The Big Picture

Vincent Boland: Time to ditch notions of a stagnating Japan as markets hit 30-year high

With the Tokyo stock market reaching its highest level in a third of a century, there are encouraging signs that Japan is beginning to emerge from a lost generation that never seemed to end

Warren Buffett: the legendary investor spent $6bn buying small stakes in Japan’s leading trading houses. Picture: Getty

I recently watched a drama series on Netflix called Japan Sinks, about an earthquake that strikes Tokyo and causes the city and the surrounding region to disappear beneath the waves. It was far-fetched but gripping, the special effects were good, and the theme chimed with notions, widely held at home and abroad, of Japan as fading, stagnant, sinking.

It may be time to ditch those notions, because there are signs that Japan is beginning to ...