* Media persons of the year: Takafumi Horie and Taizo Sugimura.
The big economic story of the year was Japan's return to sustained growth and its effect on people's sense of well-being. The former is partly seen as proof that the country's business leaders are getting used to a merit-based, nonlifetime employment system and paying greater attention to stockholders; the latter points to a populace that has begun to recognize the inevitable social stratification that comes with these changes.
Takafumi Horie, the self-made billionaire CEO of Internet service provider Livedoor, personified this story. Horiemon, as he's popularly called, began the year as the be^te noire of the media industry when he attempted to buy controlling shares in Nippon Broadcasting System as a means of gaining access to the management reins of Fuji TV, whose own stock was held by NBS. At first, this "hostile takeover" was blasted by industry pundits as being un-Japanese and greedy, while foreign journalists hailed the move as welcome stimulation to Japan's moribund business culture.