Executives of Japan's top 200 corporations were recently given a survey in which they were asked the following question: "Who in the past millennium of world history would you choose to help Japan solve its present financial crisis?"
Receiving more mention than any other figure was a man who is today remembered as a swaggering swordsman, a pistol-packing outlaw, the leader of a renegade band of riotous samurai who overthrew the shogunate -- and one of the most colorful figures in Japanese history.
This national hero and cultural icon is Sakamoto Ryoma.