social commentary

We think people coarser than ourselves are 'vulgar,' and people more refined than ourselves are 'putting on airs,' I guess.

Even a rare guest gets on your nerves after three days.

In modern Japan, 'alchemy' is used only metaphorically — when politicians and religious figures with no moral sense or shame make money through dirty means.

A wanderer, if he's rich, is called a tourist.

You act all high-minded saying 'in the spirit of impartiality,' but really you just don't have your own opinion, do you?

Forty percent of the workforce are white-collar workers, and the majority of them do boring, ridiculous make-work jobs.

I think seeing the people behind the conspiracy as bigger than they really are is exactly playing into their hands.

It's a textbook case of how the less learned a person is, the more convinced they are that they're right.

It has come to the point where Japan is being called a 'measles exporter' by the world — a remark that could be read as either sarcasm or a plain statement of fact.

People who get taken for a ride really do give off a 'mark' aura, I suppose.

If they clumsily try to show any originality, they get attacked, so they only report the safe bet.

Even if you make just the venue number-one in Japan, if the content is third-rate, what's the point, right?

Mothers often go unappreciated.

Just because the mother happens to be beautiful doesn't necessarily mean her daughter will grow up to be a beauty.

People who overreact to superficial matters should not be in positions of managing others.

She held her own working alongside the men.

She had never been heard speaking ill of others.

She does nothing but pick at other people's flaws.

She tried to shield her son from the real world.

She gave her son far too much money.

She was indignant that her son had been treated terribly.

If things continue like this, there is a great risk that our country's international competitiveness will decline further.

Let's use the 'exemption' debate as an opportunity to rethink how we work.

The boat operator was always openly smoking despite the no-smoking signs.

This is a predisposing factor that could even be called a fate common to all humankind, and is by no means limited to Germans.

The average American child is, by all appearances, hooked on television.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

The ideal would be for the husband to break free from being a company man, rebuild a new marital relationship, and form a comfortable family life.

It is the poor who died the youngest.

She looks down on lazy people.