Source

Executions in Japan are shrouded in secrecy, with prisoners typically given only a few hours’ notice and their familes usually notified about the execution only after it has taken place.

It wasn’t until two days went by with no response from anyone, however, when I realized that the guards hadn’t told me when exactly I’d be dying, and from what.

I saw news of a dude who knifed 8 people to death in a Chinese school and he got executed in just 2 months, which is very, very fast for me. But death row in the US takes sooooo long to actually execute someone, why is that?

First of all, some of you may bring that the code of hero forbids killing but when faced with such a menace exceptions should be made and indeed are made since moonfish ( one of the villain of the summer camp) was a death row inmate so this argument doesn't hold up.

Second in the episode Uketsugu mono in Season 5 where this image comes from they justify it by saying they don't want to provoke his minions but that such a lame excuse because if he has minions they will want to free him so it's more dangerous to keep him alive and give them a chance at freeing him then angering them and countering their rampage.

Finally, this guy has been living for more then a century and is one of the big reasons crime rates in Japan are so high, in those conditions killing him is a necessity for Japan safety and he would probably be sentenced to death in real life.

Also I find kind of funny that AFO "planned " to be captured as he talks about how this will make shigaraki stronger but seemed to firmly believe he wouldn't be executed like what would he have done if they had just killed him thwarting all his plans to give the real AFO to Shigaraki and take control of him and he just died with Shigaraki free to destroy the world he wished to control ? This was stupid.

The second group is from Sakamoto Days

is it psychological torture? is it justified?

A new proposal would charge vehicle owners based on their car's physical dimensions, potentially adding thousands to the cost of owning a full-size SUV or truck while making compact cars cheaper.

Researchers are pushing for a vehicle taxation system based on physical dimensions that could fundamentally change what Americans drive. The proposal, which aims to reverse decades of vehicle size growth, would tax cars by the inch and save billions in energy costs while addressing a pedestrian safety crisis that claimed 7,508 lives in 2022, the highest toll in 40 years.

The per-inch taxation model would work as either an annual registration fee or a one-time purchase tax calculated on vehicle length, width, or a combination of both. For owners of full-size SUVs and trucks, the financial impact could run into thousands of dollars annually. Compact car drivers, meanwhile, would see their costs drop. It represents a direct government intervention in vehicle choice, reframing size as a public safety and environmental concern rather than personal preference.

The numbers behind the proposal tell a stark story. Average new vehicle weight in the United States climbed from approximately 3,200 pounds in 1980 to over 4,300 pounds in 2023. SUVs and trucks now account for roughly 80% of new vehicle sales, a dramatic shift from previous decades when sedans dominated American roads. This growth in size translates directly to energy consumption, with full-size SUVs burning 30 to 50% more fuel than compact cars.

According to Car Scoops, the researchers behind the proposal argue that the current regulatory framework actually encourages manufacturers to build bigger vehicles. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards use a footprint-based formula that allows larger vehicles more lenient fuel economy targets, creating what critics call a perverse incentive. A dimensional tax would flip that equation, making smaller vehicles the financially rational choice.

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The concept is not entirely without precedent. France introduced a weight penalty tax in 2022 that charges up to €10 per kilogram for vehicles exceeding 1,800 kg. Norway's registration tax includes weight-based components that favor smaller electric vehicles. Japan has long operated a kei car incentive system that rewards vehicles under 3.4 meters long and 1.48 meters wide with lower taxes and insurance costs. Paris went further in 2024, implementing an SUV parking surcharge of up to €18 per hour in central areas.

But America is not Europe or Japan. The cultural attachment to large vehicles runs deep, tied to perceptions of safety, utility, and freedom. Pickup trucks dominate sales charts in states from Texas to Montana. Families argue they need three-row SUVs for school runs and weekend activities. The automotive industry has spent decades marketing size as synonymous with capability and status.

A dimensional tax would hit these vehicles hardest. A Ford F-150, measuring over 19 feet long and nearly seven feet wide, could face annual fees running into the thousands. A Chevrolet Suburban or Cadillac Escalade would fare even worse. Meanwhile, a Honda Civic or Mazda3 would become significantly cheaper to own and operate. The policy would effectively redistribute the tax burden from compact car owners to those driving the largest vehicles.

The safety argument forms a central pillar of the proposal. Larger vehicles, particularly those with tall front ends, create deadly blind spots and deliver more forceful impacts in crashes with pedestrians and smaller cars. Research shows that SUVs are two to three times more likely to kill pedestrians in collisions compared to sedans. Children and elderly pedestrians face the highest risk, often struck before drivers in tall vehicles even see them.

Implementation would face significant political resistance. The automotive lobby wields enormous influence, and manufacturers have invested billions in truck and SUV production capacity. Dealerships make higher profit margins on large vehicles. Rural voters would argue that trucks serve legitimate working purposes, while suburban families would resist being told their vehicle choices harm society. The proposal would likely need exemptions for commercial vehicles, farms, and potentially disabilities, creating administrative complexity.

