Prefecture Congress Man commited suicide because his blog flared up

June 25th, Mr. Koizumi, Iwate Prefecture congress man, found dead at the lake side near from his parent's house. Mr. Koizumi wrote on his blog on June 5th, about his experience when he went to prefecture owned hospital for his health check. He wrote; 'I was called by number 214. Is this place a jail? Call me with my name. I was very angry, so didn't pay the fee and came back home. Still, I'm upset. Hi, dear readers of this blog, Am I wrong?" So, his blog immediately flared up, (炎上;Enjou)and got tremendous access of accuses. Many were the severe criticisms such as; 'You don't know calling a patient by number is common way in many hospitals these days to protect patient's privacy?" 'You didn't pay the bill and came back home? That's criminal regardless wheather you are right or not. Pay first!" etc. He immdeiately held press conference. He said " My blog got many access and got so many accuses from nation wide. It was way beyond my imagination." "I apologize and I am regret to recognize that the things I wrote in my blog remain forever." Then, a lot of media give alert that There are a lot of TV commedians recently who intentionally flare up his/her blog by writing controversial opinion. But once oridial person's blog flare up and excessive accuses come along, the he / she may be pushed to commit suicide. So, we have to be careful when someone's blog flare up. I don't post the pic of this congress man at a press conf.

How much would you pay for Wedding Party?

According to the survey done by Zexy, oneo f the largest Bridal informtion comapny, now Japanese couple would pay JPY 3,440,000 on average for their wedding party, which is 6% increase from previous year, .

One of outstanding recent trends of the wedding party is the increase of the percentage of the cuople that prefer to hold wedding party at restaurant house with beautiful garden from 4.3% in 2003 to 23.3 % in 2012, while wedding party in banquet room at hotel decreased 42% in 2003 to 27.0% in 2013.

Wedding market is now estimated as two trillion Yen. With the average age of marriage s getting older, now there are more couples that can afford this high expense for one party.




This is the promotion video clip from the company of the Wedding Party cordinator.

Osprey landed on Japanese SDF's vessel first time

The joint drill with U.S. Marine Corps and Japanese Self Defense Force(SDFJ) was broadcasted through major news media today, and video which shows the scene that Osprey landed on the SFDJ's vessel is widely broadcasted.

Though Osprey has been controversial in Japanfor years, it seems a lot of people, at least people show up in the internet cyber space, made a lot of positive comments on this drill.

Especially, Oprey's high capability to deliver materials with long range flight are perceived arguably first time positive this time around, after knowing that Osprey can land on the SDFJ's vessels, people could first time perceive that Osprey would be helpful for the disaster-relief services, like East Japan disaster in 2011, when all of the transportation systems on the land were completely destroyed, and many victims of the Tsunami were isolated and died due to the lack of the oils to get warms under severely cold winter cirmstances.

This opinion is getting a lot of people's understanding. And it seems that they feel comfortable if SDFJ buy this Osprey for its own. (With this news, we now knew that SDFJ is requesting the Japanese Cabinet to secure budget to buy this hellicopter.)

Although it was a bit surprise to know that SDFJ already has vessels (Hyu-ga type vessel) which enables Osprey to land on it.

Campaign for the election for Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has just begun

On June 14th, the official camaign for the election has just started. Last election was four years ago when Democratic party had won and occupied the majority of the assembly, followed by the historical victory for the lower house of the national election done one month after the Tokyo assembly election. This time, how many seats Democratic party can keep occupying is what people are looking at, after the desaster of the national lower house election held last December. The election date is July 12th. The result is expected to bring significantly affect to the upper house election which is also expected to be hold on July,too/ Untill then, you'll see a lot of speeches done by major politicians, standing on the campaign cars, particulary in front of the train stations.

Square Mobile Payment will face the difficult situation

***Updated on June 25. Information of situation in West Japan added

There are a lot of companies that are successful to open up its first overseas operation in Tokyo, such as McDonald, Starbucks, Yahoo!, you name it, despite of its odds predicted before its opening.

But this time may be different. Square's effort to go into the payment market in Japan will face difficult situation. Because so many consumers in Japan are now using NFC payment card, typically issued by railway company.

1) Suica issued by JR East

 One of the most prevailed payment card is 'SuiCa', issued by JR East. The number of the issued cards has reached to 42 millions, and you can use this Suica at more than 200,000 retail shops. (as of Jan. 2013) So, Square may beat credit card. But credit card is not so much used in Japan in the first place.





Suica once tried to become Mobile Suica about 7 years ago. But it became obvious that people love credit card sized NCF payment card, which you can put in your wallet.


2) ICOCA issued by JR West

JR West also issue the NFC cards which is called ICOCA, similar to Suica for JR East. ( ICOCA sounds 'Let's go!' in Japanese.) They have issued 7.44 million cards as of Dec 2012.
(I found this is way smaller than Suica.)



JR group used to be government owned railway company.

3) PASMO issued by private railway companies

Private railway companies also issued NCF cards, called PASMO, which also has been isseud 20 million cards as of May 2011.

Must watch TV drama on next Sunday; Yae no Sakura

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Updated: June.17 2013
Yesterday's broadcast was good, as I expected in advance.
It was the story of the battle of Shirakawa (White River) and Nihonmatsu (two pine tress).
Next Sunday's story is going to be a famous boy Samurai soldiers story, which ended up as a true tragedy of the series of the battle.

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Next Sunday, June 16th is the day 'Yae no Sakura' comes to one of its first climax for its yearly broadcast.

'Yae Sakura' is a kind of Sakura blossom which has more flower petals than Somei Yoshino, which is the kind of Sakura planted in Washington DC.

 And heroine's name is Yae, who actually lived and got married with Joe Niijima, who later found Doshisha University.

Next on-air story is for the battle of Fukushima Pref.(Aizu) and the ally of Kagoshima Pref (Satsuma) and Yamaguchi (Cho-shu), at the Fukushima castle.

It was the last and fierce battle at the end of Edo era, and can be said the last battle between authentic Samurai armed with Japanese swords, and lower class people with state-of-the-art weapons like rifles.

Actually, Yae was born and raised in the family who taught how to use rifle for generations in Aizu han. And yet Yae was a young woman back then, she actually joined the battle at the Aizu castle (Tsuruga castle.)and shot the gun against her enemies.

What good about this broadcast is the realistic scene taken with full of computer graphics.
So, it must be interesting to watch even if you do not understand Japanese language.

So, set the channel to NHK, channel one(1), at 8:00pm Sunday