Cross-cultural communication （124）　

124) Operation ‘Shabu-Zuke (drench in amphetamine)’ to Turn Innocent Young Ladies into Regular Customers
In April 2022, the managing director of the gyudon (beef bowl) chain Yoshinoya gave a talk at a fee-charging business seminar held at Waseda University, and as an example of Yoshinoya's business strategy, he discussed their approach to turning young people who have moved to Tokyo to start their lives there into Yoshinoya regulars. The expression he used at the time was “Operation shabu-zuke (drench in amphetamine) to Turn Innocent Young Ladies into Regular Customers”. The explanation he added was something like, “For young girls who have just come to Tokyo, gyudon is delicious and reasonably priced, so it's easy for them to become addicted. Once they get a boyfriend with a good income and learn the taste of a luxurious dinner, it's too late.” This comment immediately caused a stir on social networking sites, and three days later he was fired from Yoshinoya.

Indeed, the comment from a current executive of a gyudon chain restaurant that he would make young people addicted to gyudon in order to boost sales is not only incompatible with general business ethics, but also, no matter how you look at it, it is not a politically correct expression. Furthermore, the words he used, “naive virgin” and “shabu-zuke”, are full of a sense of harassment, and it seems as if he deliberately provoked the SNS.

I thought about this a little after the incident. It's true that the comment was vulgar and unpleasant. But when you ask whether it was a crime, it doesn't seem to be the case, as he didn't break any laws.

What came to mind for me in an instant with this incident was the American tobacco lawsuits that occurred frequently in the 1990s. These lawsuits were brought by families who had lost loved ones to lung cancer and other illnesses caused by smoking against the major tobacco industry. The extremely high amounts of money involved in the lawsuits also attracted public attention. The lawyers for the plaintiffs were also attracted by the incentive of a high income if they won the case, and so they carried out extremely thorough investigations. From the records of meetings of executives from several major tobacco companies, it was discovered that they were fully aware that nicotine was addictive, especially for young people. Based on this, they also found records of meetings where they discussed targeting young people and developing a market for them. It was truly a “Strategy to Drench Young, Naive People in Nicotine”. In the United States, from the 1990s to the present day, the plaintiffs have almost always won in tobacco lawsuits. Therefore, the “Strategy to Drench Young, Naive People in Nicotine” was in violation of the law and resulted in a loss. The operation shabu-zuke has not been taken to court, but it is a good example of “History Repeating Itself”.

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