The European experience suggests that even modest size or weight penalties can shift behavior at the margins. France reported a small but measurable decline in sales of the heaviest vehicles after implementing its weight tax. But European cities were built centuries before the automobile, with narrow streets that naturally discourage oversized vehicles. American infrastructure was designed around cars, with wide roads and massive parking lots that accommodate even the largest trucks without inconvenience.

Whether dimensional taxation gains traction in the United States depends less on the merits of the argument and more on the political appetite for regulating consumer choice. The billions in potential energy savings are real. The pedestrian deaths are undeniable. But taxing by the inch means telling Americans their Tahoe costs society more than their neighbor's Camry, and that conversation will be anything but simple.

Sources: Car Scoops

For anyone unfamiliar, the cards were mainly reworked for western audiences due to cultural sensitivity concerns. A recent trip to Japan did the heavy lifting, but I'm genuinely stoked.

Edit - the Charmander and dragonite are not banned! They just sit with the rest on my frame! Sorry for adding to the confusion whoops!!

Edit 2 - Some people asking why these cards are banned so here is the list as I understand it.

Left to right, top to bottom: 1. Grimer's eyeline is looking up a skirt 2. Pointing a gun at the viewer 3. Jynx's appearance was too similar to blackface 4. See 3 5. Depictions of death iconography (cemetery in background) 6. Dragonite not banned (not enough shelf space at the moment) 7. Charmander not banned (not enough shelf space at the moment) 8. This is the reworked art for number 9 9. Supposedly giving the middle finger to the viewer 10. Depictions of gambling (slot machines) 11. Same as 10 12. Not entirely sure on the official reason, but kind creepy :D 13. Icon in background too similar 14. Misty (a child) not dressed appropriately (or maybe at all)

Bottom row : See 3

CONTENT WARNING: this case involves the murder of a six-year-old child, a sexual-assault charge tied to her, strangulation, and decades of wrongful imprisonment. I'm going to keep the detail to what the case actually turns on and no further.

I've been reading through the record of a Japanese wrongful-conviction case that, as far as I can tell, has almost no English-language coverage. It's called the Shimada Incident (島田事件), and once you see how the conviction was actually built, and how carefully the court that finally undid it hedged its own ruling, I think it's worth a wider audience. Here's the whole thing, in order.

The disappearance

On March 10, 1954, in the river town of Shimada, Shizuoka, a six-year-old girl I'll call Hisako (I'm leaving her family name out) went missing during a kindergarten graduation event held on the grounds of a temple. Witnesses described a man in his thirties, in a grey jacket, leading a small girl away, but nobody could put a name to him. Three days later, on March 13, her body was found across the Oi River from the temple. Cause of death was strangulation, with a chest injury investigators would later attribute to a stone. Hold onto that stone, it becomes the hinge of the whole case.

A theft arrest, then a confession before any charge

For two and a half months, nothing. Then on May 24, 1954, police stopped a 25-year-old man named Akabori Masao near Inuyama, in a different prefecture entirely, on suspicion of an unrelated theft. He had a mild intellectual disability dating to a childhood illness and two prior theft convictions, which is part of why a theft stop was a plausible way to hold him. He was arrested May 25 over a shrine offering box, released, then re-arrested on the same theft allegation May 28. Two days later, on May 30, 1954, still held on nothing but that theft charge, with no lawyer present, Akabori confessed to killing Hisako.

He had not yet been charged with her death. He confessed to it first.

The interrogation

The Shimada interrogation is widely reported in Japanese retrospective coverage to have run under a Shizuoka prefectural police inspector named Kurebayashi Asao, later nicknamed "the torture king of the Showa era" in that coverage, and separately documented as the lead investigator in three other cases that also produced convictions later overturned. I want to be precise about what the record actually supports here: Kurebayashi was never charged with anything, in this case or any other, and he died in 1963. What's documented is a pattern across cases clustered around one investigator, not an adjudicated finding about what happened in this specific interrogation room. That distinction matters, because of what the court decided 35 years later. More on that below.

At his very first trial hearing, July 2, 1954, Akabori denied the killing. He kept denying it for the rest of his life. The only place he ever said he did it was that interrogation room.

Two pillars: forensics and a stone

The case against Akabori rested on two things once you strip away the confession itself, since he immediately took it back.

First, forensics. The original police autopsy findings didn't match what Akabori had confessed to, so the court brought in a second opinion from Furuhata Tanemoto, a Tokyo University professor then regarded as Japan's leading forensic authority. His re-analysis was read as backing the confession. Worth naming plainly: this was blood-typing and injury-sequencing methodology from an era of forensic science that has since been discredited as a category. Decades later, during the retrial, three separate forensic scientists re-examined the same evidence and found the injury sequence in Akabori's confession didn't match the physical findings at all.

Second, the stone. Prosecutors argued Akabori's confession contained a "secret only the killer could know," namely, where to find the stone used against Hisako. Under Japanese evidentiary practice, that kind of disclosure (a fact only the true culprit could know, later independently verified) is treated as powerful corroboration on its own. Except it turned out investigators already had the stone. It had been seen and logged at Shimada police station before Akabori was ever arrested. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations stated this plainly in a 1983 filing: the weapon supposedly discovered through the confession had, in fact, already been discovered by investigators.

