Twentythree

It’s been a looooong time since you could get a thigh-meat sandwich at KFC Japan, and now you can get six.

A lot of time has passed between now and 1983. To illustrate just how much, 1983 was the year Nintendo’s Famicom (which would become known as the NES overseas) went on sale. In the years since, Nintendo has had time to release a whole slew of other video game consoles, culminating with the launch of the Switch 2 last year.

If you had been one of those early adopters who went out and bought a Famicom in 1983, on your way home from the store you could have swung by KFC Japan and picked up a fried chicken sandwich made with thigh meat. You wouldn’t have been able to repeat that meal choice for the launch of Nintendo’s Super Famicom (a.k.a. Super NES) in 1990, though. Ditto for the release of the Nintendo 64 in 1996…and for every console after that too. Why? Because 1983 was the last time KFC Japan had thigh-meat sandwiches, after which they switched to breast meat.

On October 14, though, KFC Japan released its first thigh-meat sandwiches in 43 years, with the debut of the brand-new Original Chicken Burger series.

There’s a total of six sandwiches in the two-tiered lineup. In addition to the standard Original Chicken Burger, there’s also a Cheese, Teriyaki, and spicy Red-hot version. Those in a more luxurious mood can opt for the Premier Burger, which adds a slice of thick-cut bacon, or the Premier Cheese Burger, providing both bacon and cheese.

This return of thigh-meat chicken sandwiches is such a big deal for the chain that KFC Japan has temporarily rebranded its branch in Tokyo’s Ebisu neighborhood as KFB (“Kentucky Fried Burgers”).

With the new items going on sale on October 14, we dispatched our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun for some taste-testing. P.K,’s stomach was not quite up to the challenge of eating six fried chicken sandwiches in one sitting, but neither would his pride allow him to settle for just one, so he ordered two to try, the Original Chicken Burger (490 yen [US$3.19]) and the Premier Burger (750 yen).

P.K. started with the Original Chicken Burger, and he was instantly impressed.

The meat was juicy and flavorful, and the characteristic touch of springiness to the texture made him very glad that thigh meat was finally back. There wasn’t a hint of tough dryness to be found as he happily chewed.

The breading for the chicken is very similar to what you get with KFC’s Original Recipe chicken, so P.K. had no complaints there either. The sandwich’s sauce has a bit of tanginess to it, but it serves as an accent, and the star of the show is the delicious chicken. This is a very well put-together fried chicken burger, and more importantly, a very delicious one too.

Moving on to the Premier Burger, the visuals tell you right away that this is a more decadent meal.

The chicken and bun are the same as in the less-expensive Original Chicken Burger, but in addition to the bacon, the Premier Burger also boasts its own unique garlic pepper mayonnaise spread.

Once again, it’s a very enjoyable combination of flavors…but P.K. feels like there’s a little too much going on here. The garlic pepper mayo is pretty insistent about making its presence felt, and the bacon is even more so. As a matter of fact, the bacon dominates the end of the flavor profile, more or less erasing the pleasurable lingering taste of the chicken that P.K. enjoyed with the Original Chicken Burger.

That’s not to say that the Premier Burger is a bad sandwich, and P.K. might have fallen more in love with it if there were no Original Chicken Burger to compare it to. Even though they’re both tasty sandwiches, though, for P.K.’s money, the more straightforward Original Chicken Burger is the way to go, especially since it lets him save 260 yen that he can put towards another Original Chicken Burger the next time he gets hungry.

Top image: SoraNews24
Insert images: SoraNews24, KFC Japan
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Yamaguchi primate decides to pick fights with two other species.

After several months of bears dominating reports of startling wildlife encounters in Japan, it seems as though the nation’s monkeys have decided to take that notoriety as a challenge. We’ve recently been talking about the dreaded Troop T1, a group of monkeys that’s been running amuck in the town of Yugawara in Kanagawa Prefecture, where they recently surrounded and attacked a man who was out for a morning stroll on the city streets. Now comes an incident on the opposite side of the country, in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where a monkey not only attacked a man, but also reportedly decided to maybe drown a cat.

The man in question is a 49-year-old resident of the town of Shunan. He isn’t necessarily a pet owner, but he says there’s a stray cat that’s made its home in his garden, which has a pond. While the man was at home on Tuesday, at around 3:40 in the afternoon, he heard the sound of a loud splash coming from the pond, which he says was caused when a monkey came into the garden and threw the cat into the water.

