Middle-aged man trading cards go viral in rural Japan town
tokyoweekender.com
tokyoweekender.com
> “We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children and the older generations in the community. There are so many amazing people here. I thought it was such a shame that no one knew about them,” [...] “Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures.” > Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for community activities — just for a chance to meet the ojisan from their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled since the game launched.
there's so much more I want to comment on--it's not screen-based, increased cross-generational interaction, strengthening community, elders having their stories known--but what I love is that these effects will compound into even greater benefits for the community.
This is an engaging way that brings that back - rather than focusing on fantasy heroes, show kids real life role models.
In the age where anyone can find anything online, experience is more valuable than it ever was. Technology won't replace that.
We used to (as a population) migrate to opportunity far more than we do now.
For many reasons there is simply far less community engagement and integration going on. Fewer people put down strong “roots” in their communities these days.
Post WW2 for the boomers was loaded with people flooding to all kinds of industrial boom cities.
After that it was hollowing out of the rust belt and moving out of cities to suburbs due to the lead/crime epidemic.
Then rich cities boomed back with millennials in a continuous feedback loop where the successful ones became more desirable as money brought attractions/activities/restaurants, draining the failing ones even more.
Then 2020 was the brief mega disruption where people thought the internet might catch on and they found out the vast majority of white collar jobs can be done from home so the fanned out to all of the nice and cheap suburbs, mountain towns, etc. Now the Internet fad has worn off so that’s reversing a bit.
Moving in the US has been very common until this brief lull where you could change jobs without relocating thanks to remote work.
Unfortunately we’re going backwards so it wouldn’t surprise me if constant relocation resumes.
It didn't mean there weren't people that lived long-term in communities. However, it did mean that you could find more lucrative opportunities in different places while also affording to move and live there.
That began to slowly change in the 60's, beginning with the death of single occupancy residences and a lack of funding/investment in affordable housing for a significant portion of income brackets.
The last 30ish years helped cement that for lots of reasons, but the ability to work remotely via the internet isn't particularly new nor causative for that change.
Living cost was a big barrier back then (except maybe the homesteading) too. Any time someone is leaving a poor outlook to a more booming area it usually means cost of living is going up.
> but the ability to work remotely via the internet isn't particularly new nor causative for that change
It absolutely was the first time any non-trivial percentage of work was remote. More importantly, the spike meant 15% of the population became eligible to leave an expensive city that sucked during the lockdowns. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2024/dec/trends-wo...
There is most definitely affordable housing all over the US. People are just both picky and lacking opportunity in the cheaper places. Remote work was the fix for the latter part so downplaying that is missing the point.
If you have a remote job and just want to live in NYC because of culture, then you have no leg to stand on when complaining about housing. It’s purely a luxury decision at that point.
> That began to slowly change in the 60's, beginning with the death of single occupancy residences
This is only true in a few select areas. Check out https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renters-vs-homeowne...
Specifically the “average annual homeownership rates since 1964”. Right below it has a snapshot of rates by state and the difference tells you everything you need to know.
Housing is only broken in the top desired areas and remote work gave you the opportunity to get a good job while leaving those.
Same as now. The data clearly shows more job opportunity in rural areas (not all rural areas) and more affordable living to go along with it. But we haven't (yet) reached the dire situation where the people actually have to make the move like previous generations found themselves in. Most people won't leave family and friends behind unless they feel they are out of options.
International migration has increased over time, although still representing a very small segment of the population. Presumably that is mostly people fleeing terrible situations (e.g. war torn areas). When you are in a stable country, it doesn't matter so much where in the country you are.
We can't hide from the influence the elder generations had on the current situation. Japan is a developed nation with a crazy low crime rate and incredible infrastructure thanks to them. It's also a social mess and the poster child of stagnation thanks to them.
This whole trading card game surfaces both sides of the coin, with what these people are bringing to the community and also why small kids shouldn't look to much upon them as it's a recipe for trouble.
The rules are very open and clear. The deincentives for misconduct are strong.
The newspapers focus are different. More fun or actionable news.
People just think they are built different, that is not the case. They just succeed with many small things that makes a greater whole. But people just dismiss it as a culture thing, which is reductive.
Aren't rules part of the culture? The culture helps strengthening the rules while the rules help strengthening the culture.
Because it’s not that it is used to attack people that are different, but it is used to deincentive bad behaviour, but by conflating the two you end up in a bad place, where incentives are…misaligned.
Many people admire Japanese culture. But they wouldn't have anything to admire had Japanese people not conserving and caring greatly about their culture and sticking to their rules and ways of life.
I probably won't be integrating in the Japanese culture, but I admire and respect it and the fact they still have that culture.
”Would never work here, the culture is different!”
Maybe Im just ranting…
This is the exact opposite of my experience (and all my Japanese friends). They will stare at the person misbehaving but will absolutely not challenge him. Their culture is "avoid the problem/confronting at all costs".
> The police acts swiftly
They are considered tax thieves, even by Japanese people. Also, talk to some foreign women that got sexually harassed or even raped how the police helped them. In fact, I don't have proof, but I sincerely believe that if the police was trained well, crime rate would increase because they would find more crimes.
