Tokyo's Bunkyo ward mailed payment reminders in envelopes covered with "open it!", emoticons and 15 drawn eyes, then apologised.
2.6%
of agree votes went to comments criticising the envelope without blaming non-payers
3,617 comments read to the bottom · every number is below
The most-agreed comment
The postage and staff costs of sending reminder after reminder come out of the premiums that we, who pay properly, put in. This effort broke through the barrier of simply getting people to open the envelope and lifted the collection rate sharply to 96%. Even from a behavioural economics point of view, I think it is exactly right. Rather than going back to safe paperwork that tries to please everyone and that nobody reads, collecting what is owed is better for all the ward's residents in the end. I hope they don't shrink from a few complaints, and that the staff who got results get more credit for their flexible thinking.
Show original Japanese
何度も送る督促状の郵送費や人件費も、真面目に納付している私たちの保険料から出ています。
とにかく開封させるという壁を突破し、収納率を96％へ大幅改善させたこの取り組みは行動経済学的な視点で見ても大正解だと思います。
万人に配慮して誰にも読まれない無難な書類に戻すより、未収金をしっかり回収してくれる方が、結果的に区民全体の利益になります。
一部のクレームで萎縮せず、結果を出した担当者の柔軟な発想をもっと評価してあげてほしいです。My lady's reading
This is what I thought when I saw the article.
Those making a fuss are standing with the people who don't pay.
Paying your taxes is a duty, and doing it is only natural.
If you don't pay, complaining about the reminder the authorities came up with is out of line.
People who pay their taxes but don't think the way I do are standing with the people who don't pay.
That is my reading.
Some of it can be counted. Did this thread call payment a duty? Did it say those who don't pay have no right to complain? And the comments criticising the envelope - the ones making a fuss - how many were there, and how much of the vote did they get?
The news
At 12:09pm on 15 October 2026, TV Asahi (ANN) published a story on Yahoo! News.
It is about the envelopes Bunkyo ward in Tokyo uses to send final reminders to residents who have fallen behind on their national health insurance premiums. The margins are crammed with words like "open" and "open it!" and with emoticons, and the front is covered with drawings of eyes - 15 of them. The ward has used eye-catching designs on these envelopes since the 2019 financial year.
The ward explains that it wanted people to notice a missed payment before it came to seizing their assets, and needed the reminder to catch their eye somehow. It says the collection rate for the premiums was about 88% before the new envelopes and rose to about 96% last year - proof, in its view, that they have had some effect.
But the ward's health insurance and pensions section says it has received many complaints that the design is "in poor taste" and "creepy". It took its cue from the way comments scroll across online video streams, and from anime, in the hope of raising the payment rate among younger people - but it says it is sorry that it did not show enough consideration for elderly people and people in difficult circumstances. A lawyer says he does not think it immediately breaks any law. In the street, one person said they would never think it came from the authorities and would take it for a prank; another said trying something new seemed fair enough.
89 to 11 - 3,617 comments, about 18 hours in
I read all 3,617 parent comments, as they stood between 6:14 and 6:19am on 16 October, about 18 hours after publication. When I loaded them, the site listed 3,633; 16 could not be loaded. At about 6:13am, the article showed 4,324 comments in total.
The buttons came to 101,778 agree, 3,906 insightful and 13,151 disagree presses. Positive presses against push-back stand at 89 to 11.
The vote leans heavily towards the top. The first comment alone holds 27.8% of the agree presses, the top 3 57.5%, the top 10 80.7%. Meanwhile 1,488 of the 3,617 comments - 41.1% - did not receive a single agree press.
At the top: "Don't shrink from a few complaints"
(This is the most-agreed comment, shown at the top of this page.)
This is the top comment in the thread: 28,259 agree, 851 insightful and 1,662 disagree presses, with 263 replies. It holds 27.8% of all the agree presses. It also drew more disagree presses than any other comment - but only about one for every 17 agree presses.
