when they seized 1.2 tons of the cocaine on its way to Mexico on April 13th.”

HKH reflects

Cocaine and Hello Kitty display an awful lot of the same properties when it comes to addiction so combining them together probably seemed like the perfect move for Sanrio. If you have ever had to deal with a Hello Kitty fanatic in your life, you already have wondered if they were high on something whenever Hello Kitty is mentioned.

Actually, upon further reflection, this is probably the worst thing that could ever happen. Seriously, can you think of anything more Hello Kitty Hellish that a Hello Kitty fanatic on cocaine…?

Next Monday, Nestlé Japan is releasing KitKat KitMail, a postable KitKat.

The back of the packaging will feature a postcard-like space for a message and address, and postage (which will cost ¥140, presumably domestic, on top of the ¥210 for the chocolate).

An interesting idea, but I can’t help but wonder if the timing’s a bit off. The weather’s starting to warm up, and it’s not long before it’ll be scorching again. That seems like a recipe, if not for disaster, then at least mess, and perhaps disappointment on the part of the receiver.

Also, they could have released it just prior to, as opposed to just after, Exam Hell season, and relatives of young exam-takers all over Japan could have sent their loved ones these little bits of Good Luck confection.

There’s a report in the Mainichi entitled Booming popularity doubles accident rate at Tokyo’s Mt. Takao, which tells that “there were 43 reported accidents on the mountain last year, almost double the average number from each year from 2004 to 2006.”

Those who go unprepared come in for a roasting from Kenichiro Maruyama, head of the Takao Police Station’s Alpine Rescue Taskforce who says, “OK, so it’s only a small mountain, but it’s a mountain nonetheless. Not thinking enough about what’s needed for mountain climbing is inviting trouble.”

Quite so.

Police are urging anybody visiting Mt. Takao to take appropriate preparations beforehand, including having a plan on how to get down the mountain, preparing sufficient equipment such as water, rain gear and flashlights, understand that mobile phones won’t always work in the area and make reports on planned hikes on Mt. Takao before setting off.

To further underline this point about lack of preparedness, the report states that “many accidents are reported among […] women going to the mountain while wearing high-heeled shoes.”

A group of Japanese mountaineers setting out on an expedition, yesterday

If Japanese castles are your thing, and you don’t know about it already, head over to jcastle.info, which provides an in-depth guide to all Japanese castles.

The site provides as much information as you would need before visiting, including 5-star ratings, maps and access info, photos, links, and some historical notes.

And in that spirit, here’s a picture of Kumamoto castle, taken during a recent hanami. Kumamoto celebrates the castle’s 400th anniversary this year, with a newly restored section opening to the public at the beginning of Golden Week.

A BBC article asks

The Chinese guards protecting the Olympic torch have been described as heavy-handed, aggressive and even thugs. Who are the men in blue tracksuits?

A Times article responds - “The Chinese torch guards are actually paramilitary police from a squad spun off from the army,” and goes on to say that they will not be allowed into Japan for the Nagano leg of the torch’s journey later this month.

The progress of the Olympic torch has been hampered along its way by fierce protests, particularly in London, Paris and San Francisco, but the Men in Blue (tracksuits) first caught the eye in London when the Metropolitan Police made complaints, saying that they had not been informed of the men’s true role, that they had no official purpose and often hindered the police’s attempts to keep order.

Then former Olympic champion long distance runner, Sebastian Coe (now Lord Coe), who leads organising committee for London’s 2012 Olympics, waded into the controversy, branding them “horrible thugs”.

Now, Shinya Izumi, the Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission in Tokyo, has cast doubt on whether they’ll be welcome in Japan.

“I do not personally accept the idea that they will run in Japan as they ran in other countries,” said Shinya Izumi, who was discussing arrangements for the Nagano leg of the torch relay later this month.

Mr Izumi, reflecting the revelation that the blue-tracksuited Chinese runners are in fact paramilitary-trained police, said that any security role they played – including pushing protesters off the road as they have done elsewhere – would be an infringement of Japan’s sovereignty.

The question of sovereignty has been a hot topic of debate in London with many asking who gave permission for the Chinese to police London’s streets if the Metropolitan Police didn’t even know who they were.

Top image © AFP

Travelling by train turned out to be more lucrative than a visit to a pachinko parlour for some commuters last week, it was revealed yesterday.

