I’ll start, in my second year in Japan I was walking to the supermarket, it was a nice day weather wise. I saw an old dude pull a leaf straight from a tree and blow his nose with it. Asked the teachers at the school I worked at if it was normal and they were all as confused as I was.
Just this morning, walking to work as usual and see a guy jogging down the street shadow boxing. I’m no fitness expert but that was new to me.
What are some of the strangest/weirdest things you’ve seen during your time here?
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A homeless lady wanking on the floor in Shibuya station.
After buying some stuff as souvenirs (my first time in japan then), i found my bag blocking the way of a couple walking towards me on a sidewalk. As i leaned and grabbed my bag, i noticed something odd on the clothes of the lady – she was wearing a cream colored long coat, a white top and nothing at the bottom except her shoes.
A very “well-endowed” young lady wearing a tank top standing on the Yamanote line in the door between cars having extreme trouble keeping her “endowment” housed within said tank top.
I suspect some sort of “filming” was taking place. I wasn’t keen to end up in the background of a porn film so didn’t look more closely.
Guy standing on a train platform shaving. With shaving foam and all. But no water obviously. Just flicking the foam from the razor onto the platform.
Salaryman walking home(?) in the evening, while shaving with an electric razor. Laughing like a maniac the whole time.
Office lady looking young woman squatting down on the subway platform peeing. It was in the middle of morning rush hour and took me a moment to process what was happening. There were toilets like 5m away.
Guy in a wheelchair in the supermarket rolling around with a bloody falcon/hawk/big bird of prey on his shoulder.
Older guy walking a whole herd of guinea pigs on tiny leashes in the middle of a busy Kyoto shopping street (as a guinea pig lover that pissed me off)
A guy masturbating on one of those pedestrianised pathways you have in Tokyo. Also, on the same pathway an old couple used to often be sitting in the same spot facing away. Once I saw them having a full on kissing session and then a few weeks after that I looked a bit too closely and she was giving him a hand job.
Guy on the train plugs his ear with his index finger, catches some ear wax. Pulls out a ziplock bag and puts the ear wax onto the 5 cm ball of ear wax already in the ziplock bag.
Porn movie in nishi shinkjuku stairwell
Old man dressed like an anime school girl on the Odakyu platforms. Regularly.
A monkey drinking a chuhai in Koenji or one of those other overrated West Tokyo neighborhoods on the Chuo line.
My old neighborhood had a customer who always wore a full East German military outfit, with high-school chemistry class goggles.
Mine seems pretty tame. One of my neighbors, little old guy, regularly practices some kind of martial art with a sword on the street by his house. He’s nice but a bit eccentric
A guy walking along peeing in the middle of the street. Never even stopped walking, just going along with his dick out peeing.
A guy jacking off while holding a strong zero inside one of the bathrooms at my school’s 文化祭
I once saw a high school girl biking down the street reading a book. She had he right hand on the handle bar and her left hand holding the book up at a little below eye level off to the side.
Also not really weird or strange exactly, but once I was coming home from hanging out with a friend and as I was waiting for my train saw a drunk guy stumble up the stairs from the platform. He was swaying so badly that for every step forward he went four or five to the side. The entire staircase was about 5-6 meters wide and he pinged off both walls twice making his way up. I thought for sure he was going to fall at some point but he never did. He was maybe mid 20s and dressed in a suit.
I don’t think this is a Japan specific thing, but I’ve only ever seen this once and on Japan.
Went to the gym a little later in the night once, a guy came in his salaryman clothes, dress pants, dress shoes, belt, shirt, basically wearing a suit. He took the jacket of and worked out for half an hour and then left. Like um…. What?
Guy walking around Osaka with a life sized anime girl doll in a wheelchair with a marriage certificate to that character displayed as well
Along the streets by Kyoto Station’s Hachijo exit some bald man shows up daily to talk to the sky
“Just this morning, walking to work as usual and see a guy jogging down the street shadow boxing. I’m no fitness expert but that was new to me.”
Have you never seen Rocky?
A man walks with a sheet of (laminated?) A3 paper pressed right up against his face, covering his eyes.
I see him almost weekly exiting Koenji station.
Clearly a mental health issue, but everyone he passes seems intrigued.
A drunk western man tried to kick a pigeon at around 5AM on a Sunday. He was wearing flip-flops and managed to send one flying onto a 2nd floor balcony of someone’s apartment. His Japanese girlfriend looked at me with “please help me” eyes. No.
My favourite was a middle aged man riding a toddler’s tricycle down the street. He went into the koban. I would love to know what he said to the police.
Of course I’ve seen lots of drunk people peeing in the street. I used to walk to work through the bar district at 9am on Saturdays and Sundays, so I saw lots of interesting drunks. My favourite was a group sliding down the icy street, with one guy who kept falling over while his friends laughed. The other was a young woman pigging backing on a guy while shouting, “I’m so drunk!”
