The Best Story on Labour Rights: The Land of Karoshi, “The time I spent has been wasted.”

On one early March day in 1999, even before the cherry blossom buds began to swell, a 23-year-old man named Yuji Uendan killed himself in the depths of depression caused by overwork. He was found in his apartment in Kumagaya City, Saitama Prefecture, on the outskirts of Tokyo, with these words scribbled on a whiteboard used for his daily workout menu.