Meantime, 32-year-old software magnate Takafumi Horie is banging at the doors of old corporate Japan.

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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.

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Though they have 30 days in which to file charges against Mr Horie, prosecutors in Japan rarely make arrests unless they are sure of their case the verdict, it is said, comes first, and the trial later.

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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.

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After all, much of the freewheeling in which Mr Horie engaged share splits, the building up of stakes in acquisition targets during off-market trading and the like was there for all to see, yet regulators at the time applied little scrutiny and took little action.

ECONOMIST: Japan after livedoor

Some politicians and analysts wonder whether the prosecutors were put up to it by opposition politicians who were appalled by Mr Horie's decision to stand (unsuccessfully as it turned out) on a reformist ticket supporting the prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, in last September's elections for the Diet (parliament).

ECONOMIST: Japan after livedoor