When Tom Feiling lived in Tokyo in the early 1990s, Japan was a vision of the future. A place where science fiction existed next to centuries old Shinto shrines.

He returned to the country nearly twenty-five years later to find some of the shine had worn off.

Its population is aging and shrinking. Inflation is finally setting in after decades of economic stagnation. People are choosing solitude over companionship. And countryside villages are being abandoned as their last residents die off.

Japan still looks like the future, but it is a troubling future, and a warning for us all.

Tom is the author of Alone in Japan: A Journey to the Future.

We spoke about Japan’s culture of overwork, extreme forms of solitude, sex doll showrooms, and attempts to save village life and big city prosperity.

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