While the man was rescuing the cat, the monkey, an adult roughly 50 centimeters (19.7 inches) in height, scampered up onto his roof and stared down menacingly at him. It then jumped back down to ground level, and when he turned away from it, leapt onto his back and clawed at him, leaving long scratches on his skin through the thick work clothes he was wearing.

The monkey then ran off, and the cat seems to have survived the encounter without suffering any severe injuries.

The Tokuyama neighborhood of Shunan, where the man lives, isn’t a major urban area, but it’s far from undeveloped countryside, and his home borders a fairly sizable road.

▼ The approximate area where the incident took place

This isn’t the only startling monkey incident the town has had recently, either. On September 8, in a separate part of Shunan, a monkey grabbed and tore the clothing of a local woman. Police have been stepping up patrols in the area and calling on residents to be cautious. Experts warn that should anyone run into a wild monkey, they should avoid provoking the animal, and also avoid making eye contact (as monkeys can perceive that as threatening behavior) while calmly leaving the area.

Source: Television Yamaguchi Broadcasting Systems via Yahoo! Japan News via Itai News, KRY Yamaguchi Hoso
Top image: Pakutaso
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All the details on how to collect the stamps and get the commemorative prize.

Japan has a knack for tapping into the human spirit and understanding what nourishes us as a species. One of the ways it does that is through stamp rallies, fulfilling our desire to collect things, achieve goals, and get our hands on a good freebie.

Now there’s a Studio Ghibli stamp rally coming our way, with four digital stamps to collect and an exclusive commemorative badge for those who collect them all.

▼ 金曜ロードショーとジブリ展とSAGAスタンプラリー = Friday Road Show and Ghibli Exhibition and Saga Stamp Rally

Held alongside the Friday Road Show and Ghibli Exhibition, which showcases Japan’s Friday Road Show TV programme and its long-running history of broadcasting Studio Ghibli films, the event is also encouraging visitors to explore Saga City, where the exhibition is being held from 3 November 2026 to 14 February 2027.

The Friday Road Show and Ghibli Exhibition and Saga Stamp Rally will be held throughout the exhibition period, and although it’s free to participate, an admission ticket to the exhibition is required.

You’ll also need to download Fukuoka Broadcasting System’s free FBS app – you can scan the QR code at one of the rally points to download it – and then you simply visit all four stamp rally locations around Saga City and scan the QR code at each one to collect your stamps. Unlike a traditional stamp rally, where participants physically stamp a piece of card or paper, this event is all done digitally, so you’ll be collecting the stamps on your smartphone.

There is, however, a physical reward that you can clutch in your hands like No Face with a mound of gold, because once you collect all four, you can show your completed stamp collection at the prize exchange counter at any of the four locations to receive your badge.

The four locations and their stamp designs are:

▼ Saga Prefectural Art Museum – Friday Ojisan

▼ Saga Mado – From Up on Poppy Hill

▼ Saga Castle History Museum – Princess Mononoke

▼ Saga Balloon Museum – Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

▼ The stamp rally route stretches around 2.9 kilometres (1.8 miles) and takes around 41 minutes to complete on foot or eight minutes by car.

For visitors who don’t have a car and prefer not to walk, Saga has a convenient bus network that’ll get you to the locations, and it’s drawing attention to that fact with specially wrapped buses for a limited time. The vibrant look ties in with the prefecture’s “Let’s walk Saga Prefecture” initiative, which encourages visitors to use public transport while exploring the area on foot.

Visitors who use the participating bus services or JR trains to reach the exhibition can also receive a free A4-sized clear file featuring Friday Ojisan, the Friday Road Show mascot character. These limited-edition freebies are available while stocks last, and visitors will need to show their exhibition ticket along with the required proof of travel – pick up a “clear file exchange ticket” on one of the wrapped buses or snap a photo of the special photo panel inside the ticket gate at JR Saga Station – to claim one of the files.

As another initiative to get people on the buses, there will be special in-car announcements by voice actress Sumi Shimamoto, who voiced the main character of Nausicaä in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, as well as voicing Satsuki and Mei’s mother in My Neighbour Totoro and Toki in Princess Mononoke.

