Kura Sushi cancelled its Chiikawa campaign over staff misconduct with the prizes. Of 2,820 comments, 38 percent of the vote demanded compensation and legal action, and 45 percent said this was nothing new

What happened

At 7:25 on the evening of 5 September, ITmedia NEWS published this article on Yahoo! News Japan. Kura Sushi, a conveyor-belt sushi chain with restaurants across the country, announced that it was cancelling its running collaboration with the character franchise Chiikawa from the start of business the next day, 6 September, because "misconduct by employees" had come to light. Six things ended at once: the figurines, magnets and badges in the "Bikkura-Pon!" capsule game you can play once for every five plates you eat, a free tea cup, a free sushi plate, a receipt-based prize draw, the collaboration menu, and the in-store decorations.

The trigger was that collaboration prizes had been appearing on a flea-market app before distribution had even begun. People on social media asked how that was possible. Three days earlier, on 2 September, the company had stated that prizes were kept in a locked storeroom, opened and restocked by more than one person, and that "improper handling or acquisition is not tolerated in any form." It also promised strict punishment and legal action if the investigation found wrongdoing. Three days later, the campaign was over. The article ends by noting that television commercials saying the collaboration is on were still airing.

This is what I thought when I read it. I wrote it in Japanese; here is what I said.

This is nothing new, but the film adaptation has brought out even more people trying to make money off it. A poor Japan.

Chiikawa is a manga from X that has become hugely popular in Japan, popular enough to get a film.

The author, Nagano, has had a solid fan base since an earlier work based on the author's own life, and the Kura Sushi collaborations go back several years.

They were not this explosively popular then, so it stayed hidden, but even then complete sets of the goods were being listed on Mercari before the campaign started.

I went to Kura Sushi myself during this campaign, and for some reason goods that were not Chiikawa kept coming out.

[...] The biggest problem is this. Whatever the social problem — reselling, licking the soy-sauce bottle, touching sushi on the belt or licking it and putting it back, filming yourself squirting dish soap on the passing sushi — companies never pursue individuals for the full damages, and that is what breeds "wrongdoing pays." Same as the police today.

So I had three readings. More people are out to make money. Companies do not make individuals pay, so wrongdoing pays off. And that is the same structure as the police. I went to count where the thread put its votes.

92 to 8, and the culprit was the staff from the first comment

I read the thread eleven hours after the article went up, at 6:20 on the morning of 6 September. There were 2,820 top-level comments and 3,615 comments in total on the article. The thread is still growing.

"I relate" was pressed 41,724 times and "hmm" 3,460 times. 92 to 8. "Hmm" won on 164 comments, 6 percent, and 1,071 comments, 38 percent, got no "I relate" at all. The top 10 comments hold 69 percent of the vote.

There was nothing to argue about in this thread. The company itself had said "misconduct by employees," so nobody was hunting for a culprit. Comments naming the staff — employees, shop workers, part-timers, managers, insiders — number 1,071 with 31,257 presses, 75 percent of the vote. Not resellers, not adults buying up children's toys. The people inside the shop.

18 percent of the vote went to one comment

7,620 presses, 18 percent of the vote. It is a short comment. Punish them; this is common, and not only here; crack down. Those three points became the spine of the whole thread.

A word for readers abroad: the Japanese term here, nakanuki, literally "pulling out from the middle," means shop staff securing limited goods for themselves before customers can buy them, or simply walking off with them. As this comment says, this was nothing new for the thread: 290 comments with 18,919 presses, 45 percent of the vote, said so. Convenience-store staff had been caught channelling lottery prizes to flea-market sites. There had been suspicions at a Yoshinoya collaboration. Seven-Eleven had a case. McDonald's Happy Meals had been resold. People named other shops one after another. The fifteenth-placed comment, at 412 presses, put it this way: staff passing goods among themselves was probably an old habit, and the flea-market sites have simply made it visible and easier to catch.

I had written "growing." The thread answered: it has always been there. You can just see it now.

Second and third place both said "make them pay" — 38 percent

Second place has 4,819 presses and third place 4,633. Comments demanding that the people responsible pay compensation, face legal action, be prosecuted or be taken to court number 466, with 15,869 presses — 38 percent of the vote. It is the largest single demand in the thread.

The third-placed comment sees the compensation flowing in two steps: from Kura Sushi to the Chiikawa side, and from the employees to Kura Sushi. Then "keep your receipts" — the customers are claimants too. And indeed, 134 comments with 7,539 presses, 18 percent, demanded refunds or compensation for customers. The seventeenth-placed comment, at 286 presses, argued that if prizes were taken out in advance, the capsule game did not pay out at the advertised odds, so the customers who played it in those first days deserve something back. A customer who plays a game whose prizes have been removed has bought a lottery ticket that cannot win. Comments using the words "fraud" or "the Premiums and Representations Act" — Japan's law on misleading prizes and labelling — number 95, with 1,021 presses, 2.4 percent.

