Subject
Daily life
Cigarettes, neighbours, trains, cats. The smaller the subject, the less guarded the replies. These are the frictions that never became news.
- A father whose son was killed by a lorry at an unsignalled crossing says he still regrets not buying the helmet. I counted 1,040 comments. Ninety-eight per cent of the vote went to comments about helmets. Comments blaming the lorry took 0.44 per cent At four in the afternoon on 18 September 2026, the Yomiuri Shimbun ran a story on Yahoo! Read →
- A woman held over cocaine put her tongue out and winked at the camera on her way to the prosecutors. I counted 939 comments and got 95 to 5. But the thread was not angry at the face. It was angry at the sentence that lets her pull it At 6.49 in the evening of 17 September 2026, FNN Prime Online ran a story on Yahoo! Read →
- A Tokyo city bus driver, running empty, repeatedly honked and flashed his lights at a car, shouted an insult, and has been referred to prosecutors for road rage. I counted 2,747 comments: 83 to 17, and 79 percent of the vote went to comments asking what the other car had done first. First place took 15,485 presses. Second place, 10,094, is the comment I had shared on X. Comments that simply said road rage is never excusable took 2 percent On the morning of 11 September 2026, FNN Prime Online published a story on Yahoo! Read →
- Cars keep crossing yellow centre lines to pass cyclists under Japan's new rule, so Tokyo police will repaint half of the city's yellow lines white. I counted 1,487 comments: 94 to 6, and 31 percent of the vote went to one comment, the one I had shared on X, saying cyclists squeezing past stopped cars should keep a metre too. Comments asking why the lines were yellow in the first place took 29 percent. Comments that got the law right took 0.7 percent At midday on 10 September 2026, FNN Prime Online published a story on Yahoo! Read →
- A woman drove the wrong way down a Tokyo expressway to escape the police, was arrested in Shibuya for carrying a knife, and was released the same night. I counted 778 comments: 95 to 5, with 48 percent of the vote saying shoot her, ram her, shoot the tyres. Eighty-nine comments said the police are soft. Twenty-nine, 2 percent of the vote, asked why the charge was the knife On the evening of 9 September 2026, FNN Prime Online published a story on Yahoo! Read →
- A 25-year-old tailgated a car, ran the other driver down, dragged him, and told police he only meant to scare him. One hour and 23 minutes after the article went up I counted 94 comments: 95 to 5, with 61 percent of the vote asking for a heavy sentence and a lifetime licence ban. Thirty-four comments, 36 percent of the thread, were about the suspect's face and mask. One comment said the police do not enforce the rules At 6:00 on the morning of 9 September 2026, FNN Prime Online published a story on Yahoo! Read →
- 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 Kura Sushi, one of Japan's biggest conveyor-belt sushi chains, announced on the evening of 5 September that it was cancelling its running Chiikawa collaboration from the next morning, because "misconduct by employees" had come to light. Read →
- An 18-year-old father was arrested for killing his two-month-old baby. Of 209 comments, 48 percent of the vote said "a child had a child" — and 6 percent said the courts would go easy on him In Fukuyama, Hiroshima, an 18-year-old company employee was arrested on suspicion of murder. Read →
- Five high schoolers were arrested for a honey-trap robbery in Shibuya. Of 2,677 comments, 67 percent of the vote went to one law — and 0.2 percent to the adult's side of it In Shibuya, Tokyo, five people including a first-year high school girl were arrested on suspicion of planning a honey-trap robbery: they assaulted a man, injured him, told him "this one is 15, what are you going to do about it — pay 8 million yen in settlement money," and took 300,000 yen in cash. Read →
- A salon charges you for being 15 minutes late, then keeps you waiting 30. I counted 612 comments — 84 percent agreement, and 47 percent of the votes were not about hair at all On 17 August 2026 someone posted on X: "I'm at a salon whose sign says a 15-minute delay costs you a cancellation fee, and I've now been waiting 12 minutes past my appointment." They added: "I get fined for being late, and you get nothing?" The post passed 110,000 likes, and the cut finally finished 30 minutes behind schedule. Read →
