The possibility of such a transition, after more than a half-century of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democrats, has gripped the nation’s attention. A poll released Monday by the national broadcaster NHK showed that 90 percent of voters intended to cast their ballot, far above the 68 percent turnout in the last lower house election four years ago. […]

The Democrats have been trying to seize the moment by tapping Japan’s simmering discontent. The party has tried to position itself as the choice for voters fed up with rising social inequalities, stagnating wages and other changes for which many blame economic globalization. It recently issued a manifesto pledging new spending of $177 billion a year. While economists have characterized the Democrats as slightly left of center, and the incumbents as slightly to the right, both parties are promising new social spending to win key blocs like farmers, who were alienated by the small-government reforms of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

According to Fackler, neither major party has much to say regarding Japan’s deepening economic and demographic problems:

“This could be financial Armageddon,” said Naoki Iizuka, a senior economist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo. “Foreign investors could see Japanese government bonds as worthless paper.”

Mr. Iizuka says Japan has at most five more years to get its fiscal house in order before facing the prospect of serious capital flight.

Japan must do this while confronting one of the world’s worst demographic problems. The low birthrate means that there will be fewer working-age taxpayers to support a growing numbers of retirees. In 2005, there were 3 working people per pensioner; that ratio will drop to 1.8 per pensioner by 2040, according to the Health Ministry.

Fackler’s account paints a DPJ victory as a possible means of breaking the grip of Japan’s entrenched interest groups, especially the elite bureaucratic level of the country’s civil service.

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Detail from Ginza Neon Night Rain (2008) by Thomas Birke on Flickr

In his introduction to the set, Birke writes that he shoots Tokyo because it shows us the future in the present. In his notes throughout the set he points to the expressways that thread their way between buildings as high as ten floors up. The scale of this has an arresting effect. I visited Tokyo briefly in 1997, and it was this exact observation that took my breath away—the vertical scale invokes a sense of “swim,” like you’ve been displaced to a future that’s physically larger and denser than your senses are used to.

Via Dan Benjamin.

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While gettin’ my anime on with a certain streaming video service, I did not expect Appleseed: Ex Machina to be as good as the original film. My skepticism was partly due to a general mistrust of sequels, and partly the amount of 3D rendering, which I just don’t like as much as the hand-drawn anime I grew up on. Happily, it rocks. Shinji Aramaki directs again, and John Woo produces. I bought exactly one manga book while I was in Japan for a few months in 1997, and it was Appleseed. The decision was made using the time-honored technique of “cover coolness discrimination.” I was not disappointed. There’s something captivating about the relationship between Deunan and Briareos set against the backdrop of a fallen future utopia. The two Appleseed films do justice to Shirow Masamune’s creation. Masamune also created the Ghost in the Shell series, which heavily influenced the mythology and aesthetics of The Matrix Triology.

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