You can collect the stamps in any order, and you don’t have to visit all four locations in one day as the stamps you’ve collected will be automatically saved in the app. The commemorative badge measures approximately six centimetres (2.4 inches) in diameter and features the exhibition’s key visual, acting as a sweet souvenir and reminder of your efforts. It’s not available for sale, and only one can be claimed per person per device, so it will be a very sought-after item.

▼ A true collector’s item.

Stocks of the badge are limited, so although the rally runs until February, you’ll want to collect your stamps earlier rather than later to avoid missing out. Be sure to check the opening hours of the locations too, so you can plan your visit accordingly and get the most out of each location. Happy stamping!

Related: FBS App, Friday Road Show and Ghibli Exhibition
Source, images: Press release
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Testing center believes photos of test questions have been leaked after finding images on examinees phone.

Along with sports gym locker rooms, hot springs, and airport security lines, driver’s license testing centers are pretty touchy about people taking photographs inside of them. Honestly, that seems like it should be common sense, but since common sense isn’t necessarily universal, the staff at the driver’s license testing center in Chiba City’s Mihama Ward inform all examinees to turn off their phones, and thus their embedded cameras, while in the testing area.

So a 29-year-old Vietnamese woman really stood out when, after handing in her written test for a standard-class motorcycle license on the morning of October 13, she took out her phone and took a picture of the blackboard at the front of the room. A proctor quickly reminded her that this wasn’t allowed, and then asked to see her phone’s photo gallery, where he found not only the photo of the blackboard, but four more images that each contained multiple questions of the Vietnamese-language version of the driver’s test, with annotations such as check marks and Xs added to them.

When asked how she had obtained the questions, the woman claimed “I looked for questions using ChatGPT.” The driver’s license testing center, though, believes that the images were photos taken of prior license tests. As this was the woman’s first time to take the test, their theory is that she had been supplied with questions from someone else who had taken the test on an earlier date.

▼ Even if you did ask AI to make some mock test questions for you, keeping them on a phone that you then whip out in the testing room seems like very unwise choice.

Driver’s license testing protocols for foreigners in Japan have been drawing increased scrutiny over the last few years. In October of 2025, both the written and road tests for transferring a foreign-country driver’s license to a Japanese one were made much more difficult, resulting in passing rates falling from over 90 percent down to roughly 33 percent. It’s not clear whether the woman at the Chiba testing center was attempting to transfer a Vietnamese license to a Japanese one, or if she was simply taking the same test given to Japanese citizens, but in either case there’s a newly acute awareness among Japan’s foreign resident population that obtaining a license isn’t easy, which in turn can make looking for ways to cheat a more tempting idea.

The woman’s test has no doubt been voided, but unfortunately the incident’s repercussions are going to affect others as well. Questions for the test are selected from among multiple possible patterns, but since the testing center now believes that someone has illicitly been photographing and sharing test questions that are currently in the rotation, officials have announced that Chiba will be suspending the Vietnamese-language version of the test from October 16 until a new set of questions can be issued.

Source: Teleasa News (1, 2), Sankei Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun
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Changeover includes old-school solution for stations yet to upgrade to new technology.

Back at the start of the summer, East Japan Railway Company/JR East announced that it will be discontinuing the use of magnetic-strip tickets on its rail network, which is the largest and most-ridden in east Japan. Six other rail operators have now announced that they’ll be abolishing magnetic-strip tickets as well.

The companies joining JR East in this shift are:
● Keisei Electric Railway (operates in Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture)
● Keikyu (Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture)
● Tokyo Monorail (Tokyo)
● Tobu (Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Gunma, and Tochigi Prefectures)
● Hokuso (Tokyo, Chiba)
● Sendai Airport Transit (Miyagi Prefecture)

The collected companies also account for all rail access to Haneda and Narita Airports.

Under the current system, passengers using paper tickets on these lines get a ticket with information such as the starting station and fare amount printed on the front, and a magnetic strip on the back. As you approach a station’s automated ticket gates, you slide the ticket into a slot on the right side, then it pops up from the terminal on the opposite end, so that you can grab it without breaking stride. At your destination you insert your ticket again into the gate as you exit the station, and it’s retained within the machinery.

▼ Ticket gates at a JR East station, with their insertion slots circled

Starting in the spring of 2027, though, the seven rail companies will be switching over to a new system of tickets with QR codes printed on them. Since these can be scanned optically to confirm that the fare has been paid, there’s no need for the data to be contained on magnetic strips, so the QR system will be replacing the magnetic format.