Comments saying that firing them is not enough: 111 comments, 8,476 presses, 20 percent. The thirty-seventh-placed comment, at 88 presses, is candid about why: if the staff were part-timers, simply sacking them costs them almost nothing, and that is what grates. Comments demanding names or a public account of the punishment number 108 with 5,634 presses, 13.5 percent — but 4,819 of those presses belong to the second-placed comment. Take it out and you have 107 comments with 815 presses, 2 percent.

I also counted the legal vocabulary. Comments using the words for embezzlement, theft or breach of trust: 218 comments, 1,057 presses, 2.5 percent. The twenty-fourth-placed comment, at 182 presses, spelled it out: listing goods entrusted to you by your employer on Mercari and pocketing the money is embezzlement in the course of business — "and that is criminal law, not civil." Many comments, few votes. The thread's votes went to making them pay rather than to naming the offence.

47 percent questioned the company. 9.5 percent blamed the flea-market app

Comments questioning the company's controls and responsibility: 392 comments, 19,792 presses, 47 percent. The fourteenth-placed comment, at 439 presses, recalled that when people on social media said the figurines "never come out," the company denied it — it was managing the prizes properly, so that could not be happening — and that customers had been pointing this out for a while without any effective countermeasure. That, the comment says, is the root: the company's lax control. The eighth-placed comment, at 923 presses, said that precisely because anyone can resell online now, the company must build a system in which staff cannot get at event goods. Comments proposing a system fix — serial numbers, two-person checks, draws done on a phone with the prize posted later — number 77, with 2,217 presses, 5 percent.

The words for reselling, Mercari or flea-market apps appear in 699 comments with 10,890 presses, 26 percent. But comments that actually held the flea-market platform responsible — suspend the accounts, ban the listings, disclose the sellers, regulate — number 161, with 3,957 presses, 9.5 percent. The fifth-placed comment, at 2,083 presses, said to accept that reselling will never disappear while the platforms exist, and to agree resale rules with the flea-market sites before the next collaboration. The twenty-ninth, at 131, said Mercari should just suspend every account that resells collaboration goods.

I had expected the thread to go harder on Mercari. It did go there, but with a fifth of the votes it gave the company. This thread did not choose "they steal because there is somewhere to sell." It chose "the people who held the key were careless."

Who deserves pity — 26 percent

Comments pitying the people who had been looking forward to it — a shame, poor them, gutting — number 301, with 10,820 presses, 26 percent. Comments mentioning children: 151 comments, 5,745 presses, 14 percent. The fourth-placed comment, at 3,498 presses, wrote that the children and fans who had been looking forward to this would be gutted, and closed with the thought that the saddest thing is honest staff coming under suspicion. The sixth-placed, at 1,875, said the same: most of the staff work honestly, and a few selfish people have taken the customers' fun away.

Ninth and tenth place are customers who held bookings. Ninth, at 893 presses, happened to have a table that very day and was playing the capsule game when the news alert arrived. Cancelling on people with bookings for the next day, the comment says, is just too harsh. Tenth, at 809, had a booking for Sunday, and asked why the company had not waited until the start of the week to avoid chaos, adding that the honest staff who would spend the day taking complaints from customers who had not heard deserved sympathy. Comments calling the cancellation excessive or the notice too short number 29, with 1,888 presses, 4.5 percent — and these two comments are most of it.

The announcement came at 7:25 in the evening. The cancellation took effect at opening time the next morning. That next morning is the day you are reading this.

"Don't do character collaborations at all" — the most-disliked comment

Seventh place, 1,616 "I relate." And 337 "hmm" — the most "hmm" presses on any of the 2,820 comments. Comments saying character collaborations should simply stop number 62, with 2,130 presses, 5 percent.

"I relate" won, so this is not a losing comment. But the size of the "hmm" tells you that the thread did not sign up to "the collaboration itself was the problem." The forty-first-placed comment, at 69 presses, said it in words: the root of the evil is the staff who cheated and the customers who resell, and it is a pity that the company ends up carrying the blame.

The comment I shared came 89th

This is the comment I shared on X.

25 "I relate," 2 "hmm," 89th in the thread. Comments about the creator or the rights holder number 44, with 841 presses, 2 percent. The sixtieth-placed comment, at 45 presses, guessed that ending the campaign the same day it was announced, rather than at the end of the current round, meant the Chiikawa side was furious. The sixty-fifth, at 41, wanted the Chiikawa rights holder to sue Kura Sushi and collect.

