The thing I hate the most about Japan... The one Yen coins...

Squeeze a bunch of one yen coins and you still end up with nada

There are quite a few things I dislike about Japan and even a few things that I would say I hate about living here. But the thing I hate the most, without any competition, about Japan is the one yen coins... The fact using the Japanese yen means a lot more zeroes than shopping in the Euro countries or the US dollar is ok, it's a bit inconvenient, particularly in business when the figures can get quite high and it gets confusing to try and keep in mind the word for "hundreds of millions", "trillions" and what not, but it's ok. Not everywhere can be the same.

But I hate the one yen coin with a vengeance... One yen is basically worthless. If you collect 120 pieces of them you can theoretically buy a coke in a vending machine, assuming you first change them into actual usable money such as ten yen coins (but the bank would laugh at you and probably charge you a counting and administrative fee at a cost of 1.5 yen per yen). But one yen in itself is worth about $0.01 USD... I would be perfectly fine with all prices rounded to the nearest five, I would even be fine with it being rounded up, as long as we could get rid of those useless one yen coins.

One yen coins are never usable in vending machines and for me, having these coin is for one purpose and one purpose only; to keep me from getting more one yen coins in change... That's the only tangible value that a one yen coin holds for me. If I go shopping something and it ends up to, say, 1,853 JPY, If I have three yen coins in spare change I can save myself from getting any one yen coins in change. I can go through significant time scavenging my wallet for any lost coins and get seriously annoyed when I have to take them in change. Sometimes they have those collection boxes for Tohoku, UNICEF or some other charity, but giving 4 yen in coins feels beyond cheap.

I've always wondered what the manufacturing cost (including labour and raw material) of making one one yen coin is, but I have the feeling that it's around ... ... ... one yen or so... If there's any petition to get rid of those annoying little coins, let me know and I'll gladly sign up for it!