News on Livedoor having become a daily occurrence as of late, a couple more items of interest came out today. First another editorial, coming from a site about science and technology news of all places, opines about Livedoor and the possible damage recent events may bring to the rise in entrepreneurial spirits among Japanese college students.

And in the news, Fuji TV, target of a hostile takeover attempt, is now looking into buying Livedoor itself, in an ironic twist of fate. Kyodo News has the story.

A special for Asahi Shimbun attempts to explain how the Japanese car industry managed to advance so rapidly, catapulting past the United States to become the largest car producer. According to this commentator, two elements are at work here:

First is the effectiveness of Japan’s “development, production and dealing systems.” The second element is the nature of Japanese people, which I think is suited for manufacturing cars.

Factoring heavily into the “nature of Japanese people” element are Japan’s seniority-based management and lifetime employment. Despite the problems seen in other industries’ productivity due to these traditional systems, could they be a natural fit for car manufacturing? Or is something else really at work here?

Here’s some good material focusing mainly on the challenges and characteristics of the Japanese market compared to the US and UK, for those considering business there. Note that this ends in a promotional piece for Eurotechnology, but the rest of the information does not seem promotional in any way.

First steps are taken toward the privatization to begin October 2007. Via Crisscross News.

For those who aren’t yet sick of all the Livedoor news, the International Herald Tribune has an analysis of the situation. As per usual, they go beyond the day-to-day events to look at the clash of between Livedoor president Horie’s approach and that of Japan’s business establishment.

Update: Daily Yomiuri has another interesting piece focusing on Horie’s influence on students. His success seems to have inspired some to pursue their enterpreneurial dreams, a drive that Japan’s business environment has not traditionally encouraged.

Update 2: For anyone who just can’t get enough of this stuff, here’s a Newsweek piece with a similar approach to the International Herald Tribune article.

According to a J@pan Inc newsletter, Japanese companies flooded the World Trade Center in Boston to recruit students this October. The newsletter notes that due to economic recovery and Japan’s declining birth rate, as well as increased globalization, firms have been driven overseas to find new talent.

If there’s any doubt that the Japanese are overworked, this gallery should do the trick.

I just discovered how-to-bow.com, a highly amusing and informative site that has so much more to offer than its namesake suggests. It takes you through the whole Japanese business ritual (and many other tangential cultural bits) with a combination of flash animations and text explanations of what is going on. Worth a look even if you don’t plan on doing business in Japan any time soon.

First Happoshu, legally falling outside the beer category due to low malt content, was introduced to dodge beer taxes. Taxes were increased on Happoshu, and its exploding popularity quickly tapered off. Brewers fought back with “third beer,” made with no malt content at all. This, too, followed suit with explosive sales growth, but once again it looks like the government will put an end to the party with tax reforms. Brewers are attempting to fight the proposal, but if this goes through it seems they won’t have any other loophole for pseudo-beer on the cheap. Just-drinks.com has the story.

Japanese retailer Seiyu will become a subsidiary of Wal-Mart on December 21. As part of the deal, Ed Kolodzieski, former senior vice president and COO of Wal-Mart International, became CEO of Seiyu on Thursday. Both Mainichi and Reuters have full reports.