It's All About Economics

In my economics class, many of our readings and discussions center around the fact that Japan is an aging society whose economy is inevitably bound for "negative growth" as the working-age population retires and reaches the average life span (Matsutani Akihiko, Shrinking-Population Economics: Lessons from Japan, 15). Of course this is an urgent issue for any society and the citizens within it, but it is still nice to see an industrialized nation looking away from its own problems and reaching out to "worlds less fortunate", even if it is just a request to add pocket change to a small bowl in Kyoto.

In reality, however, tourists to Japan are more likely to contribute their hard-earned money to Walt Disney himself as they wait in line to ride a modest ferris wheel in the Shinsaibashi area of Osaka. Select Disney characters with questionably different facial structures are plentiful in the parts of Japan I have visited thus far. A big part of the consumer culture revolves around toys and paraphernalia based off animated characters. This is interesting; how will this change as Japan's population ages and is replaced by fewer and fewer children to consume such goods?