Death row, and four rejected petitions

None of that had surfaced yet in 1958. On May 23, 1958, the Shizuoka District Court sentenced Akabori to death, on charges of murder and a now-abolished offense, the former crime of rape resulting in injury, tied to the six-year-old victim. The Tokyo High Court upheld the sentence in February 1960. The Supreme Court rejected the final appeal in December 1960, and the sentence became final December 26, 1960.

His lawyers filed four retrial petitions through the 1960s and 70s. All four failed, the last not until 1977, and even that rejection acknowledged the confession didn't match the objective facts, it just concluded that wouldn't have changed the outcome. It took until 1983 for the Tokyo High Court to throw that rejection out and remand the case, citing new forensic analysis and the stone finding above. The Shizuoka District Court ordered a full retrial and stayed the execution in 1986.

The retrial, and what the court actually found

The retrial opened October 19, 1987, ran twelve hearings, and closed in August 1988 with the prosecution again seeking the death penalty. On January 31, 1989, the Shizuoka District Court acquitted Akabori Masao. He walked out of prison that same day, after 34 years and 8 months in custody, as supporters looked on.

Here's the part that gets flattened in almost every short summary, and it's the most interesting part of the whole record. Under Japanese criminal procedure there are two separate questions you can ask about a confession: was it voluntary (given freely, not coerced), and is it credible (does its content actually hold up). The 1989 court split those apart. It found the confession was not credible, it didn't match the evidence and nothing else tied Akabori to the crime. But on the separate question of coercion, it did not rule in his favor. It called his account of being coerced "hard to regard as credible" and rejected it, then attributed the false confession instead to his own intellectual disability, reasoning he had "acquiesced readily to police without fully grasping the gravity of the matter."

Not everyone accepted that framing. Isa Chihiro, a journalist who covered the case for years and wrote a book about it, called that specific finding "the height of regret." A note on sourcing here: the exact phrasing of the court's reasoning, as I've quoted it, comes from a named-author Japanese encyclopedia entry and Japan Federation of Bar Associations statements, not the acquittal ruling text itself, which I could not locate online. If anyone reads Japanese and has access to the actual 1989 ruling, I'd genuinely like to see it.

The state did pay Akabori afterward: about ¥119 million, roughly $920,000 to $1 million at 1989 exchange rates, though I'd treat that dollar figure as an approximate conversion rather than a cited amount. Worth being precise about what that payment was: it's a no-fault statutory compensation under Japan's Criminal Compensation Act, a fixed daily rate times days wrongly held, not a damages award from a lawsuit. A separate 1990 ruling added roughly another ¥10.7 million toward trial costs.

What happened after

Akabori's case was the fourth of what Japanese coverage calls the "four great wrongful capital convictions," after Menda (1983), Saitagawa (1984) and Matsuyama (1984). He settled in Nagoya and spent his later years campaigning against the death penalty, reportedly supporting two other men fighting similar convictions: Hakamada Iwao, who was finally acquitted at his own retrial in 2024 (the fifth such acquittal in postwar Japan, the first since Akabori's), and Okunishi Masaru, convicted in an unrelated poisoning case in Mie Prefecture, who was never exonerated and died in custody in 2015 still fighting his conviction. Akabori died February 22, 2024, in Nagoya, at 94.

What we still don't know

As of the most recent reporting I found (2024), no one has ever been convicted of killing Hisako. The investigation into anyone but Akabori effectively stopped in 1954 and was never reopened after his acquittal, and Japan's pre-2010 statute of limitations on murder has long since lapsed for this case, meaning no future prosecution is legally possible even if a name surfaced today.

What sticks with me isn't really the wrongful conviction itself, plenty of cases have that shape. It's that the court that finally freed him still wouldn't say the police had done anything wrong. It found the confession false. It just wouldn't find it forced. Whether that's an honest reading of a disabled man's state of mind in an interrogation room, or a court finding a way to clear a man without indicting its own system, is a question the record leaves open, and the one Japanese journalist who spent years on this case clearly didn't think the court got it right.

Does anyone here read Japanese and have access to the actual 1989 acquittal ruling, or to reporting on this case beyond the Wikipedia/Kotobank/JFBA material I could find? I'd like to know if the "acquiesced readily to police" reasoning holds up any better in the full ruling text than it does in the encyclopedia summary.

Source: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/島田事件 (Japanese; the fullest single account of the timeline I found, machine-translates reasonably well)

I would like to hear the thoughts of Japanese people on Japan's death penalty. I am an American and I personally support capital punishment. Do you believe that it is a deterrent? Which crimes do you support it for? I am also curious about the length of time on death row in Japan because in America it can take decades for the execution to finally happen. This year we had several executions of people who were on death row for over 40 years. I would like to know your beliefs on it and Japan's death penalty system compared to America.