Problem: Today in Japan, social mobility is slowing down and opportunity is becoming less equal. It has grown harder for children of working-class families to make their way into the middle class and easier for the elite to pass their positions on to their children. Since this is happening in a time of economic recession, with overall opportunities shrinking, parents' anxieties about their children's futures have greatly increased. Middle-class children feel under enormous pressure to compete and excel. Middle-class parents feel so desperate to ensure their children's prosperous futures that they no longer trust to the workings of meritocracy, but try to work the system for their children's advantage.