Shachiku (社畜): company livestock. The news site Limo defines it as a person who works sacrificing himself for the company he works for.
The origin of the word is uncertain. Limo says it is said to have been a buzzword of 1990. Mynavi News attributes it to the writer Azuchi Satoshi and dates its probable first use to a book of 1992.
Earlier labels for devoted workers were mōretsu shain, the fierce employee, and kigyō senshi, the corporate warrior.
At the Princess Ekiden, a women’s relay race, in October 2018, Iida Rei, a 19-year-old runner for Iwatani Sangyō, broke her right shin. She crawled on all fours to hand the tasuki, the team’s sash, to the next runner. Reports give the distance she crawled as 200 meters, 250 meters or about 300 meters.
On television afterward, the sociologist Furuichi Noritoshi proposed that a runner who cannot go on should be allowed to pass the sash from where she stops. The host, Ogura Tomoaki, replied: Sore jā ekiden no imi ga nai wake deshō. Then there would be no point in an ekiden.
In November 2025, the drug company Taisho Pharmaceutical surveyed 1,200 working people in their twenties to sixties who had caught a cold in the past year. On average, they said they wanted to stay home from work at a temperature of 37.70 degrees Celsius. On average, they actually stayed home at 37.84 degrees.
Karōshi (過労死) means death from overwork. In 1988, as deaths of overworked employees kept occurring, a telephone hotline opened, the Karōshi 110-ban, where lawyers and others gave advice. In 2002, the word entered the Oxford English Dictionary.
In June 2014, Japan enacted the Act on Promotion of Measures to Prevent Karōshi. Its first article states that karōshi has become frequent in Japan and a serious social problem. The act defines it as death from cerebrovascular or heart disease caused by an excessive workload, or suicide caused by a mental disorder brought on by strong stress at work. It also covers these illnesses themselves.
In 1988, at the height of the bubble economy, the drug company Sankyo launched the energy drink Regain. Its television commercials asked 24 jikan tatakaemasu ka, can you fight 24 hours? The commercial song of 1989, Yūki no shirushi (The Sign of Courage), cheered on Japanese businessmen traveling the world, to a tune like a military march.
In 1989, the phrase won a bronze prize at the New Words and Buzzwords Awards. In 1999, Regain changed its line to subete no tsukarete iru hito e, to everyone who is tired.
In a 1998 quarterfinal of the national high school baseball tournament at Kōshien, Yokohama beat PL Gakuen in 17 innings. Yokohama’s ace, Matsuzaka Daisuke, threw 250 pitches.
From the spring tournament of 2018, Kōshien introduced a tiebreak. From the 13th inning, each team began its turn at bat with runners on first and second base and no outs. The start of the tiebreak was later moved to the 10th inning.
Zangyō (残業): literally, remaining work. The Daijisen dictionary defines it as staying on to work after the set working hours, and the work done then.
Shūden (終電): the last train of the day on a line. A dictionary of the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics gives the example zangyō ga tsuzuite, mainichi shūden o riyō shite iru, with overtime day after day, I take the last train every day.
Tetsuya (徹夜): staying up the whole night. The Daijisen example is tetsuya shite ronbun o shiageru, to stay up all night and finish a paper.
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.
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.
A kaikinshō is an award for never missing a day of school or work. Many Japanese schools still give it. Few absences also help in recommendation-based admission to high schools and universities.
A Newsweek Japan article linked this culture to karōshi and suicide from overwork.