Visible Effort Archives - understand-culture

Staying Late

Sābisu zangyō, service overtime, is overtime work that is not paid. In a survey reported in 2015 by Rengo, the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, about 40 percent of workers said that they had been in a situation where they had to do it. The average was 16.7 hours a month.

Tsukiai zangyō, keeping-company overtime, means staying at work after one’s own tasks are done, to match colleagues or the boss. In a survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 12.8 percent named ending it, with bosses sending staff home early, as a measure needed to reduce overtime.

The Ten Demon Rules

The Oni jissoku, the Ten Demon Rules of the advertising company Dentsu, were set down in 1951 by Yoshida Hideo, its fourth president. The fifth rule reads: Torikundara hanasu na, korosarete mo hanasu na, mokuteki kansui made wa. “Once you take hold, do not let go. Do not let go even if it kills you, until the goal is reached.”

In December 2015, Takahashi Matsuri, a new employee aged 24, took her own life after long overwork. In July 2017, Gendai reported that from that fiscal year, the rules were no longer printed in the employee handbook.

Eight Hundred Eighty-One Pitches

At the summer Kōshien tournament in 2018, the high school pitcher Yoshida Kōsei threw 881 pitches over the whole tournament.

In November 2019, the high school baseball federation set a limit of 500 pitches in one week, starting with the spring Senbatsu tournament of 2020.

Star of the Giants

The manga Kyojin no Hoshi, Star of the Giants, ran in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1966 to 1971. One device from the story became famous: the dai rīgu bōru yōsei gipusu, the major league ball training cast, which the hero wears all the time to build his muscles. The magazine Hiragana Times calls the series a pioneer of supokon, sports and guts, manga.

Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden, a relay race, was first held over two days in 1920, starting in front of the Hōchi Shimbun newspaper building in Yūrakuchō, Tokyo. Since 1987, Nippon Television has broadcast both days live. Each team’s runners pass a sash, the tasuki, from one to the next.

Effort Is Always Rewarded

Doryoku wa kanarazu mukuwareru. Moshi mukuwarenai doryoku ga aru no naraba, sore wa mada doryoku to wa yobenai. “Effort is always rewarded. If there is effort that is not rewarded, it cannot yet be called effort.”

Japanese websites often print these words as a saying of the baseball player Ō Sadaharu. The site All About calls it his best-known saying. Neither of the two sites checked here names the occasion or gives an original source, so the attribution is not confirmed.

A Cap on Overtime

Under a cap explained by a regional labor bureau of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, overtime in Japan is limited, as a rule, at 45 hours a month and 360 hours a year. Under special circumstances, the limits are 720 hours a year, and less than 100 hours a month including holiday work, with an average of no more than 80 hours over two to six months.

The cap applied to large companies from April 2019 and to small and medium-sized companies from April 2020. A violation can bring up to six months in prison or a fine of up to 300,000 yen.