Four former Livedoor executives are currently on trial accused of fraud and falsifying corporate accounts, while the firm's founder Takafumi Horie has been charged with breaking securities laws.
Mr Horie may be an outsider, but plenty of the activist funds are run and staffed by well-connected former bureaucrats and by people in their 30s and 40s who lost their jobs or their loyalty during the banking meltdown of the 1990s.