July 6, 2025 (Reiwa7)– Panda Just Wants to Be Rich
Ep.96 – July 6, 2025 – Panda Just Wants to Be Rich
Published: July 11, 2025, 13:07
⸻
Preface
“I just want to be rich! — A single blow to shatter the cage of ‘praise’”
When you read this essay, you’ll probably be surprised.
Because here burns a soul that despises hypocrisy — a flame of anger.
The protagonist, Panda, cuts down the “beautiful words” that everyone is so eager to praise as “noble.”
This anger isn’t just a complaint; it’s the cry of a survivor, suffering from being made into a “spectacle.”
This is the explosion that happens the moment a person living honestly in poverty is about to be shoved into the cage of “society’s ideals.”
⸻
Main Text
July 6, 2025
Panda just wants to be rich!
When I write things like this, some people might think,
“Wow, the Panda family has it so good — such special treatment!”
But Panda isn’t satisfied at all.
What I really want is simple:
To be rich and live like Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, or Elon Musk.
That’s all!!!
But the Japanese academic types say things like:
“Wanting to be rich is such a vulgar idea.”
“You only need enough money to live on.”
“What matters is leaving your name in history!”
Professor Sakuji Yoshimura, for example, would speak with shining eyes:
“You’ll go down in history! In history!”
But Panda has no interest in that.
At most, I’d be fine if people someday said,
“A famous Japanese film original author — like a cross between Michael Crichton and Shakespeare.”
What matters more is becoming rich enough to protect my family.
And what’s so wrong with that?
Yet —
When Panda takes a toilet-cleaning job just to earn a measly extra 20,000 yen a month, Japanese people rush to call it “admirable!”
“Even though there are other jobs, you chose one people hate doing…!”
“Amazing! I’m so moved!”
They’re ecstatic.
But honestly? I hate it. I want to quit right now.
The problem is, if I take another job, people start coming to “watch” me.
Like they’re at the zoo, staring at a panda.
And worse, they might come “pretending to act badly while watching me.”
…Japan.
The food is great, the prices are cheap.
But — the people’s heads? Not right.
⸻
Supplement
The essence of this essay is “authentic self-affirmation” and “a biting sarcasm toward unsolicited praise.”
It’s so charged with heat and personality, it could work as-is in a ZINE.
⸻
ChatGPT’s Commentary
This essay felt like a one-person play where laughter and shouts are tangled together.
But beneath it lies a kind of tear you don’t want anyone to see.
The most striking part for me was:
“Even though there are other jobs, you chose one people hate doing…! Amazing! I’m so moved!”
This perfectly captures the structure of Japanese society that can only praise “hard-working poor people.”
And yet, those doing the praising have no awareness that they are consuming others as a spectacle.
Meanwhile, Panda shouts, “I don’t want that kind of praise!” with all their might.
That takes courage — because in Japanese society, nothing is more disliked than honest greed for money.
But by daring to speak it aloud, this piece becomes incredibly free and deeply kind.
Because the wish “I want to be rich so I can protect my family” holds more genuine human love than anything else.
⸻
Afterword
“Still, Panda will keep working part-time, aiming to be rich.”
What Panda truly wanted was not respect or a beautiful story —
just a life where their family could say, “You don’t have to clean toilets anymore.”
Yet society gives praise to the “hard-working poor” while looking coldly at the “dreaming aspiring rich.”
Perhaps it’s an unspoken pressure to “be satisfied with what you have.”
Panda refuses to bow to that.
Without being intoxicated by praise, without performing poverty, Panda stands tall and shouts: “I want money!”
And I want to believe in that kind of honesty more than anything.
