Japan's jobless forced to sleep in Internet cafés

By Mark MacKinnon
The Globe and Mail
17 March 2009

In a country where workers often receive housing upon being hired, many of the newly jobless are also facing homelessness

TOKYO -- It is 6 o'clock on a Thursday night when the casualties of Japan's latest economic collapse start to arrive at the Manga Internet café.

They shuffle in like a defeated sports team that only wants to get off the field and forget what just happened. The Manga's customers – all men, most of them middle-aged – trundle by, one by one, pay the $9 it costs to rent a computer and a booth for the night, kick off their shoes and collapse into cubicles. Few even bother with the pretense of surfing the Internet before falling asleep in one of the cheap desk chairs that will pass as their bed this evening.

“I heard about it through word of mouth. When you don't have much money, the Internet cafés are the cheapest place where you can spend the night indoors,” said Kimiaki Takimoto, a 46-year-old former Nissan Diesel employee who recently spent a stretch living out of another Internet café shelter in the same working-class south Tokyo neighbourhood as the Manga.

Because they offer customers a roof over their heads, as well as an e-mail connection to the outside world and possible job offers, the cafés are seen as one social step above living on the streets in this, one of the world's most expensive cities. Some cafés have begun embracing their new role as de facto homeless shelters, selling cheap slippers and boil-in-carton noodles in addition to time online.

Even before the world's second-largest economy began its astonishingly rapid slide last fall, the government estimated that there were upwards of 5,000 Japanese who were effectively full-time residents of Internet cafés. Now, staff say, all 80 cubicles at the Manga, one of an estimated 600 cafés around Tokyo, are booked solid on most nights. Many of those bedding down are people like Mr. Takimoto, contract workers who lost their jobs in recent weeks and months as the global economic crisis slammed hard into export-reliant Japan.

Because many Japanese companies provide their workers with an apartment or a dormitory room near their factory, many of those put out of work lost their home the same day or soon afterwards. As a result, not only are Tokyo's Internet cafés filled to bursting with the newly unemployed, but informal tent cities have sprouted in many of the capital's otherwise serene parks as well. While most districts of Tokyo still buzz with economic activity, the growing number of unemployed and homeless in the city are just the most obvious sign of a thick malaise that now hangs over what has long been one of the wealthiest and best-functioning societies in the world.

For months now, Japan has been producing an ever worsening set of macroeconomic figures. On a year-over-year basis, the economy shrank by 12.1 per cent in the last three months of 2008, by far the worst hit taken by any major country. Then exports fell a stunning 45.7 per cent in January. While the country's unemployment rate, at 4.1 per cent, is still relatively low compared with many Western countries, that's historically very high for Japan and some forecast that it could spike up to an unheard of 6 per cent, or higher, before the year is over.

More than 150,000 job cuts have been announced since October, including mass layoffs of temporary workers at such flagship companies as Toyota, Sony and Panasonic. Many more full-time staff were forced to take pay cuts and put on reduced hours. With almost no one here expecting a recovery in the near term, some observers predict that two million more Japanese could be out of work by the end of 2009.

Much of the grim news is expected to arrive at the end of this month, which is the end of the fiscal year for many Japanese companies and the date that also marks the expiry of annual contracts for many of Japan's 19 million contract workers. Economists expect that many companies will tell their temporary employees they can't afford to renew their contracts.

What the Japanese news media originally referred to as a “U.S. financial crisis” is now openly called a recession as the front-page economic news continues to get grimmer. A few are beginning to wonder if even that term properly describes what is happening to Japan.

“It's almost a depression now, even if the media won't call it that,” political analyst Takao Toshikawa said. “Daily life is becoming much more difficult and there is no specific reason to hope for improvement.”

For many Japanese, the most discouraging thing about the bleak times is that the economic troubles can still be overshadowed at times by the chaos wrought by the country's politicians.

The outside world, or at least those with access to YouTube, watched with a mixture of shock and amusement last month as Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa wobbled, apparently drunk, through a press conference at a G7 meeting in Rome. It was a performance that eventually forced Mr. Nakagawa to resign his post and one that has come to symbolize Japan's dearth of leadership in a time of crisis.

Japan has gone through four prime ministers since Junichiro Koizumi won the country's last election in 2005. None of the last three, all of them drawn from the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party, could be said to have a popular mandate. And the current incarnation, former foreign minister Taro Aso, has watched his personal approval ratings bob at about the 10-per-cent mark for months.

Until recently, it was expected that the LDP was facing a resounding defeat in the next election, which Mr. Aso must call by September, which would push the party out of office for only the second time since its creation in 1955.

But now scandal and sleaze have befallen the opposition Democratic Party of Japan as well, with police arresting a top aide to DPJ Leader Ichiro Ozawa in connection with illegal donations received from a construction firm. The fundraising and graft investigation seems likely to force the resignation of Mr. Ozawa, a man who a short time ago seemed certain to be Japan's next prime minister.

“People distrust the entire political system right now. They don't expect anything from their politicians any more,” said Kitagawa Masayasu, a former LDP insider who is now a professor of public management at Waseda University in Tokyo.

The political infighting has only added to the economic carnage. For four months, as Japan slid deeper into recession, Mr. Aso's unpopularity left him too weak to push a 2-trillion-yen stimulus package through Japan's parliament, the Diet. The plan, which his detractors deride as a cynical attempt to buy votes, centres on giving every Japanese citizen 12,000 yen – 20,000 for children and seniors – and encouraging them to spend it.

With the opposition suddenly in tatters as well, Mr. Aso finally forced the package through the Diet last week. But it's far from clear that the cash handouts are going to have the desired effect of encouraging Japanese to spend to get the economy going. An online poll conducted by the Japan Times website found that only a quarter of more than 1,400 respondents planned to spend the money the government was shoving into their hands. The largest share, 31 per cent, said the money was going straight into their savings accounts.

Another 20 per cent said they didn't qualify for the help. To receive the government cash, you need to have a registered address. And a cubicle at the Manga Internet café is unlikely to suffice.

Many in Tokyo were startled in January when 500 homeless and recently laid-off workers set up camp in the capital's Hibiya Park, not far from the Imperial Palace. Organizers say the demonstration was a success – they embarrassed the authorities into finding public housing for those who took part – and they're planning more such actions in the weeks ahead. Another accomplishment was thrusting into the open the very issue of temporary workers, who felt underpaid and undervalued while they had jobs, and vulnerable and victimized now that many of them don't.

Contract employees were supposed to be the solution to Japan's economic woes. The last financial crisis here in the 1990s was blamed on an excessively rigid labour market, specifically the tradition at many Japanese companies of all but guaranteeing jobs for life. That recession led to rapid deregulation by Mr. Koizumi's government, and now more than a third of Japan's work force live from contract to contract.

Although some firms, notably Toyota, have been inventive in thus far managing to avoid slashing full-time staff, temporary workers have proven easy to dispose of. Japan's kindler, gentler form of capitalism was ridiculed and replaced by an American-style every-person-for-himself system that has created a new class of people who exist largely outside the old social safety net.

Many, like Mr. Takimoto, the laid-off Nissan Diesel employee, are now leaves being blown about in a maelstrom. Each time that Japan's economy has stumbled in recent months, Mr. Takimoto's life has dramatically worsened.

Until last March, the divorced father of one had for 30 years run a one-man carpentry business in his hometown in the northern province of Aomori. But mounting debts and a downturn in the housing industry forced him to shut down last spring.

The polite and precise Mr. Takimoto had to sell everything he had, even his tools and his truck, to repay what he owed and eventually he found himself living for three months in a tent in the forest outside of his hometown. Desperate for cash, he met last summer with a temp agency, which matched him with a job at Nissan Diesel's factory outside Tokyo. In June, he signed a one-year contract that was supposed to pay him 120,000 yen a month to put the finishing touches on vehicles as they rolled off the assembly line. The company would also provide him with an apartment.

Two months after he began the job, the line that Mr. Takimoto worked on went from producing 150 trucks a day to sometimes less than half that number, as international orders, especially from the United States, collapsed. By December, Mr. Takimoto was sleeping in railway stations and Internet cafés.

“I'd never slept on a street or an Internet café before,” he said, dabbing discreetly at the corner of his eye to prevent tears from welling. “These things happened to people on the television news. It was a bizarre feeling for me.”

At times, he said, he felt there was no point in continuing. He has attempted suicide twice in the past year, once by swallowing rat poison, the other by trying to hang himself.

During the 1998 Asian financial crisis, Japan's suicide rate – an already staggering 20,000 a year – leapt by almost 50 per cent and has remained above 30,000 a year ever since, a figure unrivalled anywhere else in the developed world. The big increase came in March of 1998 – the end of the financial year then, too – as banks collapsed and the unemployment rate crossed the psychological 4-per-cent barrier for the first time.

“We are very, very concerned that the same things will happen again at the end of the month,” said Shimizu Yasuyuki, the head of a suicide-prevention organization called Life Link. An unhealthy flush colours his face and dark circles have formed under his eyes after a week of all-nighters spent trying to prepare for what he expects will be an onslaught of people like Mr. Takimoto convinced that they have nothing left to live for.

In December, as layoffs mounted, Life Link set up a suicide prevention website that begins with an orange button that tells users “if you want to die, press here.” Hundreds of people now press the button every day and Mr. Yasuyuki is deeply worried that Japan's economic and social troubles are about to get even darker.

“There's a strong sense of crisis,” Mr. Yasuyuki said. “People are losing their jobs, their living places and their human contacts, all at the same time. It puts them in a very risky place.”

Japan: The edge of cool

By Robin Hicks
13 March 2009
Campaign

Robin Hicks reports on why Japan loves a novelty and why it is still the coolest place on earth.

A suit that can be washed in the shower is the latest flash of genius to hit Japanese high streets. Sales for Konaka's Shower Clean suits are healthy as Japan's salarymen jump at the idea of never having to go to the dry cleaners again.

Japan has entered what is shaping up to be the harshest recession since World War II, and yet has lost none of the thirst for novelty that makes it the world's undisputed leader in all things new and trendy.

While Londoners shuffle about in fake fur gilets and skinny jeans, Tokyo's hipsters strut through the highbrow district of Harajuku on a Saturday afternoon as if they got dressed in the dark at a fancy dress shop. Tartan samurai, Geisha Sex Pistols, Gothic Lolita, techno Shirley Temple. Bizarre sartorial mash-ups abound.