> healthy food
Are we talking about deep-fried food? Or perhaps over-salted dishes? Oh, no, you meant the sugar they add in basically all their cooking? Time where they mostly ate fish and rice is over. They barely eat enough vegetables. And fruits are for the well-off only.
It's a country that I love and have spent quite some time there—and more to come—but your observations are exactly the opposite of what I saw.
What they do correctly is the low unemployment rate, though I think it's starting to rise with younger people. People don't need to commit violent crimes to feed themselves if any work lets them afford necessities.
Healthy food. Yes they eat healthy and their BMI shows it. I find it quite ludicrous to think their restaurants represent what they eat on daily basis. Proof is in the pudding (BMI). Yes it is getting worse and I hope American tariffs will help in this regard. Again, healthy living AND getting worse can both be true, especially with people that are friendly with cultures they want to know more about (many, but still a small subset).
Not sure why Violent crime would be better than non-violent crime for feeding your kids. But the narrative that is pushed heavily in media is the equal sign between poor and criminal, instead of the correlation, which again is reductive. Why? Is there anger? What food do trigger it? What mindset?
My grandparents where very poor (as in oat porridge for weeks poor). They would never hurt a fly. In certain minds that would have been a weakness, in certain minds it’s self sacrifice and equal strength.
Most want to be the wolf among the sheep. It is US greatest strength and greatest weakness at the same time.
Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "swift".
> I find it quite ludicrous to think their restaurants represent what they eat on daily basis
I have lived with 2 different Japanese family (one younger, one older) and I was referring to the younger one when writing my previous comment. You say that restaurant doesn't represent what they eat, but again this is not my observation; restaurants and prepared meal (bento) are socheap—price-to-purchasing-power compared to Western countries—that many people don't even cook for themselves. So yes, it's absolutely relevant.
> Not sure why Violent crime would be better than non-violent crime for feeding your kids
I never said it was. But hunger definitely makes you more violent and more irrational. I excluded non-violent crimes because people usually exclude those when thinking about a country's safety. There are a lot of scams in Japan, for example.
> They would never hurt a fly.
Most people would never hurt someone. Most people are lawful. But most criminals are not from well-off families and grew up needy. Perhaps there is a causation, perhaps not.
Petty or to-some-extent violent criminals. White collar criminals, the worse kind of criminal, usually come from good/rich/powerful families (I'm generally speaking, not talking about Japan specifically)
I ate healthily so I wasn't fat by any means (in fact, I'm really skinny), but I ate so much that I think this is the reason I gained some weight. I ate a lot of rice (my rice portion was usually more than a Japanese person's entire plate).
There is huge genetic diversity between geographic regions / ethnic lineages in this regard. On one end you have northern european / african lineages, on the other end you have far east lineages, with other lineages somewhere in between, with northern european / african lineages having the largest fat cell counts, east asians the lowest. Furthermore, north european / african lineages tend to have fat distribution much more biased towards subcutaneous fat, whereas east asian lineages are biased towards abdominal fat, so many of the problems associated with high body fat (not insulin resistance) are seen at lower body fat percentages in east asian lineages.
On top of that, body fat percentage does not map to BMI. BMI may roughly linearly scale with body fat percentage around the "healthy" region, however there will be huge offset between genetic cohorts, including sex.
You should expect east asian BMIs to be lower across the board given similarly "unhealthy" diets.
As someone that lived there, frankly your take come off as the typical "English teacher/exchange student that lived in Tokyo and spend too much time on r/japanlife" and think Tokyo represent the average.
You're not refuting my argument.
> As someone that lived there, frankly your take come off as the typical "English teacher/exchange student that lived in Tokyo and spend too much time on r/japanlife" and think Tokyo represent the average.
That's very condescending of you and again not refuting my claims at all. Do most of your colleagues eat their own dishes? Don't they add a helluva lot sugar and salt to everything? Hell, even Japanese-made Western desserts taste way too sweet.
I think you could be a bit kinder and not resort to personal attacks.
Edit: it's true that I lived in Tokyo, but unfortunately it's a country that contains 4 cities that get more dense by the day at the cost of unpopulated rural areas.
Most people are dying of heart diseases and guess their causes...
Japanese elderly don't even drink the broth of ramen otherwise they may literally die (not my words).
Edit: sugar we don't really need to survive (trace amounts found in fruits and vegetables is basically enough) and salt maximum daily recommended amount is around 3g. Do you know how much salt a tablespoon of soy sauce contains?
Now check what happens when you don’t consume enough sodium [2] (it happens relatively often among athletes and gym bros who drink too much water).
[1] https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/salt-in-you...
[2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyponatremia/...
I totally understand what you mean, however the vast majority of the population isn't even close to being hydrated properly so you're just taking an extreme example to make your point.
Then there is mirin, which is basically sugar.
> If someone misbehaves and two people are close by you can be sure that they loudly will talk with each other about how the person misbehaves
This is just straight up fan-fiction, and absolutely not how the society here operates. You will get stared at. People will move aside, maybe. That's the extent of reaction from the public you can expect.
> The police acts swiftly and have small offices everywhere .
The "small offices"/kobans are more than useless for any actual "crime". They're quite useful in reporting that you lost a wallet/keys, but good luck when having any actual problems that need to be reported. Goes doubly so for areas where there's elevated chance of actual crimes happening — interacting with cops in Kabukicho has to be one of the least useful activities on the planet.