▼ The QR tickets will also be larger, 8.5 centimeters (3.3 inches) along their longest side compared to the magnetic tickets’ 5.75 centimeters, as shown in this relative size comparison graphic.

The companies say this switch is being made for sustainability reasons. JR East alone estimates that its current ticket design annually generates around 160 metric tons of trash, with the magnetic backings requiring a special chemical treatment in order to be safely disposed of. There’s also a long-term economic upside for rail operators in switching over to QR-code tickets. Not only does this allow them to essentially unify admission systems between their physical and digital/smartphone ticketing services, getting rid of magnetic tickets also allows them to eliminate a lot of complexity in ticket gate design and associated maintenance costs.

▼ It takes a lot of moving parts to pass a ticket through the machine and internally read the magnetic strip, as this gate with its outer casing removed shows.

Somewhat ironically, though, the switch to QR codes doesn’t mean that travelers will never again insert their ticket into a gate. After you scan your code at your destination station, there will still be a slot in the machine where you can stick your ticket, so that you don’t have to carry it around with you once your ride is done.

▼ Diagram showing the magnetic (top) and QR code (bottom) procedure when entering (入場) and exiting (出場) the station

In another bit of irony, not all stations operated by the seven companies currently have ticket gates that are equipped with QR code readers, and that will most likely still be the situation when the changeover to QR tickets takes place in the spring. For travelers with QR tickets needing to enter/exit stations without any compatible gates are asked instead to show their ticket to a station employee at the gate, a decidedly old-school way of utilizing the new technology.

For travelers already paying for their fare through tappable prepaid cards like JR’s Suica, the switch to QR-code paper tickets won’t have a direct effect on them, but the changeover still marks the end of an era, so rail fans might want to grab an extra base-fare magnetic ticket to keep as a memento before they disappear. As for those who’ll miss the distinct staccato rhythm of tickets snapping into and out of the machine, maybe someday there’ll be a way to recreate it, like with the recent rebirth of patapata signage at this Tokyo station.

Source: JR East via Abema News via Livedoor News, Nitele News
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Insert images: SoraNews24, JR East, Sotetsu
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Just when Japan thought the jibetarian were gone for good…

With Halloween celebrations coming up, Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward is running a public awareness campaign with multilingual reminders that public drinking and littering are prohibited. Shibuya isn’t the only part of Tokyo that’s been experiencing cultural friction between foreign tourists and the Japanese resident population, though, and there’s another issue that’s attracting attention in the Ginza neighborhood.

Ginza is one of Tokyo’s fanciest neighborhoods, with its primary boulevard lined with flagship stores of brand-name designers plus more high-end boutiques found down the district’s side streets. As demonstrated in the video below, though, it’s not just high-end fashion that people are seeing in Ginza these days, but an increasing number of foreign tourists sitting on the sidewalk.

This sort of thing is generally considered slovenly, inconsiderate behavior in Japan, especially in places like Ginza that want to present a classy atmosphere. When asked why they were sitting on the sidewalk, curb, or planters, one of the people in the video, a man from Malaysia, said his feet were hurting from having been walking around for an hour. Another traveler, a woman from Kosovo, says that she’d assumed that sitting on the curb was OK because the street was currently closed to vehicle traffic (something Ginza does periodically on weekends and holidays), though she then reconsiders and admits that it would be better for her to follow the local customs and not sit there.

As in many parts of Tokyo, there aren’t many streetside benches in Ginza, and while the neighborhood does have a large number of cafes and coffeehouses, sometimes all the seats are taken, and even if there is space, their prices aren’t particularly cheap. That said, it’s extremely unusual to see Japanese people sitting on the street in Ginza, so the locals have demonstrated that is it possible to visit the neighborhood without plopping yourself down on the pavement.

