It sounds banal to write of an end of an era for Japanese politics, if only because that era, a dizzy mixture of brilliance and corruption, has been so reluctant to come to an end.

ECONOMIST: Noboru Takeshita

The Olympus affair may very well mark the beginning, rather than the end, of an era in Japanese business history.

FORBES: Olympus and "Honor"

The story itself melds the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood with Japanese folklore from the Edo era.

FORBES: Connect

Mr Bush's tariffs, like the Reagan-era export restraints on Japanese cars and semiconductors, came from a president who was fundamentally committed to free trade.

ECONOMIST: Barack Obama and free trade

At least one other Japanese leader has apologized for the era.

CNN: Japan apologizes for colonial rule of Korea

Yet thanks to the huge pile of debts they had run up in the era of cheap credit, Japanese companies could not afford to pay more.

ECONOMIST: Will Japan never learn?

Rather as Italians thought their Renaissance was an upwelling of disciplined classicism Rome reborn from the ashes of "barbarous" Gothic so the Kyoto Renaissance strove to recall the spirit of the Japanese past, as far back as the Heian era (794-1185), especially in the domain of writing.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | The Subtle Magic of Koetsu

In political relations, the 2001-2006 Koizumi era is certain to be the last instance of willful Japanese defiance toward China.

FORBES: More on the Future Japan-China (and Japan--U.S. ) Relationship

As they come to terms with a harsher reality, Japanese manufacturers are finding that many of the techniques for innovation and production that were honed in an era of plenty do not work so well today.

ECONOMIST: The land of disappointments

The first inning outburst made it easy for Japanese right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma (5-1), who came in with a 1.74 ERA. He gave up solo homers to Vernon Wells his 10th and Stewart in seven innings.

WSJ: Hughes roughed up by Ibanez, Mariners