> The prisons are very strict, with beatings if you don’t follow authority.
And this is... a good thing? We have wildly different moral systems if you think that.
> Green tea and healthy food makes people be able to control their mood (hard to not stuff your face).
"Green tea and healthy food" is, frankly, an even stupider argument than "they're built different". Yes, it's the diet that makes the society more conformist, sure, why not.
There's many great, and many not-so-great things about Japan — why do these arguments online always just start with the most basic, surface level, inane pseudoanalysis?
2. Police boxes are great when drunk people are causing ruckus. What are the details in your case?
3. Never said it was. You need to stop seeing things as being good or bad. What I said was strong incentives.
4. L-theanine has a calming effect, it is quite well known. Just as lead has the opposite effect.
To be productive, what actionable insights do you glean from countries such as Japan?
The evidence for this in humans is very weak.
”had significant positive effects on brainwaves, salivary cortisol, and self-reported state anxiety compared to the placebo in response to an acute stress challenge. These changes are indicative of relaxation in the brain and suggest a calming response in a moderately stressed but otherwise healthy population”
Talk about reductive, but also wrong. Not being racist, for example, is the harder option for most people, and not the one encouraged in Japan.
Another one: Japan still has children growing up in orphanages because it is considered weird to take in someone else’s child.
Office life is 50% time spent correctly pandering to your bosses feelings, and they have made so little effort to include women in the workforce and make parenting compatible with a good job that nobody wants to have kids.
I now stand neutral against them: they may be good, they may not be. There's nothing in their age which makes them deserve more respect than the one younger people deserve.
Older people, in general, know more and have better judgment than younger people.
That can have a lot of different meanings.
The other day I joked in conversation that I raise my daughters to disrespect the elderly - particularly my generation in the future - as considering the fertility rates (worse than in Japan) in the region, there will be plenty of elderly compared to younger generations.
I'm only half joking really. My own parents are reaching the age at which they would use some help every now and then. I have two siblings, so it doesn't take huge individual effort from any of us.
Meanwhile I'm the only one there who has children and most likely that will remain the case. Should they feel any obligation to help my siblings once the time comes?
"Family is a burden, and screw old people" doesn't seem that conducive to a good society.
Anyway, again, half-joking here - I'm not actively pursuing this approach, just not nudging them towards the traditional one.
I spent some years in Italy, where the younger generations are absolutely squeezed by the presence of a huge population of elderly. It went to such bizarre extremes where my one Italian friend not only doesn't own a home being in his 40s now, whereas both of his divorced parents each have their own properties, his salary is lower than his father's pension. Kids are of course out of the question.
My country is speedrunning this same scenario and the only thing preventing it from happening now is considerably lower life expectancy compared to Italy.
If we divorce assets are spread equally. Kids complicate things a bit, the person who owes the kids get paid by the other one. As I have a far more flexible job (I do after school care etc) it’s likely I’d keep the kids and thus would be paid child support.
Things suck for the “young” (sub 45 nowadays). Despite what Andrew Tate and his ilk tells you this is nothing to do with gender. It’s to do with every increasing ownership of the wealth by the wealthiest.
However, your accusation is totally wrong and uncalled for. I know the name, but I have never read/heard anything from the Tate brothers. In fact, my opinion about female priviledge in our society stems purely from my own experience, in particular my mother. This is something I'd like to have (make and female) feminists understand. All I need to be resentful of female priviledge is my own mother and her spite and her totally lack of humility. Much of backlash towards feminism is self-inflicted. We don't need hateful men to tell us what to think about female priviledge. All we need is our own eyes. Not all women are shining examples of rationality and empathy. Maybe feminists should start by working on/with the bad apples in their own circles.
Fact is, my mother owns way more then I do, despite actually only having worked roughly 5 years in her whole life. All she owns was built up by men in the family of my father. And she inherited everything, including the priviledge of not having to go to work. If I could, I'd step into her shoes every day. And she doesnt even realize her priviledge, which is insulting.
This is just one example of the elderly spitting on the young, sometimes without even noticing. This tension is going to increase in the future even more.
> Much of backlash towards feminism is self-inflicted.
Self-inflicted by non-feminists?
> We don't need hateful men to tell us what to think about female priviledge.
But you're going to do it anyway.
Sadly posters like this do so much damage to equality discourse that it’s unlikely to ever equalise until this vitriol is lost in the past like the prejudice to left handed people was.
That doesn't mean that every boomer is bad of course, so if you have good (grand)parents, be good to them!
I saw my parents, especially my mom, waste their youth taking care of two people who lived to near 100 years old, and I don’t want to see my kids waste their time and resources on me.
Great for GDP though
Absolutely not, but hopefully your siblings will have been positive enough presences in your children's lives that they will want to of their own accord.
And yes there are of course very nice people who are the exception, but from what I’ve seen they are truly the exception. As Charlie Munger put it “Well, I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I’ve underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther.”
I have a theory that, wrt knowledge, the relative advantage of age has been at least partially eroded by rapid technological advancement. In traditional/tribal societies, prior to the 20th century, wisdom actually accumulated with age, because the pace of change was slower. Wisdom & knowledge could be passed on from generation to generation.
