1980s in Japan

The 1980s saw the firm establishment of anime and manga as major forms of entertainment for the Japanese public. Studio Ghibli, arguably the most famous and respected animation studio in Japan, was established by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki in 1985 following the success of Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Newtype, one of the two major anime industry magazines, was started in 1985 as well.

Examples of Japanese products created and distributed during the 1980s included Donkey Kong,[2] Super Mario Bros.,[2] and classic anime like Astro Boy and Akira. Nintendo Co., Ltd. (NCL) came of age offering video arcade games and their famous Family Computer (also known as the Famicom) video game system.[3] American-based Atari struggled to compete in Japan but they couldn't defeat the Sega-Nintendo duopoly in the video arcade realm.[4] Future Japanese game designers would cut their teeth during this era playing 8-bit games and end up designing video games on much more complicated architectures (systems like the Nintendo 64 and the Game Boy).

Professional wrestling was declining in the 1980s in Japan, even though the WWF was experiencing a boom worldwide. Even the most predominant men's and women's wrestling leagues were losing popularity like America's World Wrestling Federation. By the 2000s, professional wrestling was relegated to the midnight hours by television broadcasting. However, a few crucial championships would bring women's wrestling into a new era of the 1980s.[5]

Osamu Tezuka, considered the "god of manga" in Japan, died on 9 February 1989. Hibari Misora, one of the most popular and best selling female pop artists in Japan, died on 24 June 1989. She had held her last public performance in Kitakyushu in February that same year.

Award-winning live action films released during the 1980s include Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagemusha (1980), Station (1981), Fall Guy (1982), The Ballad of Narayama (1983), The Funeral (1984), Gray Sunset (1985), House on Fire (1986), A Taxing Woman (1987), The Silk Road (1988), and Black Rain (1989).

NHK started experimental broadcasting of TV program using the BS-2a satellite on May, 1984. The satellite BS-2a was launched in preparation for the start of full scale 2-channel broadcasts. Broadcasting Satellite BS-2a was the first national DBS (direct broadcasting satellite), transmitting signals directly into the home of TV viewers. One of the three transponders malfunctioned 2 months after launch (March 23, 1984) and a second transponder malfunctioned 3 months after launch (May 3, 1984), so the scheduled satellite broadcasting had to be hastily adjusted to test broadcasting on a single channel.

Later, NHK started regular service (NTSC) and experimental HDTV broadcasting using BS-2b in June 1989. Some Japanese producers of home electronic consumer devices began to deliver TV sets, VCRs and even home acoustic systems equipped with built-in satellite tuners or receivers. Such electronic goods had a specific BS logo.

Birth and death rates of Japan since 1950. The drop in 1966 was due to it being a "hinoe uma" year which is viewed as a bad omen by the Japanese Zodiac.[6]

The birth rate in Japan continued to drop significantly during the 1980s, dropping from about 14 births per thousand to about 10 births per thousand. Deaths per thousand saw a slight increase from about 5.5 to about 6. The aging of the population was already becoming evident in the aging of the labor force and the shortage of young workers in the late-1980s, with potential impacts on employment practices, wages and benefits, and the roles of women in the labor force.

In addition, the median age of the elderly population was rising in the late 1980s. The proportion of people age 65–85 was expected to increase from 6% in 1985 to 15% in 2025. Because the incidence of chronic disease increases with age, the health care and pension systems are expected to come under severe strain. In the mid-1980s the government began to reevaluate the relative burdens of government and the private sector in health care and pensions, and it established policies to control government costs in these programs. Recognizing the lower probability that an elderly person will be residing with an adult child and the higher probability of any daughter or daughter-in-law's participation in the paid labor force, the government encouraged establishment of nursing homes, day-care facilities for the elderly, and home health programs. Longer life spans are altering relations between spouses and across generations, creating new government responsibilities, and changing virtually all aspects of social life.

Between 6 million and 7 million people moved their residences each year during the 1980s. About 50% of these moves were within the same prefecture; the others were relocations from one prefecture to another. During Japan's economic development in the twentieth century, and especially during the 1950s and 1960s, migration was characterized by urbanization as people from rural areas in increasing numbers moved to the larger metropolitan areas in search of better jobs and education. Out-migration from rural prefectures continued in the late 1980s, but more slowly than in previous decades.

In the 1980s, government policy provided support for new urban development away from the large cities, particularly Tokyo, and assisted regional cities to attract young people to live and work there. Regional cities offered familiarity to those from nearby areas, lower costs of living, shorter commutes, and, in general, a more relaxed life-style than could be had in larger cities. Young people continued to move to large cities, however, to attend universities and find work, but some returned to regional cities (a pattern known as U-turn) or to their prefecture of origin (a pattern referred to as J-turn).

Government statistics show that in the 1980s significant numbers of people left the largest central cities (Tokyo and Osaka) to move to suburbs within their metropolitan areas. In 1988 more than 500,000 people left Tokyo, which experienced a net loss through migration of nearly 73,000 for the year. Osaka had a net loss of nearly 36,000 in the same year. However, the prefectures showing the highest net growth are located near the major urban centers, such as Saitama, Chiba, Ibaraki, and Kanagawa around Tokyo, and Hyogo, Nara, and Shiga near Osaka and Kyoto. This pattern suggests a process of suburbanization, people moving away from the cities for affordable housing but still commuting there for work and recreation, rather than a true decentralization.

