When U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed last September, Japan was jolted awake from decades of lassitude as the offshore crisis nearly crippled the global financial system.
Just a year later, Japan's traditionally apathetic voters said no to the status quo and catapulted an untested group into power promising core changes to political, economic and foreign policies.
The Democratic Party of Japan dethroned the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party in a sweeping election victory, pledging to wrest power from bureaucrats and restore it to politicians.