The happy youth of a desperate country: The disconnect between Japan’s malaise and its millennials, by Noritoshi Furuichi (Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, Japan, 2017)

Abstract

In this book, with its seemingly self-explanatory title, Noritoshi Furuichi argues that, despite Japan’s desperate situation amidst decades-long economic recessions, a deteriorating birth rate, an ageing population, the immediate aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the majority of its youth (nearly 80 percent) seem to be “happy” nonetheless. Noritoshi Furuichi is a young Japanese sociologist, a senior researcher at the Keio Research Institute, a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Tokyo, and a dedicated commentator on youth and political issues. Zetsubo ̄ no kuni no kōfuku na wakamonotachi (the Japanese title of the book) reports how Japanese youth deal with desperation and despair in their own terms based on the author’s articulations of youth theory, various interviews with young people, an extensive review of government surveys and publications, as well as his own observations as a sociologist and a young member of Japanese society. The book is unique in the sense that it documents young people’s reactions and moods right after the 3/11 natural disaster, reflecting the aspirations and frustrations of youth. At the same time, it is a book about youth by a young scholar who has thought much about youth theory and youth issues and debates with the former through multiple channels, including on Japanese television. This book is original and novel because Furuichi critically analyzes what it means to be a youth or young in today’s Japan with its challenging political, social, economic, and cultural realities. The 2015 paperback edition and the much-needed English translation of 2017, comprised of over 280 pages, are empirically-informed, scholarly, yet very enjoyable books on youth theory