Staff writer What has happened to Japan? Coming on the heels of the "lost decade," the January government reshuffle and a series of reforms that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi promises will turn the country around, this is certainly a timely question.
It is also the central question Alex Kerr grapples with in his new book "Dogs and Demons: Tales From the Dark Side of Japan." His answer: Japan has gone culturally bankrupt.
Under the guise of and in the pursuit of modernization, Japan has lost sight of its natural beauty, instead pouring its energies into encasing the nation in concrete and scarring the landscape with kitsch, nonfunctional monuments, Kerr claims.