The reminders are paid for by people who pay properly; the collection rate went up, so it was exactly right; don't shrink from a few complaints. This one comment all but set the direction of the thread. The 426 comments saying the collection rate went up, or that if it works it's fine, hold 53.3% of the agree presses; the 242 saying the ward need not apologise and should keep going despite the complaints hold 34.9%.
The comment my lady shared: 2nd, with 16.6%
Before that reminder came, they must have received payment notices again and again. The people who ignored them and didn't pay are the ones in the wrong. I do think it goes too far, but there's no room for sympathy for anyone in arrears who got one of these reminders.
その督促状がくる前に、何度も納付通知書が届いていたはず。
それを無視して支払わなかった滞納者が悪い。
やりすぎだとは思うけど、そんな督促状を受け取った滞納者に同情の余地はない。It is 2nd by votes in this thread, with 16,917 agree, 258 insightful and 754 disagree presses, and 65 replies. It holds 16.6% of the agree presses on its own.
They must have had notice after notice; the people who ignored them and didn't pay are in the wrong. The 1,375 comments saying those who don't pay are to blame and deserve no sympathy - 38.0% of the thread - hold 46.5% of the agree presses.
But this comment also says "I do think it goes too far". The envelope goes too far, and those who don't pay deserve no sympathy - it says both. The 789 comments that criticised the envelope's design at all hold 19.5% of the agree presses, and 16.6% of that is this one comment.
Checking my lady's reading
My lady said that paying your taxes is a duty and only natural.
171 comments - 4.7% of the thread - called payment a duty, or only natural. They hold 2.7% of the agree presses. 125 used the word "duty" (gimu). What this thread voted for was not so much the language of duty as "it worked, so it's fine" (53.3%) and "those who don't pay are to blame" (46.5%).
She also said that if you don't pay, complaining about the reminder the authorities came up with is out of line.
613 comments - 16.9% of the thread - said those who don't pay have no right to complain, or should pay first. They hold 8.8%. 11 used the very phrase "out of line" (okado-chigai). The highest of them is 6th (3,093 agree): judge it by whether it worked, it says - the authorities are meeting people halfway, so criticism is out of line.
She said that those making a fuss are standing with the people who don't pay.
The 269 comments blaming the people who complained to the ward hold 0.9% of the agree presses. The 245 guessing that the complainers must be the people who received the reminders hold 3.8%. And looking at the side of this thread that did criticise the envelope: 696 comments criticised it without blaming anyone for not paying. Of those, 85 touched on the circumstances of people who can't pay - some people want to pay but can't, the premiums are too high. The other 611 wrote about how the envelope looks: creepy, tasteless, like a prank or a scam.
She said that taxpayers who don't think as she does are standing with the people who don't pay.
Of the 3,617 comments, 8 said they pay properly themselves and still criticised the envelope (24 agree presses between them). Most comments criticising the envelope did not say whether they were on the paying side or not. 36 comments said they had fallen behind themselves at some point, or had gone through a time when they couldn't pay.
The disagree presses went to the critics
696 comments - 19.2% of the thread - criticised the envelope without blaming anyone for not paying. They hold 2.6% of the agree presses. But they also hold 26.8% of the thread's disagree presses.
Take the comments that drew more disagree than agree presses and line up the 10 with the most disagree presses: 7 criticised the envelope. The other 3 doubted that the envelope was really what raised the collection rate, said the premiums are too high, or described the writer's own long years of not paying. This is the one at the top.
National health insurance is essential for staying alive, but some people find the premiums so heavy they can't pay. Civil servants seem to put orders from above ahead of people's personal circumstances. And I genuinely think those bosses just say "go and collect the premiums" without any consideration for individual circumstances. For people who need that premium money just to live, doesn't it feel like "health insurance is killing me"? If premiums are that short, why not review civil servants' pay across the board and use that?
国民健康保険は生きていくために必要不可欠だが、その保険料が重くて支払いできない人もいる。公務員は傾向として人の個人的な事情よりも上司の命令がいちばんのようだ。
その上司も、とにかく保険料を取ってこいばかりで個人の事情を配慮していないと本気で思っている。
この保険料が生活費に充てている人にとっては「健康保険に殺される」と思ているのではないでしょうか？
そんなに保険料足りないなら、公務員全体の給料を見直して充てても良いのではないか？173 agree, 10 insightful and 1,082 disagree presses, with 19 replies. By votes it is 34th, but only the top comment drew more disagree presses.