Now, wisdom and knowledge become obsolete quickly. Many things you knew 20 years ago are outdated. The ICE engine you learned how to fix as a kid is now computer controlled, or has been replaced by batteries. Your optimistic/open/friendly mindset now makes you easy pickings for online scammers. Hell, even your family's secret cherished muffin recipe is spurned by your grandchildren because it has gluten or they're vegan or keto or whatever.
All this is just a take, but when I look at voting patterns in particular, I find myself pessimistic that the elderly are wiser than average.
Old people have -through their experience- gained a tacit wisdom that can be very helpful when considering life choices.
That said, it's also something I'm seeing with younger people as well.
Also, current media has the veneer and polish of old media which makes it difficult for the unsavvy.
Wisdom like 'It's harder to build something than it is to tear it down' and 'Change carries its own risk.'
The irony is that older people overwhelming voted for Trump on the basis of returning things to the way they were... and then Trump staffed his administration with young ideologues who are determined to upset the traditional order.
Midterms will be curious.
> The irony is that older people overwhelming voted for Trump on the basis of returning things to the way they were... and then Trump staffed his administration with young ideologues who are determined to upset the traditional order.
There isn't any irony there. People heard promises of some X and Y and Z returning to the way things were, they voted accordingly, and then their candidate proceeded to go against them on A, B and C. This is only surprising if you believe there's a strong ideological correlation between all these things (there isn't), and that parties and their leaders act according to their purported ideologies (they don't).
It's {X,Y,Z} vs {X,Y,C}.
That portions of the investment community threw in behind Trump and are now shocked (shocked!) that he has bigger priorities than keeping the market pumped is absolutely ironic.
The biggest shift towards right wing authoritarianism from a demographic perspective is among the young (specifically young brown/black men in America). This is happening globally at a rapid and unprecedented pace.
Get ready for a conservative, violent, radicalized youth. A Clockwork Orange but with 4chan like characteristics.
I'm not pessimistic about Boomers anymore. They're becoming teddybears as they age.
Two of my teenage sons play sports and at times it feels like all content consumption roads eventually lead to “manfluencers”[0]. If they’re watching content on lifting techniques, sports discussions, or gaming—not uncommon topics for teenagers—the recommendations are riddled with rabbit holes into the so called manosphere.
[0] https://www.psypost.org/rejected-and-radicalized-study-links...
when I look at voting patterns in particular, I find myself pessimistic that the elderly are wiser than average
Don't stop there, look at the US elected representatives! Washington is, from a lot of angles, a gerontocracy, and I don't think anyone would consider it "wise". The world has passed a lot of these folks by and even aside from that, their stubbornness to not step aside has in cases meant that they predictably die in office, so their seats go unfilled for a while, leaving people unrepresented...
Its really not great. There's very few representatives that have any life experiences of someone in the 30s or 40s. I'd argue that makes them out of touch on a host of very real, very pressing issues.
The other thing to think about is the age of those with the levers of power. Its one thing to be elected as a House member or to the Senate, its a whole other thing to sit on key powerful committees, be the leader of the party in the respective chamber etc. and the most powerful folks in congress trend into the 60s+
[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/01/16/age-and-g...
This goes deeper than one might suspect at first glance. The word "senate" comes from sennex, or old man, the same root word as "senile"
1) Lack of wisdom leads to reinvention of the wheel. How many programming languages are there only now doing things the same way as 30 years ago? What is novel versus an unnecessary re-invention?
I started studying Tcl code from back in the late ‘90’s and honestly was surprised. Hell, many people don’t even know what macports is even though homebrew isn’t much but an attempt to reinvent macports with a “cool” spin.
2) Societal language and general problem solving skills are deteriorating. Language, and mathematics evolve ever so slowly, and yet emphasis on their importance is reduced in favor of the whims of technological advancement.
I would rather hire someone with the slow-developing, traditional skills, than the new-age fads.
In addition, with the advances in AI the only people worth hiring will be the ones with traditional education—and the wise, classically trained among our elders will be evermore important.
Similar thing in abstract, but differently in practice and it does matter a lot.
Looking at the Fluent design React components just makes me wonder: this is progress from the desktop metaphor designed in the 90’s? What are we trying to achieve?
Then, I take a step back and realize that the 20-something’s from today don’t generally know what that is because they are cloud native.
I’m not sure if technology is to blame, I think social media is probably part of their corruption, Fox News too, but yeah, the lack of interest in their opinions is mostly self inflicted and I feel they choose to believe in nonsense because it’s fun to hate things.
What technology has done is give me access to lots of knowledge and wisdom and now I don’t have to put up with all the cruft to get what I need.
Some elders in my life are more balanced and I enjoy seeking their opinion and wisdom and leaning on their experience for all sorts of things.
One exception for me is that in Japan, even opinions are considered to be potentially offensive so elderly people are careful with their words. I’ve very really interacted with an older Japanese person who just spits rhetoric and conspiracy theories. Japanese even are careful to make a statement like “this is the best chocolate I’ve tasted”, It’s much more common to say “I think this is wonderful”.
It's obvious that a lot of people feel like they have to find a way to get rich in the next three years or they will be poor forever. I am sure my generation was often the same. But people who have been through good times and bad times understand risk and patience.
