As the elements that constituted global competitiveness radically changed in the 1990s, however, the Japanese system-already heavily insulated from the outside world-ultimately proved itself far too inflexible. To me it seems no accident that mighty Japan careened off course precisely when the age of information, intelligence, and flexible global production utterly disrupted a fairly rigid industrial order.

For just as a growing contingent of social isolates, or hikikomori, shut themselves off in their rooms rather than mediate a society they find intolerable, or "too severe," as one such recluse put it, Japan itself chose to ignore the obvious signs that its corporations invested and exported too much, that its webs of closed, protective relationships would never be as dynamic as open ones, and that national investment schemes that relied on government experts to envision the future could never consistently outperform those who summoned the wisdom of independent innovators, diverse risk-takers, and the signals unrestricted markets provide to guide their evolution.

jun pedaled fever-ishly down the narrow back streets of Kanda and Asakusa, legs churning, his face-intense dark eyes, a well-trimmed mustache-obscured by his bicycle helmet. He cruised past the silent storefronts selling rice crackers and stationery, past the ancient wooden Senso-ji shrine surrounded by shuttered souvenir stands, and darted through darkened alleys and deserted streets, his mind disengaged from the outside world, the rhythms of J-Wave radio reverberating through his headphones, the beat propelling him forward, no destination in mind.

Manic, angry, indomitable, Jun pumped fast, faster, through these ancient neighborhoods heavy with his history, his legs almost flailing, his knees driving hard. Sweat beading his forehead in the humid night, he sliced through the low-slung neighborhoods of Tokyo's old downtown, the working-class flatlands along the banks of the Sumida River, far removed from the aristocratic, hillier districts to the West, deathly still in the hours after midnight, the road illuminated only by the arc of a few scattered streetlights and the eerie blue fluorescence of the ubiquitous Family Mart and 7-Eleven convenience stores. Later he might stop at one to browse through its huge array of comic books and purchase a plastic polyethylene bottle of orange drink to slake his thirst.

these tranquil few hours before dawn are strangely precious to Jun. Only in this empty calm can this wiry 28 year old work off his restless anxiety. Only on these rare dark nights, when he can gather the courage to venture out of his tiny room, can Jun be in the world, yet be himself and escape for just a few hours the confinement of a bedroom that has become his citadel. Being alone seems to him his only mode of self-preservation. "I have an arrow pointed deep inside of me," Jun said to me once, as he sought words to describe his pain. "Listening to music and getting high from the exercise, that's the way I coped. At night you can go out when other people can't see you ... If I didn't go out at all on those nights," he added darkly, "I'd probably have done something violent to my parents."

Jun is not alone in his pain and anxiety. Nor is he uncommon in his solitude. There is also gangly, 19-year-old Hiro, whose long hair nearly obscures his face, who dropped out of junior high when he was 13 and lives at home uneasily with his bickering parents, seldom stepping outside. Hiro has no idea what he's going to do with himself as he emerges into adulthood. And there is 34-year-old Kenji, who almost never leaves his tiny room in his mother's modest apartment on Tokyo's western fringe. He is a pale, quiet child-man, his smile wan, his hair thinning. For most of the past 20 years, his daily rituals have seldom varied. He reads the newspapers each morning and watches Tokyo Giants baseball games on television every summer evening. He passes long afternoons with magazines and daydreams. Sometimes he speaks to his mother. Other days he sits silent, deep in thought. Anxious, trembling, and alone, Kenji is scared-too scared and too scarred to venture into the world beyond his front door.

	page 2	|	3