Which is all the more odd when you think how conservative Japan is. Rubbing shoulders with the fashionistas of Harajuku are bowing salarymen in dark suits and ladies in elaborate kimono. Two thousand-year-old customs and a desire to avoid being "the nail that sticks out" are what make Japan what it is too.

So how, then, did Japan become so "cool"? One thing to understand, Kazuhiro Shimada, the vice-president of strategy for MTV Networks Japan, says is that Japan is not as homogeneous as one might think. Yes, people tend to conform. But there is a strong subculture that informs contemporary culture.

"The difference is, subcultures in Japan stay underground," Shimada says. "It's not like, say, the West Coast where gays and lesbians are a visible part of society. That's not to say that Japanese people don't express themselves. We do. And in a unique way. But not one that is overtly counter-cultural or rebellious."

Confusing contradictions underpin modern Japan, and what it is to be Japanese. Dave McCaughan, the Tokyo-based Asia-Pacific director of strategy for McCann Worldgroup, points to a survey that asked Japanese of all ages to say what they were most proud of about Japan. "Two things emerged. Traditional culture and hi-tech. Is that a contradiction? No. The traditional culture of Japan is hi-tech."

As early as the 16th century, Japan embraced what McCaughan calls "the culture of perfectionism". People were always looking to improve things, a mentality that went into overdrive in the 70s and 80s and Japan's economic miracle meant the sudden emergence of a middle class. People could afford to trial new stuff and their expectations were raised. Companies responded by making new products of increasingly high quality.

This ethos has persisted, particularly in the FMCG market. It's not unusual to walk into a convenience store and find 300 different soft drinks for sale, not in the name of novelty, but because it is expected, McCaughan says. "In the West, brands are about comfortable, changeless consistency. In Japan, it's the opposite. People have grown up in a country where the quality of everything is excellent, so trying something new is not a risk. A brand's job is to give you newness."

Asahi, Suntory, Sapporo and Kirin gave the world dry, super dry, low malt and seasonal beer. Toyota and Honda have been first to adopt fuel-saving hybrid technologies. Whereas in the West, a new product usually has its own profit centre, the opposite is true in Japan. Fifty different flavours of ice-cream will launch and if only two sell and the rest don't, fine. As long as the company profits as a whole. "Japanese companies take the longer-term view," Phil Rubel, the managing director of Fallon Tokyo, says.

Given Japan's thirst for novelty, it's surprising that a lot of Japan's mainstream consumer culture is not particularly original. H&M became the biggest hit on Japanese high streets when it launched last winter, positioning itself upmarket with its first store opening in Ginza, Tokyo's equivalent of Knightsbridge.

But nothing has eclipsed the impact of Nintendo's Wii console. Three years after launch, and the ubiquity of the Wii has begun to reshape Japan's construction industry. "Houses are being rebuilt to make room for Wii gamers," McCaughan says. "Whereas the iPod was basically a new advance on a Walkman, the Wii has introduced a completely different lifestyle for Japanese of all ages."

The hottest acts in music are Japanese pop sensation Exile and R&B singer Thelma Aoyama (whose white fur hats are the latest must-haves for teen girls). Japanese music has grown in popularity, Shimada says, partly because of a perception that there hasn't been much good new stuff from the West.

Two of the most popular Western stars in Japan are Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. "We're much more kind to Paris than you are in the UK," Shimada says. "We're aware of the sleazy associations, but she has marketed herself very well here. She is seen as kawaii (cute)."

Cuteness is big business in Japan, Rubel says. But it isn't so much a trend as part of Japan's cultural fabric. Cartoon characters with wide eyes sell everything from MP3 players to condoms. Young women wear ankle socks and toys as accessories. Some men, too, dress to look like children.

But, these days, brand owners are paying less attention to Japanese youth. The mobile phone operators NTT DoCoMo and KDDI Corp are offering phones with larger screens and buttons to cater for the one in five of the population that is over 60. Carmakers are producing vehicles that are easier to climb in to. Guitar companies are re-releasing classic models to appeal to Japan's first generation of rock 'n' rollers.

So could having fewer young people mean "cool" Japan withers in the future? Not a bit, McCaughan says. "One of my best planners wants to start up an advisory council for targeting older Japanese. He is 55 years old, and will have a team of 12 over-60 retirees who are inventors. These guys aren't dead wood. They are 19-year-olds in their hearts, with big ideas in their heads."

WHAT'S BIG IN JAPAN
- Samantha Thavasa handbags
- Nintendo Wii
- Korean soap operas, particularly Winter Sonata
- Exile (Japanese pop band)
- Beyonce
- Thelma Aoyama (Japanese pop and R&B singer)
- Shochu (potato liquor grown on soil fertilised by the manure of pigs
fed with the leftovers from making shochu)
- Kobukuro (J-pop band)
- iPhone
- Books on blood type (similar to horoscopes)
- Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea, film from the animation production
house Studio Ghibli
- Paris Hilton
- Fergie (from Black Eyed Peas)
- H&M stores (the upmarket Japanese version)
- Britney Spears
- Shower Clean suits

Japan warming to cheap foreign gadgets amid slump

By Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
Friday, 20 March 2009
Associated Press

The recession is causing a massive consumer shift in Japan: No longer do its famously finicky and brand-conscious consumers assume imported and no-name electronics are as cheap in quality as they are in price.

As products from toasters to laptops carry increasingly similar components and special features — and as consumers increasingly seek bargains — price is becoming as important a distinction among electronics in Japan as it is in most countries.

Lesser-known manufacturers like China's Haier and Taiwan's AsusTek, which have seen success around the world for years, are finally cutting into the sales of homegrown electronics powerhouses like Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. And opportunities are opening here for retailers catering to consumers who are comfortable seeing electronics as commodities.

Nikkei Market Access, the research unit of Japan's biggest business newspaper, The Nikkei, estimates that consumers expect to pay one-third less for a computer this year than they did last year. Shinya Torihama, retail analyst at Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo, says products from lesser-known makers do well as long as consumers believe they offer quality comparable to bigger brands.

"Japanese are still picky about quality, but they are starting to take a much harder look at pricing," Torihama said.

Those who lived through the luxury-worshiping bubble years of the 1980s now routinely compare prices and study reviews online, says Yoshiya Nomura, supervisor at researcher Dentsu Communication Institute in Tokyo.

"Japanese consumers these days are looking for what I'd call super cost performance," Nomura said. "The choice is all about how a product is the best fit in matching an individual consumer's needs."

Newly frugal Japanese consumers may finally be ready for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which pushes electronics made outside Japan and has struggled here since arriving in 2002. Wal-Mart does not break down financial data by nation.

At Tokyo Seiyu, as Wal-Mart is called here, a boxy, utilitarian clothes washer from China's Haier selling for 19,700 yen ($200) sits next to a curvy, futuristic Panasonic machine selling for 137,000 yen ($1,400).

"A lot of people don't care about brands," says sales clerk Masataka Komorida. "Product choice varies among individuals. The Haier is being bought by both the young and the elderly."

Komorida said he expects to sell five or 10 of the Haier washers on a busy day compared with one or two of the Panasonics per month. Haier's fridge appeared in Nikkei Market Access' list of the 10 best-sellers for the first time in September, ranking after five from Japanese makers.

BCN Inc., which compiles data from retailers, two years ago found only two of the 10 best-selling laptops in Japan were made by foreign companies. The top 10 now include laptops from six foreign makers: Acer Inc. and AsusTek Computer Inc. in Taiwan; China's Lenovo Group; Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc.; Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Inc. and Gateway, which is now owned by Acer.

About 77 percent of smaller laptops sold in Japan now come from Taiwanese makers, according to GfK Marketing Services Japan. Japanese makers still dominate in desktops and larger laptops and higher-end products, like 50-inch TVs.

New arrivals are generally limited to niche areas because most Japanese still believe their country's products are superior to any made abroad, said Nikkei Market Access editor-in-chief Atsushi Matsubara.

"It remains to be seen whether this new trend will stick or grow to become mainstream," Matsubara said. "If they don't match Japanese lifestyles, the products won't sell in big numbers."

Japanese companies are fighting back by bringing down prices for lower-end products such as toasters and low-tech washers, while packing their higher-end items with perks: refrigerators than can kill bacteria, washers that save energy and air conditioners that moisturize the skin.

Haier is a clear hit for those who just want the basics, said Komorida.

"The market is now divided into two extremes," he said.

Mamoru Obayashi, a Yokohama resident, who owns numerous gadgets, like many Japanese, buys at both extremes. His computers are from lesser known makers in South Korea and Taiwan as well as Apple and Toshiba.

The 55-year-old college professor recently bought a 3,790 yen ($39) made-in-China DVD player called Wee, a clear echo of Wii, the hit game console from Nintendo Co. The dubious naming strategy by Maxer, a tiny Japanese company, didn't bother him a bit.

"It works perfectly," he said. "At the same time, it is very small and cheap."


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/n/a/2009/03/19/financial/f230508D74.DTL

Geishas may be feeling credit crunch

Reported by Mark Willacy
17 March 2009
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Japan's recession has prompted fears that one of the country's most recognisable and traditional communities, the geisha, may be feeling the crunch as well.

Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The global economic crisis has pushed Japan into recession, crushed its exports and caused massive losses in some of its leading high tech industries such as cars and electronics.

But little has been written about the downturn's impact on one of Japan's most recognisable and traditional communities. The geisha of Kyoto have long-entertained their wealthy clientele with poetry, music and dance. But there are fears the economic crisis is forcing businessmen to curtail their geisha entertainment, leaving these traditional performers more vulnerable to the outside world. North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy reports from the "flower districts" of Kyoto.

MARK WILLACY, REPORTER: Since she was a girl growing up in faraway Tokyo, Fukuya dreamed of entering the floating world of the geisha.
Despite her parents protests, she made her way to Kyoto and was accepted into the “Takemoto Akya”, or Geisha House.
Here in the flower district of Miyagawa, she has blossomed into a geisha.

FUKUYA, GEISHA (voiceover translation): I always wanted to wear the Kimono and was interested in the performing arts, so I wanted to become a geisha and live this life as much as I could.

MARK WILLACY: This is a world wrapped in layers of protocol and precision. And for five years, Fukuya has immersed herself in the ritual of the geisha - music, poetry, literature and dance.

