The Making of an Agent - Chapter 1 (Part 1)

This book, about super agent Don Nomura, the man who took Hideo Nomo to the U.S  Major Leagues and opened the long-closed door door to MLB for Japanese baseball players, was originally published in 1999 in Japanese by Bungei Shunju as

日出づる国の奴隷野球: 憎まれた代理人団野村の闘い

There has been a long ongoing debate about the nature of the "Japanese character," that is essentially divided into two camps, one holds that Japan is enduringly unique among cultures of the world and the other says that the Japanese are essentially no different than anyone else. One side sees social change as superficial — a mere surface phenomenon unaffecting the deeper permanent value structure underneath, while the other sees social change as a sign of normal, evolutionary progress that naturally links Japan to people in other developed cultures.

Those who argue Japan is innately linked to its similar feudal past, can point to many examples to buttress their position: Blind corporate loyalty in the form of unpaid overtime and karoshi is still common. Back room "Kabuki Politics" is still in evidence, despite electoral reform (less than 20% of the population supported Keizo Obuchi when he was elected LDP president, making him by far the least-liked of all three major candidates for the post), while, most tellingly, perhaps, the public has meekly accepted a decade of recession and an unending succession of financial and political scandals without any real protest (and certainly without the type of violence that would mark most other countries).