Wasn’t public but a couple was getting it on in their room with the curtains wide open
Girl pees in park
Man pees in bush
Couple deeds in parking lot
Man vomits in train
Kid sleeps on floor in clothing store
Couple deeds on balcony
One time in Kabukicho a guy robbed another guy and sprinted right past me.
Kids eats sand
Saw a rap battle between two guys in the park at the break of dawn
Speaking of shadow boxing, a couple of years ago I saw a dude suddenly rip his jacket and shirt off on the train platform, start jumping around and doing a bunch of kung fu moves. It was winter, and he was alone. He then finished and calmly put his shirt and jacket back on.
Weirdest thing I saw was an old dude wandering down the street with piles of ichi-man notes, just loose in his hands. Must have been well over 3 million yen, dude was strolling down the street without a care in the world in the middle of the day.
Guy in a very open and crowded area around shinsaibashi vigorously masterbating in his pants whilst intensely staring at shoe he’s holding.
A drunk lady walking up the stairs suddenly lowered her underwear to her ankles then proceeded to relieve herself while still walking up. I had to stop and change direction to avoid the liquid.
One time about 12 or so years ago I was on the Inokashira line on the way to Shibuya.
Some crazy lady tried to grab a toddler out of the arms of her mother who was standing on the train holding her daughter in one arm.
The mother screamed and held onto to the child.
The crazy lady ended up grabbing the toddler by the hand and while trying to pull her away bent 4 off her fingers backwards and broke all her fingers at the knuckles except the thumb (which I could hear….. still haunts me today.)
The crazy lady gave up and ran quickly off the train. (I assume she got away)
The mother was screaming and screaming and screaming and crying. The toddler strangely did not cry as I assume she was in shock.
The train remained stopped at the station and the staff came and brought the woman and her child I am assuming to an office in the station in a matter of 2 minutes.
The train doors shut and everyone went on their way and paid no attention whatsoever to the situation that happened through its entirety.
It’s like everyone else in the train didn’t even look at it happening and was just pretending the situation didn’t exist with their faces buried in their phones.
I was newish to Japan at the time so I didn’t step in as it happened so suddenly and I had no idea what was going on and was just mentally unable to process the situation as it was unfolding right in front of me.
I still wish I had though. One of my bigger regrets.
Usually involves a jiji. Jiji dressed as a high school girl. Jiji dressed in lolita fashion. Jiji screaming at something invisible on the train. Jiji pissing right in front of my mansion. The other week I saw a “fashionable” jiji dressed in all-black, black boots, leather jacket, hat of some sort, and…. tight black underwear, cheeks out, with a tattoo on one of the cheeks (it was too dark to see what exactly it was). Fashion monster is what my friend called it.
One that didn’t involve a jiji was two middle or high-schoolers laying together on a bench, guy on top of the girl, covered with a blanket, moving around most likely going at it.
Once when I was a student I was walking back to the halls after sunset and passed by a Japanese man going the other way.
It was dark so I didn’t realise it until I was pretty close, but he was walking backwards. Full-speed, without looking where he was going, on his own, in the night.
Freaked me out a bit.
A pony. A real, breathing snorting and neighing pony. In the 1m space between the tiny fence and a private house, in Shinjuku somewhere.
just thought of another one, which deserves its own comment.
When I used to work as a ski instructor, there was a guy, probably in his 40s or 50s, who would regularly turn up in the resort dressed head to toe as Hatsune Miku.
He came skiing every other week or so and was decently skilled.
At the end of the day he’d dress back into normal clothes and go back down the mountain, I assume home. He looked like any other ordinary person.
I reckon it was just his way of releasing stress…
This wasn’t that long ago but I spotted a guy walking around wearing assless chaps during winter, could see his entire derriere.
Other more mundane stuff: farmers pissing in fields – par for the course if you ask me, a random salaryman doing a pull up on the train.
I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember.
Guy walking, he saw an idling delivery fan, got annoyed. He went inside the van, took out the keys and threw them in the gutter.
I helped the driver when he cane back to find em.
In Higashi-nakano at like 9:55 am I walked by a woman completely naked sitting on the sidewalk with all of her clothes thrown off in a pile, Sadako levels of hair in front of her face. I was a little bleary and did not process what I was seeing until a young boy and his dad walked by the boy stared in total awe at the woman and I realized she was like really there. I had such a fright I nearly leapt over the bridge
A guy holding his unit upright in his fist, trying to keep from pissing himself as he quickly walked towards the train station toilet. It looked like he was trying to bend it over like putting a kink in a hose to stop it and then trying to cap it off with his thumb, but it was spraying upwards and all over himself like a miniature water fountain.
The iPhone 5 had just come out a day or two beforehand. A young, fashionably dressed salaryman was, perhaps smugly, using it on the yamanote line…when the door closed, clipped his elbow and knocked the iPhone onto the track below the train. Then train, of course, then departed with him on it.
The most interesting part for me was that it was the only time I’ve ever heard a Japanese person exclaim “Jesus Christ!” in katakana pronunciation – perhaps it was somehow for my benefit.