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Nagashima first made a dash for the lower house of the Diet, Japan's parliament, three years ago, running as an independent. He lost, but the results encouraged him to try for local office in Kamakura, a city not far from Zushi. He won a seat in the city assembly and two years later, in December 1998, ran for mayor of Zushi. Although there was some resentment that he was abandoning Kamakura for a higher office, Nagashima's role as an outsider seems to have helped him. For many years, political debate in Zushi centered on a plan to develop part of a forest as housing for American servicemen based nearby. Nagashima was just about the only politician around who hadn't based his platform on that issue. Voters weary of that debate found a fresh face they could flock to.
"When I was covering the Diet for TV, I got quite irritated with politicians," he says. "The results of debates were far different from what the people wanted." Nagashima, who was Japan's national windsurfing champion in 1988, isn't preoccupied with image. He has ideas. Zushi is a wealthy bedroom community of 57,000, and the recession has hurt tax revenues, which declined by about 8% last year. So he's looking at ways to cut the city budget. Like all of Japan, Zushi has a large number of elderly residents. Nagashima is devising a welfare system for the aged in which people would receive healthcare and other assistance according to the number of hours they or their spouses worked. While careful not to criticize the city government's bureaucracy too much, he does say he wants to improve communication among its different departments. "First I want to change Zushi," he says. "Then I want to change all of Japan."
Nagashima is a dreamer. Like Morita the entrepreneur and Shindo and Ogawa, the computer designers, he dreams of building a better Japan. And like others of his generation, he wants change--now. "Very few people in Japan really do dream," says Nagashima. "That's because for so long in Japan, you could see what your future was like from a very young age. It was determined. There was no way to change what would happen to you. To talk about dreams was a waste of time."
Back at the video arcade in Tokyo's rollicking Shibuya district, Mirai Honda can be found most days around midnight, stomping and spinning on the Dance Dance Revolution machine. Lining up to take their turns are other members of a generation that desperately wants to connect, to fit in and at the same time stand out. In robotic fashion, they follow the steps laid out for them on the video screen. The machine establishes a pattern to follow, Honda concedes. "But different people can interpret that pattern in their own ways," he says. "People have their own styles, so a move that doesn't work for one might work for another. You need to experiment until you've found the moves that are perfect for you."
It may be only a baby-step toward transforming society, but Japan's youth aren't just talking about change, they are experimenting with it. Sure, some of this amounts to no more than dabbling with frivolous things like hair color. But Manabu Sato, an education professor at the University of Tokyo, sees a deeper significance in the rude behavior, the delinquency, the teenage prostitution, the violence, the frenzied dancing in front of a video screen. These are rites of passage, he explains, and they fulfill an ancient tradition. During medieval times, the samurai class initiated youngsters into adulthood: boys' heads were shaved except for a small topknot. The grandparents and parents of today's youth were initiated by war and the task of rebuilding. "Contemporary society has no initiation rites," Sato says. "So young people have created their own. It is a part of their search for the things that will unite them in the future." It's an exciting search, and it's just beginning. The country, like the rest of the world, is anxious to see what Japan's youth find.
With reporting by Hannah Beech, Mari Calder, Donald Macintyre and Sachiko Sakamaki/Tokyo and Hiroko Tashiro/Saitama
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THIS WEEK'S TABLE OF CONTENTS
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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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