Later this month, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi concludes what may have been Japan's most flamboyant premiership ever, pundits aplenty are sure to lavish his five-year term with glowing praise.
They'll likely enthuse that, on Koizumi's watch, the mountain of bad debts at banks shrank, while the anemic Nikkei stock index swelled. In foreign affairs, Koizumi is sure to be lauded for arguably his biggest coup when, in September 2002, he met with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il, and secured the return the following month of five Japanese abductees.
Looking back at this eventful time in Japanese politics, noted political commentator and popular author Minoru Morita also has glowing words for Koizumi. In Morita's case, though, the words glow with white-hot condemnation.