Well, here are some smaller anecdotes: In the biography Unbroken (the movie is coming out in December), prisoners in a Japanese prison camp couldn't say the name of this one totally evil guard (Mutsuhiro Watanabe) who would torment them. If he heard them talking about him, or even using a nickname for him that might be negative, he'd single him out for torture. So they ended up calling him "The Bird".

Someone I know from Osaka said they never say the word "Yakuza" (Japanese mafia) in public for fear of attracting negative attention from a nearby Yakuza member.