The Tomigaia Blog

Book-Off, Selling the Ripped-Off

There has been a lot of talk in the press recently about the changes taking place in the fabric of Japanese society. I was recently talking to a friend who lives in Japan, and he told me that there has been a recent development there that shows how much things have changed in the last few years. It seems that young Japanese males have discovered a new way of making pocket money. First they go to a bookstore and shoplift a couple of expensive books. Then they take them to a used bookshop called Bookoff, which will buy them for a percentage of the list price, no questions asked. Some bookstores are losing up to $1 million a month in inventory due to this trade (see this article, in Japanese). I'm sure that the bookstores, who began to improve their security systems, , will work with Bookoff to prevent stolen merchandise from being fenced in its shops, but there are definitely some conclusions that we can make about the changes in Japanese culture from this story.

Young people in Japan think very differently about morality and ethics then their parents do. This generation gap will cause enormous conflict over the next few years in Japan. Of course, Japanese youth will begin to take advantage of weak and inefficient systems, but they will also rebel against attitudes of conformity toward work and other pillars of Japanese society. I hope that the parts of Japanese culture that I love will not be destroyed but I worry that this abrupt shift in values will do just that.