During the bubble economy of the late 1980s, few could have predicted the acute banking crisis and long economic malaise that have typified the past decade.
The so-called lost decade of the '90s, however, has seen Japan's outdated economic and financial systems swallow the bitter medicine of much-needed reform.
Indeed, the once untouchable Finance Ministry would never have relinquished its policy of pampering the nation's banks and other financial institutions had the crisis not occurred.