ABSTRACT
Worries about the younger generation are a universal phenomenon. Anxieties about Japanese youth do seem, however, to have a special intensity. In the Nikkei Shimbun’s ‘Warning Bell from the Year 2020’ series, we find them likened to the characters described in the late Meiji novels of Natsume Sōseki. Sunaga Ichizō, the protagonist of Until After the Equinox (Higansugi made) says, ‘Since graduating from school last year, I haven’t spent a single day thinking about getting a job’ (1997:46–47). Like Sunaga, Japan’s younger generation feel polluted by making too big a fuss over work. They resemble those Japanese who, shortly after Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War, found themselves strangely listless and unable to find a meaning in life.