FUKUYA (voiceover translation): Japan has a great culture and I don't want it to die out. I want more girls to show an interest in becoming a geisha.

MARK WILLACY: From the Akya, Fukuya is venturing out into the lantern-lit streets for her rendezvous with her client.
But the sight of these elusive ghosts floating through Kyoto's famous flower districts is becoming rare indeed.
Rie Takemoto is the owner of the Takemoto Geisha House. To her girls, she's "Okasan", or mother . But she's also an astute businesswoman,
who's using the technology of the internet to revive the tradition of the geisha.

RIE TAKEMOTO, TAKEMOTO GEISHA HOUSE (voiceover translation): This is a gateway for girls who want to become geisha and don't know how to. We're hoping the website will connect us with girls who want to become artists like us.

MARK WILLACY: In her quest to keep this performance art alive, Rie Takemoto has enlisted a former English naval officer to open up this reclusive community to the internet

ALEX JENNER, ADVISER: It's quite a closed world, so this'll be the first time really that people from outside of Japan can come in and, you know, actually have an authentic sort of time and evening with a geisha.

MARK WILLACY: Once, there were 80,000 geisha throughout Japan, now it's seems it's something of a dying art. It's believed there are fewer than 1,000 of these performing artists left, and it's feared the economic downturn will see more geisha desert the so-called "floating
world".

A waning interest in traditional Japanese arts, the exclusive nature and cost of hiring geisha, is all putting pressure on this artistic community.

These performers remain a precious jewel in Kyoto's tourism crown, but at a cost to the geisha.

This is where Rikiya Yamamoto steps in. The restaurant owner and other Kyoto businessmen have banded together to protect the geisha
from bad mannered tourists.

RIKIYA YAMAMOTO, GEISHA PATROL (voiceover translation): Some grab the shoulders of the geisha, and others pull at the sleeves of their kimonos. The tourists force the geisha to run on their high clogs, which is very dangerous.

MARK WILLACY: Tonight Mr Yamamoto and his patrol are escorting Ayano to her appointment in the Gion flower district, while at the same time trying to keep the tourists at bay.

AYANO, GEISHA (voiceover translation): There are lots of tourists in the street, so the patrols help control the crowds, which lets me walk to my appointments.

MARK WILLACY: For the tourists, a mere glimpse at these mysterious creatures sends them into photographic frenzy.

BYSTANDER: They're valued, I supposed they're a bit like movie stars, everyone running after them with cameras. And I suppose I got drawn into that myself.

MARK WILLACY: The ancient capital of Kyoto is a monument to Japanese art, architecture, religion and ritual. Every year, 50 million tourists visit its temples, gardens and shrines and seek out its geisha.

But it's feared the global financial crisis could soon see the well-worn streets of this beautiful city deserted.

RIKIYA YAMAMOTO (voiceover translation): The number of foreign tourists is already declining. The economic situation is worsening, and the number of people using geisha as entertainment is decreasing.

MARK WILLACY: For the geisha of Kyoto, the economic downturn is yet another challenge to a tradition already fighting the twin demons of Japanese apathy and modernity.

FUKUYA (voiceover translation): Yes, I worry very much. If our customers suffer because of the economic situation, they will not be able to afford us to perform for them anymore. So I am worried very much.

MARK WILLACY: Japan has long been a living, breathing contradiction between the past and future. Geisha like Fukuya pray that their floating world won't fall victim to the sinking economy of the real outside world. Mark Willacy, Lateline.


http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2518924.htm

Economic tsunami crippling Japan

Reporter: Mark Willacy
25 March 2009
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The world's second-largest economy was once a place where a job was guaranteed for life. But with Japan’s biggest and best-known brands racking up unprecedented losses, about 400,000 contract or temporary workers will have been put out of a job when the financial year comes to a close at the end of this month.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: While recovery in the US economy is vital to Australia, our biggest trading partner is in even worse shape than America. Japan's exports have collapsed by half, it's posted record trade deficits, its economy is contracting at a depression-level rate and now hundreds of thousands of workers face dismissal within days. By any gauge, Japan is facing the perfect economic storm. North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy reports from Tokyo.

MARK WILLACY, REPORTER: For decades a temple to the religion of capitalism, Japan is now locked in an apocalyptic battle between the gods of business and the demons of recession.

Here at this Shinto shrine in downtown Tokyo, hundreds have come to prey for the boom times to return, throwing ceremonial beans to drive away the evil ogres of economic misery.

VOX POP (voiceover translation): I came here to prey for my job because the economic situation is so bad. So I'm praying for the god of business.

MARK WILLACY: Among the throng, praying for a reversal of fortune is Masanori Kobiashi (phonetic spelling), the owner of a Tokyo flower shop.

MASANORI KOBIASHI, FLOWER SHOP OWNER (voiceover translation): I want to get rid of the bad luck this year, so I'm throwing beans to drive the demons of bad luck away.

MARK WILLACY: Mr Kobiashi has more reasons than most to drive away those dreaded demons. As well as trying to keep his small business afloat, he's battling bowel cancer. This may look like desperation - because it is. For many Japanese, religion and ritual is all they have left. In the world's second largest economy, the free market is faltering and recession is on the rise.

RICHARD JERRAM, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MACQUARIE SECURITIES TOKYO: The figures for Japan are far worse than any developed - any major developed economy. And I think that because they're back in a liquidity trap and they're not prepared to use fiscal policy aggressively, you'd have to expect that Japan's gonna be one of the last countries to recover as well. So really things are pretty dire from that perspective.

MARK WILLACY: Yoshinori Sato (phonetic spelling), is one of the tens of thousands of Japanese made redundant by recession. He was promised a full-time job as a machinist, but instead he was only offered a position as a temporary worker, one of millions with few protections who now make up a third of Japan's workforce. After toiling as a temp for five years, he was summarily sacked from his job at automaker Isuzu and left with nothing.

YOSHINORI SATO, UNEMPLOYED (voiceover translation): I feel anger towards Isuzu and the hire company. I thought I could become a full-time worker and for five and a half years I toiled away. Then suddenly, I was laid off.

MARK WILLACY: Normally, when temporary workers like Yoshinori Sato lose their jobs, they also lose their company housing. But this 49-year-old has had enough. He's taken the rare step of confronting a Japanese giant in court.

YOSHINORI SATO (voiceover translation): Of course, I'm confident of winning. You'll never win unless you try. So I'm preparing my main court case against Isuzu to secure my position as a full-time worker.

MARK WILLACY: 100 kilometres away from Yoshinori Sato's tiny apartment is one of Japan's holy mountains.

Rising nearly four kilometres into the sky, Mount Fuji is a symbol of both the vigour and the volatility of this economic superpower.

But in more recent times, this active volcano has become a beacon for Japan's forgotten and forlorn.

This dense forest at the foot of Mount Fuji is known as Juki, meaning sea of trees. It also happens to be Japan's most notorious suicide spot. And with the economy deteriorating even further, many more people are making a final journey here. But one man has made it his mission in life to help those desperate people.

Toyoki Yoshhida (phonetic spelling) knows how it feels to be driven to the edge. Mired in debt, he tried to his end his life seven years ago. These days, he's part of a group which actively tries to stop people taking that last dark journey into the forest.

TOYOKI YOSHHIDA, COUNSELLOR (voiceover translation): Mount Fuji is not a good place for us anymore. Until the suicide problem is confronted, the reputation of this place will be tarnished.

MARK WILLACY: Today, at the base of the mountain, Toyoki Yoshhida is helping to put up signs which implore people in debt or without a job to call his organisation.

TOYOKI YOSHHIDA: Many of these people are temporary workers who lost their jobs and are stuck with home loans and debt. Many others can't find work and are troubled.

MARK WILLACY: When the economic bubble burst in Japan 10 years ago, the number of suicides passed 30,000 annually, staying at that rate ever since. With the economy crashing even harder and faster this time, the Government has just begun publishing monthly suicide figures.

But many in Japan feel their leaders should be doing more than that to protect them from the recession.

The sozzled performance of Japan's Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa at an international economic conference in Rome last month was seen by some as the perfect metaphor for a government staggering from crisis to crisis.

KOICHI NAKANO, POLITICS, SOPHIA UNIVERSITY, TOYKO: A lot of people found that amusing but also humiliating. Many Japanese are very conscious of the - its international image and the fact that the Minister for Finance was supposed to be meeting his counterparts to solve the current economic crisis was actually getting drunk, I think led a lot of people to realise that they cannot really trust the Government.

RICHARD JERRAM: Plan A seems to be, "Let's hope that America and foreign demand recovers quickly." And plan B seems to be, "Let's hope that plan A works."

MARK WILLACY: If the Finance Minister can afford a drink or five in these sobering economic times, Masanori Kobiashi reckons he can too. So tonight, to relax and forget about the tough times, the flower shop owner's joined members of his Tokyo neighbourhood for dinner and drinks. Everyone here has a hard luck story.

FEMALE AD DESIGNER (voiceover translation): I'm an ad designer. I was laid off in April and I'm still looking for a job now. I just can't find one.

FEMALE COMPUTER PROGRAMMER (voiceover translation): I'm a computer programmer. There's no work and my company has cut lots of workers and I'm waiting for the bad news to hit me.

MARK WILLACY: Even the most powerful companies in Japan like the Toyotas and the Sonys can do little to outrun this economic tsunami. It's little wonder then the Japanese are praying for divine intervention, because right now the demons of recession seem to have completely out manoeuvred the gods of business.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Mark Willacy reporting from Tokyo.


http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2526242.htm

Head Case

By Ian Priestley
Friday, 20 March 2009
Metropolis Magazine

In his new documentary, director Kazuhiro Soda explores the taboo subject of mental illness

Widely regarded as one of Japan’s leading new documentary filmmakers, Kazuhiro Soda made a name for himself with his first full-length movie, Campaign. Released in 2007, the film depicted the adventures of an unlikely LDP candidate in his quest to win a city council seat in Kawasaki. While Soda’s shadowing of his subject with a handheld camera may not have created a flattering advertisement for the LDP, it did produce a triumph for the cinéma vérité style of filmmaking: it debuted at the Berlin International Film Festival, enjoyed a weeklong run at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and was broadcast on TV in 20 countries.