Commuters at Hisayaodori, Nagoya “got back 10,000-yen and 5,000-yen bills as change instead of 1,000-yen bills after a station employee mistakenly put the wrong notes in a subway ticket vending machine last Friday.”

Authorities said the station lost about 250,000 yen over three hours and that only one passenger had returned the money, which was when station staff first found out about the mistake.

According to subway officials, an assistant stationmaster, 57, placed 10,000 and 5,000 yen notes in the space for 1,000 notes by mistake. The vending machine cannot detect differences in notes, the officials said.

While some corners of the internet decry as a sign of the times (and presumably the imminent collapse of civilised society) the fact that only passenger returned the money, I have to ask, is it really surprising?

We all know that if you drop your wallet in Japan, you stand a better chance of getting it back than you would in a lot of other countries. But is there really a great well of civic rectitude that’s running dry? A senior Japanese acquaintance of mine remarked that on an individual and personal basis, each person is accountable, and therefore feels pressure to do the right thing. But anonymously and collectively, (and importantly, unaccountably) people are selfish chancers whatever their nationality.

Many have used it. Some have got away with it. I remember kids at school busting out the “My grandmother died” excuse to explain absences. It never occurred to me they might be lying until it emerged that one lad experienced the loss of three grandmothers in quick succession.

An Osaka tax inspector has resigned after apparently claiming compassionate leave for deaths in his family on 11 occasions, the Mainichi reports.

Each time, he stayed home in order to cure his backache. “It was too much hassle to get a medical certificate for sick leave,” he was quoted as telling his bosses.

His bosses discovered the scam when he told them in September last year that his grandmother’s funeral was being held at a funeral hall, which was found not to exist.

On investigation, his bosses discovered 10 more false claims between 2004 and 2007, in addition to which, “the man also went home on 11 other occasions in 2006 and 2007 by faking business trips.”

A junior high school in Yamanashi prefecture has come in for sharp criticism after its graduating class’s yearbook ranked students in a number of unusual ways.

The light-hearted rankings are made up every year by the final year students, but this year’s pushed the boundaries of good taste, according to a report in the Mainichi.

Among the rankings were “Person most likely to be living under a bridge”, “Person most likely to marry a foreigner” and the one that really kicked off the fuss, “Person most likely to burn down the Prime Minister’s residence”.

“It was intended as a joke, but it was inconsiderate,” a school representative was quoted as saying. The school apologized to students whose names were listed, but did not withdraw the book.

Through the winter, the rolling fields of Kyushu’s Aso and Kuju highlands are a light brown, with a carpet of long, dry susuki grass as far as the eye can see.

But with spring comes a clearing out of the old, making place for the new. Spring then is a time for fire festivals in this region. Across the whole region, last year’s grass is burned away in a series of what I assume are controlled fires, making way for the spring new growth.

It’s something of a surprise to me that this age-old tradition of burning thousands of acres of grassland every year has survived into this day and age - it doesn’t jive well with an alleged concern for air pollution, for example, as visibility and air quality are reduced to Beijing-like levels for a week or more.

What is even more surprising…

is that it’s quite a spectator sport.

And it appeared it was quite a tourist draw…

Quite apart from anything else, there were of course no public safety precautions whatsoever. I think the idea was that if you’re silly enough to come up into the mountains while they’re being set alight, then safety is quite your own responsibility.

There was something quite awesome about the fire. As the wall of flame advanced, the savage crackling noise was overwhelming. And even standing in the road, you had to be very aware of which directions the fires were moving either side of the road. With the grass burning right up to the edge of the road, the heat was intense, even passing hurriedly by in the car.

Driving back along the Aso Milk Road the following day, there were odd tufts of tan grass here and there, but other than them, all was black…

…with the winding road offering the only contrast to the charred landscape.

And so with the first stage of the spring transformation complete, we’ll be back up there as the weather warms up, the air becomes breathable again, and the black gives way to summer green.

« Collapse story

Check out this record-breaking train station…

So what record does it hold? Find out after the jump!

With a looming global financial crisis it’s a very hands-on time for governors of national banks the world over. But in Japan, the top job is vacant while the government and opposition use the appointment as a political football.

That’s the view expressed in a Mainichi editorial published yesterday under the no-nonsense headline “Leaving top BOJ post empty is a crime“.

“To avoid a crisis in the financial system,” the editorial notes, “central banks in major countries are working and communicating closely together to deal with the situation.” Meanwhile in Japan, in its splendid isolation, there’s nobody at the helm.

The appointment of governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) requires approval from both houses of the Diet, but while the ruling coalition controls the lower house, control of the upper house is in the hands of the opposition.

If you ask the governing jimintou (LDP), they’ll tell you that the opposition led by the minshutou (DPJ) are simply vetoing any suggestion they make in order to obstruct the business of government. If you ask the opposition, they’ll tell you that the government are attempting to crowbar cronies into the governor’s office, thereby compromising the independence of the BOJ.

U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer said this week

These are pretty turbulent times in the financial markets, and it is important for Japan to have a steady voice people can rely on. It is important for the world economic community to know whose hand is on the tiller at the Japanese central bank.”

Which is a fairly diplomatic way of saying “Stop pissing about”.

The government had first nominated Toshiro Muto, on the not unreasonable-sounding grounds of having been BOJ Deputy Governor. The opposition complained that as Muto had been a Ministry of Finance bureaucrat for 30 years, he “would not be as independent as a central bank chief should be”.

Tellingly though, the Mainichi continued,

They are also angry that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has rammed through other bills, which require approval only from the more powerful lower house.

So basically after not being able to oppose anything for a while, the opposition were using this opportunity to make a big show of baring teeth by sticking a spanner in a big one.

Then Koji Tanami (another former Ministry of Finance bureaucrat) was proposed. And rejected.

Senior Democratic legislator Naoto Kan said his party also wanted to avoid a vacancy at the central bank’s helm, but Tanami’s career was so similar to Muto’s, it wouldn’t have made sense to block one and not the other. “People would think that’s too illogical.”

So if you’re going to appear obstructive, at least be consistent.

The previous BOJ chief, Toshihiko Fukui, finished his term as governor on Wednesday. In the meantime Masaaki Shirakawa, who has already been approved as one of two deputy governors, is serving as acting BOJ governor as the political impasse continues.

One possible solution to the problem outlined by the Mainichi is that “the government could revise the Bank of Japan law to require only lower house approval for the personnel decision, allowing Fukuda to force through his initial choice, Muto. But the opposition is unlikely to welcome such a move. ” Unlikely indeed.

Steve Levenstein has an interesting post over at Inventorspot about an unusual domestic fire alarm.

Concerned as to whether those with hearing disabilities would be able to escape a domestic emergency, assistant professor Makoto Imai of Japan’s Shiga University of Medical Science has been testing the idea of a silent alarm that wakes you with the whiff of… wasabi.

Wasabi’s pungent perfume is said to be so strong it can wake the dead… but in this case, it’s being used to wake the deaf. Prototypes of a new silent smoke alarm that sprayed canned wasabi extract into a room succeeded in waking 13 out of 14 test subjects within 2 minutes. One subject who is actually deaf awoke a mere 10 seconds after the wasabi essence was sprayed.

Check out Steve’s post and the video down the page.

From Popgadget comes news of a super-looking little digital camera - the Rolleiflex MiniDigi AF5.0. And the magpie in me is squawking “Want!”

Made by Komomura Corp., the MiniDigi AF5.0 is modelled on the original twin-lens 6×6 Rolleiflex, which debuted in 1929 and is still going.

This is a follow-up to the original MiniDigi, which was hugely popular with toy camera enthusiasts, with the resolution increased from 3.1 megapixels to 5.

The AF5.0 has definite retro chic, though the price is a thoroughly modern ¥41,000. For that price you don’t get much in the way of functions, but that’s unlikely to worry fans and gadget freaks.

Peter wrote earlier today how Japan is a very cash-based society. Underlining that point, a story has been reported which is not unusual in itself except in its sheer magnitude.

Hearing that someone in Japan has a fortune in cash stashed somewhere about their house is relatively common. There are various reasons for this, one of which is the poor return on savings with banks with interest rates close to zero.

But two sisters from Osaka were hiding their wealth from the taxman, it’s reported. They are suspected of “hiding about 5.93 billion yen inherited from their father, who founded a group of eight firms including real estate leasing and loan companies.”

That comes out to about US$57,000,000. In cash. In their house.

After investigators found “more than 5 billion yen in cash [which] was found in cardboard boxes in a garage”, one of the sisters fessed up, the other said she had “forgotten about [the] cash kept in her home.”

They are charged with “evading about 2.86 billion yen [US$28 million] in inheritance tax, the highest figure for a case involving inheritance tax evasion recorded in Japan”.