Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation (Hardcover)

by Michael Zielenziger (Author)
Key Phrases: hikiko mori, South Korea, United States, World War Two (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
After its 1990 economic crisis, Japan entered a period of stagnation and has yet to recover. Although at first limited to finances, this depression slowly spread to the country's political system as well as its national consciousness. One extreme example of the problem is the more than one million young men who have given up on school or employment, spending their days in their cramped apartments. In this well-researched and well-organized book, journalist and scholar Zielenziger reveals how these men ("hikikomori") are both a symptom of and a metaphor for Japan's ennui. With compassion and vigor, he presents close-up portraits of the hikikomori, while grounding their stories in the political, economic and historic realities facing Japan today. Zielenziger also suggests that women who avoid marriage and children, men who drink too much and both men and women fetishizing brand names are additional signs of the mass confusion and discontent. Seven years as a Tokyo bureau chief for Knight Rider newspapers has given Zielenziger the necessary access to this closed culture, though his exposé is bound to be controversial. His inclusion of both small details and the big picture makes the book as intimate as it is revealing. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
At the end of the 1980s, Japan's future seemed bright. A leader in the technological arena, Japan seemed poised to become the world's next superpower. Twenty years later, that promise has faded, and the once-influential nation is in crisis. Journalist Zielenziger, who has lived in Japan for 10 years, set out to discover why. Much of the focus of this engrossing, comprehensive work is on the clash between older and younger generations and on how the former's inability to let go of tradition is stifling the latter. Japan's rigid education and work systems have created a class of young people known as hikikomori, who literally shut themselves up in their rooms. Through interviews with several of these young men, Zielenziger reveals how the pressures on Japanese youths cause some to give up and retreat from society. Young women, too, are rejecting traditional roles and choosing careers with foreign companies over marriage and children. A piercing, astute look at how a society's refusal to embrace change is detrimental to its younger generation. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese (September 19, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385513038
• ISBN-13: 978-0385513036
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #148,965 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eclipsed..., February 5, 2007

By	Kenneth Garing "Kgar_Fiction" (SF, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While reading Shutting Out the Sun, I found myself at times in admiration of Michael Zielenziger's insight and also perplexed by his conclusions. I've made many japanese friends and visited the country multiple times. While no expert, I can certainly say that my interest in the country and its culture, is beyond casual. I have my own theories (and first-hand experiences) with many of the concepts of the book. Mr. Zielenziger is foremost a newspaper man and his pavement-pounding, investigative journalism is deserving of five stars. However, his conclusions in the second half of the book bring the whole work down a peg and sound more like the "cocktail-party theorizing" that I imagine goes on amongst international correspondents.

The first 92 pages of the book are intense and revealing as Zielenziger explores the dark world of the hikikomori (young japanese who withdraw from society, not leaving their rooms). He interviews the doctors, the parents, and even the hikikomori themselves. He ties their plight into the overall societal and economic problems of the country as a whole. He describes how certain problems and behavior are particular to japanese society. He does this very throughly and convincingly. Then on page 93 Chapter 6: Careening Off Course Zielenziger, uh... careens off course! The chapter shoots off into a 30 page crash course on Japan's post-war economic history. Then later another chapter doing the same with South Korea. He runs through the history of Christianity in South Korea. He compares Japan to South Korea. He compares Japan to China. He compares Japan to America. With the exception of chapters like "The Cult of the Brand" and "Womb Strike" the second half of the book falls wildly short of the first.

Who cares if China is more open to foreign investment? The freedoms, annual income, and standard of living for an average Japanese are far better than that of Chinese citizens. He interviews two commercial, non-political, pop artists; Haruki Murakami (novelist) and Takashi Murakami (graphic artist) but what about their (very political) counter-parts? Kenzaburo Oe (writer) or Katsuhiro Otomo (manga artist) come to mind. He downplays the very active and internationally recognized arts movement coming from Japan during it's recession. Zielenger claims the architecture coming from Japan (which is widely recognized to be cutting-edge and visually stunning), suffers "from a dreary sameness". I saw kids in Japan downloading full color maps and searching the internet with their cell phones way before such things were done in America and Zielenziger says the japanese are lagging in their use of the internet. He claims foreigners will have trouble in Japan because "few signs, maps, or menus are available in Roman script." That is simply untrue! Even the subway ticket machines have a button to press for english!

This all may sound like harsh criticism, and it is, but I still have to recommend this book to people deeply interested in Japan, as it is the first and only western work dedicated to the hikikomori and other obscure Japanese societal woes. The good parts are really good. The bad parts were thrown in there to make the book 298 pages (340 with acknowledgements, notes, index). Zielenziger tries too hard to conjure up new reasons why Japan can't get its act together instead of furthering his own profound findings. The fault in his attempt to live up to the sexiness of the books title can be found in part of his summary, while describing Japan's possible, dismal fall from grace he states Japan could choose "to turn itself into an Asian model of Switzerland, a peaceful, relatively prosperous, insulated, and increasingly irrelevant nation, a quiet and stable second-rank power." Doesn't sound so bad...

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Acutely Insightful - and Highly Readable - Illumination of the Shadows, November 21, 2006

By	Hollis Otsuka (The Berkshires, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The impact of this book derives from its unique combination of human sensitivity and investigative objectivity. Rather than evolving from preconceived conclusions on the part of the author, "Shutting Out the Sun" resonates as the product of an honest quest to bring clarity to the human truth underlying the bursting of Japan's bubble economy and the hurdles the country must surmount in stepping up to the new global challenge. The author applies his immense journalistic skill to deepen this inquiry as he moves from questions of economic stagnation, through layered social realities, into the heart of the personal, graphically illustrating the effects of a level of conformist social pressure barely conceivable to those who haven't witnessed it first hand.

For those who have had long experience with Japan and care dearly about the people of that land, the book gives welcome voice to shared areas of grave concern. And for the reader who is but intrigued with Japan from afar, it provides a precious glimpse into the shadows cast by the "sun" of apparent social harmony.

An added bonus - the dynamic writing moves you right along. This book is a lively read!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and difficult to put down, October 23, 2006

By	Cullen T. Hayashida "Cullen Hayashida" (Honolulu, HI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While it was not written necessarily with that intent, this is one of the best assessments of Japan's contemporary search for meaning and identity that I have seen in a long time. Disparate trends involving the hikikomori, depression, suicide, the parasitic singles and the crass materialism in acquiring expensive European bags are integrated and understood as symptomatic of a more basic struggle for national direction.

I recall earlier works such as Neil McFarland's Rush Hour of the Gods to explain Japan's explosion of religious sects after WWII when the Emperor was demystified. I recall the explosive growth of the Nihonjinron literature in the early 1970s when Japan tried to determine if it was possible to be Japanese and Western at the same time. Now, this work is another benchmark suggesting that an entire generation may have been lost due to the inability of Japan to reconcile with its past and create hope for the future.