In his latest offering, Mental (“Seishin”), Soda uses the same fly-on-the-wall filmmaking techniques to record life inside a small mental health clinic in Okayama Prefecture. Due for domestic release in June after generating a buzz on the international film-festival circuit, Mental takes audiences into a world that many would prefer to keep hidden. Soda depicts consultations and therapy sessions, with interviews that delve into the patients’ personal histories and battles with mental illness. The result is a film that offers not just greater insight into the world inside the clinic, but into Japanese society as a whole.

From his home in New York City, where he has lived since 1993, Soda reveals that Mental’s subject matter was, in part, determined by his own experiences as an editor of Tokyo University’s student paper.

“It’s only a student newspaper, but it has a long history that goes back to the Taisho era,” explains the 38-year-old Tochigi native. “I had to organize the finances as well as the editing, and we had to publish every week, so I was working day and night. One day I woke up and found myself unable to do anything. When I went to the computer, I couldn’t write.”

Soda sought help at Todai’s department of psychiatry, where he received a diagnosis of “burn-out.” He received medication, quit the newspaper and, after catching up on weeks of lost sleep, managed to recover. The experience, however, made him reconsider his ideas about mental illness.

“I thought I was immune to that sort of thing, but I wasn’t. It changed my view of mentally ill people too. We have this demonic image of them, that they are scary. But for a time, a very brief period, I was one of them, and I wasn’t a monster. So I was always interested in this subject.”

This director’s experience is far from unique. A study last year by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor found that 24 percent of Japanese people had suffered from some kind of mental health problem. Another report found that one in five adults had considered killing themselves, with actual suicide rates at 51 per 100,000 people—twice as high as the USA and three times that of the UK. The figures have prompted a $222 million government

campaign to raise awareness of the issue and to make counseling services more widely available.
Despite these numbers, mental health treatment in Japan is widely regarded as lagging behind that of many other developed countries. Until as recently as 1987, patients with more severe emotional problems could be institutionalized against their will under the “Mental Hygiene Law.” Even today, a sense of shame prevents those who suffer less severe ailments from seeking treatment. Yuzo Kato, director of the Tokyo Suicide Prevention Centre, is critical of the government campaign to reduce the suicide rate, which focuses mainly on making counseling services available. “More should be done to end the cultural stigma attached to mental illness,” he says.

Mental was filmed at Chorale Okayama, an outpatient clinic run by Dr. Masatomo Yamamoto, who for decades has been involved in changing attitudes towards the treatment of the mentally ill in Japan. Yamamoto accords his patients a high degree of respect, listening to their opinions and involving them in decisions about treatment. The clinic features a patient-run restaurant and milk delivery service to help connect them with the outside world.

“[Masatomo’s] whole approach is related to an experience he had working in a large mental institution in 1969,” says Soda. “He wondered why the doors of the rooms and wards were locked, so he decided to have a discussion involving staff and patients. The discussion was about who was responsible for locking the doors of the rooms. The patients said it was the nurses, but the nurses said this was because the patients behaved badly—sometimes they would disappear or leave without permission.”

The dialogue between the two groups eventually led to greater understanding.

“The patients started to say, ‘Well maybe we should behave a little better,’ and the nurses started to say, ‘Maybe we’re locking the doors for the sake of our convenience.’ They began to work towards the same thing—having the doors unlocked. And I believe the most important thing was that the patients were included in this discussion. I don’t think many other mental institutions are like the one I filmed. Some are still like the one the doctor worked at in the ’60s.”

In the press material for Mental, Soda talks about an invisible “curtain” that hides this world of the mentally ill from that of so-called “normal” society.

“My job as a filmmaker was to open this curtain and create a film where the viewer has a kind of virtual experience of being in this mental clinic,” he explains. “By doing this, maybe you get some kind of respect, understanding or insights into the issue. It’s up to each viewer what kind of experience they get, but I hope it will be a positive and insightful one.”

The stars of Mental are the doctors and patients, and much of the film’s power results from its strong cast. One patient is a former high-flying businessman who wound up burning out. Another is a woman who developed an eating disorder after being told that her legs were fat. Yet another is a manic depressive with dreams of starting a farm in the countryside. And then there’s a character named Sugano, who one moment is doing an impersonation of a steam train with a lit cigarette up each nostril, the next reciting poetry.

The more Soda filmed, the more he came to respect the patients and realize that their experiences were not all negative.

“Of course, they are suffering and they want to get rid of their illness,” he says, “but at the same time, for example in the case of Sugano-san, he couldn’t have written those poems if he hadn’t experienced illness. In a sense, his illness makes him a more interesting, attractive person. Sometimes being ill can be a strength, not a weakness.”

Mental was filmed by both Soda and his wife, Kiyoko Kashiwagi. As an experienced director accustomed to being behind the camera, Soda was able to maintain a distance from his subject matter. For Kashiwagi, this was not so easy. After spending so much time at the clinic with the patients, she began to question her own mental state. Eventually, she herself made an appointment to see Yamamoto.

“I felt really sorry for her as a husband,” Soda recalls. “But at the same time, as a filmmaker, I thought, ‘Mmm, this is interesting!’ Actually, she refused to allow me to film her consultation, but the point is, I think the roles of healthy/unhealthy are very ambiguous, and it’s very easy to cross between the two.”

Given Mental’s controversial subject matter, it’s difficult to predict how audiences will react when it’s released here in Japan. Soda realizes that he risks being accused of exploiting the patients, but his biggest fear is that controversy might negatively affect the lives of the people depicted. To make sure everyone involved in the film knew how they were being portrayed, the director organized a private screening for patients and staff. He confesses that despite gaining the patients’ permission to be filmed, he was worried about their reaction. At first, it seemed his fears might be realized.

“As soon as we announced the screening, some of the patients said they wouldn’t see the film. I was most worried about one patient in particular, whose baby had died. She hadn’t told many people about that, but she had confessed to me on camera about her role in the baby’s death, and I kept this confession in the finished version. I heard before the screening that she’d said that she wasn’t coming, so I was worried about what might happen if she heard things about the film from other people. I knew that she’d tried to kill herself six or seven times the previous year.”

The patient arrived at the screening after her scene had been shown, but in a discussion afterwards, she asked the director if he had included “that” scene.

“I told her that I had. At first, she was very disappointed and angry. She said, ‘So everybody knows about that… now I won’t be able to live.’

“I didn’t know what to say, but then another patient raised her hand and said, ‘Well, it was shocking to learn what happened, but I am glad I now know your suffering. I didn’t know you as a whole person before and now I do, and I’m not changing my mind about you. I’m a mother, and I know how hard it is to raise a kid.’ I think it was the first time that people had listened to her story, and I think she was surprised that anybody could possibly sympathize with her.”

With an increasing media focus on violent crime, often committed by people seen as mentally ill, Soda’s film offers a different view.

“In the case of the woman I talked about, in the news she would just be portrayed as an evil mother—it’s always black and white,” he says. “But if you listen to the stories of some of the people involved in these things, it’s not that simple… Demonizing people doesn’t solve anything. In a sense, I want to provide an antidote to that kind of attitude. It wasn’t my purpose when I started filming, but I am hoping this film will show that these people are human beings and they are vulnerable. We are all vulnerable and need support. If somebody was there to listen to these people, maybe some of the crimes wouldn’t happen.”

In a sad footnote, three of the patients who appear in the film have killed themselves since it was made.

Mental has won the Best Documentary Award at both the Dubai and Pusan film festivals, and when it debuts in Tokyo, selected screenings will be with English subtitles. Whatever the reaction, it seems likely that the director will achieve at least one of his aims: bringing the topic of mental illness out into the open, at least for a little while.

For more information about Mental, see www.laboratoryx.us/mental.


http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/recent/feature.asp

Desperate Japanese head to 'suicide forest'

By Kyung Lah
Friday, 20 March 2009
CNN

AOKIGAHARA FOREST, Japan (CNN) -- Aokigahara Forest is known for two things in Japan: breathtaking views of Mount Fuji and suicides. Also called the Sea of Trees, this destination for the desperate is a place where the suicidal disappear, often never to be found in the dense forest.

Taro, a 46-year-old man fired from his job at an iron manufacturing company, hoped to fade into the blackness. "My will to live disappeared," said Taro. "I'd lost my identity, so I didn't want to live on this earth. That's why I went there."

Taro, who did not want to be identified fully, was swimming in debt and had been evicted from his company apartment. He lost financial control, which he believes to be the foundation of any stable life, he said. "You need money to survive. If you have a girlfriend, you need money. If you want to get married, you need it for your life. Money is always necessary for your life."

Taro bought a one-way ticket to the forest, west of Tokyo, Japan. When he got there, he slashed his wrists, though the cut wasn't enough to kill him quickly.

He started to wander, he said. He collapsed after days and lay in the bushes, nearly dead from dehydration, starvation and frostbite. He would lose his toes on his right foot from the frostbite. But he didn't lose his life, because a hiker stumbled upon his nearly dead body and raised the alarm. Video Watch report on "suicide forest" »

Taro's story is just one of hundreds logged at Aokigahara Forest every year, a place known throughout Japan as the "suicide forest." The area is home to the highest number of suicides in the entire country.

Japan's suicide rate, already one of the world's highest, has increased with the recent economic downturn.

There were 2,645 suicides recorded in January 2009, a 15 percent increase from the 2,305 for January 2008, according to the Japanese government.

The Japanese government said suicide rates are a priority and pledged to cut the number of suicides by more than 20 percent by 2016. It plans to improve suicide awareness in schools and workplaces. But officials fear the toll will rise with unemployment and bankruptcies, matching suicide spikes in earlier tough economic times.

"Unemployment is leading to this," said Toyoki Yoshida, a suicide and credit counselor.

"Society and the government need to establish immediate countermeasures to prevent suicides. There should be more places where they can come and seek help."

Yoshida and his fellow volunteer, Norio Sawaguchi, posted signs in Aokigahara Forest urging suicidal visitors to call their organization, a credit counseling service. Both men say Japanese society too often turns a cold shoulder to the unemployed and bankrupt, and breeds a culture where suicide is still seen as an honorable option.

Local authorities, saying they are the last resort to stop people from killing themselves in the forest, have posted security cameras at the entrances of the forest.

The goal, said Imasa Watanabe of the Yamanashi Prefectural Government is to track the people who walk into the forest. Watanabe fears more suicidal visitors will arrive in the coming weeks.

