Also newsworthy and eminently so – I dont think it got mentioned; Shinya Yamanaka winning the Nobel, something I had been predicting in fact. Stem cells are in. Very, very in.

Yeah.There’s pretty good chance we may have small military conflict with some of our neighbors.

I haven’t noticed falling prices, but what I have noticed is that virtually any time a house of almost any size goes up for sale, it’s razed and the lot sectioned into progressively smaller segments. The density of the neighborhood in which I live has increased dramatically over the last ten years, with houses/lots getting progressively smaller. But I suspect this is just a flip side of the same coin.

I even feel this in my own neighborhood, legions away from Azabu. A lot of rich old people are dying and selling off their expensive land, but they’re aren’t enough new affluent people to move in and take it. And those who are affluent want central locations and brand new houses. My guess is that there’s going to be a very quiet but very real drop in real estate prices (including rental rates), and it’s already begun.

At the same time, I’m not convinced that lopping the very top off the income scale is going to be bad for culture. Conspicuous consumption has been pretty terrible for pop culture, and it wasn’t very good for Tokyo in the mid-2000s (think CanCam and the Hills-zoku). My thesis remains that a broad consumer base is what created the over-inflated consumer markets that funded interesting culture in Japan. A bunch of busy bankers who spend on flash was not and will not be a good influence, and just like the broader economy, there is little trickle down. Removing them also removes the incentives for places like Mori Tower to make retail spaces only for the new rich. I would argue that Marunounchi’s amazing resurgence is because Mitsubishi did not go after the ultra-rich but tried to make classic good taste spaces that would attract more people other than the 1%.

A lot of movement had already taken place in the aftermath of the global financial collapse and last year’s natural/nuclear disaster combination. For 2012 to register a new downward lurch from that already lower base is quite striking.

While bankers living in their own bubble probably have an exaggerated sense of the expat exodus from Tokyo, the real estate market shows how significant the move has been.

Of course, the drop in real estate prices is really only at the top end. It’s notable when a million yen a month apartment starts going for 500,000 yen but that lower price is still out of range for most people. There hasn’t been anything like the same movement in the rents of mass market properties.

Nevertheless, as Neojaponisme often notes, when you remove a chunk of high-end consumption from the usual equation, there are knock-on effects.

Incidentally, I did hear some mutterings about changes to

I’m liking the Berserk films as well – some hiccups in the animation, but great score, great angles and composition, and all time great hand to hand.

Yeah, 2012 was a not a great year for anime TV. I thought Uchu Kyodai, Fate Zero, and the new Lupin III were good, however.

2011 was a strong year, however, so I’m not going to read too much into it. It is also too soon to start reading death of the industry numbers from any of this – Madoka (as an otaku title) and One Piece (as a manga-based franchise) are making historically unprecedented amounts of cash. Goods sales and exports were both up in 2011-2012.