Vintage photos show underbelly of boom-era Japan
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/greg-girard-tokyo-jal-76-88/index.html
I don't know how affluent Japan was in 1970s and 1980s, because I was not born in 1970s and was baby in 1980s.
At that time, Japan had advantages in terms of population growth, no competitive countries, and promotion of investment.
But, none of them is currently the case in Japan.