"Especially in March, the end of the fiscal year, more suicidal people will come here because of the bad economy," he said. "It's my dream to stop suicides in this forest, but to be honest, it would be difficult to prevent all the cases here."

One year after his suicide attempt, Taro is volunteering with the credit counseling agency that helped him get back on his feet. He's still living in a shelter and looking for a job. He's ashamed, he said, that he still thinks about suicide.

"I try not to think about it, but I can't say never. For now, the will to live is stronger."


http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/19/suicide.forrest.japan/#cnnSTCText

Japanese Women Hunt for Husbands as Refuge From Deepening Slump

By Toru Fujioka
17 March 2009
Bloomberg.com

When Yumiko Iwate’s pay was cut last year, she and her female colleagues all agreed there was only one thing to do: find a husband.

“I want to get married soon, hopefully by the end of this year,” said Iwate, a 36-year-old employee at a mail-order retailer in Tokyo. “The recession made me realize I’m not going to make as much money as I expected, and I’d be more stable financially if I had double income to fall back on.”

Women the Japanese call “marriage-hunters” are looking to tie the knot as companies from Toyota Motor Corp. to Sony Corp. fire thousands of workers and the nation heads for its biggest annual economic contraction since 1945. Marriages surged to a five-year high of 731,000 in 2008 as wages stagnated and the unemployment rate rose for the first time in six years.

“Financial concerns are a major reason for the increase in marriage-hunting,” said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. “Women are motivated more than ever to find a financially sound partner.”

The trend marks a reversal for women who put careers over families after Japan implemented equal labor rights 23 years ago. The number of marriages in the following decade slid 4.5 percent to an annual average of 746,000 compared with the decade before. Despite equal rights, women still make 43 percent less than men, giving them more reason to seek a partner during recessions.

‘As Good as Men’

“I know women before my generation worked so hard and pursued their careers so they could prove they’re just as good as men,” said Reiko Kubo, 25, who bought a good-luck charm at Tokyo Daijingu shrine. “They didn’t have to depend on men and that’s cool, but it’s not the path I want to follow.”

Tokyo Daijingu has come to be known as the marriage-hunters’ shrine, and the number of visitors has risen about 20 percent in the past year, said priest Yoshiyuki Karamatsu. For 5,000 yen, he will conduct a ritual to ward off bad spirits; the purification ceremony includes drinking sacred sake.

Recessions have encouraged the Japanese to wed before. Marriages rose when an asset-price bubble burst in the late 1980s and again after the technology crash in 2001. Analysts say the trend is gaining traction because the current slump is expected to spur record-high unemployment.

Economists at Dai-Ichi Life Research and JPMorgan Chase & Co. expect the jobless rate this year to surpass the postwar peak of 5.5 percent in 2003. Unemployment in January was 4.1 percent. Wages have slumped for three months, and the economy contracted an annualized 12.1 percent last quarter, the biggest drop since 1974.

Civil Weddings

Marriages are also increasing in other countries as recessions spread around the world. The number of civil weddings in London’s Westminster Register Office, the city’s most popular, rose 8.5 percent to 1,684 between April 2008 and February 2009 compared with a year earlier, according to Alison Cathcart, the superintendent registrar. “We certainly feel a lot busier,” she said.

Japan’s husband hunters are pursuing relationships the way they might search for jobs: They interview at agencies -- dating agencies, in this case. They attend networking parties or just let friends know they are ready for commitment.

Iwate started her quest in December by writing New Year’s cards to 170 acquaintances from junior high school classmates to fellow dancers at salsa lessons, asking for help finding an eligible bachelor. Her five co-workers are in on the hunt, introducing each other to potential partners and putting sticky notes on the most useful pages of the “Complete Guide to Marriage Hunting” from “an an” magazine, a weekly publication for women in their 20s and 30s.

‘Looks Shouldn’t Matter’

The issue included articles telling readers that, while it’s acceptable to choose a husband by occupation, “looks shouldn’t matter because they’re not essential to leading a married life. You need to consider men you normally wouldn’t date.”

It listed character traits by job type: “Traders tend to be adventurous and forward-looking; pharmacists conservative and stable; sushi chefs patient and creative.”

It also cautioned against playing hard to get: Being coy “is strictly forbidden; men want to seriously date women who act natural.”

Business is booming at Green, a marriage-hunting bar in Tokyo’s nightlife district of Roppongi. Men pay 11,340 yen ($115) per visit to have waiters set them up with women, who get in free. The bar is booked solid on weekends, and membership is up 26 percent this year, according to owner Yuta Honda.

Dating Agencies

Interest in O-Net, Japan’s largest dating agency, is also rising. The number of people requesting applications jumped 10 percent in the past year, according to spokesman Toshiaki Kato. Shares of Watabe Wedding Corp., a wedding-planning agency, are up 55 percent since September, while the broader Topix index has slumped 30 percent.

Marriage hunting has even attracted the attention of policy makers, who have been trying for years to increase Japan’s birthrate. Women give birth to only 1.34 children on average in their lifetimes, government data for 2007 show, well below the 2.07 required for a stable population.

A government panel charged with increasing the population met last month and invited academics to discuss the trend. Until now, efforts were focused on people with children, said Yuko Obuchi, 35, the minister in charge of the project, who is expecting her second child in September. “Marriage hunting underscores the importance of addressing unmarried people as well.”

Meanwhile, Natsuko Ono, 25, is sparing no expense to find a man. She said she’s spent 370,000 yen so far, mostly for a professional portrait and registration at a matchmaking agency.

“It sounds like a lot of money, but if you consider that it’s a way to find a husband, it’s a reasonable investment,” she said while scoping men at Green.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aoh23J2YSp8A&refer=japan

Suicides in Japan top 30,000 for 11th straight year

Friday 06 March 2009
Japan Today

TOKYO —

The number of people who committed suicide in Japan in 2008 came to around 32,000, exceeding the 30,000 mark for the 11th straight year, a Kyodo News tally showed Thursday. The figure was based on preliminary data released by police departments in Japan’s 47 prefectures.

Government officials said the latest data do not necessarily reflect the adverse effects of the global financial crisis that started in the fall of 2008. But they said the number of suicides could increase in the future, noting that people who lost their jobs in the wake of the economic slowdown could face difficulties several months later.

Meanwhile, the police agency released monthly suicide data for the first time Thursday, saying that 2,645 people committed suicide in January this year. The figure is bigger than the 2,305 reported for January 2007 in a monthly population survey compiled by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Of the total for 2008, the number of suicides increased by more than 80 in Hokkaido and Nagano prefectures from a year earlier and by about 70 in Saitama Prefecture. In contrast, the number decreased by about 120 in Hyogo Prefecture and more than 100 in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Yamanashi Prefecture was top in terms of the number of suicides per 100,000 people, with a suicide rate of 40.8, followed by Aomori Prefecture where the rate came to 36.5.

According to the NPA report for January, 1,894 suicides were men and 751 women.

Tokyo accounted for the largest number with 255, followed by 159 for Osaka Prefecture and 155 for Saitama Prefecture. Tottori Prefecture had the smallest number of suicides at 14.

The annual number of suicides topped the 30,000 threshold for the first time in 1998, totaling 32,863, a sharp increase from the 1997 total of 24,391, according to NPA data. The figure swelled in 1998 amid an economic slump marked by a large number of business failures.

Since 1998, the annual total has remained above the 30,000 mark. In 2003, the figure reached a high of 34,427. The figure stood at 32,155 in 2006 and 33,093 in 2007, according to annual NPA reports.


http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/suicides-in-japan-top-30000-for-11th-straight-year

Headless In Tokyo

By Christian Caryl
From the magazine issue dated Mar 9, 2009
Newsweek

Sure, Aso is atrocious. But so were his predecessors. Here's why Japan's politicians are so bad.

It's hard not to pity Shoichi Nakagawa. By now it seems the whole world has heard about the shame of Japan's former finance minister, who turned up apparently drunk at a G7 conference in Rome on Feb. 14. Nakagawa, who slurred his words and seemed to nod off during a press conference, resigned in disgrace soon after.

The real scandal, though, may be the guy who stayed.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, the man responsible for appointing Nakagawa, is still on the job—despite approval ratings in the single digits and an apparent lack of any coherent plan for rescuing the world's second-largest economy from what may become its steepest slump since World War II. Aso's propensity for gaffes—he once said he wanted to turn Japan into a country "where the richest Jews would want to live"—and his failure to find a modus vivendi with the emboldened opposition have condemned Japan to paralysis at just the moment when it's in dire need of strong leadership.

Yet Aso's agony—and that of his party, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—has even deeper significance. His failings at this crucial moment underscore the country's dramatic leadership deficit. Never, it seems, have the Japanese felt the absence of credible politicians quite so acutely. On Feb. 27 the mainstream Asahi Shimbun newspaper captured the mood in an op-ed when it pleaded, "Enough with the political void." As that line suggested, what's most striking about Aso's shortcomings is how normal they are. Modern-day Japan is a major force in global business, culture and technology—yet in some ways it is governed like a banana republic. Which raises a key question: why?

The current prime minister's failings shouldn't come as a complete surprise. There were always reasons to have low expectations of Aso, who took the job without ever receiving a mandate from the electorate; he was picked by fellow members of the ruling LDP following the resignation of two similarly feckless LDP prime ministers in as many years. His immediate predecessor, Yasuo Fukuda, shocked the nation by almost casually throwing in the towel after just a year on the job, at a surprise press conference on Sept. 1, 2008. And his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, almost wept as he cited unspecified "health reasons" when announcing his decision to step down—also after just 12 months in office.

Yet Aso's performance has been lame even by these low standards. His brief term has been marred by crippling legislative gridlock and an ill-conceived (and unpopular) scheme to stimulate the economy by sending the equivalent of $120 to every taxpayer in the country. Even before he became prime minister, his career had been marred by epic gaffes. He once accused the opposition party of acting like Nazis when they blocked legislation he favored, praised Japan's harsh colonial rule in Korea and Taiwan, and cracked insensitive jokes about Alzheimer's patients.

