Around the first week in December, lifelong-learning company U-Can sponsors an event that designates the top buzzwords of the year. Almost certain to be in the running for first place this year is "karyū rōjin" (low-class elderly people), a term that has been spreading like wildfire since summer.
"Karyū rōjin" appears in the title of a controversial bestselling book by Takanori Fujita, a 33-year-old social worker in Saitama Prefecture. The book's full title is "Down and Out Elderly: The Impact of the Coming Collapse Brought on by 100 Million Elderly People."
Shortly after the book's release in June by Asahi Shimbun's book publishing division, its sales received a shot in the arm from a shocking incident of self-immolation that occurred on June 30, when Haruo Hayashizaki, a 71-year-old resident of Tokyo's Suginami Ward, poured flammable liquid over himself and ignited it while aboard an Osaka-bound shinkansen. A 52-year-old female passenger, a physician, died from smoke inhalation and 26 others were injured.