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Yesterday Was a Highly Unusual Day in Japan

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A handful of incidents happened yesterday in Japan. Some of them were truly awful and others were odd or surprising. On Twitter, people have been rounding up them as "The Incidents of June 29" (6月29日の出来事). Let's have a look.

Note: This article contains content that some readers might find objectionable.

[Photo: Straits Times]

The day started off with North Korea firing a scud missile into the Sea of Japan. This is not a regular occurrence; however, in recent years, it seems to be happening in greater frequency. Yes, North Korea, your scud missiles work!

[Photo: JUN_star_HOSHI]

A cat was spotted perched on a sign in Tokyo's Ginza, attracting a crowd of people. Not really news, yeah, but certainly unusual.

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[Photo: thehiro1979]

That same day, a taxi cab accidentally drove up on a pedestrian walkway in front of Tokyo Station, hitting a pole. Nobody was hurt, thankfully.

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Meanwhile, Twitter users like Pinshu, who reposted the above image, were keeping track of the day's events in real time.

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[Photo: IWKRterter]

There were tornado warnings for Tokyo and the surrounding areas. A tornado tore the roof off a building in Eastern Japan, reports AFP. While more frequent in recent years, tornados are still somewhat rare in much of Japan.

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[Photo: H4_K2]

A middle-aged man climbed on top of a walkway above a busy Shinjuku street in Tokyo, criticized Prime Minister Shinzo Abe via megaphone for around an hour, and then set himself on fire in protest. The incident was reported by the domestic media as well as the international media. According to The Japan Times, miraculously, the man survived.

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[Photo: nogu1224]

During the day, Tokyo was also hit with heavy rain, causing flooding throughout the city. In Shibuya, pressure caused water to shoot out of the manholes, and in Harajuku, a whirlpool was even spotted in a flooded street.

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[Photo: Pinshu]

And here's an underpass in Shibuya.

The news yesterday was also rather odd: MSN Japan reported that a 71 year-old man was arrested for allegedly hitting a 54 year-old woman with a frozen tuna, causing minor injuries. (While reported yesterday, it actually occurred on the 28th!)

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Meanwhile, in Sapporo, a man allegedly robbed the same 7-Eleven he supposedly robbed four days earlier. The thief apparently said, "I'm back," before robbing the store with, according to some reports, what appeared to be an ice pick.

Then, there were anime fans who made wry jokes by pointing out that the day wrapped up with schoolgirl anime Love Live broadcasting its anime TV series finale on television and announcing an animated feature film.

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Even by Japan standards, any of these events on their own would be more than enough unusualness for a single day. As Japanese Twitter users have been noticing, way too much happened yesterday.

昨日起きた出来事多過ぎる [@_i1o]

6月29日やべえよ [@tyywy593]

2014年6月29日の出来事まとめ [@kokorodown02]

6月29日まとめ [@sbkorisu]

GIF: makiguso

To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.

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