It's a common topic in anime circles that the anime produced in recent years has swung somewhat away from the grittier, more sci-fi stuff (e.g. AKIRA) that initially drew international attention, to more otaku-oriented shows focused on cute girls and in-jokes. This has occurred in parallel with the overall "rise of kawaii" that commentators have observed about '00s Japan.

To illustrate, Blu-Ray discs of anime sell at incredible prices in Japan, e.g. $88/disc or $600/boxset of 6 discs[1], and the same goes for merchandise like figurines. (Compare that to the $60 price of US season boxsets.) The reason is simple: for studios to make sufficient profit, they must rely on a small but core consumer cluster - otaku - to pay extreme prices, because mainstream consumption has imploded. (See [2] for a detailed revenue estimation.) The otaku in turn "maniacally" consume whatever anime they like, making studios increasingly have to turn toward otakus' tastes rather than mainstream or international preferences. Otakus become anime's primary consumer group, and then many anime watchers outside of Japan feel alienated by the decreasing amounts of the sort of genres that first drew them to the medium. I think this partially accounts for the fall in anime's international popularity over the last several years.

[1] http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=115312

[2] http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-07

It's really quite scary how high youth unemployment can doom a generation's economic prospects. There are "over 2,500,000 freeters and between 650,000 and 850,000 NEETs living in Japan between the ages of 19 and 35",[2][3] which is a fair number although probably not terribly different from other advanced economies. (Freeters are permatemps, i.e. those without permanent employment who work low-paying temp jobs in-between periods of joblessness; NEETs are recluses.) However, the benefits and mobility gap between the traditionally employed and the freeters/NEETs is large enough that I think they'll be cemented as an underclass at the rate things are going. Once they're off the traditional career ladder, they can't get back on it, and they're stuck living with their parents and sometimes withdrawing from social RL and becoming otaku on discussion BBSs.

One possible route out for Japan is exporting to foreign markets, but the market-cultural distance between Japan and other nations has widened since large Japanese corporations started disengaging from their foreign ventures. The whole Galapagos effect means that Japanese entrepreneurs have to base themselves in other countries if they want to have a shot at creating a product that sells outside Japan. It's a pity because I think they can make some rather unique, interesting products - they just don't have a way to get noticed outside of Japan. Korea took a much better route in focusing on exporting both electronics and media to the world, and they're doing very well as a result. Japanese media used to be significant here in Singapore in the '90s, but its popularity waned as the K-wave surged, and now K-dramas dominate the airwaves, I suspect crowding out even English-language shows.

I last visited Japan in 2008, and saw a good number of cut-price discount stores there, but overall prices weren't truly cheap. I wonder how different things are nowadays after these further years of lean.

[2] http://www.japanfocus.org/-Kosugi-Reiko/2022

[3] http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=907

(This 3rd link is very worth reading for details on the unemployment situation and lost generation in Japan)