They thought one time Japan would take the world...economically that is, the hype started to grow about Japan in the late 70s, then in the 80s it was Expats. Japanese had copied nearly all product, they were manufacturning everything, building all gadgets every Movie star wanted to go to Japan and learn t eh way of the Samurai and the 90s the Japanese stock market was worth more than All of the World's Stock Exchanges combined....then the bubble burst, followed by decades of stagnation.
I'm not sure what marked then to visually mark the end internationally in people's minds, maybe it was the Kobe Quake or maybe the Stockmarket decline or maybe the Attacks of Aum ShinRikyo but sometime back then something made people think Japan is not go to be the winner anymore.
In recent years the USA has also greatly stagnated, it has allowed powers like China and others to grow while they covered up for the Saudis and Pakistani, while Lucky Larry made billions, the War on Terror sending the US around in circles almost chasing its own tail. No leadership as idiotic Western Leaders had put Trillions into Afghanistan and call it a 'Religion of Peace', Trump was different though I don't think his hothead personality ever called islamism peaceful. The Joe Biden Admin was correct to pull out but visually it looked bad, jihadi terrorists enemies of Western Civilisation once more in control of Asscrackistan. Europe now simply a place of the bickering bureaucratic, with Brexit it may cost the British but the Eurozone and EU grows smaller, Europe is probably stupid enough to take in another million or so rapefugees and refujihadis. Power is shifting East but it never went back to Japan?
Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games or Japanese Olympic 2021 this was supposed to be the big comeback.
The weird thing is that during the Covid crisis and Corona lockdowns 'Japan Culture' is selling bigger than it ever was. The video game sales shot through the roof, the kids and young adults have quit Marvel and DC to consume Manga comicbooks, they download S.Korea films and Japanese anime cartoons. So while people look to buy from Japan where is Japan growing? At the 1964 Olympics mindset, which caused Tokyo to embark on an insane elevated-highway-building binge, empty buildings, stadium with nothing in them, the land and concrete obsession the results of which still haunt places like Nihonbashi today. The crazy building boombs but with no vision to make cash, the US$3.6 billion Bridge in Akashi Kaiky the Honshu Shikoku project expected to be repaid by in the next thousand years or so by charging drivers a toll to cross the bridge...who really makes money from this tax payer funded stuff?
Culturally Japan's centralization or urbanization is almost TOTAL, it has leveled off at around 93 point something percent. This means that less than 7 percent of Japan’s population of 126 million inhabitants do not live in an urban setting, its not like other nations where people move out of the big cities and move to smaller villages or go off gird on the farm or live a life as hippie preppers, Japan tend to still move inward to the big urban concrete cities, conjestion and pressure on services is bad but Japan's urban levels might not always be a bad thing and there are places more urbanized than Japan for example Macau, VaticanCity, Singapore and Gibraltar. The social economic issue overall population are looming old elderly Ojisan, Oyaji, Obaasan, overall they ain't making kids so Japan is declining, so within 30 years or so, probably nearly no one will be living on those bridge to nowhere islands any more. Kansai was an ok idea but badly done, lack of local connections hindering its ability to serve as a hub now with Corona on the rise all Airports and trasnport might be massive loss. The mindset of the Nagano Olympics and the Scottish Commonwealth Games, at that time for Britain that Robert Maxwell guy was involved, in Japan it was Tsutsumi Yoshiaki's gain was the taxpayers' loss. Once a fictional book commented socially on decline, it book called the Setting Sun, it was a book that desribed a woman who had cheated or had a divorce after an affair. The book also once described the end of an elite class, after World War II, a small aristocratic family in Japan slowly has lost all of their money, the family is unable to change with a rapidily moving world, the family is taken by drug addiction, another hooked on booze, finally the Sister's brother Naoji has committed suicide, was the brother a secret cross dresser? his last request is that he be buried in his mother's cannabis leaf hemp kimono, its a miserable and interesting read but maybe it ends with a hopeful note withthe main character Kazuko says that she is pregnant, and that she will happily raise the child on her own. .
The 2020 Olympics was supposed to be an advert to allow 'Japanese Cool' to bounce back on the world stage, what happened?
..maybe the fault was with America, not turning Mecca into a Crater after 911? Perhaps Uncle Sam would have produced better results if they dropped funny cartoons of Mohammed instead of firing millions of billion of dollars worth of missiles on some AK47 jihad on a camel?
Has the Rising Sun now Set? Will the cities of Japan just become some kind of old zombie Elderly Retirement Community
With the rise of South Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Poland, India, Hungary, Russia, Philippines, China etc
Was the Olympic Advert Opportunity missed?? I feel Japan had not fully mentally recovered from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster, the costs and clean up of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.
It could be worth noting that amid all the economic doom and gloom ,the wars, the natural distasters and shifts of power, it could be worth bearing in mind that Japan is still a very wealthy country and it has bounced back from dire straits many times before.
Can Japanese still make a cultural comeback??
