The same fools who cram their life away to get into Tokyo University are the same ones who end up as broken individuals in all kinds of ways, including in their sexual health and personal life. It's commonly said that people who get into Tokyo University are strange, and it's because they are broken by the process.

residual dna from too-recent emperor-worship, a certain national superiority complex rooted in suicidal fanaticism, medieval honour codes institutionalised, all leading to blinkered thinking.

fascinating... how much of that is true also of england, that other rainy little island that morphed to a surprisingly disproportionate degree of global influence.

not that it's exclusive to islands or anything...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty