This book is long on stories and interviews, and short on analysis. It does bring home the point, though, that dramatic social, political and economic changes are taking place in Japan – not obvious from streets that today appear as orderly as ever and an economy that seems permanently in stasis.

The underlying chaotic reality comes through in the John Nathan’s well-chosen profiles of political mavericks, cartoonists, business leaders and disturbed teens. However – given the lack of theory or analysis – the author’s claim that all this hidden social turmoil may lead to a revival of nationalism is, in the end, provocative but unsupported.