Foundations and History

The Editors

Japanese Economy, 1998, vol. 26, issue 3, 38-66

Abstract: Most shareholder meetings in Japan are held annually on the last Thursday in June. The few weeks before that day are so busy with sokaiya activities, they are popularly called the "sokaiya season" by the public and media.On the day of a meeting, it is not unusual to see hordes of men bustling out of company buildings. Some are clearly shareholders who, alone, hurry along the streets or await their limousines. They carry small shopping bags containing a few trinkets distributed by the company to attendees. Others, traveling in boisterous groups, are obviously sokaiya. Conversations are alternately angry and merry. Follow them, and they talk of inept questions, failed strategies, big victories. It is a typical scene in the business district on shareholder-meeting day.On one occasion, however, the relative normalcy was disrupted. Blaring pseudomilitary music sounded, echoing off the tall buildings. Around a corner came a huge black reconverted bus, its windows covered with thick screens, its sides draped with banners, its top studded with huge speakers and rising-sun battle flags. The right wing had arrived.The bus stopped in front of the building housing the corporate headquarters of a ball-bearing company recently rocked by an insider-trading scandal. A man, clad in a black jumpsuit, emerged from the bus. Climbing atop the bus, holding a microphone, he made a passionate speech about corporate corruption and how it, along with political corruption, is weakening Japan—which in his view should be dominating the world. The speech finished, the uniformed man descended and entered the bus. The music blared again. The bus drove away. The scene returned to its normal bustle.

Date: 1998
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DOI: 10.2753/JES1097-203X260338

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