Visitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan's monolithic social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its "post-human" megacities. The country nonetheless remains an impossibly complicated jigsaw puzzle whose overall design eludes us. Its inscrutability has made the country an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. Caught between an ageing population and extreme post-modernity, immobile yet futuristic, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our age and the one to come.