Born after 1970, the members of this impatient generation are 44-million strong, about one-third of the country's population. The oldest among them, who will start turning 30 next year, make up Japan's "junior baby boom," children of the postwar baby boomers. It's the Japan that they were born into and grew up in that distinguishes them from previous generations. Unlike their parents and grandparents, the under-30 crowd grew up in affluence and endured little hardship. They missed the years of war, the rigors of postwar reconstruction and the single-minded drive to catch up to America. By the time they were heading off to kindergarten, Japan had caught up and was passing the world by with the startling speed of one of its bullet trains. Statistically it was becoming the world's second-biggest economy, and in spirit and reputation it had become No. 1. Its managers and workers created an economic marvel unparalleled in modern history, though they may yet screw it all up before the kids get a chance to run things.
They have had it easy, these kids. Their parents tried to coddle them, to provide all the things they couldn't have but always longed for. But they possess a certain emptiness, as Hideo Takayama, who has been studying Japanese youth since the early 1960s, has learned. Takayama assembles kids in focus groups, talks to them about their dreams and fears and observes their behavior. Over the years, he has asked kids what they want, what they yearn for. In the early 1960s, the kids were certain: A TV! A refrigerator! A washing machine! A decade later, their desires grew grander: A color TV! A car! By the 1980s, the responses had shifted from the tools of a family's needs to the objects of an individual's desire: A baseball glove! A Walkman! A Nintendo!
But this year, when Takayama posed the question, he got the most disturbing response of all: nothing. Even after being prodded, they couldn't name a thing. In other words, this is a generation that has it all. Unfortunately, they are in for a shock. Just as they are coming of age, getting out of school and hitting the job market, these kids are finding out in a painful, first-hand way that Japan's economic reality no longer resembles the boom times they grew up in. Even graduates of élite universities aren't waltzing into the jobs they expected to get and keep for a lifetime. Suddenly, the rules are changing before the kids have a chance to rewrite them. It may be that revolution isn't a choice, but a necessity.
The first sign that this generation was in trouble came two years ago, but nobody was listening. A Kobe teenager decapitated an 11-year-old boy and left his head on a post at his schoolyard gate. For a few weeks, everyone was appropriately shocked by the gruesome crime. The nation even engaged in a bit of soul-searching, out-of-character in this reserved society. But then people retreated and reassured themselves that the case was an anomaly, that no larger lessons could be drawn from it. "People want to believe the boy was mentally damaged and so what happened has nothing to do with them," says Toshiko Toriyama, a former elementary-school teacher who recently wrote the book Can You Hear What Children Are Saying? "But children do things to make adults realize they have problems. I assume more appalling incidents like that will take place." In March of this year, the parents of the 14-year-old Kobe killer published an emotional book that pleads a common lament: How could such a bad child come from such a normal family? "Why didn't we realize even a bit of the problems that our son has?" they write. "Why couldn't we understand him?"
The generation gap in Japan today is so wide that parents and their children are nearly unable to bridge it. In 1996, 85% of the 16-to-18-year-olds surveyed said they had the freedom to rebel against their parents, compared with just 16% in the U.S. Parents, single-mindedly focused on the middle-class dream during the period of Japan's economic rebirth, worked long hours and showered their children with toys and gadgets. But they spent less and less time with their children, alienating them and causing them to feel lonely, which in turn has led many of them to rebel. "This generation doesn't know how to relate to people," says Mariko Kuno Fujiwara, a specialist in youth culture. "Their groups are much less committed to each other. Getting along is much more important than getting involved."
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THIS WEEK'S TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Hideaki Morita makes a mint off teen trends. Tom Wagner--Saba for TIME
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Young Japan Home
The Me Generation:
The country's privileged youth are struggling to define what they want. Their efforts--both frivolous and fundamental--are already beginning to transform the culture
Day in the Life:
What a 17-year-old girl does--and buys
Culture Club:
Tokyo has taken over as the source of what's hip and happening for the rest of East Asia
Sound Factory:
An Okinawa school turns out stars
Talk Talk:
What teens are chatting about online
Not Playing Ball:
A fresh generation is starting to shake up the hidebound world of Japanese baseball
Outside the Box:
Breaking the education straitjacket
Viewpoint:
Actress Youki Kudoh says respect the old ways
Viewpoint:
Parents should examine their own ethics
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