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This kind of confidence is just what Japan needs to get the country rolling again. Hideaki Morita represents the new strain of youthful bravado with a capital "B." Now 29, Morita was one of the cool, hip kids in high school toward whom others gravitated. He made the most of his good looks, charm and intelligence and cashed in on his popularity. Marketing companies came calling to ask him and some friends to figure out what Japanese teenagers did and didn't like. Morita parlayed that assignment into TV talk-show appearances and modeling assignments for teen magazines. He earned enough money to buy a silver BMW.
But Morita turned out to be more than just a pretty boy. At age 19, he and four college buddies started their own consulting firm. They tapped into their network of friends from high school and soon built a stable of trend-spotters. Advertising companies were interested and now, 10 years later, Morita heads Teens' Network Ship, a 10-person company that earned $1.7 million last year. At any one time, Morita has 3,000 teens at his disposal. Many of them come into his office in the youth-centric Harajuku section of Tokyo and spend the afternoon chatting about music, film and fashion. "After 10 years of doing this, I can say I have connections with every young person in Japan," Morita boasts. "The teenage world is really quite small, and if you know one, you know 100." This is his strength, understanding Japan's youth and relating to them. One electronics manufacturer, for example, used his crew to test-market new packaging for a portable CD player. The company thought kids would go gaga over pink. They didn't. Instead the youngsters suggested a transparent case that would show off the player's internal gears and mechanisms. It was a hit.
Morita has big plans for the future. He is creating satellite companies--a fashion design house, a cable TV network for high schools, restaurants and bars, a mail-order catalog for youth-focused merchandise--which he hopes to build and then sell. Meanwhile, he can look back with pride. "I wanted to be a president of a company, and I didn't want to wait until I was 60," he says. "So the only way was to own my own company." For all Morita's success, however, he hasn't been able to overcome some of the limitations of Japan's business culture. Because he is young, he is sometimes not taken seriously. Getting start-up money was nearly impossible--unlike their American counterparts, Japanese venture capitalists are reluctant to fund 20-something entrepreneurs. At times, Morita has had to drum up business as a subcontractor for bigger, more established companies. "Even somebody like me who is not afraid to take risks has to fight against the Japanese way of doing things," Morita says.
Falling back on tradition is not the typical approach of this generation, but there are young people discovering they can learn from their roots, and even their elders, while injecting new energy into old customs. Sakurako Tsuchiya, 29, is one of the few female sake producers in Japan. For many years, women weren't even allowed to pursue the field. But when her family's brewery, established in 1873, lacked a male heir, this graduate student in computer programming decided to pick up the family business. "I didn't want to extinguish the fire that has lasted four generations," says Tsuchiya. She works alongside older men, masters of their craft. One day, when they needed a large basket, they decided to make it on their own, painstakingly cutting and sharpening bamboo stalks. "Young people wouldn't think of making something themselves," says Tsuchiya. "They try to buy everything with money."
If there's one area of Japanese society that would seem particularly hostile to youth, it's the political system. The pervading old-boy's network rewards longevity, and political relationships sometimes go back several generations. So when a young upstart decides to crash the gates, people notice. Especially when the upstart is someone like Kazuyoshi Nagashima, a windsurfing, snowboarding 32-year-old former TV reporter who campaigned for mayor of the Kanagawa prefecture city of Zushi on a populist platform to, among other things, cut the entertainment budget for the mayor's office to zero. He won. "My young age helped me," says Nagashima, a handsome man with a serious demeanor. "During this recession, voters expect change. They think someone young will do something new and different."
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THIS WEEK'S TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Youngsters crowd together at a Tokyo party. 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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