Oh, wow.

This explains who the asshole in the black van was.

Backstory: In Japan, it's pretty common around election season to have politicians rolling around in vans with loudspeakers, asking you to vote for them. You just get used to it after awhile.

But a few weeks ago, when I was walking to the station, a black van with illegible handwriting on the side had the loudspeakers turned up to about ten million. I could hear them literally three kilometers away, and anything less than five hundred meters was painful.

Of course, because they had the volume up so high, the distortion made whatever they had blaring out of their loudspeakers totally incomprehensible.

The other pedestrians, shop owners, and anybody blessed with the gift of hearing all looked pretty pissed.

The black vans weren't them; you're thinking the Uyoku.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyoku_dantai

It could have been a political group but somehow I doubt they would be stupid enough to turn the volume to 11.

Aaaah, those fuckers. They're some thinly veiled mafiosi.