There Are More Artists in Japan Than Lawyers

Japan is a very different country from the United States, with its own unique culture and traditions, and one thing I like about the country is that there are more artists than lawyers here. The fact that there’s one lawyer for every 320 people in the U.S, and one for every 8195 in Japan should give you an indication of how little lawyers and the law come to play in daily life here. (I have yet to meet a single Japanese lawyer.) Oh, the law works the same in Japan as it does in other countries, and there are even lawsuits, but to a certain degree Japanese watch the litigious culture in the U.S. and take conscious steps to avoid emulating it themselves. (The character Kaede Kimura in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei parodies this deliciously.) Still, there are times when a cadre of smart lawyers would come in handy. In the U.S. when a new law is passed that people disagree with, you know there will be legal challenges and appeals and a likely reversal of said law, as the judicial arm works its important role as a check and balance on the legislative side. Sadly, U.S. style legal challenges aren’t the norm here, and the newly passed bill allowing the Tokyo government to butt into what kind of themes are put into anime, manga and video games — but not, say, novels or movies — has some of us wishing there were more a few more lawyers in Japan.

There are more artists than lawyers in Japan.