I chose this comment because, while most of the thread was counting who should pay, it was looking at who could walk away. Chiikawa is not a big publisher's serial. Its author drew it on X and it became popular there, so the power to change partners sits with the creator. In this thread, that way of seeing it was 2 percent.

One comment where "hmm" won

1 "I relate," 43 "hmm." The comment breaks off mid-sentence because the original does. Sold it the moment I won it; staff helping themselves is a perk of the job. Whether it was serious or a joke I cannot tell you, but it is the comment this thread most clearly pushed back on.

One more from the 164 comments where "hmm" won, at 0 "I relate" and 5 "hmm": and so the anger of Yahoo's commenters will land on the weakest people, the shop staff, in the form of customer abuse. It is a warning aimed at the thread itself. It got no votes — but it is looking at the same spot as the tenth-placed comment, with 809 presses, which pitied the honest staff who would spend the day taking complaints.

My reading, checked against the numbers

Companies never make individuals pay, so wrongdoing pays off. Compensation and the courts got 38 percent, the largest demand in the thread. Comments speaking of deterrence — make an example, set a precedent, never again — number 105, with 3,336 presses, 8 percent. The literal phrase I used, "wrongdoing pays," appears in only 5 comments with 18 presses, but the substance is the same. Here the thread and I were looking the same way.

More and more people out to make money. Comments about profiteering or pocket money number 109, with 717 presses, 1.7 percent. The thread did not choose "growing." It chose "it has always happened, and the flea-market apps made it visible" — 45 percent.

A poor Japan. Poverty, inequality or wages came up in 20 comments, 132 presses, 0.3 percent. The forty-eighth-placed comment, at 54 presses, argued that low pay and hard lives are behind the rise in this kind of offence — and collected 31 "hmm."

Same as the police. The word appears in 31 comments with 119 presses, 0.3 percent. And most of those are "hand them to the police," not "the police are soft."

The soy-sauce and conveyor-belt prank videos. 85 comments, 160 presses, 0.4 percent. The thread did not file this case alongside customers misbehaving on camera. It filed it under a different heading: the people inside held the key.

This thread was not counting Japan's poverty. It was counting the key to one company's storeroom, and the invoice.

For readers abroad: Bikkura-Pon, skimming, and embezzlement

Chiikawa is a cast of small, cute characters drawn by an artist called Nagano, who publishes the strip on X rather than in a big publisher's magazine, and whose work became popular there. A feature film came out this year; I counted the thread on the article about its 5 billion yen box office in note 0008.

Kura Sushi is a nationwide conveyor-belt sushi chain. Bikkura-Pon! is a game you get to play once for every five plates you eat: put the plates in the slot and a capsule may drop out. During a collaboration, the capsules hold the character figurines and badges. So "the figurines never come out" is also a statement about how many plates you ate. Behind a comment like the second-placed one, at 4,819 presses, are customers who ate tens of thousands of yen of sushi and never won. That is how the game is built.

Mercari is Japan's most-used flea-market app. Prizes that had not yet been handed out were sitting on it. That is why the thread knew from the start that these were goods only someone inside the shop could have had.

Skimming, nakanuki, is staff securing goods for themselves before customers can buy them. Embezzlement in the course of business — taking for yourself property entrusted to you — is Article 253 of the Penal Code, punishable by up to ten years in prison. Theft is Article 235, up to ten years or a fine of up to 500,000 yen. When the twenty-fourth-placed comment said "criminal law, not civil," it was drawing the line between the company suing for its losses and the state punishing a crime. What this thread demanded, at 38 percent, was both.

A word on the shape of the vote, for readers used to other comment sections. A 92-to-8 thread with 38 percent of comments at zero "I relate" and 69 percent of the vote in the top ten is not a thread of 2,820 people arguing. It is a thread of a few hundred people voting on the first few dozen things said, and 2,000 people saying something into silence. That is the normal shape of a Yahoo Japan thread, and the reason I count the buttons rather than the comments.

Two silences are worth naming. The thread barely asked why anyone would do this: pay, poverty and hard lives came up in 20 comments with 132 presses, 0.3 percent of the vote. And it barely looked at the buyers. The people who bought unreleased prizes on Mercari, knowing what that meant, were mentioned in 13 comments with 51 presses, 0.1 percent. The thread's anger had one address: the person with the key to the storeroom, and the company that gave it to them.

The company said "not tolerated in any form" on 2 September and cancelled on the 5th. Three days. Some comments praised the speed. But 47 percent of the vote went to a different question: how a locked storeroom, opened by two people at a time, was emptied anyway.