Explanations for his and his colleagues' ineptitude abound. Some blame their failings on Japanese traditions that value seniority over performance. Others single out the rigid Japanese educational system. Still others point to deeply institutionalized cronyism in the political and business worlds, which tend to prioritize chummy dealmaking over serious policy formulation. But pretty much everyone agrees on the biggest problem. It's the LDP itself, which has singlehandedly ruled Japan, with only one brief interruption, since the party's founding in 1955. For too long, the LDP was essentially the only game in town—a result of the Cold War, when the party was set up as the only counterweight to socialist and communist parties that were anyhow too radical to appeal to mainstream voters in this conservative nation. The party also developed notably opaque ties with business, handing out lucrative public-works contracts or favorable regulation in return for political contributions. The result was a culture of backroom dealing and little accountability. The system rigged the game strongly in favor of incumbents, conformists and timeservers.

While times were good, the flaws in this setup were harder to see; during Japan's boom years, a smoothly functioning bureaucracy and a talented entrepreneurial class delivered enough growth for everyone, and the politicians just had to make sure the wealth trickled down to their constituents. The end of the Cold War, however, and the collapse of Japan's asset bubble after 1989 gradually began to expose the downside of the LDP's dominance. The increasingly sclerotic party seemed bereft of economic answers, dithering for years over how to clean up the banking sector, for example. And yet it managed to hold onto power despite its manifest lack of ideas. Virtual stasis ensued. "The LDP has been in power for so long that it can't change itself," says Masaharu Nakagawa of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

Things briefly looked like they might improve at the beginning of this century, when Japan's economy perked up and a glamorous reformer, LDP Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, took the helm from 2001 to 2006. By appealing directly to the people and campaigning against his own party, Koizumi shook things up and gave great momentum to calls for change. He also drove home the notion that politicians actually can and should sell their big ideas straight to the electorate. Koizumi strengthened the prime minister's office at the expense of the bureaucracy and chipped away at the traditional LDP faction system.

Many things haven't changed. One glaring symptom is the phenomenon of so-called hereditary politicians, who have basically inherited their jobs from family members. In the past 20 years, eight prime ministers have been sons or grandsons of previous LDP politicians. According to a recent study by Japanese journalist Shiota Ushio, a full quarter of all current members of the Diet are the children of ex-legislators; among LDP lawmakers, the figure is even higher, at 40 percent. Even Koizumi, the supposed iconoclast, was a third-generation politician.

Inbreeding has produced a political class deeply out of touch with the nation. The scions attend the best schools and universities in Tokyo, returning to their "home" districts only when election time comes around—which contributes to their sense of estrangement and has inspired disgust among voters. Critics also argue that family connections have made LDP politicians soft. Abe, for example, was the son of a prominent politician and the grandson of a prime minister, and when he precipitously threw in the towel, DPJ member Keiro Kitagami says his constituents interpreted this lack of "gumption or toughness" to Abe's "pampered life."

Another expression of the LDP's oppressive clubbiness is the tendency of its leaders to appoint ministers on the basis of personal affinity rather than professional qualifications. Both Abe and Aso were accused of governing by the principle of otomodachi naikaku: "the cabinet of buddies." "This is one reason we've had such a miserable political situation over the past five years," says political analyst Takao Toshikawa.

It's hard to overstate just how deep the rot has spread. The biggest problem is that the government still hasn't managed to present a credible plan for reviving the economy. It has passed some modest stimulus measures, and more may be on the way. But what's received the most attention has been Aso's ill-fated $20.5 billion cash-payout plan. Many Japanese have raised objections because they can't see why the checks should be sent to rich recipients as well as less-well-off ones—a problem that was compounded by Aso's constantly shifting explanations of the rationale for the policy.

Meanwhile, the missteps of Japan's leaders have become legend, and are almost impossible to imagine in another advanced democracy. In 2003, for example, one Diet member, Seiichi Ota, actually opined that there was still hope for overcoming the nation's demographic crisis because "gang rape shows the people who do it are still vigorous." One minister in Abe's government referred to women in 2007 as "birth-giving machines." Neither seemed particularly concerned about the fallout.

This points to another source of Japan's problems: its electorate keeps returning dismal politicians to office. The DPJ's Kitagami says the voters still too often fail to hold their politicians accountable. "People are too passive, and that's created a sort of lenient environment where you have incompetent politicians holding power."

Yet change may finally be in the offing—thanks largely to the rise, over the past decade, of the DPJ, which finally won control over the Diet's upper house in July 2007. Many Japanese now believe that simply kicking out the old LDP bums in the upcoming general election will have a galvanizing effect. They concede that the DPJ is hardly an ideal vehicle for renewal. Its head, Ichiro Ozawa, is a former LDP bigwig and unpopular; his party offers little programmatic coherence. And many of its leaders are strikingly inexperienced.

Yet there's a widely shared hope that a victory for the opposition could nonetheless serve as the prelude to a broader cleansing of the political establishment. One particularly important outcome would be a much-needed shift toward a system where political ideas are more important than personal connections—something that's already being fostered by the rise of a real two-party establishment. "It was one thing when you had a closed, hermetic system," says Tobias Harris, author of the blog Observing Japan. "Nowadays you actually need to appeal to people to bring them along. It's not enough to say 'Here's our campaign slogan, here's how we're going to do the budget'." The DPJ's Nakagawa says that previous methods for winning power are changing. "Earlier there were certain opinion leaders in each village, each community. In the old days we could talk to them, and they would influence the vote," he says. "But now people have begun to think for themselves." The machine, in other ways, may finally be breaking down. It's about time; in fact, it's long overdue. For given the many problems Japan now faces, change can't come fast enough.

With Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo


http://www.newsweek.com/id/186965

Polka dots and miniskirts: how Japan wants world to see it

By David McNeill in Tokyo
Friday, 13 March 2009
The Independant

Foreign ministry sends 'ambassadors of cute' to do cultural battle abroad

Foreign envoys come in all shapes and sizes but rarely decked out in miniskirts, schoolgirl uniforms and polka dot dresses adorned with bunny rabbits – until now.

The dramatic new look for Japan's diplomatic corps was unveiled by the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday, part of a plan to boost its soft power abroad with what it called "ambassadors of cute".

In place of the traditional buttoned-down male bureaucrat, trailing the whiff of stale cigarettes and mild distress, the perfumed power trio of Misako Aoki, Yu Kimura and Shizuka Fujioka were wheeled out for the foreign press. Representing Japan's Lolita, schoolgirl and gyaru (a youth fashion) sub-cultures, the three pop envoys from Japan's manga and animation world will be tested out at cultural festivals in Bangkok and Paris, said the ministry's head of cultural affairs, Tsutomu Nakagawa.

"It's all about mutual understanding," he said. "We want people abroad to know these kind of people exist in Japan and to feel close to them."

Dressed in a school uniform, Ms Fujioka, who was billed as an "adviser to a well-known shop that sells school-uniform-type clothes", said she loved her look, despite graduating from school a year ago. "I think I can continue to dress like this all my life. Age has nothing to do with it," she said. Misako Aoki, sporting a frilly pastel pink dress and described as "a charismatic leader who features Lolita fashions" said people of all ages "love clothes... from small girls to grandmothers".

"[We] would like to communicate and spread the cuteness [of Japanese fashion] by visiting many countries, and if they would come to like Japan as well." The ministry said the women would spend the next year travelling the world, promoting Japan.

Tokyo has recently shifted emphasis from extolling traditional arts to pop culture, under the rubric of "Cool Japan", a response to the growing worldwide interest in comics, animation and Japanese music.

Last year, the foreign ministry won cheers and sneers after naming the beloved Doraemon, an animated robotic cat from the 22nd century, "anime culture ambassador". One of Tokyo's most prestigious universities, Meiji, is building the world's largest manga archive near the city centre. The curator, Kaichiro Morikawa, says it shows official Japan is embracing what was until recently a subculture associated with schoolboys and nerds.

"The government, universities and think-tanks increasingly recognise that this is an important aspect of Japanese life, and that it is popular elsewhere," he said.

Some suspect the latest move is the brain child of the Prime Minister, Taro Aso, a famous manga fan. He thinks Japan's soft power, in the form of otaku (nerd) culture, might be used to promote the nation's interests.

But with his disapproval rating dipping to about 80 per cent after five months in office, the move is unlikely to save Mr Aso from political humiliation in elections later this year.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/polka-dots-and-miniskirts-how-japan-wants-world-to-see-it-1643978.html

Japanese find sweet indulgences amid recession

By Taiga Uranaka
12 March 2009
Reuters

TOKYO - Recession-hit Japanese consumers may be going without the designer clothing and gadgets they normally indulge in, but the downturn has not dulled the nation's sweet tooth.

Candies are a national obsession, with expensive Swiss roll cakes, rusks and $10-a-piece chocolates considered little luxuries that are too hard to give up for most people.

"Instead of going to cafes or dining out, people are spending more time at home," said Takashi Iida, who manages the sweets section at Matsuya department store in Tokyo's upscale Ginza shopping district.

"Sweets are one way of making time at home more enjoyable."

Consumer spending on most items has plummeted as Japanese grapple with their worst recession since World War Two.

Department store data shows sales of women's clothing declined for the 19th straight month in January and overall sales fell for 11 months running.

But sales of sweets have risen for 25 months in a row.

Kayoko Shibata, spokeswoman at Mitsukoshi department store in Ginza, said shoppers often line up for 30 minutes to buy a 1,200 yen ($12) Swiss roll.

"There is a line all the time, even on weekdays," she said. "Almost everyday, the shop runs out of stock in late afternoon," she added.

At Gateau Festa Harada, one of the most popular sweets shops in Matsuya, 42-year-old homemaker Masayo Horita lined up to buy five bags of rusks, after also checking out the sweet section of a rival department store.

"These are for my friends as well as my family," she said.

But asked when the last time she bought clothes at a department store was, Horita thought for a while and said: "Maybe two years ago? I don't remember."


http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE52B17A20090312

Haruki Murakami: Japan's 21st-century cultural ambassdor

By Roland Kelts / Special to The Daily Yomiuri
27 February 2009
Daily Yomiuri

Two sharply contrasting portraits of a global Japan flashed simultaneously around the world this month, like one of those live, split-screen broadcasts of two different TV reporters stationed in distant countries. On one screen, viewers watched in morbid fascination as a narcotized and nearly comatose Japanese finance minister named Shoichi Nakagawa slurred his way through a press conference at the meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors in Rome. Two days later, when news broke that Japan's economy had just suffered its worst contraction in 35 years, and that Nakagawa's boss, Prime Minister Taro Aso, himself suffering severe contractions in popularity, had yet to demand Nakagawa's resignation, the emerging picture of a dangerously dysfunctional government overseeing the world's second-largest economy was as painful as it was embarrassing.