It is nice to read articles like this. I wish more humans looked at other humans beyond their youth, looks and their net worth
>The rarity of a card isn’t based on fantasy stats — it’s tied to real-world contributions. The more actively the ojisan engages in volunteer work or community service, the higher the chances of their card being upgraded to a shiny version with a glossy laminated effect.
per usual, women just exist :) men get to be heroic elders, women are footnotes, merely assisting men to become heroes.
It's about equity, not equality.
And the physical / game medium helps connect intergenerationally as well. But actually I could see this kind of trading card dynamic working in other situations like business networking or speed dating or something.
cross-class interaction too.
in ~2012 i was in Tokyo, and by chance was (also) invited to someone's birthday.. The guy was working as pizzeria-waiter, and has invited.. all his usual clients to his birthday - in his small apartment, with "everyone brings some food they made" instead of gifts. My friend was a client.. so i landed there too. That was the most bizarre mix of people there. Some were just mom-and-pop. Some were millionaires. And everything in between. Most were japanese, but also from about 3-4 diff. countries. And everyone talking with everyone else as equal..
a very interesting cross-section - and should i say glimpse-of-future - of society.
“Good morning! Are you up?” asks the fisherman in the video, to which the user replies “Yes, thanks to you. Are you on your ship?” “Yeah, I got up at 3, so I’m already on the sea,” he replies, before adding “I caught a really big fish.”
Next year it will be an AI.
The few games that succeed in building something deeper (for me RDR2 but you take your pick) have to carve out sacrifice and character out of the player’s time, which is finite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_robotics
Female companion robot as early as 2005.
Wow.
The cards are exemplary. Any Ojisan[0] featured on a card should feel honored. I looked at the cards shown to us and immediately was struck by the artists ability to both see the beauty in these fine people and deliver it on the card in a compelling, clearly respectful way.
And the motive! It is simple and noble: Elevating Town Fathers in the eyes of those for whom they often serve.
The idea is pure,[1] uncluttered by unnecessary detail and expectations. The only real complication came from the kids, who naturally wanted the game aspect to make the whole thing fun!
Of course they did.
Humans being beautiful. That is what this is and as much as I want this sort of thing where I live, I know it would not be this organic thing of beauty and that makes me sad. I am not sure enough of us here have what is needed.
I am definitely sharing today. What a delightful story!
[0] Capitalized because local heroes
[1] Pure is the word I use in this context. There may be better ones. Please share.
Yours does nail a couple strong elements to it.
It seems almost noble, or just is a celebration of quiet nobility. That is a part of it too.
I feel this is one of those times we would learn Germans have a dead on word like they often do.
Yeah but it would be 72 characters long, being composed out of 6 different words difficult on their own (I know German a bit, and some words I have to read in my head loudly to see where they break into subparts)
I feel the Japanese have been pretty good at exporting culture, but it has a lot of misses among the few hits. I wonder if this is something that would catch on outside of Japan.
Another thing Japan had before the US was texting on your phone. I was living in Japan at the time and recall telling my American friend who worked as a Manager at ATT about texting and she thought it was the dumbest thing she had ever heard of.
No idea if they had cream of corn.
Then I moved to the US and the shock of not being able to text between networks was really something. That and writing cheques. I'd never written a cheque in Australia or Europe but you sort of had to in the US while electronic payments between banks were sorted in Australia in the 1990s.
These days it seems when a technology appears it generally spreads more quickly.
Wasn’t foreign texting expensive at the time?
You thought blue bubble was bad, it literally cost you money to talk to people who chose another carrier.
The texting culture had funny side effects then because of it. You would get roasted for multiple messages when one would suffice. :)
Its a cultural thing I am sure. As an American I will say that prepared food served from a vending machine is going to be associated with low quality and possible poor hygiene. I'd equate it with food from a gas station store or roach coach (mobile canteen)- food prepared with little care or quality, destined to be sold for as little as possible while still being profitable. Stale bread, wilted vegetables, low quality meats, cheese, etc, sloppy prep. Who cares, ship it.
On the other hand, I can see food vendors in Japan guarding their reputation with attention to their craft ensuring quality.
The grandparent post is talking about canned food/drink that's heated in the machine. Vending machines with freshish prepared food do exist, but they're kinda pointless given the existence of...
> I'd equate it with food from a gas station store or roach coach (mobile canteen)- food prepared with little care or quality, destined to be sold for as little as possible while still being profitable
Convenience store food in Japan is fantastic: food from 7/11, Lawson, Family Mart, etc. is probably unironically better than the median restaurant in the U.S.
Indeed. Spent a few weeks there last year. You can't throw a rock and not hit one of those places - it's absurd how many there are no matter where you are. Though, TBF in NYC the density of convenience stores/bodegas is similar but the consistency lacking. I do miss those gooey chocolate babka things they sell in the 7-11s.
> is probably unironically better than the median restaurant in the U.S.
Eh... I would say they certainly beat out fast food.
I think some Americans might object more to the idea of microplastics leaching into your food, or high amounts of preservatives, though. And the ubiquity of vending machines in Japan makes it possible to build a habit around vending machine food, whereas in the US they're fewer and far between, so you couldn't really depend on them.
