It’s a bit brushed over and sprinkled in the article but this part was brutal: > Last year, when Fukui Prefecture was hit by the heaviest snowfall in decades,

It’s a bit brushed over and sprinkled in the article but this part was brutal: > Last year, when Fukui Prefecture was hit by the heaviest snowfall in decades, it was discovered that a 7-Eleven franchise store was banned by the parent company from closing temporarily even after the store owner’s wife fell ill from overwork. > He lost his wife in May last year and he “was on the verge of falling ill or dying from karōshi (death from overwork),” he said. It summarizes for me how extreme the relation is between franchise and the owners, how little escape they have from that abusive bind.