How is it minimizing anything to throw garbage out in location B instead of location A? I guess it eliminates some jobs for people emptying public garbage bins, so there’s one reason I suppose.
I quickly got used to it, just like I got used to pay toilets in various European cities. I never quite got used to Japanese public toilets with no paper towels or hand dryers, though.
Again, thanks for all the replies. And the guy I knew and mentioned in the OP was in Tokyo when he visited.
I’m thinking it gets recycled better if taken home and separated. Not really sure since I have not lived there.
My last time in Japan was 2013. Yes, there was an amazing selection in vending machines. I can’t remember if notes were acceptable in addition to coins, but hey, it’s Japan. Must have been.
Thank you for the explanation! Outside our hotel room window in Kyoto were a half-dozen Tommy Lee Joneses, and it was unsettling. Huge B&W “film noir” shots of him looking unhappy. I did figure out they were vending machines, but we never figured out why Tommy.
I’ve visited Japan 3 times and have always been impressed by the vending machines, especially since I visited twice in hot and humid August and developed a liking for their rehydration drinks, Pocari Sweat and Aquarius.
Last time I visited, in 2011, I spoke to a Japanese friend of a friend who worked for a beverage manufacturer and had also lived in the US a few years. He said that compared to the US there’s more variety in Japan when it comes to beverage flavors. They’re always looking for new ones to introduce, which is part of the appeal of vending machines. Customers know they’ll find new and interesting drink flavors and look out for them at the machines.
Multiple sources claim that trash cans have gradually disappeared from public places as an anti-terrorism measure after Aum Shinrikyo conducted a sarin attack on trains in 1995:
One of the few places you do still see public trash receptacles is on bullet train platforms, where more folks tend to be eating and drinking (since these train rides tend to be longer duration than local train rides).
This. Monitoring public trash receptacles and emptying them costs money. It’s cheaper to just make people take their trash home with them. Most of the time it’s not a big deal: you get some takoyaki from a street vendor, eat it while standing right there, and put the trash in their trash can before you depart. But if e.g. you buy an ice cream cone and wander away with it, now you’re stuck with the ice-cream-soaked paper wrapper from the cone until you get back to your hotel room.
I haven’t been to Japan since the 1980s, but I remember the beer vending machines very well. They used to sell it in interestingly shaped containers. I remember one that had a pour spout attached to it. When you used the spout, it would chirp while you poured.
I recall being able to order a beer and a shot at Denny’s. I instantly fell in love with Japan. 
Big-time American actors are a very big deal in Japanese advertising. I remember from my stint on Okinawa in 1974 TV ads for whiskey – Suntory I think – that featured James Coburn simply holding a shot glass of the stuff and saying the name.
Coburn did a Schlitz campaign in the United States but I can’t find any evidence that he did commercials for Suntory. Maybe you are thinking of Sean Connery? Allegedly, he made more money from being a pitchman than he ever did from his film career.
Stranger
I might be misremembering. This article has a long list of Suntory endorsers including Connery but not Coburn. It does include Lee vanCleef – that’s more likely it.
One thing I really liked about Japanese vending machines is that the buttons light up as you put in your money. So you know what items are currently available to you based on how much you’ve put in, and you know you’ve put in enough money when the button for your item lights up.
My WAG is that they used Jones because of his role in MiB – someone said his ad character was an alien, so it fits.
Although not a novelty type of vending machine in terms of product, there is considerable variety in what comes from a Japanese drink vending machine. There will be carbonated soft-drinks, cold tea, coffee, sports drink and fruit juice in a single machine something you rarely see anywhere else. Also, as noted, during the winter the same machine will be changed to serve both cold and hot drinks as well as warm corn soup. Some of the more recent ones even come equipped with cameras and will suggest what you should buy as you approach it. They rarely get it right in my case, but it is still interesting.
One of the more fun ones that I have used are fresh coffee/tea machines with a camera inside that show you what was happening, from grinding the coffee, to adding the hot water, mixing in the milk (if you got a latte) and then dispensing it in the cup all with a little music playing.
Still, the thing that can be the most surprising thing is where they are located. You can be biking down a deserted road far from the nearest store and find a working and well stocked vending machine.
//i\\
I spent three years in Okinawa back in the mid 7o’s and was amazed at the vending machines. Drinks and food were common but my favorites were the panty vending machines and porn mag coin racks right there by the bus stops. (Nobody ever took the top porn rag from the machine either, which cracked me up to no end.)
Comical story about a seasonal challenge in using a particular vending machine:
This is correct. I was in Japan then, and in fact my customer was located close to Kasumigaseki subway station, a major target of the sarin attack.
All of the trash cans in the train and subway stations were immediately taken away or closed off, as well as many in parks and other public places.
They did come back in some locations, but not as much as prior to '95.
That’s correct. MiB was fairly popular in Japan and he was seen an an actor who was friendly to Japan. Here is a collection of his Boss commercials with English subtitles.
This article is interesting, and talks about the friendly relationship between Jones and Japan.
I was wondering if you had conflated James Coburn’s Speak Lark commercial, but checking it looks like that didn’t happen until the late 80s.
Japan’s economy started really taking off in the 80s, and companies started having enough money to hire big names to come over and appear in commercials. Because the world wasn’t as small then, a lot of celebrities raked in big bucks doing commercials they would never have done back home. There was lots of ads where the person only said the product name. The first part of Lost in Translation was damn near a documentary.
There are a few vending machines which does a slots like thing where you may win a free drink but that’s not too common and I only got lucky once.
Oh yeah. I remember in 2000, Bruce Willis’s mug was everywhere selling canned cold coffee drinks (and they were good!)
I visited Japan once. I don’t remember the machines much. I do remember them serving soda, coffee, snacks and juice. I don’t really remember anything exotic or seeing them all over the place. Didn’t make much impression - though on reading this thread do remember the Boss coffee.