The US used to have much more diverse vending machine offerings, including prepared hot foods and drinks, but they started to disappear in the 1970s, though you could find stragglers into the 1990s in older institutional settings (e.g. government buildings), especially for drinks--coffee, hot cocoa, etc. As previously mentioned, I think they fell out of favor because they began to be considered very poor quality (it's a death spiral if turnover doesn't happen fast enough), perhaps as compared to increasingly popular drive-thru alternatives. I guess in a way it was a result of our car culture. Like with the demise of cafeterias generally[1], Americans preferred to jump in their car rather than choosing from what was available within walking distance.
[1] A wall of vending machines selling sandwiches, salads, soups, and hot drinks constituted a "cafeteria" in many buildings.
It is always cold, usually carbonated, sweet drinks, water, or junk food like candy, chips, and pastries.
In Europe, it’s quite common to see machines like these in buildings: https://www.seeberger-professional.de/wp-content/uploads/202... (left to right: hot drink, snack, and cold drink machines).
Smaller ones are also common: https://www.observantonline.nl/Portals/0/OpenContent/Files/1... (there you can also see the disposable cups that the hot drinks are dispensed in).
Is that why Starbucks is popular in America - no hot drink machines?
The actor Tommy Lee Jones has some amusing commercials for canned coffee:
* https://www.brandinginasia.com/the-tuesday-take-suntory-boss...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Coffee
The premise is that he is an alien in disguise evaluating human society, so some of the situations shown are quite whimsical.
Was this tradition referenced or inspired by Bill Murray's "Suntory Time" scene in "Lost in Translation" (2003)?
> Anyone who has seen Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation must wonder for at least a second if there is truth in Bill Murray’s character of a famous American actor in Japan to film a commercial. Well, there definitely is. Huge American and European stars have been hawking products in Japanese commercials for decades.
* https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/western-entertainers-who-...
* https://www.goretro.com/2015/08/sake-to-me-western-celebs-in...
referenced. Here's a couple suntory commercials dating much older:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgEM8VjHD_0
Andy Warhol for TDK
https://www.sherdog.com/thumbnail_crop.php?image=http://www....
They're everywhere!
In rural Hokkaido, some people even have them outside their home's driveway for people walking by. They have various teas (green, hojicha, jasmine, etc.), Coke and Pepsi products, Pocari Sweat (like Gatorade), iced coffees, and sometimes even hot teas and hot coffees that are heated on demand. They're super convenient and something I miss having in America (we seemed to have more of them here in the 90's and early 2000's).
The only problem is that in Japan there can sometimes be absolutely zero public garbage (or, more correctly, recycling) bins in sight. You have to carry your trash with you, which is a bit annoying and mildly gross if it spills.
True, but it also means that most people are used to this and don’t even question it. Which means no overflowing garbage bins or the need to service them in the middle of nowhere.
That accounts for ~80% of the garbage you'll produce, but sometimes you'll have a onigiri wrapper, or a dirty tissue that'd be nice to get rid of, and finding a place to do that can be more difficult (ironically, especially so in heavily touristy areas).
Incredulously, I tried to connect, and... it worked. I still have no idea what that was all about!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers_Union_Iced_Coffee
(I'm assuming this is an equivalent product; I don't drink coffee personally.)
It's made in the Japanese iced style, which is easy to mimic at home and really does make a nice iced coffee.
1. Get your standard filter/drip machine. Nothing fancy.
2. Double the amount of coffee you normally use. You want it coming out strong.
3. Fill the receiving jug with ice.
4. Drip directly on to ice.
Same reaction I had the first time I ordered a cappuccino there. I learned to order Flat Whites cause I kept forgetting to tell them to not put chocolate powder on top...why anyone thought that would be a great idea is beyond my comprehension. The Flat White on the hand easily makes up for their cappuccino faux pas
As previously mentioned Boss does do a decent black iced coffee though, and there are a few niche brands around putting out less sweet varieties
Iced coffee has been around for centuries and is very common in warmer countries (and was before the 90s). アイスコーヒー is closer to cold brew than the milkshake-esque thing we call iced coffee.
Cynically, only if someone sees a business / money making opportunity.
The more ridiculous proposition here is that people, other than Americans, only drink hot coffee.
Town celebrates its own via a medium that the youth seek out on their own. The youth then forge closer connections with their elders. Everyone is happy, everyone wins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m21OBCVPWo
However I agree; it's great that the initiative was started for those men, but they could totally hit up the older women in the area as well for an additional set.
When in reality it probably is just a light-hearted decision since old men are goofy, a lot of visible local businesses in rural Japan tend to be run by men, and the concept provoked a laugh.
We should strive for equality where possible but to hold individuals account to it is tougher; we should enforce in our interactions/beliefs, that's personal responsibility.
But in play or for hobbies it's harder - the group of friends I play games with is all male for example (all gay, actually). But does that mean that I need to "diversity hire" a woman for the group? We'd have no problem with that at all, if a female friend asked to join when hearing about it we'd be all for it. But it's not like we're going to go out of our way to ensure that we have at least 1 woman in our play group. If that makes sense.
To be clear, you think someone should be held accountable for not including women in this trend? What might that look like? Are we talking about new laws? Changing the values of society somehow so people will independently ostracize? Or just some more coordinated activist effort? What?