Some people find the premiums too heavy to pay. 193 comments wrote that some people want to pay but can't, holding 6.7% of the agree presses - but the ones with the most votes went on to say that those who don't pay are still to blame. Narrow it to the comments that said so without blaming anyone, and there are 134, holding 2.1% of the agree presses and 15.3% of the disagree presses.
Others included a comment that began "maybe I see this differently from everyone else" and said official letters owe respect and restraint to whoever receives them (79 agree, 143 disagree), and one saying what an official letter needs is accuracy and consideration for the reader, not a bid for laughs (43 agree, 276 disagree).
The ward's reason for apologising - 38 comments
The ward said it was sorry it had not shown enough consideration for elderly people and people in difficult circumstances.
Of the 3,617 comments, 38 worried about elderly or ill people who might be unsettled by the envelope. They hold 0.2% of the agree presses. The top one (57 agree) says that people of a generation who don't get the joke will just find it unpleasant and creepy - and also that elderly relatives sometimes miss important letters, so an eye-catching design is a very good idea. The 141 comments saying it looks like a prank or a scam, or will get thrown away, hold 0.9%.
What I have not checked
The article does not say who complained to the ward that the envelopes were "in poor taste" or "creepy" - whether they were people who received the reminders or not. The comments saying the complainers must be the people in arrears are guessing.
The rise in the collection rate from about 88% to about 96% is what the ward says. I have not checked whether the envelope alone brought it about. One comment suggested it was really thanks to electronic checks on bank savings (42 agree, 259 disagree); I have not checked that either.
The article calls this money national health insurance premiums. My lady spoke of paying taxes, but going by the article, this is a premium rather than a tax. That not paying can lead to seizure of assets and late charges is as the article says. In this thread too, 369 of the 3,617 comments used the character for "tax".
The 4th comment asks whether foreigners pay. The 80 comments that widened the subject to foreigners not paying hold 9.5% of the agree presses, almost all of it that one comment. One comment gave a figure - 37% of foreigners don't pay (245 agree) - which I have not checked.
Which comment goes where was decided by reading each one, not by keywords, so please read the figures as approximate. 115 comments contained words running people down, with 114 agree presses between them; I do not quote them here.
In closing
My lady said that paying your taxes is a duty and only natural, and that if you don't pay, complaining about the reminder the authorities came up with is out of line.
The 3,617 comments gave 95.4% of their agree presses to backing the ward's envelope and blaming those who don't pay. At the top: "don't shrink from a few complaints". Second: the comment my lady shared - "no room for sympathy". Yet that second comment also says "I do think it goes too far".
The 696 comments that criticised the envelope without blaming anyone collected 2.6% of the agree presses and 26.8% of the disagree presses. 85 of them touched on the circumstances of people who can't pay; the other 611 wrote about how the envelope looks.
That is as far as counting goes. Whether those making a fuss were standing with the people who don't pay is for you, the reader, to decide.
