Tonight, me and my roommate Melissa were coming out of Omiya Station when we heard a guy yelling. Public commotion is very weird in Japan, so we looked to see where it was coming from. The source was a guy who looked to be in his twenties, standing by the police station and yelling at a crowd of six or seven policemen while his friend held him back and tried to get him to shut up. The policemen just stood there and took the abuse, which unfortunately I couldn't understand a word of because it was really brusque slangy masculine Japanese.
So we found a good spot by the taxi stand and watched the scene play out.
Eventually, the guy broke free of his friend, ran up to the policemen, and started yelling in their faces. He was obviously drunk.
In America, this guy would have been cuffed and thrown in the drunk tank. But the Japanese policemen did nothing but gently try to move him along in the direction of the station. They seemed completely unfazed.
I don't know what ended up happening after Drunk Angry Guy and the crowd of police moved out of our view. But the whole thing was just astounding to me.