>But does that mean that I need to "diversity hire" a woman for the group? We'd have no problem with that at all, if a female friend asked to join when hearing about it we'd be all for it. But it's not like we're going to go out of our way to ensure that we have at least 1 woman in our play group.
Why not ask a woman to join on the basis of wanting to diversify? That seems entirely consistent with your stated values.
> A lot of visible local businesses in rural Japan tend to be run by men
And you don't think that has anything to do with sexism in society?
If people feel the need to do such a thing, they will do it without being asked.
I would agree with that. Same as it would be fun to include younger people or non-Japanese people. Or dogs. Although it seems pretty random to just include everything that isnt currently the subject of these cards.
I am equally interested in whether other non-Japanese cultures could do this too, although I suppose its popularity might not generalize across cultures. I don't know. Be interesting to try though, right?
Or is merely suggesting that deserving of some sort of criticism? The whole thing just made me think "why not share a neat thing with other groups". Dunno why that's such a big deal.
> The context in this case is pretty clearly geared towards connecting people across age generations.
Well no. Its clearly connecting older Japanse men with kids. Which is why your comment about including women isnt non-sensical.
You said you wanted to include women because it would be fun and said your original comment shouldnt be interpreted to imply sexism. That avoids actually saying its not sexist so I could use some clarification now that it seems like its not just all about whats fun.
Do you think there is an element of sexism in excluding women on the trading cards?
Neighborhood MILFs and Cougars?
If they do that, some angry commenter on HN will shout about objectifying women.
Note that my comment wasn't about different opinion based on sex but social framing.
dislike = objectification
like = empowerment
The key is sexually objectifying (recognising an attraction) whilst respecting said individual.
As a gay dude I see _plenty_, _pleeeeeenty_ of women wantonly objectifying men when they choose to, with no repercussions or qualms. It's just unfortunate because of sexual dimorphism and expected behaviours, men are expected to take the more active role most of the time and hence these reprehensible behaviours are more common amongst men.
Would be really fun to be a god and tweak everyone's brains such that heterosexual men take the passive role just to see what happens.
This sounds like an oxymoron.
Holographic white Oakley's... not bad, it pairs with day drinking.
in every way, this seems well-intentioned, quirky, cute, fun, and positive. unless there's some subtext i'm missing, this is just a good and nice thing happening that's great for everyone involved.
nice to have a story like that these days.
That said, it would definitely be more challenging to implement this kind of community-first mindset in the U.S. or Europe.
Most efforts at custom TCGs seem to go nowhere at all because of the absence of any practical trading meta game, so bootstrapping that with local interest is a very neat marketing move that aligns very well with the desired community engagement.
The result is that whole idea is greater than the sum of its parts.
Mr. Honda (74) apparently expecting to live to 148
Mr. Takeshita (81) about to buy a high-powered motorcycle, perhaps
Mr. Fujii (68) has a new sports coupe and is on very good terms with his secretary, his wife has noticed
I guess continuing to ignore 3/4:1 male suicide rates is one "solution" to mitigate demographic aging..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicid...
As a gay guy I've always thought about the topic in your last sentence; I agree that male problems (suicide rates, expectations, hypermasculinism etc) get largely ignored, in part due to a tightly integrated hierarchy of social rules and expectations - men (ignoring feelings, emotions, trying to be tough all the time) women (reliance on men, encouraging/supporting hypermasculine behaviours).
I find it both interesting & sad the way that heterosexual (& bisexual, etc) male behaviour completely changes (often for the worse) when a woman walks into the room. I don't see this as much at all in the opposite scenario, though I won't say that gay men don't sometimes exhibit the same aggressive behaviours that straight men often do.
It's just sad to watch men not care about certain aspects of themselves that are deemed weak, and that society has no value for men not attached to a family unit (hence the suicide rate). Also look at rates of homelessness - women are more likely to be taken in/given much more leeway by family etc than men are as a man down on his luck is a "problem" aka useless. It's the same with calling for women to be forced into drafts the same way men are - heterosexual response to that is staggering - the same frequency as the response I get as a man if I say I _don't_ want to fight in a war (aggression, being called a coward, the vitriol received for being a "draft dodger").
I know why it is the way it is, though and unlike many others I never forget that we're all still just animals at our very core.
I think this might change in the future when men realize the social contract reward for it has been reduced to rubble.
>male behaviour completely changes (often for the worse) when a woman walks into the room
I observed this many times and disliked it to the point of acting the reverse (disinterested) which ironically resulted in the opposite outcome at least temporarily. I think it certainly applies to women too but is just less observable because its more passive instead of active. The standard of the average men is also a lot "lower" (actual average) compared to women's to get active.
That's a great point but I don't think it ever will. Said social contracts are dictated by our underlying biology and whilst we may adjust or tweak them over time the fundamentals of them will stay the same. But who knows, maybe I'll be surprised and the higher order social rules will completely overcome the lower order animal rules.
Kids involved in community seems to be the best result
In an animated tv show depicting middle-aged man battles by community-service-dance-off. May include flashing images.
Middle aged man with lousy card stats gets isekaied, and ends up with ridiculous stats hidden on the back of his card.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bureaucrat_to_Villaines...
