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Sentiment analysis

What Japan Thinks

Each entry analyzes how Japanese audiences are reacting to a story or topic on social media — sentiments, themes, and the takes you won't get from English-language sources.

  1. What Japan Thinks: Female Prosecutor Forced Out After Reporting Chief’s Sexual Assault

    A female prosecutor at the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office is resigning after reporting sexual assault by her former boss, the chief prosecutor. Her request for a third-party investigation was refused. Japanese social media exploded with outrage that,…

  2. What Japan Thinks: Jehovah’s Witness Sues Hospital That Refused Cataract Surgery

    A Jehovah's Witness woman in Shiga has sued the Shiga University of Medical Science Hospital for 3.3 million yen, saying she suffered emotional distress when the hospital refused her cataract surgery on the basis that, as a JW,…

  3. What Japan Thinks: Japan Drops ‘In Principle’ From Rule on Firing Predatory Teachers

    Japan's education ministry has revised its disciplinary guidelines to mandate dismissal of teachers who commit voyeurism or sexual violence, dropping the 'in principle' qualifier that had allowed exceptions. The dominant online reaction across X and Yahoo News: 'about…

  4. What Japan Thinks: Viral Warning Says Water Meter ‘Theft’ Is Really a Trap to Lure Women

    A viral thread claims that rising water meter thefts in Japan are cover for something darker: criminals closing main valves to lure women outside to attack them. The warning struck a nerve, with thousands mourning what they see…

  5. What Japan Thinks: Yamanouchi Suzu Walks All 46 km of the Yamanote Line

    Actress Yamanouchi Suzu walked the entire 46 km perimeter of Tokyo's Yamanote Line in about 12 hours and came away with almost no leg damage. 153 replies to her casual dispatch split between pure awe, fellow walkers sharing…

  6. What Japan Thinks: LDP Rep Calls 30,000-Person Demo “Playing Pretend,” SNS Explodes

    LDP Lower House member Kado Hiroko told a TV panel that the 30,000-strong penlight protest outside the Diet was just "playing pretend" at democracy. The reply section disagreed, loudly. The dominant rebuttal was that the real 'pretend' politics…

  7. What Japan Thinks: Sanseito Leader Says Schools Shouldn’t Teach “Weird LGBT”

    Sanseito party head Kamiya Sohei used a Sapporo street speech to declare schools don't need to teach "weird LGBT," triggering a wave of condemnation online. Most respondents called the remark naked hate speech, with many also blaming the…

  8. What Japan Thinks: ‘Friend Loss-Cutting’ — The Cutting Is Fine. The Vocabulary Isn’t.

    A Yahoo News article popularized two new terms — 'friend loss-cutting' (友達損切り) and the 'furefure phenomenon' (フレフレ現象) — for Japanese youth thinning friend groups under inflation. The 177 replies broadly accept the behavior and reject every part of…

  9. What Japan Thinks: “No Plans for Golden Week” Isn’t About Inflation — It’s About the Government

    A Yahoo News poll finding that 41% of Japanese have no Golden Week plans, blamed on inflation, triggered 263 replies that refused to stay in the frame the headline offered. Commenters redirected blame from "prices" to 30 years…

  10. What Japan Thinks: City Official’s “Can’t Help a Few Foreigners” Triggers Nativist Pile-On

    A prefectural housing complex dealing with garbage-sorting disputes became the latest flashpoint after a city official reportedly told residents the office couldn't spend budget or manpower on 'a small number of foreign residents.' A right-leaning aggregator account amplified…

  11. What Japan Thinks: ‘Demos Are Meaningless’ Argument Gets Most of the Likes — And Proves Its Opposite

    A viral X post argued that "people who loudly insist demos are meaningless are the people who want to make demos meaningless." The reply thread became a live audit of exactly that claim. Conservative responses — "elections, not…

  12. What Japan Thinks: LDP Rep Calls 30K-Person Demo ‘Pretend Play’ — And Japan’s X Users Flip the Insult

    LDP Rep. Kado Hiroko appeared on AbemaPrime and dismissed the 30,000-person anti-Takaichi penlight demo outside the Diet as "pretend play" (ごっこ遊び). Japanese X users flooded the thread with a single rhetorical move: flipping the insult back at her…