But on the other screen, viewers saw a Japanese man of Nakagawa's generation standing firm behind a podium in Israel, accepting that nation's highest literary award, and delivering a speech in eloquent, deeply felt English. He spoke about his vocation as a novelist ("telling skillful lies...to reveal the truth") and his opposition to any and all wars, his empathy with the weak and the dissident and his passion for the uniqueness of the human soul. Spoken with power and clarity, not to mention clear-eyed sobriety, this man's words blended the personal with the political and the metaphorical with the logical to make an eloquent argument for individual freedom and justice.

"We must not allow The System to exploit us," he finally said, referring to the military, industrial and political forces arrayed against the human spirit. "The System did not make us: We made The System."

The second man, of course, was Japan's premier contemporary author and literary translator, Haruki Murakami.

That Murakami presented Japan's best face to the world amid a week of public relations disasters is rife with irony. Since his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing, was published three decades ago, the author has been an outsider in his native land, shunning the local press and literary establishment, and declining all but one domestic request for a public appearance (a reading for a charity event after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, his childhood hometown). He has been seen, and to some degree positioned himself, as a literary pariah in Japan, in part because of its tepid-to-negative critical reception of his work.

"Some critics and other writers hated me because I was different," he told an audience last fall in Berkeley, Calif. "I was called a punk, a con man. Some kind of swindler. Being different is difficult in Japan.

"They hated me. So I left."

===

Exile and return

In the late 1980s, when his fifth novel, Norwegian Wood, sold in the millions, Murakami and his wife Yoko promptly moved away, decamping first to Europe, then to the United States, and returning to their homeland only periodically, and often very quietly. Aside from taking in an occasional Yakult Swallows baseball game in Tokyo and the odd concert (Beach Boy Brian Wilson's solo show, for example), Murakami keeps a decidedly low profile, spending months on end at another home in Hawaii.

Throughout, however, he has kept a close eye on his compatriots. Murakami maintains an almost eerily direct communication with his readers, many of whom are disenchanted and lonely members of Japan's younger generation. ("I keep getting older, and my readers keep getting younger," he now jokes.) When a new book appears, he often opens a Web site and responds to reader queries via an online bulletin board, e-mail or blog entries. "My readers are the most important to me," he says. "It doesn't matter what the critics say. If you are a writer, and you have your readers, you can survive."

In 1995, the twin disasters of the Great Hanshin Earthquake and the Aum Supreme Truth cult's poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system prompted the author to return to Japan and focus more closely in his writing on the world he had struggled to escape. Two related books followed, the nonfiction Underground, containing interviews with Aum cult members and their victims, and After the Quake, a collection of short fictions that take place in the month between the earthquake and the man-made calamity. When I spoke to Murakami shortly after both books had been published, he told me that the experience of writing them had changed him, marking a turning point in his sense of responsibility, both as a writer and as a man.

I have met with Murakami several times in the 10 years since then, and in several cities, privileged to have an ongoing dialogue with a writer I admire and a man I like. In person, Murakami is charming and thoughtful, attentive to the nuances of the English language and gifted with a trans-cultural sense of humor. When I joined him onstage to conduct a formal conversation before an audience of 2,000-plus, I was forced to play the straight man. He had the hall in stitches more than a few times during the evening.

Earlier this year, Murakami turned 60. In our recent, casual conversations in the United States and Japan, I learned that this milestone was very much on his mind. "I'm going to be 60, you know," he would often begin. Or: "I'm almost 60, so..." Unlike former Finance Minister Nakagawa, who will himself hit 60 four years from now, Murakami has not only kept his job--he's thriving.

"My idol is Dostoyevsky," he tells me one evening in his Tokyo office. "Most writers get weaker and weaker as they age. But Dostoyevsky didn't. He kept getting bigger and greater. He wrote The Brothers Karamazov in his late 50s. That's a great novel."

Murakami pauses, looking slightly perplexed through a widening smile: "I don't know how that happened. I don't think he was running or anything. He was drinking and gambling, I think. But he's a model in terms of his achievement."

===

Literary front-runner

As many readers now know, Murakami is a runner, and a devoted one at that, a veteran of 27 marathons. The most recent of his books in English, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, is subtitled "a memoir," and he says he wrote it whole, not as a collection of essays, to explore the connections between running and writing. "It's not just about running, it's also about a way of life. It's not a how-to book. The way I run is the way I have lived, so the book is about the connections between living, running and writing. My attitude toward life."

On the evidence of the book's intertwining narrative accounts of running in Tokyo, Athens, Boston and New York, among others, Murakami's attitude might be summed up thusly: position yourself in the middle (i.e., don't stand out too much), take good care of yourself--and work extremely hard.

Writing is "dangerous work," he writes. Elaborating on this theme in conversation, he says, "You have to go down into a dark place [when you write] and you need physical strength to survive, to come back to the surface."

Murakami began to build his physical strength soon after giving up the bar he managed for 10 years following his graduation from Waseda University--and abandoning a three-pack-a-day smoking habit for the jogging trail. He did a 180 with his sleeping schedule, too. The former night owl started turning in at 9 or 10 p.m. and rising at 3 or 4 a.m. to begin writing. "I actually lost a lot of friends when I made that change," he now says. "They just couldn't understand it, and they got angry. But I think it was a good thing that I changed my lifestyle. You know, nightlife is kind of an illusion. You think there are all these gorgeous things happening late at night, and sometimes they happen. But mostly, it's just boring."

At 60, Murakami's strength remains formidable, if not entirely boundless. He continues to burn through Japanese translations of his favorite American authors, lately publishing fresh editions of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. While he dolefully concedes that his marathon times continue to decrease as he ages, that hasn't stopped him from continuing to run--and swim and cycle. Triathlons are now on his list of undertakings; he had to interrupt his training briefly for his appearances in Berkeley and New York last autumn.

===

And coming soon...

More important for Murakami fans (and they are "fans," lining up for hours to get their books signed in San Francisco, and often greeting the man with trembling idolatry) was his disclosure in Berkeley and later in Tokyo that he had just finished his latest novel. "It's at least twice the size of Kafka on the Shore," he announced to roaring applause. "I apologize to any of you who are train commuters. It's going to be heavy. My books are becoming more complicated because the world has become more complicated." The novel will likely appear in separate volumes and is due in Japanese bookstores this spring.

And there's news for celluloid fans as well. For the first time, a Murakami novel will be rendered in film, courtesy of Vietnamese director Anh Hung Tran. Tran's version of Norwegian Wood, the author's mega-seller, is slated for release next year--news that took me by surprise, since the notoriously cinema-shy author once told me that David Lynch and Woody Allen were the only directors he'd green-light.

"I have seen three or four of [Tran's] films, and I liked them very much. And I like the guy personally. We met four or five times in Tokyo and Paris [Tran's home]. But also, he's Vietnamese-French. And I think the Eastern Asian area is going to create a special culture. That's important to me--that we make our own new Asian culture. Ten years ago, there was no market, no audience around here. But we now have one. We have many political problems, but in terms of culture, we can create a mutual culture, with mutual values."

Murakami's belief in a new Asian creative community is striking, and he partly ascribes the growth of the region to...the Olympics. "Before the Seoul Olympics in 1988, I never saw any royalties from [South] Korean publishers," he says. "But after the games, I started receiving payments, bit by bit, by and by. And in recent years, they've been very good to me. No more piracy. In China, it has been even worse. Horrible. But last year we saw the Games in China, and I think things will improve. That's my very positive opinion. After the Games, things get better."

I ask him what he feels distinguishes an Asian sensibility from a European or American one. "That's difficult. But you know, no American or European director could make a [Kenji] Mizoguchi or [Yasujiro] Ozu film. There's a different sense of time. A kind of patience. And an attention to sound, to silences.

"I think transcultural exchange is the most important thing right now," he adds, resting his hands lightly on the table between us. "I know that because I lived in many countries. When I was in America in the early '90s, Japan was rich, and everyone talked about it. But we didn't have a cultural face. And I thought: Somebody should do something. I have to do something for Japanese culture. It's my duty. I've been getting more popular in Europe and America, so I am in a position to be able to talk to people directly, and exchange opinions. That's a great opportunity. Only a few people can do it. And I'm one of them."

The man who once ran away from Japan may now be its most effective, and reliable, cultural ambassador.


http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/arts/20090227TDY13001.htm

HELLO KITTY: Can Hello Kitty continue to rule the world?

23 February 2009
Brand Strategy

She's the cat who appears on everything from diamond jewellery to pencil cases, with her own theme park and even a branded hospital. Melinda Varley asks if she can stay cream of the crop in a recession

There is a recently opened hospital in Taiwan that aims to relieve the stress of childbirth for women. While this noble aim might not surprise the visitor, the decor is a little more shocking. The four storey building is decked out in pink, with childish cartoons of a white cat looming out from every possible surface. This is Hello Kitty healthcare.

Hello Kitty, a cartoon cat, has appeared on branded merchandise since 1974. But how has the brand's owner, Sanrio, created a $1bn (£722m) marque with a personality so appealing that it has been able to cross cultures, product sectors and move into experiences as diverse as theme parks and hospitals?

Roberto Lanzi, president of Sanrio (EMEA), admits that the success of Hello Kitty and its many manifestations might look a little odd to anyone not familiar with the business. He explains: "One of the key points of Hello Kitty is transgression. It is the only brand in the world where you could buy a lollipop or a bottle of red wine. It's also one of the only licensing companies in the world that does more than E12m (£11.2m) a year in pure diamonds."

For most licensed brands, there is a moment when success turns into over-exposure. One example is designer label Pierre Cardin, which lost its cachet when, at one point, the brand had more than 900 licences, appearing on everything from socks to mattresses. It may make money in the short term, but it has lost long-term luxury appeal.

This does not seem to have been an issue for Hello Kitty, however. Starting out 34 years ago as a cartoon cat on a purse, it has appeared on everything from mainstream school notebooks to edgy, pricey Fender Stratocaster guitars. When McDonald's created Hello Kitty happy meals in Tokyo, people queued up outside in a way usually reserved for rock concerts.

Sanrio's Lanzi explains that the ingredient tying together every licence is that using the cartoon cat should bring a little bit of 'joy' to any product or service. Tsai Tsung-chi, director of Hau-Sheng Hospital with Hello Kitty branding, agrees, saying that the hospital brings a smile to mothers at a very difficult and frightening time.

