[zanny]

Is Japan really in that bad of shape? Their rural areas are dying out, but that is the natural trend towards peak urbanization. The larger cities are vibrant, and while their work life balance is (to put it lightly) completely wack, there are plenty of major international players in a lot of markets of Japanese origin - Toyota, Sony, Nintendo, Subaru, etc.

Those companies are growing or at worst sustaining at globally satiated production, to the best of my understanding few go hungry, technological adoption is extremely high, and homelessness and crime are low. Per-capita they keep ending off better off year over year by staying put while everything else gets cheaper. Their whole economy looks like it is contracting with the population decline but nobody is suffering a lack of supply availability to meet their demands for it. Top it off with the giant entertainment sector amount of culture they output globally and that does not ring of doomed society.