In Japan, Jail, Disgrace, and the end of a brave new business World

An intensely toxic court case which shattered Japanese society, ended today with a 30-month prison sentence for a man who was once the country’s most prominent entrepreneur….

Mr [Takafumi] Horie’s eradication as a political and corporate trailblazer also marked the beginning of the end of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s supposedly reformist era.

It was a five-and-a-half year stint in which the charismatic politician persuaded both Japan and the outside world that he had placed the country on a new tack. Retrospective analysis of his period in power suggest his practical impact had been almost entirely undone by about 2009.

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