January 4, 2026
Calendar glitch? Comment meltdown
The Showa Hundred Year Problem
Japan’s mini‑Y2K fizzles as commenters clash over eras and memes
TLDR: Japan’s feared “Showa 100” date glitch quietly passed with no problems. The community split between “tradition won’t change” skeptics, people insisting overlapping calendars are normal, and jokesters memeing about the “73rd month of 2020,” with vintage tech quirks fueling the debate and reminding everyone legacy date formats still matter.
Japan braced for a homegrown Y2K-style scare—the “Showa Hundred Year Problem,” where old software might trip over the 100th year of the Showa era—and then… nothing happened. At midnight, Japan’s clocks rolled on, and the real fireworks went off in the comments. One camp cheered the non-event, another dunked on the whole idea, and a third turned it into pure meme fuel.
The spiciest take came from a “tradition vs change” showdown: morninglight compared Japan’s imperial years to America’s stubborn imperial measurements. Translation: don’t expect anyone to switch systems soon. Meanwhile, thaumasiotes cooled the drama, saying dual labels aren’t weird at all—think school years that span two calendar years. But the mood turned chaotic when Electricniko joked we’re living in “the 73rd month of 2020,” turning calendar confusion into pandemic-era humor.
Practical nerds chimed in too: Laforet pointed to vintage camera date backs that just stop at 2019–2029—proof that arbitrary date limits still haunt old tech. And with zero reported glitches, commenters guessed it’s a mix of quiet fixes and the fact most critical systems moved on. So Japan’s “Y2K, but make it Showa” became less a tech disaster and more a comment-section cage match, complete with memes, eye-rolls, and a lesson in how deep calendars run in everyday life.
Key Points
- •2025 marked the 100th year since the start of Japan’s Showa era; the rollover caused no reported issues.
- •Japan uses an imperial era calendar alongside the Gregorian calendar, with eras tied to emperors and used in official records.
- •Showa (1926–1989) lasted 62 years, the longest modern era, overlapping the rise of personal computing.
- •The “Showa Hundred Year Problem” mirrors Y2K: legacy systems might store dates as two-digit Showa years, risking failures at year 100.
- •Despite prior concerns, the 2025 date transition passed without notable incidents related to Showa year handling.