Web designer Megumi Kawashima, 27, speaks during an interview with Reuters in Tokyo's Akihabara district November 27, 2010.Toru Hanai/Reuters
A graduate of the prestigious University of Tokyo's economics department, Keishiro Kurabayashi could have joined a blue-chip firm and begun climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, he interned at DeNA, then a fledgling start-up and now a successful social networking and mobile gaming firm.
"I thought it was like a rule - I would graduate from Tokyo University, enter a foreign consulting firm and after years of study might be ready to start my own firm," said the 29-year-old. "The people at DeNA were really smart, but they weren't caught up with rules, and that was fun.
"That was a big turning point for me," said Mr. Kurabayashi, who now runs his own firm.
Mr. Kurabayashi is one of Japan's "20-something" generation: many born during a heady "bubble economy" they can't recall, coming of age in an era of sliding national status and eyeing retirement when, many predict, the country's economic sun will have set.
The fracturing of the post-Second World War system that propelled Japan's economy to the No. 2 global spot - a status now lost to China - has pushed many of his cohorts to seek security by trying to cling to what remains. But for many others, the uncertainty itself is giving birth to a do-it-yourself mindset that could generate welcome dynamism.
"If we expect the country to take care of us, we may end up not being able to make a living," says Megumi Kawashima, 27, a website designer and one of Japan's legions of "otaku" fans of comics and video games. "We should be sensible enough to know we need to take care of ourselves," added Ms. Kawashima, who creates manga comics - illustrated in a distinctive Japanese style and popular around the world - under the pen name K Ayuhara.
For now, these DIY youth appear to be a minority, whose voice has been drowned out by a drumbeat of reports about Japanese youth's generally passive response to a dismal future. But experts say their ranks will grow as traditional corporate and social systems crumble further.
"On the one hand, you have young people who are taking matters into their own hands in the face of companies and a government who have little to offer them in return," said Yasuo Suwa, a professor at Hosei University's graduate school.
"But on the other hand, you have young people who are looking for an easy way out, seeking shelters that are fast disappearing," Mr. Suwa said. "It will be slow, but I think there will be more gutsy young people going forward."
The macro-economic and demographic trends confronting Japan's youth are indeed daunting.
Japan's public debt has risen to about twice the size of its $5-trillion economy from about half of gross domestic product in 1980, and is forecast to near 250 per cent in 2015. Credit rating agency Standard and Poor's in January downgraded its rating on Japan's sovereign debt to double-A-minus from double-A, warning that Japan's government debt would keep rising and citing political deadlock as a concern.
Nearly one in four Japanese are now aged 65 or over, with the figure expected to reach 40 per cent by 2050. The economy has been mired in mild deflation for most of the past decade.
The aging of Japan is forcing politicians to face up to the need to raise a 5 per cent sales tax to finance bulging pension and health-care costs, breaking a long-time political taboo. Social-security spending could reach more than ¥28.7-trillion ($351-billion U.S.) in the next fiscal year beginning in April, accounting for a third of the overall budget.
But while many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree higher taxes are unavoidable, struggling Prime Minister Naoto Kan is having little success luring feisty opposition parties to the table to discuss specific reforms.
Twentysomething Japanese interviewed by Reuters, from bureaucrats and career women to a long-haired nationalist and a radish farmer, know they face a less secure future in a system in which fewer than two workers will be supporting one retiree by 2030, from three now.
"Japan's fiscal state is like a ticking bomb," said Hiromi, 26, who joined the elite finance ministry after watching a banking crisis unfold in the 1990s when he was a student. "As I think about having a child in the future and wonder what his or her future will be like, I want to do something to fix the situation," added Hiromi, who asked to be identified only by his first name so he could speak more freely.
But few 20-somethings expect the government to do much to fix Japan's problems or secure their future. A survey of college students conducted last year by fund manager Fidelity International showed that 65 per cent were pessimistic about Japan's future - and an equal percentage believed they would have to rely on their own assets and savings in their old age, more than pensions.
Youth are keenly aware of China's lengthening shadow as their giant neighbour bumps Japan out of its No. 2 global economic ranking, though many seem little phased by Tokyo's relative decline.
"China had long been leading Japan in national might except for the past 100 years or so," says Tsunehira Furuya, 28, whose shoulder-length bleached hair makes him look more like a pop singer than the conservative political activist he is.
"China getting ahead of Japan economically is sort of a return to the historical norm, and that does not bother me."
Japan's relative loss of global status may be inevitable given demographics and the maturity of its economy. But a growing self-reliance and willingness to take risks could translate into a less gloomy future than many predict.
"If you know that the best and the brightest only go to GM or Ford, all the other places that could innovate don't," said Brian Heywood, CEO of Taiyo Pacific Partners, which has about $2-billion invested in Japanese shares.
"If it is no longer the case that they only go to Toyota or Sony ... you could have real dynamism in the economy," he said. "It doesn't happen overnight."
For now, many youth seem to be seeking an elusive security, an attitude scoffed at by members of the DIY tribe.
"Japanese in general these days are really spoiled and not ambitious, and just happy enough with what they are or what they have," says Juri Imamura, 28, who got a graduate degree in New York before taking a job at a Japanese e-commerce firm with aggressive overseas plans. "They aren't 'hungry.'"
Surveys of university students by publishing and human resources firm Recruit Co. Ltd. show a steady increase since 2005 in the percentage of those wanting to spend their entire career at the first company that hires them, rising to around 80 per cent as the economy faltered last year.
Nearly half of new hires don't want to work overseas, many worrying that it is "too risky", another Recruit survey showed.
"They are satisfied with the present situation in Japan," said Yukio Okubo, general manager at the Works Institute research arm of Recruit.
But with Japan's famed life-time employment system crumbling to be replaced by a labour force where one-third of workers have unstable jobs with uncertain benefits, chances today's youth can live out their lives in a secure corporate cocoon are shrinking.
While only about one in four Japanese aged 15-34 in a 2009 government survey said they wanted to change jobs before retirement, in fact, just over half the age group had already done so - compared to about one-third in the 1997 survey.
"I think of a company as a place that provides me with challenges and where I can build networks and develop my skills," Mr. Imamura said. "So if my ideas and the corporate direction don't match, naturally I would consider leaving."