Tokyo became a major financial center, home of some of the world's major banks, financial firms, insurance companies, and the world's largest stock exchange, the Tokyo Securities and Stock Exchange. Even here, however, the recession took its toll. In the decades following World War II, Japan implemented stringent tariffs and policies to encourage the people to save their income.

With more money in banks, loans and credit became easier to obtain, and with Japan running large trade surpluses, the yen appreciated against foreign currencies. This allowed local companies to invest in capital resources much more easily than their competitors overseas, which reduced the price of Japanese-made goods and widened the trade surplus further. And, with the yen appreciating, financial assets became very lucrative.

With so much money readily available for investment, speculation was inevitable, particularly in the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the real estate market. The Nikkei stock index hit its all-time high on December 29, 1989, when it reached an intra-day high of 38,957.44 before closing at 38,915.87. The rates for housing, stocks, and bonds rose so much that at one point the government issued 100-year bonds. Additionally, banks granted increasingly risky loans.

The Plaza Accord was signed in September 1985. This agreement between the governments of France, West Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, was to depreciate the US dollar in relation to the Japanese yen and German Deutsche Mark by intervening in currency markets. The exchange rate value of the dollar versus the yen declined by 51% from 1985 to 1987. Most of this devaluation was due to the $10 billion spent by the participating central banks. Currency speculation caused the dollar to continue its fall after the end of coordinated interventions.

The recessionary effects of the strengthened yen in Japan's export-dependent economy created an incentive for the expansionary monetary policies that led to the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. The Louvre Accord was signed in 1987 to halt the continuing decline of the US Dollar. The signing of the Plaza Accord was significant in that it reflected Japan's emergence as a real player in managing the international monetary system.

National health expenditures rose from about 1 trillion yen in 1965 to nearly 20 trillion yen in 1989, or from slightly more than 5% to more than 6% of Japan's national income. The system has been troubled with excessive paperwork, assembly-line care for out-patients (because few facilities made appointments), over medication, and abuse of the system because of low out-of-pocket costs to patients. Another problem is an uneven distribution of health personnel, with rural areas favored over cities.[8]

By the early 1980s, pensions accounted for nearly 50% of social welfare and social security expenditures because people were living longer after retirement. A major revision in the public pension system in 1986 unified several former plans into the single Employee Pension Insurance Plan. In addition to merging the former plans, the 1986 reform attempted to reduce benefits to hold down increases in worker contribution rates. It also established the right of women who did not work outside the home to pension benefits of their own, not only as a dependent of a worker. Everyone aged between twenty and sixty was a compulsory member of this Employee Pension Insurance Plan.

Despite complaints that these pensions amounted to little more than "spending money," an increasing number of people planning for their retirement counted on them as an important source of income. Benefits increased so that the basic monthly pension was about US$420 in 1987, with future payments adjusted to the consumer price index. Forty percent of elderly households in 1985 depended on various types of annuities and pensions as their only sources of income.

Some people are also eligible for corporate retirement allowances. About 90% of firms with thirty or more employees gave retirement allowances in the late 1980s, frequently as lump sum payments but increasingly in the form of annuities.

In the late 1980s, government and professional circles were considering changing the system so that primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of care would be clearly distinguished within each geographical region. Further, facilities would be designated by level of care and referrals would be required to obtain more complex care. Policy makers and administrators also recognized the need to unify the various insurance systems and to control costs.

During the 1980s, the Japanese economy shifted its emphasis away from primary and secondary activities (notably agriculture, manufacturing, and mining) to processing, with telecommunications and computers becoming increasingly vital. Information became an important resource and product, central to wealth and power. The rise of an information-based economy was led by major research in highly sophisticated technology, such as advanced computers. The selling and use of information became very beneficial to the economy.

Japanese cars had a 33% hold on the American automobile market at that time and then-current U.S. President Ronald Reagan waged a price war against the new Japanese automobiles. As a result, Japanese auto manufacturers took advantage of their vehicles' superior MPG (miles per gallon) rating.

At the height of the bubble, real estate values were extremely over-valued. Between 1955 and 1989, land prices in the six largest cities increased 15,000% (+12% a year). Urban land prices generally increased 40% from 1980 to 1987; in the six largest cities, the price of land doubled over that period. For many families, this trend put housing in central cities out of reach. The result was lengthy commutes for many workers; daily commutes of two hours each way are not uncommon in the Tokyo area.

Prices were highest in Tokyo's Ginza district in 1989, with choice properties fetching over US$1.5 million per square meter ($139,000 per square foot). Prices were only slightly less in other areas of Tokyo.

Several national and quasi-national parks were established during the 1980s. Hidaka Sanmyaku-Erimo Quasi-National Park in Hokkaidō is the largest quasi-national park in Japan and was opened in October 1981. Kushiro Shitsugen National Park in Hokkaidō, known for its wetlands, was opened in July 1987.

On May 26, 1983, a tsunami caused by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in the Sea of Japan killed 107 people, including three in South Korea.

Mount Ontake, thought to be inactive, had a series of eruptions in 1980. In 1981, the caldera lake volcano Lake Shikotsu erupted in Hokkaidō, followed in 1982 by Mount Tarumae, which is located on its shores. Mount Kusatsu-Shirane in Kusatsu, Gunma Prefecture, erupted in 1983. The Kaitoku Seamount erupted in 1984, Mount Tokachi—located in Hokkaidō—and Izu-Tobu—located on the Izu Peninsula—erupted in 1989.

Japan signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, defining the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world's oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources, in December 1982. In November 1983, Japan agreed to the International Tropical Timber Agreement. The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer was agreed upon in September 1987. The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal was signed in March 1989.