Well, Japan also has this thing that a written contract isn't even needed to start employer-employee relationship, oral agreement is technically enough, difficult to prove of course so everyone does written contracts, but still.
Regarding details, well, there is a list of things mandated by law to be included in the offer, they include things like salary, hours, list of additional allowances (手当), though not necessarily all of them, retirement pay and such, so you should be able to receive that information without even asking. In my, albeit not very numerous, experiences in one case I've got something called 雇用契約書兼労働条件通知書 ("Employment Contract And Notice Of Working Conditions") , which included all the details, and in the other case I've got a separate 雇用契約書 (Employment contract), which included generic things like "you work for me, I pay you for that, don't go spreading company secrets around", and 労働契約書 (Labor contract), which included all the details like salary and whatnot.
I should probably note, however, that I've only asked for and received these things after we were finished with all the interviews and reached a 内定 (the employer making an internal decision to hire the worker. It's nothing official, just a word to describe the state of the person(s) responsible being okay with the idea). I just politely asked for documents to review before I make my final decision, and while I've never received 授業規則 even after asking, they happily obliged with contracts and documents related to how the company decides on employee's salaries. I think there's a lot more resistance to bother with contracts and whatnot when they don't know if you're willing to work with them in principle or not.
As for "how stock options work", well, while it's probably nice on the side of employer to entertain such a question and while it's probably reasonable to give an answer along the lines of "erm, these are stock options of this and that type, these additional conditions apply, google please?", ending the job application process right there is probably overreacting.
I also feel it's important to note that 就業規則 is not really "a detailed contract", because it's not a contract, it's more of a "Labor rules" for the company, so it does count as an internal document and not for outsiders' eyes. Obviously, the rules must conform to the law and as someone has already noted they must be easily accessible to workers, which was always the case for me. In fact I have always received a hard copy of these on my first day.
I would add that one other important distinction, though I don't know how unique, is that you can't win off a hand which doesn't have any yaku. This partly explains the popularity of riichi, as it's okay to have riichi only.
I'll take a shot at translating those in a somewhat intelligible way while trying to preserve hilarity, with my commentary in parenthesis when appropriate.
"A famous udarnik (a shock worker, someone who was a lot more productive than others) Aleksei Stakhanov went number one 2 times a day and number two 1 time every two days. However, when in zapoy (drinking continuosly) he went number one 4 times a day and didn't go number two at all. How many times he went number one and number two in a year, considering that he was in zapoy 312 days a year?"
"When American Seventh fleet ships moored to Petushki station, there was no party member girls (Communist Party obviously, there was no other party) there, but if you consider Komsomol (kind of a youth division of the Party) girls belonging to the party, a third of them were blonde. When American Seventh fleet ships left, the following was discovered: every third Komsomol girl was raped, every forth raped girl was a Komsomol member, every fifth raped Komsomol girl was a blonde, every ninth raped blonde was a Komsomol member. Considering that there was a total of 428 girls in Petushki, how many non-party brunettes were left untouched?"
"As we know, there is no point A's in Petushki. All the more, there is no point C's. The only points present are B. So, Papanin (a last name), going to save Vodopyanov (another last name), started moving from point B1 to point B2. At the same moment Vodopyanov, going to save Papanin, started moving from point B2 to point B1. It is unknown why, but they both ended up at point B3, which is 12 Vodopyanov's spits away from point B1 and 16 Papanin's spits away from point B2. Considering that Papanin's spits land 3m 72cm away, and Vodopyanov can't spit at all, was Papanin actually going to save Vodopyanov?"
Regarding details, well, there is a list of things mandated by law to be included in the offer, they include things like salary, hours, list of additional allowances (手当), though not necessarily all of them, retirement pay and such, so you should be able to receive that information without even asking. In my, albeit not very numerous, experiences in one case I've got something called 雇用契約書兼労働条件通知書 ("Employment Contract And Notice Of Working Conditions") , which included all the details, and in the other case I've got a separate 雇用契約書 (Employment contract), which included generic things like "you work for me, I pay you for that, don't go spreading company secrets around", and 労働契約書 (Labor contract), which included all the details like salary and whatnot. I should probably note, however, that I've only asked for and received these things after we were finished with all the interviews and reached a 内定 (the employer making an internal decision to hire the worker. It's nothing official, just a word to describe the state of the person(s) responsible being okay with the idea). I just politely asked for documents to review before I make my final decision, and while I've never received 授業規則 even after asking, they happily obliged with contracts and documents related to how the company decides on employee's salaries. I think there's a lot more resistance to bother with contracts and whatnot when they don't know if you're willing to work with them in principle or not.
As for "how stock options work", well, while it's probably nice on the side of employer to entertain such a question and while it's probably reasonable to give an answer along the lines of "erm, these are stock options of this and that type, these additional conditions apply, google please?", ending the job application process right there is probably overreacting.
I also feel it's important to note that 就業規則 is not really "a detailed contract", because it's not a contract, it's more of a "Labor rules" for the company, so it does count as an internal document and not for outsiders' eyes. Obviously, the rules must conform to the law and as someone has already noted they must be easily accessible to workers, which was always the case for me. In fact I have always received a hard copy of these on my first day.