- "Should the Imperial Palace run be banned?" I counted 3,570 comments — 90 percent agreement, and the page is written by the people who were told to get out of the way The footpath circling Tokyo's Imperial Palace is the most famous running spot in the city. Read →
- Chilled crab ramen at a Tokyo festival left 76 people sick. I counted 656 comments — 93 percent agreement, and the top voice wasn't about the ramen. It was about the chef's past. At Azabu-Juban's summer festival in Tokyo, 76 people fell ill after eating a 2,000-yen "chilled crab ramen" from a street stall run by a nearby restaurant. Read →
- FamilyMart said hijabs are fine under its new uniform rules, and the internet caught fire. I counted 938 comments: the top voice rejects the religion outright with 5,979 votes — but the page's second subject wasn't religion. It was konbini wages. FamilyMart, Japan's second-largest convenience-store chain, changed its staff uniform rules for the first time in ten years: from September 1, employees may wear the hijab. Read →
- From September 1, the speed limit on roughly 70 percent of Japan's roads drops from 60 to 30 km/h. I counted 1,461 comments expecting a revolt — 73 percent sided with the rule. But the fourth-loudest voice said: nobody told us. From September 1, Japan's default speed limit on "community roads" — any road without a centre line or median — falls from 60 km/h to 30 km/h. Read →
- One illegally parked car stopped a Shibuya bus for 23 minutes. I counted 1,564 comments — 93 percent agreement, the loudest demand was "send them the bill" in 416 comments, and the police stood there for 17 minutes without moving the car. On the evening of August 3, a single car parked on Inokashira Street in Shibuya, Tokyo, blocked a Keio Bus route bus for about 23 minutes. Read →
- "He shines brightest now," said the headline. I counted 461 comments, and 42 percent of the approval went to the people nobody writes about. A Japanese YouTuber who says he committed assault at fourteen and was arrested six times afterwards has had the fighters' names removed from his cheeks and announced he is turning to music. Read →
- Under a headline about 'smelly ojisan,' the most-read comment was an ojisan's laundry recipe. A thread that taught instead of judged. A midsummer piece on the 'smell problem' at Comiket — the world's largest fan-comics fair, 260,000 people in Tokyo's August heat — under the headline: what separates the ojisan who smells from the one who doesn't? Read →
- Seven teenagers competed over how many minutes they could delay trains. The comment section's sentence: not a cell — a bill, with their names on it. Seven boys aged 14 to 17 — train photographers — were charged with obstructing railway business: they pulled emergency door levers and walked into closed crossings to stop trains, then competed over who caused the longest delay. Read →
- The driver was arrested for attempted murder. Japan's comment section put the people he nearly hit on trial. At a railway crossing in Naruto, Tokushima, a 55-year-old man allegedly assaulted a 19-year-old train photographer and then reversed his car at him — an attempted-murder arrest. Read →
- A Turkish driver was arrested for drifting on a Japanese public road. The comment section's first question: how does he afford that car? In the small hours of August 17, Aichi police announced the arrest of a 29-year-old Turkish company employee for drift-driving on a public road, and promised tighter enforcement ahead of next month's Asian Games. Read →
- "99% of my tattoo clients are idiots." The room agreed 7.3 to 1 — and added the missing words: in Japan. A tattoo artist with twenty years in the trade said on YouTube that 99 percent of the people he tattoos are idiots. Read →
- The comments knew his hotel room number. His family got five votes. A senior Akita official fronted a remote press conference about a trillion-yen AI datacenter project in a bathrobe, smoking. Read →
- Japan's feeds laugh at "ojisan fashion". The comment section answered, 5.9 to 1. Skinny jeans, shorts, hoodies past forty, popped polo collars — a listicle of what social media certifies as itai (cringe) on middle-aged men. Read →
- It was never about smoking. It's about what leaks. A TV personality said smokers' rights are being violated. Read →
- He broke up the cat fight. The court found the human guilty. A Japanese cat owner stepped in to stop a fight — and got the accusing stare from both cats. Read →