They never sleep, gripe about overtime or quibble over paychecks. And -- with more than 5 million of them scattered around the nation -- they are ubiquitous.
From the top of Mount Fuji to the foyer of almost any city office and along nearly every road in between, the steady drone of vending machines is nearly inescapable.
But this army of mechanical vendors -- especially the humming band of beverage-selling ones -- have a darker, unacknowledged side, according to a Kanagawa Prefecture-based nongovernmental organization.