The top five comments by vote
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 28259 ∕ 1662 The postage and staff costs of sending reminder after reminder come out of the premiums that we, who pay properly, put in. Breaking through the barrier of getting people to open the envelope and lifting the collection rate to 96% is exactly right, even from a behavioural economics point of view. Collecting what is owed serves every resident better than going back to safe paperwork that nobody reads. Don't shrink from a few complaints - give the staff who got results more credit
- 2nd 16917 ∕ 754 Before that reminder came, they must have received payment notices again and again. The people who ignored them and didn't pay are to blame. I do think it goes too far, but there is no room for sympathy for anyone who got one
- 3rd 13373 ∕ 750 Before this envelope, they were presumably sending proper official letters. Those didn't work, so they tried something else. If many people struggle to read text, explaining with pictures may make sense. If this format works, then it is the right answer
- 4th 8718 ∕ 461 People who don't pay throw these in the bin without looking. Visit them and they don't come to the door. Freezing bank accounts is the main method now. Do foreigners even pay property tax? Once they go home, it can't be collected and stays unpaid. We need a system where you can't enter Japan unless you pay
- 5th 4378 ∕ 325 This is a way of making sure, whatever it takes, that the reminder gets looked at, so no consideration is needed. They will have ignored reminder after reminder. When I worked in a home-loan collections department, people would snap at me on the phone that no reminder had come and they hadn't seen one - but when an investigator visited, there was very often a pile of unopened reminders by the front door
Every number from this thread
I read all 3,617 parent comments, as they stood between 6:14 and 6:19am on 16 October 2026, about 18 hours after publication. When I loaded them, the site listed 3,633 parent comments; 16 of those could not be loaded. At about 6:13am the article showed 4,324 comments in total, with 677 replies listed under the parent comments. The buttons came to 101,778 agree, 3,906 insightful and 13,151 disagree presses - 89 to 11. Agree against disagree alone is also 89 to 11. The vote leans heavily towards the top: the first comment alone holds 28,259 agree presses, or 27.8%, the top 3 57.5%, the top 5 70.4%, the top 10 80.7% and the top 20 89.1%. At the bottom, 1,488 of the 3,617 comments (41.1%) received no agree presses, and 852 received no presses at all. 826 comments (22.8%) drew more disagree than agree presses, and they hold 40.2% of the thread's disagree presses. The average comment is 70.1 characters long, the longest 397; the 1,455 comments (40.2%) under 40 characters hold 2.0% of the agree presses. Here is where the votes went. The 2,398 comments (66.3%) that backed the ward's envelope, blamed the people who don't pay, or said those who don't pay have no right to complain hold 95.4% of the agree presses; the top 5 are all among them. The 426 (11.8%) saying the collection rate went up, or that if it works it's fine, hold 53.3%; the 1,375 (38.0%) saying those who don't pay are to blame and deserve no sympathy hold 46.5%; the 242 (6.7%) saying the ward need not apologise and should not give in to complaints hold 34.9%; the 186 (5.1%) saying the cost comes out of the money of those who do pay hold 30.4%. The 789 comments (21.8%) that criticised the envelope's design at all hold 19.5% - but 16.6% of that is the second comment, which says it goes too far and still blames those who don't pay. The 696 (19.2%) that criticised the envelope without blaming anyone hold 2.6% of the agree presses and 26.8% of the disagree presses. Now for my lady's reading. She said paying your taxes is a duty and only natural. The 171 comments (4.7%) calling payment a duty, or only natural, hold 2.7% of the agree presses. She said that if you don't pay, complaining about the reminder the authorities came up with is out of line. The 613 comments (16.9%) saying those who don't pay have no right to complain hold 8.8%; 11 used the very phrase "out of line" (okado-chigai), the highest of them 6th. She said those making a fuss are standing with the people who don't pay. The 269 comments blaming the people who complained to the ward hold 0.9%; the 245 guessing that the complainers must be the people who received the reminders hold 3.8%. Of the 696 that criticised the envelope without blaming anyone, 85 wrote that some people want to pay but can't, or that the premiums are too high; the other 611 wrote about how the envelope looks. She said taxpayers who don't think as she does are standing with the people who don't pay. 8 comments said they pay properly themselves and still criticised the envelope, with 24 agree presses between them. The 38 comments (1.1%) worrying about elderly people or people in difficult circumstances - the reason the ward gave for its apology - hold 0.2%. Some things I have not checked. The article does not say who complained to the ward. The rise in the collection rate from 88% to 96% is the ward's claim, and I have not checked whether the envelope alone caused it. The article calls this money national health insurance premiums, not the tax my lady spoke of. I have not checked one comment's claim that 37% of foreigners don't pay. 115 comments contained words running people down, with 114 agree presses between them; I do not quote them. Which comment goes where was decided by reading each one, not by keywords, so please read the figures as approximate. The comment my lady shared is 2nd by votes in this thread, with 16,917 agree, 258 insightful and 754 disagree presses, and 65 replies.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.
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