The year seems familiar...

EDIT: I feel lile they're gonna be protecting their daughter from something. But highly unlikely considering this comic is about Mashu and Fujimaru being happily married.

I guess we know this is post part 1 since they reyshifted to the Shinjuku mini singularity(?)

EDIT: And so they did

Reflex-sama said:

The year seems familiar...

"But... the future refused to change."

*Kiyohime bursts from the Earth and shoots bolts of fire up such that they rain from the sky*

>1999

Is Japan in a recession at this point?

Theparagon said:
>1999
Is Japan in a recession at this point?

The Bubble Economy burst in 1991, and while some recovery had taken place by 1999 it's still within the 'Lost Decade' (which some people have extended into the 20 years since 1991 as well, making it the 'Lost Score'), so calling it a 'recession' depends on how you want to look at it. It certainly wasn't in great shape, at any rate. (Japan during the 80's Bubble was a pretty special case though - there's a reason Cyberpunk often had Japan taking over the word economically)

Paracite said:

The Bubble Economy burst in 1991, and while some recovery had taken place by 1999 it's still within the 'Lost Decade' (which some people have extended into the 20 years since 1991 as well, making it the 'Lost Score'), so calling it a 'recession' depends on how you want to look at it. It certainly wasn't in great shape, at any rate. (Japan during the 80's Bubble was a pretty special case though - there's a reason Cyberpunk often had Japan taking over the word economically)

Makes me wonder about a cyberpunk that takes into account the Lost Decade/Score. Like a cyberpunk that had Japan ascendant and then it's economy crashed.

warellis said:

Makes me wonder about a cyberpunk that takes into account the Lost Decade/Score. Like a cyberpunk that had Japan ascendant and then it's economy crashed.

Nowadays, you tend to see them just replace Japan with China, because it's the new rising economic boogeyman.

Throughout my life I have noticed there's always a recession going on. Even when there's a boom you are told the good times are over, and it's time to tighten your belts.

Just like each year of your childhood, you are told you are now too old to do that any more.

Japan's case is more about it being too stubborn on sticking with the "good-old-ways" though. Most bigwigs of Japanese companies are now senile gramps who cares more about clinging to their throne than the actual profit of the company.

It leads to this stupid bureaucratic system where nothing gets done, no newer systems are accepted and lower-level workers have to deal with the infamous slave-like treatment and not allowed to exercise any forms of problem solving skills.

Anyone who is even daring to suggest a "better solution" than what's already established is treated as an opposition, regardless of whether it's for the worker's sake or for the sake of the company as a whole. All while the Ojii-samas on the top chairs continue to act ignorant that they ever did anything wrong even while their own company's profits is in decline every year.

It's just telling when Japan, with its brutal work ethics infamous for driving people to suicide, still has 40% lower productivity per person to those of Germany and France, which on average has like 300 hours less total work hour per person per year.

It is telling, however, that there are greater and greater amount of younger people who aren't willing to sacrifice their entire life to the corporate throne in Japan, be it through part-time or contract work, refusing to do excessive overtime, or even just leaving on time instead of waiting for their boss (who hates his wife, so he's not leaving any time soon) to go home.

Coupled with some (fairly ineffective and toothless, but at least are there) government policies to improve work-life balance, it's slowly getting better; there are bosses who no longer expect people to just be in the office late, regardless of how much (if any) work they actually have to do. There's still a whole raft of problems, but even in Japan, there's a very real sense that change is occurring, albeit at a glacial pace.

Claverhouse said:

Throughout my life I have noticed there's always a recession going on. Even when there's a boom you are told the good times are over, and it's time to tighten your belts.

Just like each year of your childhood, you are told you are now too old to do that any more.

Well, the average temperature across the whole globe doesn't change much. If it's freezing where you are, it's a heat wave somewhere else. When it's Summer in the northern hemisphere, it's Winter in the southern.

I remember one of the things early computer scientists tried to do with computers was try to compile data from all the written records in the world to see how many wars had been fought across the entire globe, and what they found was that the world was essentially continuously at war somewhere. In all of recorded history for over 7000 years, only 7 years had gone by when there had NOT been a war going on somewhere.

Generally speaking, there IS a recession somewhere in the globe, and it's a boom time somewhere else.

Reflex-sama said:

The year seems familiar...

Now i want to see Jalter ver. Kouji.