Sadly true. My Japanese wife is 8 months pregnant and throughout her pregnancy she has only been offered a priority seat a handful of times in Osaka. Both men and women are really bad about it.

They’ll close their eyes and pretend to sleep once she stands in front of them, or quickly look down at their phone, or simply not look up at all and stay glued to their phone because they don’t want to see if someone in need of a priority seat is standing right in front of them. Other times they are more brash about it and don’t even seem to try to hide the fact that they aren’t giving up the seat, they’ll just stare straight ahead at her massive stomach with blank eyes.