Japanese men have an identity crisis

Fukushima Michihito wanted to marry his girlfriend. But a decade ago he fell ill, had to stop working, and consequently broke up with her. “I thought: if I can’t support my family, I shouldn’t get married,” he recalls. He later realised that many Japanese men are similarly weighed down by pressure to fill the traditional male role. He now runs a “men’s hotline” in the city of Osaka, which encourages men to discuss their anxieties.