Tokyo After Dark

After fading in and out of recession for more than a decade, Japan is no longer the economic giant it once was, but at least gadget-happy Japanese could distract themselves with their country’s never-ending supply of electronic gizmos. Now even that diversion may be slipping away. A safety scandal has forced the shutdown of 17 nuclear-power plants, raising the odds of widespread electrical blackouts this summer in the Japanese capital. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) warns that the city’s 12 million residents may be hard-pressed to run air-conditioners, recharge cell phones and take their minds off chronic economic doldrums with their PlayStations.

A familiar villain — Japanese corporate malfeasance — is to blame. Last August, TEPCO admitted that it had falsified plant-safety reports, raising doubts about the company’s entire reactor system. TEPCO has been trying to rebuild public trust with a PR blitz, but the utility is its own worst enemy — last week inspectors were again caught violating safety rules in the rush to restart service.

Kazuya Fujime, managing director of the Tokyo-based Institute of Energy Economics, says a 24-hour outage would cost the city billions. But there is an upside — this could be a good way to counter Japan’s plunging birthrate. After all, New York had a baby boom nine months after its famed blackout of 1977. Take away their TV, Internet and video games, and Tokyo residents might amuse themselves in more traditional ways.