Random Japan

Losing high school baseball team’s manners continue to impress, this time at a hotel

Krista Rogers

We’ve seen impeccable displays of manners from Japanese high school baseball teams on many occasions before, from the respectful bowing of Yamagata Chuo High School to the classy stadium-cleaning deed of Kyukoku just the other day. It seems like the annual Koshien high school baseball tournament in Hyogo Prefecture really does bring out the best in the promising young players, as another team from Akita Prefecture has proven after being eliminated from this year’s tournament with their grand display of thanks in a regional hotel.

Akita Shogyo Koko (or ‘Akisho’ for short) ultimately lost 3-6 to Sendai Ikuei High School during the quarterfinals of this year’s Koshien tournament. However, they have a lot to be proud of, especially considering that this was the first time in 80 years that they were able to advance into the final eight of the competition.

STATS

      ¥26.2 billion: Net loss by McDonald’s Japan in the first six months of 2015

9: Years since the company had suffered a loss in the January-June period

340: Wallets stolen from students at a summer camp in Nagano operated by cram school operator Waseda Academy

THIS JUST IN

        A plan by The Peninsula Tokyo hotel to zip guests around in a private helicopter has drawn opposition from shop owners in nearby Ginza.

Officials in Seoul opened the Center for Japanese Studies, which will analyze bilateral ties and “advise on South Korea’s medium- to long-term diplomatic strategy.”

Last year was the first since the NPA began keeping track in 1989 that more elderly people than juveniles were the subject of “police actions.”

Cops in Nagasaki busted two men for forging a driver’s license in an attempt to gain entry to a pair of AKB48 concerts. The shows’ organizer had restricted admission to one performance per person.

 What’s In Your Stomach? Balloons What’s In The Balloons?

  An Arrest Warrant

  The Crying Assemblyman

  Charged And Not For Crying

Free Whiskey

 From Suntory

59% of ‘salarymen’ find family life more exhausting than work



KUCHIKOMI AUG. 22, 201

A family seems like such a good idea. A spouse you love, a child or children to link you to the future, a home that is a refuge from the myriad cares of the outside world – and so on and so on. Why does it turn out so disastrously?

That must be qualified. There are, presumably, happy families out there – you just have to look for them.

Spa! (Aug 25) doesn’t. On the contrary, its theme is family unhappiness – more accurately, family “weariness.” It polls, first of all, 2,000 married men aged 30-49: “Does your family make you tired?” Yes, say 1,180 – 59%. The 41% who say no are a minority, but a not insignificant one – so it’s not all bad. Spa! then pursues 500 among the 1,180, probing for details. As you read them, you can’t altogether suppress the thought, the heartening minority notwithstanding: What a life-crushing, soul-stifling institution the family is!