Culture Shift: Japan Is in Crisis

Culture Shift

        Japan is in crisis. Worse still, it seems the majority of the population doesn’t even realize it.

The short documentary, No Sex Please, We’re Japanese, exposed Japan’s culture and how it could be tearing the fabric of the nation in two. Men, immersed in new technology and seeking to avoid the confines of commitment, look outside the realm of physical intimacy and fantasize about relationships in an altogether non-traditional way. Women, living in new a period yet still clutched firm in past beliefs, find it difficult to make time for a family over the pressures of working life under traditional Japanese views. These separate yet intertwined realities create a catastrophe unprecedented in Japan’s and even our world’s history. Japans birth rate has declined at an extraordinary pace. The few people who are young and working struggle to support a growing elderly population. Japan’s economy is on the brink of collapse. There is a correlation between the recent technological culture shift, and the rift it has created between the sexes, and Japan’s growing debilitation.

        Japanese men have become fixated on the new wave of technology surrounding Japanese animé and have come to idealize the young ‘school girl’ contiguous to that culture. A new role-playing game titled, Role +, has become popular among men. Eligible men, and even married men, of all ages have succumbed to the allure of having a no ties, high school style relationship within a digital medium instead of dedicating the time and receiving any unwanted agony in pursuit of intimacy with a physical woman. A new generation of Japanese men are debilitating into fantasy. They are not having sex and therefore not reproducing. This is happening at an alarming rate. To the point of where primary schools and whole maternity wards in hospitals are closing down in outskirt cities such as Yubari.

Men also have another reason for not adding to a new population. The hard working culture of Japan has always driven men to focus on their work and give a full commitment to their employers. The inherent problem in this extreme is that it leaves little time to dedicate to life outside of work such as raising a family. Japanese are collectivist, but the men want little to do with reaching out to meet women and start a family. They focus their collectivist attitude towards their employment, which are life long held positions. This of course is not for all the Japanese men, but it’s enough to cause a decline in birth rate bordering on the catastrophic.