Roger Pulvers leaves Counterpoint at the end of this month after writing the column weekly since April 3, 2005. In his last three Counterpoints he has set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is his penultimate contribution.

The present began at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011. I was standing in front of the Cabinet Office building in the central Tokyo district of Nagatacho. I had arrived at 2:35 p.m. for a 3 p.m. consultation and was waiting outside.

Suddenly the ground began to roll. I looked toward the skyscrapers in nearby Kasumigaseki. They were pitching to and fro, their lines crisscrossing like toppling buildings in the paintings of the German artist George Grosz.