It’s amazing how this video referred to Japan as overpopulated. How much things can change in 40 years is amazing. Really enjoyed the film thanks for posting this. Peace from the USA
But Japan then like now is still ahead of other countries with robots doing the work, not people. Japan's tech is so much ahead of the rest of the world it is amazing.
@@noreenanthony-tabar2148 You'd be surprised how little actual automation there is in Japan in comparison to other countries these days. During my time there I realized how, despite all the opportunities, they still decide to use human labour where you'd already put machines to do the work. And even if they do put robots somewhere, it's nothing more than a marketing gimmick that is still supported by way too many people. Also, sadly, Japan is slowly getting left behind in terms of many things. IT sector is a huge, uncreative mess, reminding me of 90s, maybe early 2000s. Cashless payments, something that is common in other countries these days, is almost a magical concept to the Japanese (unless you include prepaid IC cards...which are only good for commuting and not much else). I mean, I can easily pay for flowers bought from an elderly lady in any smaller city in Poland, using just my phone, to do a mobile instant money transfer with no additional fee. All done in less than 15s....While at the same time, in Japan, I can't even use credit card or their prepaid IC cards to pay for an entrance to HALF of the cultural places like museums or shrines because REASONS...
Loved this, great to see into early 80s japan. I'd like to see a "Where are they now?" sort of deal. By now, Kentaro is in his mid 40s, Kimura and his wife are probably around 70-ish. Hearing Shinjuku being this up and coming thing made me life knowing how much of a powerhouse of media it is now.
I remember visiting family in the 80s as a kid, it was always just a vast, just mind-blowing experience every time. As a kid that was obsessed with transforming robot toys of every kind, I was in heaven. There didn't seem to be a lot of tourists back then. Japan really seemed to be a world of itself back then. The anime felt like this great secret and it was fun to bring them back to America and just seeing my friends' minds just explode from seeing cartoons that they would *never* show after, like, He-Man. 🤣 I remember playing the Famicom well before the NES debuted. I think that while Tokyo was very clean, there was still a grittiness to it that I can't quite explain. I could go to toy stores and just stare, for *hours* at all this amazing shit that I had no reference for. I loved the trains everywhere and the gatchapon seemed just...better, then.
I lived there in the mid eighties and know what you mean. Rarely saw foreigners and without the internet things like manga, animae and even much of the food was little known in the west. The grittiness reference also rings true …. especially for Osaka Kawasaki and Yokohama which were little rough round the edges as befitting cities with manufacturing at their core.
If it wasn't for anime otaku and certain kinds of gamers, I do wonder how many tourists Japan would get. My desire to travel there happened because I am a car enthusiast, and certain cars caught my attention. It was 1989, and the Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo just went on sale. Over there, it would have been known as Z32 Fairlady TT. It was the first time I had ever heard of twin turbo. Turbo already sounded like magic to 80s kids. What was twin turbo but even more magic to a kid? There are plenty of enthusiasts in the USA who like certain Japanese cars. However, few get a desire to travel there.
This is amazing! It's interesting to see that 40 years on, so many things are the same, and yet some are wildly different: the izakayas and hostess bars frequented by the Patriarchal salaryman class remain, and yet social & cultural progress in areas of civic rights and digital freedom have expanded too.
What an absolutely beautiful program . Every country should do a snapshot in time like this. But the whole "ayyy don't think so Dianne! " made me laugh my rocks 🪨 🪨 off. "Hello Dianne. "....lol
I was in kindergarten in 1989. We were told Japan was 10 years in the future. I realized in 2018 that people had at least one picture of Shibuya Crossing when they said it. Now I wonder if that is as honest as selling travel to the USA by showing the Las Vegas strip and Times Square. I got interested in seeing Japan back then. My mom had a 1985 Nissan Maxima and I loved it. A combination of Knight Rider, Tron, and giant mecha is how it was made. It made me want the Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo (Z32 Fairlady TT) when it went on sale. To 1980s kids, turbo power sounded like magic. Twin turbo sounded like even more magic to me.
21:05 that newspaper with the light pen pages of thousands of japanese kanji characters is crazy hah now i see why newspapers only used 2000 characters
Japan in 1980 is golden era everytime is party stock and property promised fast money after bubble burts in 1990 and 1991 evertying is change..but japanese real struggle for dignity and honour ...thanks japan
I think about how Japan went from being the country that sold discount junk to the USA to selling all kinds of premium goods. I often wonder what the perception would have been like if the Datsun 240Z and related cars (S30 and S130 Fairlady Z) were not invented.
@@allentoyokawa9068 They’re still rich but they no longer have the world dominance they once had. This was a time when the US had a fear that Japan would overtake them and Japanese companies would buy out the US economy. The 90s recession and the population decline ended all of that.
The 90s was one of the worse decades for a lot of Asia. Suicide rates were one of the worse in history for japan. The bubble of the golden era in the 80s popped and one of the biggest recession hit and brought a lot of hopelessness to the youth and old alike.
If only my Japanese husband and I are not outpriced to raise a child in Japan in 2023, we would definitely have 3 kids and have a happy family. We don't want to bring a child in this depressing world these days.
That kind of mentality will lead to darkness. Have as many children as you can and contribute to a better world or just let the idiots out-reproduce you and fill the world with trash humans.
@@stra9761 The Plaza Accord was the beginning of the Japanese economy's problems, but the bigger issues were Japan choosing to excessively loosen credit limits and lower interest rates to combat currency overvaluation. ColdFusion did a great video on it here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lmnVP35uZFY.html
Immigration usually helps the economy so long as the immigrants work and contribute; most do, generally. But Japan isn't very advanced anymore due to its extremely conservative mindset and unwillingness to change.
