One often sees references in the Japanese media to the "lost decade" that followed the burst of the speculative bubble in the early 1990s, but the publishing world has only suffered a half decade of negative growth. After five consecutive years of falling sales, however, it can no longer ignore systemic problems.
This was highlighted by the death of Focus magazine in August, the filing for bankruptcy in December of Suzuki Shoten, a medium-size distributor of humanities and social science books, and the publication during the year of four different books analyzing the book-world crisis, starting with "Dare ga 'Hon' o Korosu no ka" (Who Is Killing Books?) by Shinichi Sano in February.
The announcement in July of the imminent demise of Focus, a photo weekly published by Shinchosha, caused a big stir in Japan. Founded in 1981, the magazine's sales peaked at 2 million copies a week around 1984, but recently had rarely exceeded 200,000. An analysis in Aera (July 16) blamed Shinchosha's inability to adapt to a changing environment, as well as the slump in the magazine market, for Focus' failure.