jawa asks...Is Japan living and culture as good as it appears to be?

There are 4 homeless people in Japan

Moggy wrote:

Qikz wrote:

rinks wrote:I think the relevant impact is:

UK homeless: 309,000
Japan homeless: 3,824

I think those figures are vastly lower than they actually are sadly.

higher*

Vermilion wrote:One thing i have heard about Japan is how a lot of younger chaps have pretty much retreated into their bedrooms and shut themselves off from the world almost completely.

I'm not entirely sure how true or widespread this is, but it does seem to be a thing (apparently it's called Hikikomori).

Sounds strawberry floating awesome to me.

Qikz wrote:

rinks wrote:I think the relevant impact is:

UK homeless: 309,000
Japan homeless: 3,824

(Quick search for the figures. Might not be most accurate, but you get the point.)

This is all anecdotal of course of stories I've heard from some of my Japanese friends so I can't say if it's totally accurate.

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I think those figures are vastly higher than they actually are sadly.

Yeah, they are much higher than that. I forget the stats but the government fudges the figures

Oh and take this with a pinch of salt but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that their supposedly ridiculously low murder rate is mostly due to the fact that any murder they don't fancy investigating is put down as a suicide so it doesn't count on the crime stats. I think I recall a family who's son's 'suicide' involved tying his hands together then shooting himself in the back of the head in an alleyway behind a pachinko parlour run by Yakuza.

This is a good overview of the homeless situation and the lost-generation in Japan

Vermilion wrote:One thing i have heard about Japan is how a lot of younger chaps have pretty much retreated into their bedrooms and shut themselves off from the world almost completely.

I'm not entirely sure how true or widespread this is, but it does seem to be a thing (apparently it's called Hikikomori).

I'm assuming it's fairly widespread based on the amount of characters in manga and anime that fit the 'shut-in' or NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) archetype.

It's even in comedy stuff.

Japan has its issues and I often wonder what life will be like for my niece who is technically Japanese by nationality but half British (or quarter Scottish and quarter English). Especially with some of the attitudes towards women and stuff like disability, and being queer myself lgtbqia+ issues too, although I kind of doubt that would ever come out even if it were a thing.

She seems happy though. The suckiest thing for me is I still haven't been able to visit yet and she is 4. Was planning when Covid hit and it took forever for Japan to "re-open". I'll maybe go this year. The last time was 2011.

My brother works for an indie game developer in Kyoto run by an ex Sega guy (who's American) so their work culture is obviously different. They do some stuff for PlayStation and the other obvious one I am not sure if I can say, so those being international companies headquartered there they probably deal with the US divisions for milestones and stuff like that. I'm sure it's still long hours but they actually go home and seem to spend a lot of time racing RC trucks together.

Ironhide wrote:

Vermilion wrote:One thing i have heard about Japan is how a lot of younger chaps have pretty much retreated into their bedrooms and shut themselves off from the world almost completely.

I'm not entirely sure how true or widespread this is, but it does seem to be a thing (apparently it's called Hikikomori).

I'm assuming it's fairly widespread based on the amount of characters in manga and anime that fit the 'shut-in' or NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) archetype.

It's even in comedy stuff.

It's not even just young people, there's a lot of middle-aged who fall under the umbrella (around 600,000). It (like a lot of social issues I guess) isn't exclusively a Japanese issue though.