In Japan during the 1980s, the economy was in a boom where buyers found themselves paying the highest prices for goods and commodities. As of March 1980, the unemployment rate in Japan was 4.9%;https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100301/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_economy Japan's Unemployment Rate – March 2010 a very low number compared to the unemployment rate during the height of the 1990s. The following decade would see Japan's economy decline substantially, giving rise to the name the Lost Decade.
Entertainment
The 1980s saw the firm establishment of anime and manga as major forms of entertainment for the Japanese public. Studio Ghibli, arguably the most famous and respected animation studio in Japan, was established by Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki in 1985 following the success of Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Newtype, one of the two major anime industry magazines, was started in 1985 as well.
Examples of Japanese products created and distributed during the 1980s included Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., and classic anime like Astro Boy and Akira. Nintendo Co., Ltd. (NCL) came of age offering video arcade games and their famous Family Computer (also known as the Famicom) video game system. American-based Atari struggled to compete in Japan but they couldn't defeat the Sega-Nintendo duopoly in the video arcade realm. Future Japanese game designers would cut their teeth during this era playing 8-bit games and end up designing video games on much more complicated architectures (systems like the Nintendo 64 and the Game Boy).
Professional wrestling was declining in the 1980s in Japan, even though the WWF was experiencing a boom worldwide. Even the most predominant men's and women's wrestling leagues were losing popularity like America's World Wrestling Federation. By the 2000s, professional wrestling was relegated to the midnight hours by television broadcasting. However, a few crucial championships would bring women's wrestling into a new era of the 1980s.
Osamu Tezuka, considered the "god of manga" in Japan, died on 9 February 1989. Hibari Misora, one of the most popular and best selling female pop artists in Japan, died on 24 June 1989. She had held her last public performance in Kitakyushu in February that same year.
Cinema, television, and video
Award-winning live action films released during the 1980s include Zigeunerweisen (1980), Kagemusha (1980), Station (1981), Fall Guy (1982), The Ballad of Narayama (1983), The Funeral (1984), Gray Sunset (1985), House on Fire (1986), A Taxing Woman (1987), The Silk Road (1988), and Black Rain (1989).
NHK started experimental broadcasting of TV program using the BS-2a satellite in May 1984. The satellite BS-2a was launched in preparation for the start of full scale 2-channel broadcasts. Broadcasting Satellite BS-2a was the first national DBS (direct broadcasting satellite), transmitting signals directly into the home of TV viewers. One of the three transponders malfunctioned 2 months after launch (March 23, 1984) and a second transponder malfunctioned 3 months after launch (May 3, 1984), so the scheduled satellite broadcasting had to be hastily adjusted to test broadcasting on a single channel.
Later, NHK started regular service (NTSC) and experimental HDTV broadcasting using BS-2b in June 1989. Some Japanese producers of home electronic consumer devices began to deliver TV sets, VCRs and even home acoustic systems equipped with built-in satellite tuners or receivers. Such electronic goods had a specific BS logo.
Music
During the 1980s, Japan had the second largest music market in the world.Tokita and Hughes. The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music. 2008. p 355. Idols included Seiko Matsuda, Akina Nakamori, Hiroko Yakushimaru, Yōko Oginome, Yoko Minamino, Chisato Moritaka and Wink.聖子と明菜の頂上決戦「80年代アイドル総選挙 ザ・ベスト100」結果発表！. Re:minder. 16 February 2023.80年代アイドル総選挙 ザ・ベスト100. Re:minder. Artists in the new music genre included Saki Kubota.Issei Tomizawa, 「昭和ニューミュージック」の1980年代, 言視舎, 2023, ISBN 9784865652581. Rock bands included Rebecca and the Southern All Stars.Schilling. The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture. 1997. Fourth printing. 2004. pp 110 & 231. Artists in the techno-pop genre included Yellow Magic Orchestra.Schilling. The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture. p 300. The song "Hana" (1980) by Shoukichi Kina, was a hit overseas, and sold 30 million copies.Urbain. Music and Conflict Transformation. p 6. Eiichi Ohtaki released A Long Vacation.第23回 日本レコード大賞. Japan Composer's Association]
Demographics
Two cities were named designated cities during the 1980s: Hiroshima in 1980, and Sendai in 1989.
Population
The birth rate in Japan continued to drop significantly during the 1980s, dropping from about 14 births per thousand to about 10 births per thousand. Deaths per thousand saw a slight increase from about 5.5 to about 6. The aging of the population was already becoming evident in the aging of the labor force and the shortage of young workers in the late-1980s, with potential impacts on employment practices, wages and benefits, and the roles of women in the labor force.