It’s worth noting that there was a social phenomenon of people sitting or squatting on sidewalks in Japan during the late 1990s, who were called jibetarian (a pun on jibeta/”ground” and bejitarian, the Japanese pronunciation of “vegetarian”). However, the practice was primarily associated with rebellious teens, not the sort of demographic that hangs out in Ginza, and by the early 2000s even Japanese culture sort of collectively decided that sitting on the ground didn’t really make anyone look cool or tough anyway. Jibetarian have largely disappeared in the years since, so seeing foreign tourists sitting on the sidewalks of Ginza, sometimes eating meals while doing so, hasn’t been something Japanese locals are very happy about, as shown in comments for the above video such as:

“It’ll only be a few years until Ginza starts looking like [the shady parts of] Shinjuku.”
“Sitting on the ground like that gets your pants dirty, and then that grime gets transferred to seats on trains and in restaurants when they sit in them later.”
“Ginza has gotten really touristy.”
“There are cafes and other facilities where they could sit down, but I guess they don’t want to spend the money.”
“They could install benches, but then people would just lie down on them to nap and leave trash tucked into the frame.”
“A while back there was talk about those photos of foreign tourists sitting on the ground at Disneyland while they ate their lunches.”
“Instead of asking themselves ‘Is it OK to sit here?’ they’re just asking ‘Is it possible to sit here?’, and if the answer is yes, they do it.”

There were also more than a few comments on the video lamenting the lack of benches in Tokyo, so it’s not like the locals are completely unsympathetic. Again, though, Ginza draws lots of Japanese domestic visitors too, and they pretty much all manage to keep from needing to sit on the ground.

Under current ordinances, sitting on the sidewalk in Ginza isn’t illegal, provided the person doing the sitting isn’t blocking the entrance to a building or otherwise unsafely impeding the flow of traffic. That said, Japan’s baseline attitude about how to behave in public is built less on questions of technical legality and more on being respectful to others, especially the members of the local community, so if you want to be a gracious traveler, it’s probably best to listen to your feet and go looking for an acceptable place to sit before you reach the limit of your stamina.

Source: Teleasa News via Yahoo! Japan News via Hachima Kiko, YouTube/ANNnewsCH
Top image: Pakutaso
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Says he wants to go home, but the police are holding onto him for now.

At around 7 o’clock in the evening last Saturday, a 36-year-old American man walked into the police station in the town of Izumi in Kagoshima Prefecture. He was hoping to get some help, and he may still end up getting it, but first he got arrested.

The man said that he had been traveling around Japan, but ran out of money and had no place to stay. The police asked him to show his passport, and when they examined its contents they saw that he had entered Japan on a short-term travel visa, which allows tourists from the U.S. to stay in the country for up to 90 days. They also saw that his date of entry into Japan, via Saga Airport, had been October 15.

But wait, you might be thinking, last Saturday was October 10, so how was the man already in Kagoshima then if he arrived in Japan on October 15? Because he arrived in Japan on October 15, 2025, almost exactly one year before he walked into the Izumi police station. That also meant that his visa had expired nearly nine months ago, on January 13, and since he hadn’t applied for any sort of renewal, he was in Japan illegally.

The man told the police that he was aware he had overstayed his visa, and that as he had run out of money, he now wanted to go home to America. It’s not clear what he expected to happen next, but what did happen is that he was immediately placed under arrest for the visa violation.

The situation presents a good opportunity to take stock of the current social climate in Japan regarding immigration/visa law. If someone has overstayed their tourist visa and wants to leave Japan anyway, it might seem like they’ll have no real consequences to face when turning themselves in to the police. If the authorities deport them, that gets them home all the same, right?

▼ A deportation flight is still a departure flight.

However, Japan is in the process of tightening up a number of visa regulations, and recent high-profile crimes involving both foreign tourists and residents are leading to increased calls from the public to see foreign nationals stand trial and be punished for breaking the law, as opposed to the swift, quiet deportations that were common for many years. While it’s unlikely that prosecutors would seek a lengthy prison term for a visa violation (it would run counter to the idea of “You’re not supposed to be here anymore,” after all), waiting in custody for a court date can be very unpleasant in Japan, especially if the man is found to have been in violation of any other regulations during the year he’s spent in the country.

Legitimate hotels in Japan are required to examine and retain a copy of foreign guests’ passports, so it’s unclear how the man bypassed this or what other form of lodgings he’d been using, and the police are still investigating his activities since arriving in Japan.

Obviously, the smart thing to do is to not overstay your visa in the first place. Should you end up in that situation, though, the wisest place to go looking for assistance is at your home country’s embassy or consulate, since even if you need help, you’ve still committed a crime, which is something the police tend to frown on.

Source: TBS News Dig, Minami Nippon Shimbun
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