Japan is actually becoming an increasingly Tokyo-centric economy. Tokyo is super rich. Osaka, the second-largest city in the country, pales visibly against Tokyo's dazzling performance. A somewhat Tea Party-like group lead by a maverick and rather alarming politician is trying to play on the frustrated sentiments of the Osaka public to make its way onto center stage in national politics. It could well be argued that even at the very height of its equal society days, it is doubtful whether Japan met the conditions to justify a single-currency area in terms of economic convergence.
In the absence of economic convergence, it is of course the presence of a central income transfer mechanism that holds Japan together as a single-currency area. (Japan Times)
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