The bursting of the Bubble Economy stunned the Japanese. After a four-year party, Tokyo woke up to a massive hangover of bad loans, bankruptcies, and its worst economic crisis since the late 1940s.
The wreckage left by the Bubble's collapse exposed the seamy side of Japanese business and politics as never before. Rapid deflation of the economy
was followed by nearly a decade of scandal: insider deals, influence peddling, massive bank fraud, mob-looted companies, and more. And, while there were plenty of independent crooks and corrupt politicians, the scandals showed most strikingly how far yakuza penetration of Japanese society had gone.