In addition, the median age of the elderly population was rising in the late 1980s. The proportion of people age 65–85 was expected to increase from 6% in 1985 to 15% in 2025. Because the incidence of chronic disease increases with age, the health care and pension systems are expected to come under severe strain. In the mid-1980s the government began to reevaluate the relative burdens of government and the private sector in health care and pensions, and it established policies to control government costs in these programs. Recognizing the lower probability that an elderly person will be residing with an adult child and the higher probability of any daughter or daughter-in-law's participation in the paid labor force, the government encouraged establishment of nursing homes, day-care facilities for the elderly, and home health programs. Longer life spans are altering relations between spouses and across generations, creating new government responsibilities, and changing virtually all aspects of social life.
Internal migration Between 6 million and 7 million people moved their residences each year during the 1980s. About 50% of these moves were within the same prefecture; the others were relocations from one prefecture to another. During Japan's economic development in the twentieth century, and especially during the 1950s and 1960s, migration was characterized by urbanization as people from rural areas in increasing numbers moved to the larger metropolitan areas in search of better jobs and education. Out-migration from rural prefectures continued in the late 1980s, but more slowly than in previous decades.
In the 1980s, government policy provided support for new urban development away from the large cities, particularly Tokyo, and assisted regional cities to attract young people to live and work there. Regional cities offered familiarity to those from nearby areas, lower costs of living, shorter commutes, and, in general, a more relaxed life-style than could be had in larger cities. Young people continued to move to large cities, however, to attend universities and find work, but some returned to regional cities (a pattern known as U-turn) or to their prefecture of origin (a pattern referred to as J-turn).
Government statistics show that in the 1980s significant numbers of people left the largest central cities (Tokyo and Osaka) to move to suburbs within their metropolitan areas. In 1988 more than 500,000 people left Tokyo, which experienced a net loss through migration of nearly 73,000 for the year. Osaka had a net loss of nearly 36,000 in the same year. However, the prefectures showing the highest net growth are located near the major urban centers, such as Saitama, Chiba, Ibaraki, and Kanagawa around Tokyo, and Hyogo, Nara, and Shiga near Osaka and Kyoto. This pattern suggests a process of suburbanization, people moving away from the cities for affordable housing but still commuting there for work and recreation, rather than a true decentralization.
Economy
Overall real economic growth was called a "miracle", with a 4% average during the 1980s. Throughout the 1970s, Japan had the world's second largest gross national product (GNP)—just behind the United States— and ranked first among major industrial nations in 1990 in per capita GNP at US$23,801, up sharply from US$9,068 in 1980. After a mild economic slump in the mid-1980s, Japan's economy began a period of expansion in 1986 that continued until it again entered a recessionary period in 1992. Economic growth averaging 5% between 1987 and 1989 revived industries, such as steel and construction, which had been relatively dormant in the mid-1980s, and brought record salaries and employment.
Unlike the economic booms of the 1960s and 1970s, when increasing exports played the key role in economic expansion, domestic demand propelled the Japanese economy in the late 1980s. This development involved fundamental economic restructuring, moving from dependence on exports to reliance on domestic demand. The boom that started in 1986 was generated by the decisions of companies to increase private plant and equipment spending and of consumers to go on a buying spree. Japan's imports grew at a faster rate than exports. Japanese postwar technological research was carried out for the sake of economic growth rather than military development. The growth in high-technology industries in the 1980s resulted from heightened domestic demand for high-technology products and for higher living, housing, and environmental standards; better health, medical, and welfare opportunities; better leisure-time facilities; and improved ways to accommodate a rapidly aging society.
Japan introduced the national consumption tax of three percent in 1989.
Finances
Tokyo became a major financial center, home of some of the world's major banks, financial firms, insurance companies, and the world's largest stock exchange, the Tokyo Securities and Stock Exchange. Even here, however, the recession took its toll. In the decades following World War II, Japan implemented stringent tariffs and policies to encourage the people to save their income.
With more money in banks, loans and credit became easier to obtain, and with Japan running large trade surpluses, the yen appreciated against foreign currencies. This allowed local companies to invest in capital resources much more easily than their competitors overseas, which reduced the price of Japanese-made goods and widened the trade surplus further. And, with the yen appreciating, financial assets became very lucrative.
With so much money readily available for investment, speculation was inevitable, particularly in the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the real estate market. The Nikkei stock index hit its all-time high on December 29, 1989, when it reached an intra-day high of 38,957.44 before closing at 38,915.87. The rates for housing, stocks, and bonds rose so much that at one point the government issued 100-year bonds. Additionally, banks granted increasingly risky loans.
The Plaza Accord was signed in September 1985. This agreement between the governments of France, West Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, was to depreciate the US dollar in relation to the Japanese yen and German Deutsche Mark by intervening in currency markets. The exchange rate value of the dollar versus the yen declined by 51% from 1985 to 1987. Most of this devaluation was due to the $10 billion spent by the participating central banks. Currency speculation caused the dollar to continue its fall after the end of coordinated interventions.