> A bureaucrat named Kenzaburo Tondabayashi is killed by a passing truck after saving a boy and is reborn in the Otome game Magical Academy: Love & Beast as its villainess, Grace Auvergne. Due to his politeness, he makes Grace's personality change into a more kind person and even becomes friends with the game's heroine, Anna Doll, whom the original Grace is antagonistic towards. Meanwhile, Kenzaburo's original body is revealed to have survived, but he is stuck in a coma. His wife and daughter discover that he is trapped in the game and attempt to help him complete it in hopes of getting him out
I'm starting to think there's a Rule 34 of Isekai.
So while the colloquial use of ojisan roughly lines up with "middle-aged man" it's not a perfect mapping.
Oniisan is much younger usually; usually I don't hear ojiisan so much as ojiichan (as well as ojisan rather than ojichan), my wife is Japanese and it rubs her weird to hear the opposite honorific in these cases.
One of the best game I ever played is the text based souvenir game shopping game on Windows 3. I can't recall the name of the game now since it's more than 30 years ago, but it's about shopping souvenirs using London Underground Tube. You have a semi realistic time constraints like train schedules, your flight schedules and of course list of souvenirs items to shop. This is totally offline since there is no Internet available at the time but it's very engaging nonetheless.
My proposal for the modern version of the game is to use real-time train schedules (with delays, ticket discounts, etc) that are available publicly on the Internet for many metropolitan cities in the world for examples Tokyo, London and Berlin [1],[2],[3].
Imagine you can have a real-world realistic in-app in-game items purchases feature that you personally can buy in the game and delivered to you or anyone you fancy of giving souvenirs except that you only virtually went there.
[1] A real-time 3D digital map of Tokyo's public transport system (2023 - 103 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37829061
[2] Live map of London's Underground system:
https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/
[3] Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin (2020 - 102 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32647227
[4] Berlin train info:
Humans are social creatures.
You can even become a virtual personal shopper to interact with real clients, and getting paid as well.
In systems like this, where artificial scarcity is seen as having value, making the cards _more common_ for good works seems like a perverse incentive; clearly, the best approach is to be Victor Meldrew, so as to have a rarer card.
Anyone have an idea of how the gameplay works? How do you "outplay" your opponent?
https://shop.mattel.com/products/minecraft-steve-large-scale...
It's better if kids have these people as role models than random rock stars or movie stars.
"Ojisan" means something like "gramps". Though given how youth-oriented Japanese culture is, I suppose it could refer to any man 35 or older.
Same with obasan (おばさん) for aunt and obaasan (おばあさん) for grandma.
also:
"It features Mr. Honda (74), ... Mr. Takeshita (81), ... Mr. Fujii (68)"
Is this the new "middle-aged" in Japan?
Wait I'm actually elderly
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/oj...
Three months after loosing my Mum one realises and appreciates what a huge amount she did for so many people.
If the (presumably) male at the community center had painted a portrait of the three older buddies he had in the community, would you all be asking "why does that painting only have men in it?"
I agree that they should do women next, given the unexpected popularity of what is presumably a pet project - but it's not hard to understand the very simple & obvious reasons why the first set of cards didn't feature women.
I actually do not see the obvious reason. Maybe I missed something. My take is Japan has what some would call a gender stereotypical view. What is surprising to me is how a whole gender is excluded from something that creates much fun interaction and play. It feels surprising especially also when the project is supposed to represent a community. I almost feel bad pointing it out, because the project is so wholesome, but it's simply what I see.
I have a European lense, and I am sure I am not aware of many things of their culture. But, I am struggling to see how it's not a blunt confirmation of typical western feminist critique. Of course, Japanese society may have another cultural framework to rationalize it, where any such critique wouldn't even be recognized to be rational. That, in itself, reflects a possible large discrepancy in cultural views.
(edit: I don't think the creator did any wrong, I think they acted within their frame. Maybe the product wouldn't be as successfully otherwise. My inquiry is at the level of culture and it's undercurrent of values dictating what's successfully and to what degree an artifact is based in cultural values and re-affirm those, well transcending mere artistic choice and artistic appreciation which should be free.)
(edit 2, psychoanalysis: the artist framing males within cards... Males being looked up to... The artist psychologically in perhaps a Lacanian sense, is "looking up" to expressions of the mighty, assertive phallocentric values constituting society. The artist mediating societal core views by making this artifact, enacts those values by admiration, and mediates those values to the right population, boys, who by their mere gender, are both the protectors and the representations of society's core view. I suspect Japan is a phallocentric society more so than not.)
Do you see what I mean? I 100% agree that both men and women, gay, straight and every other group all need to be properly represented in society where it matters. But battles should be picked & chosen.
But, this inquiry of mine had me sympathize more with the recent political trends, that I otherwise think go too far in certain ways. It sucks to not be made visible---or perhaps purposefully made invisible---in the society you live in.
In this case, hypothetically, if one of the men is openly of another orientation, would he be included in the deck? Would society accept that? No, his orientation should not be mentioned in the card, as his orientation has nothing to do with his occupation which is the focal point of the card, but would society even allow him to be featured to begin with, given he is of another orientation? (These are just suggested questions, I don't ask for answer to them).
It's a privacy nightmare but it will be fun for sure.