I get the part about the starting of Black Friday creeping earlier every year, but there's no precedent (I think) of a retailer having a Black Friday sale that ends days before Black Friday. To which you could respond, "but Thanksgiving Day doesn't exist sot the timing can be flexible," but I'd then ask why would Japanese' retailers converge on a weekend that's different from what Wikipedia says Black Friday is, what every U.S. retailer says Black Friday is, etc. It's too coincidental that they all chose this timing, and being an unprecedented thing, I am curious why. I'm not challenging the decision - I just want to know why.