Echoes of the Bubble

Someone once said, "You could buy all of America with one Tokyo." It was the late 1980s, when Japan's economy was expanding at a dizzying pace, a glorious era when countless people rode the wave to its crest. The financial markets brimmed with confidence, greed, and boundless ambition. Companies expanded without pause, while the value of land and assets rocketed skyward, as if the bubble could never burst.

Kirishima Seiichiro was one of the entrepreneurs who made a name for himself in that frenzy. His electronics company surged ahead, becoming one of the era's most celebrated businesses. Prosperity and glory had once seemed so real, almost within reach. But the bubble was only a fleeting dream. When the economic illusion collapsed, the capital markets, once as solid as a mountain, showed their merciless side. Glory vanished like a desert mirage the moment people awoke. Assets plummeted and debts piled up, pushing Kirishima and countless entrepreneurs like him to the brink. Their once cherished dreams became unbearable burdens.

This is a story of falling from the peak to the bottom, of waking from a world of endless splendor. From the Plaza Accord to the bursting of the economic bubble, and then to the later dot-com bubble, this book portrays an era's madness and the struggle to face reality after the dream ends. When the tide of the internet age sweeps across the globe once more, can those who once fell stand back up? And how will they face a world that is at once familiar and strange?