Count the comments and Japan changes shape.
Under every Japanese news story sits one comment thread — the least processed public voice in the country. I read it to the bottom, count what is in it, and tell you what it says.
Not a subreddit you joined and not a curated feed — just whoever showed up under the article, in public, under a handle.
112,778 comments read in full · 87 notes · zero ads
Recent field notes
The tattooist who said '99% of people with tattoos are idiots' is retiring.
Prime Minister Takaichi's post about 'having older people work' drew a storm of criticism.
The website of the hacker group demanding a ransom from GMO has been taken down.
GMO has put a bounty of up to $1 million on information leading to whoever broke into one of its services.
A break-in at Rakuten Travel may have exposed data on up to 2.6 million people.
GMO's chief apologised: attackers had 'exploited the gap'.
Comedian Highheel Momoko fumed on the radio about a taxi driver.
Japan's Digital Minister told people to protect their own information, and criticism poured in.
Thirty years of regret. What was done to Japan over the Northern Territories, the Senkakus and Takeshima, what Japan said, and what Japan did, counted from the government's own records. Japan acted with something other than words in six cases, twice or more in the same case only three times, and every one ended in a release, a deportation or a refusal. Warning shots: zero
In 30 years: 22 airspace violations, 20 to 40 days a year of intrusions around the Senkakus, six landings by Russian leaders on the Northern Territories. Japan acted with something other than words six times, twice or more in the same case three times, and every one ended in a release, a deportation or a refusal. Warning shots: zero.
What you are looking at, in three lines.
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One comment section per story
Every article on Japan's largest news portal has exactly one comment section under it. Nobody joins it and nobody moderates it into shape - whoever read the article writes there, in the open.
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Three buttons, and that is all
Readers can press "I relate", "good point" or "hmm". Every number in these notes is a count of those presses, and the order of the thread is decided by them too.
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Read to the last comment, then counted
I do not stop at the top ten. One thread, read to the bottom, buttons counted, and the comments quoted word for word - with the Japanese original printed beside my translation so you can check it.