It's like having a dedicated right turn lane without actually constructing a right turning lane, widening the road. In somewhere as developed as Japan you can imagine some roads just can't be widened (impacting building foundations, etc.), and changing the inside lane into a turning lane would be slow the flow of traffic. They're not a Japan exclusive thing, and they are fucking weird to do. Turning left to go right feels wrong. People tell me you get used to it but I just try and avoid them.
Thanks for the translation notes! Isn't the [kainashi] part being a reference to the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter pretty huge? Sad to see it was lost in translation.
Man this looks like it must've been a lot of work to translate, kudos to the team in charge of that. With that observation aside it was such a great read and super funny. Thanks a lot!