On April 14, 2026, Takizawa Gareso (@tkzwgrs), one of Japan’s most prominent social media commentators with millions of followers, posted about SoftBank Hikari’s cancellation process. The post detailed a user’s experience: cancellation requires a phone call (no online option), the phone reservation system is booked solid for a week in advance, and the cycle repeats indefinitely, trapping users in what commenters dubbed “infinite contract hell” (無限契約地獄).
SoftBank (ソフトバンク), founded by Son Masayoshi, is one of Japan’s three major telecom carriers. Its internet service, SoftBank Hikari (光), bundles fiber-optic internet with mobile contracts, creating a web of cross-dependencies that make switching providers complicated even before the cancellation wall is reached. The company has a long history of consumer complaints dating back to its Yahoo! BB broadband era in the early 2000s, when aggressive door-to-door sales tactics generated widespread backlash.
Japan’s telecom regulator, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (総務省), has pushed for easier carrier switching and contract transparency in recent years, including mandating that mobile contract cancellation fees be capped. However, fixed-line internet services like SoftBank Hikari have not been subject to the same level of reform, leaving a gap that companies have exploited.
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SoftBank
The dominant theme was a detailed, crowd-sourced anatomy of SoftBank’s cancellation process. Commenters mapped out the system’s design with forensic precision: phone-only cancellation (no web option), a reservation system that is perpetually full, call center hours that overlap poorly with working hours, and a habit of “losing” records of previous cancellation attempts. Multiple commenters noted that the system is not broken but functioning exactly as intended: every barrier exists to make cancellation so exhausting that users give up. “The entrance is wide, but the exit is narrow,” one commenter wrote. Several users shared specific workarounds, including switching to SoftBank Air first (which can be cancelled online) before cancelling entirely.
A massive portion of the thread was less about the specific cancellation issue and more about accumulated grievances against SoftBank as a company. Commenters described years of poor customer service, unexpected charges, contracts that were signed under pressure or without full understanding, and a corporate culture that treats customers as revenue units rather than people. One commenter who had worked at a restaurant near SoftBank’s headquarters in Shiodome recalled that SoftBank employees were “by far the worst-mannered customers” they ever served. The thread functioned as a collective airing of grievances that clearly predated the viral tweet.
A pragmatic cluster urged concrete action. The most-liked comment in the entire thread (611 hearts) was a one-line call to arms: “Flood the Consumer Affairs Agency with calls.” Others recommended the National Consumer Affairs Center (国民生活センター) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (総務省). A former consumer affairs counselor confirmed that filing formal complaints is effective because when complaint volumes cross certain thresholds, regulators are compelled to investigate and can issue administrative orders. The message was clear: individual cancellation battles are futile, but collective regulatory pressure works.
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Dozens of commenters shared their own SoftBank cancellation experiences. One received a lawyer’s letter demanding payment after already paying the cancellation fee, because SoftBank’s system had recorded the payment without a reference number, treating it as a “mysterious deposit” rather than a cancellation settlement. Another described being transferred between departments for hours until the call center closed for the day, resetting the process. A third recounted being signed up for services they never agreed to during what they thought was a routine inquiry call. These stories spanned the full history of SoftBank’s consumer operations, from Yahoo! BB ADSL in the early 2000s to the present.
A vocal subset argued that SoftBank’s cancellation system crosses the line from inconvenient to illegal. “Intentionally making cancellation impossible is fraud, plain and simple,” one commenter wrote. Others called for criminal prosecution of executives responsible for designing the system. The argument was that a cancellation process designed to be uncompleable is functionally identical to refusing cancellation entirely, which would violate consumer protection law. Several commenters expressed frustration that telecom companies face no real penalties for these practices.
A small but useful group compared SoftBank’s process to other services. Netflix was the most-cited positive example: its cancellation is two clicks, no phone call, no waiting period. AU Hikari was praised for having a responsive, always-available phone line. The implicit argument was that easy cancellation is not technically impossible but a business choice. Companies that make cancellation easy retain more goodwill and get more returning customers. Companies that make it hard earn short-term retention at the cost of permanent reputational damage.