Lanzi adds: "Hello Kitty was created with the focus of being a small gift, whatever the product. The proposition has always been 'small gift, big smile'."

Martin Roll, business and brand strategist at VentureRepublic, and author of Asian Brand Strategy, says that there are many reasons for Hello Kitty's popularity.

"Unlike many of the Disney characters and other popular cartoons that emote and develop a distinct personality, Hello Kitty is a rather boring cartoon figure," he claims. "It does not even have a mouth to talk. Hello Kitty's Zen-like calmness and faceless expression are the main reasons for its appeal across age groups and markets."

There are 500 new Hello Kitty products launched around the world each month and 500 lines are discontinued. The idea is, according to Sanrio, to change the range to match different and emerging marketing, business and cultural trends across the world.

Apart from the hospital, Sanrio recently signed a licensing deal with mobile handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson, which has launched a range of Hello Kitty branded phones. Lanzi says: "Mobile phones are a very natural product for the Hello Kitty brand. Children are now using mobiles just as much as teenagers and adults. They are objects that everybody has in their pocket and it is always seen. It is great for exposure."

While Sony Ericsson may advertise its Hello Kitty branded phones, Sanrio relies purely on its partners and word-of-mouth. It doesn't have a 'normal licensing strategy', according to Lanzi.

"The big difference between the Hello Kitty and our competition is that Sanrio never advertises any aspect of the brand," he claims. "We don't rely on animations, films, TV shows or anything like that. We are probably one of the only brands in the world that relies on our partners, merchandising and word-of-mouth to keep us out there."

Anna Cole-Morgan, business development director at Comment Retail Services (CRS), the company that sets up licensing deals between brands and retailers, says that Sanrio is unique in its approach. "Normally, licensing is done as a technical or commercial deal," she says. "Sanrio, however, is very involved in the creative side, and its decisions to work with partners are more about their ability to create Hello Kitty products which appeal to the loyal consumer and protect what the brand stands for."

Tara Gregory, executive marketing manager for Los Angeles streetwear brand Ed Hardy, says that approaching licensing by understanding the brand and its relevance in society is a good strategy.

She says too many companies are constrained by sticking to a particular sector or consumer, when it is the brand's personality that can best dictate its usage.

"There are technicalities to every deal. However, the creativity and attention paid to popular culture is really what makes a licensing strategy successful," she argues.

Aside from its unusual approach to licensing, Hello Kitty is also unconventional in that it is a pure branded creation. Most cartoon licences are the result of a popular comicbook character or TV cartoon turned into saleable products after finding an audience through media.

VentureRepublic's Roll explains: "One of the important factors that differentiates Hello Kitty in the world of cartoons and characters is that it is not alive with stories, gimmicks and pre-determined personality before it reaches people.

"By being a simple cartoon with very minimal characteristics, the brand actually acts as a canvas upon which people can decorate with their own embellishments, thereby personalising the cartoon, giving it a special personality and internalising the cartoon into their lives. "This simple yet powerful differentiator sets the Hello Kitty brand apart from competitors."

For Hello Kitty, its personality has been created purely through its merchandise appearances. Starting out as a symbol on a purse and then stationery, it has inverted the usual model, appearing in stage shows and TV cartoons as a result of selling so well on accessories. While the cat made some guest appearances in other Sanrio cartoons, its first series was an American-Japanese animation called Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theatre in the mid-1980s.

Since then, Hello Kitty has gone on to star in the Japanese cartoons Hello Kitty and Friends and Hello Kitty's Paradise. She has been 'clay animated' in Hello Kitty's Stump Village and the three-dimensional Adventures of Hello Kitty & Friends.

Yet most people have come across Hello Kitty through its vast array of branded products, rather than the character's limited media profile. It is because of this, suggests Cole-Morgan, that the figure appeals to more than just the children you might expect to follow a cartoon figure.

She says: "From the very young to the very fashionable, Hello Kitty has an incredible appeal."

But as consumers tighten belts and cut down on more frivolous purchases in a recession, surely Sanrio's Lanzi must be worried for Hello Kitty? In 2008, Sanrio made good profits - up 57% to 3.07bn yen - but profits in the company's native Japan, which slumped into a recession last year, fell 26%.

With less disposable cash to spend, consumers are likely to think twice about paying a premium for a notepad emblazoned with a white cat.

Roll says the Sanrio brand will start to struggle as consumer preferences, especially in the fickle Japanese market, begin to shift.

He says: "As with many iconic brands that have had long-term success only to fade away gradually, Hello Kitty too has shown some brand fatigue in its native Japan.

"With the emergence of electronic gadgets, games and the internet, children and teens are more lured by the visuals and sounds of these new channels than the simplicity and purity of a mouthless cat. It would be a great challenge for Saniro to maintain the brand popularity of Hello Kitty."

Sales in Japan also fell in 2008, down 28.3% to 25.5bn yen. However, in Europe sales rose 62.2% to 4.5bn yen as Hello Kitty's popularity in Italy, Spain, France and Germany gained momentum.

Lanzi admits that economic conditions are challenging: "The market at the moment is very tough. It's easy to go with McDonald's and do a happy meal - but we can't stop there. It's our duty to always be thinking of something new. What I am not happy about in the past three years is that for one property working, we have 200 that aren't."

He is convinced, however, that Hello Kitty is still relevant for its domestic market, where in May last year the character was named a tourism ambassador for Japan, representing the country in China and Hong Kong.

"It's very tough for other brands to make it in Japan so I think we have a safe bet there for the future. Japan is a traditional market with traditional values, and that won't change any time soon," argues Lanzi. "Hello Kitty is universal. The purity makes her a great vehicle for understanding the truth in our lives."

Matt Haig, author of business book Brand Royalty, agrees that tough times need not spell the end for the figure's world domination. Writing about the brand in his book, he argues that Hello Kitty owes its success to the 'cute factor'.

He says: "In a world of incredibly harsh and ugly realities such as wars, terrorism and a recession, cuteness is becoming a powerful brand attribute."

Yet Hello Kitty is not all about cuteness. In line with its mantra of appealing to more than just children, it appears on a number of more adult properties - such as the Fender guitars - as part of a desire, particularly in Asian countries, to position the kitsch Hello Kitty as 'cool'.

The Ed Hardy brand is following Hello Kitty's lead in this area. Don Ed Hardy started life as a tattoo artist, influenced by Japanese culture and aesthetics, and developed artwork on this theme. In 2002, clothing brand Ku USA moved his distinctive designs into fashion by producing a range of products based on his work.

The clothing range began to be stocked in high-end American stores, such as Saks. In 2004, fashion designer Christian Audigier licensed the rights to produce the high-end Ed Hardy clothing line, which is based on imagery from the artist.

The brand now has a range of products including energy drinks, air freshener, scarves, fragrances, bottled water, intimate clothing, men's denim, belts and watches.

Ed Hardy's Gregory adds: "It is a brand that represents Los Angeles culture and crosses all demographics - it's a lifestyle brand. The uniqueness of us versus other licensing brands is that people want to wear Ed Hardy to be a part of the lifestyle."

Sanrio's Lanzi claims that of all the licensed brands across the globe, including Marvel comics, Disney's High School Musical and Hannah Montana, Ed Hardy is his biggest rival.

He says: "We tend not to worry about competition. People have been attracted to the Hello Kitty brand for more than 30 years - but if anyone is out there doing a good job in the licensing space and is making us worry, it's Ed Hardy."

Gregory admits: "I get proposals everyday with a new product idea for the Ed Hardy brand. We have licences from couture swimwear to Smart cars and vodka - we identify a need and a space and fulfil it with a licence. Abnormality is creativity."

One of the reasons for Ed Hardy's success, however, may have less to do with its creativity and more to do with good old-fashioned celebrity pulling power. It is rumoured that US president Barack Obama, heiress Paris Hilton, singer Britney Spears and supermodel Heidi Klum are among the brand's fans.

Lanzi says that Hello Kitty attracts its own celebrity customers but he is not keen on official endorsement strategies: "We are very lucky that many VIPs across the world have adopted the Hello Kitty brand. This is free advertising for us; we don't ask for it, people just love Hello Kitty that much."

One of the brand's biggest celebrity promoters is singer Mariah Carey. The diva has been associated with the marque for a decade, when she started using Hello Kitty as a fashion statement. She opened concerts holding a Kitty doll and last year told Glamour magazine that fans send her the merchandise, which she keeps in her house's very own Hello Kitty crib.

Lanzi enthuses: "We have a very wide appeal across all age groups."

However, the Sanrio president concedes that Hello Kitty's unusual levels of appeal to so many people can be a disadvantage strategically, and this is something the business needs to keep a careful eye on during an international recession.

"At the end of the day we are overexposed," he says. "This could be a problem for us over the next couple of years as we don't have a distinct category. We aren't just toys, and people can be confused by that."

CRS's Cole-Morgan adds that while Hello Kitty has built its status as a cult icon, it needs to make sure it keeps up its pace of developing new products and ditching underperforming ones if it is to hold international consumers' attention in future.

"There is always the risk that the public will become bored if innovation isn't key and the brand is over-exposed," she says. "Consumers can lose interest and move on to something else very easily when something has been around for a long time. Hello Kitty is at risk of that in a few countries."

However, Ed Hardy's Gregory, with a plethora of her own licensed products to market, argues that if the individual products are promoted well, over-exposure won't deter consumers.

With more than eight million Hello Kitty blogs on the internet, it does not appear that over-exposure has harmed the brand so far.

But its future will require Lanzi to overcome the issues of an overly complex portfolio of products, a global recession and the changing nature of consumers.

It is no surprise that Hello Kitty, already in possession of a physical theme park, is now moving into massively multiplayer online role- playing games with its own virtual world, currently in beta testing.

While the brand's jet aeroplane may be less popular in these days of sustainable travel, Kitty's debit card, teaching young people money management skills, seems more appropriate than ever.

Lanzi says he's confident that the phenomenon is not yet over. "Many people adopt Hello Kitty, and all these people interpret the brand differently, but somehow it seems to work," he says.

Roll adds: "Only time will tell whether the meow of this speechless but iconic Japanese cat will be heard in the coming decades. However, the current brand equity of Hello Kitty serves as a solid business platform for the future."