The world is gripped by the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the arrest of prime suspect Luigi Mangione.
People are trying to figure out his exact motives, with figures on both sides of the political spectrum hoping to claim him as a champion against corporate greed.
The 26-year-old is highly intelligent and well educated, it seems, and even made a trip to Japan back in May.
In social media postings, he made comments about the East Asian country, including his suggestions for how to fix the low birth rate. Don’t worry, it doesn’t involve shooting any more CEOs.
How can we ensure Japanese people have more babies? Apparently the solution is to ban Tenga masturbation toys. As regular readers will know, Tenga is the most stylish brand of adult toys in Japan, originally for men but also more recently for women and couples.
Are other brands OK? Sadly not. He also wants the porn star pocket pussy toys banned. He singles out the Japanese Real Hole series and is outraged that such toys are sold at Don Quixote (sic) “grocery stores.”
Other strategies include to “heavily stigmatize” maid cafes for “lonely salarymen pay young girls to dress as anime characters and perform anime dances for them.” This is quite a common discourse among Westerners — blaming maid cafes for the lack of babies being born in Japan. It’s low-hanging fruit, of course, and the real culprits are much more likely the structural issues related to childcare services, employment, and gender roles.
Mangione is also under the delusion that Japanese schools don’t have athletics, and everyone is doing esports instead of actual sports. We suspect he hasn’t visited a real Japanese school.
In general, he was not positive about Japan, noting in a leaked email that the country is “peak NPC-ville” with a “scary lack of free will.”
We suspect Tenga, which is known for its clever and sometimes outlandish marketing stunts, is pleased to be receiving this promotional boost.
