Can the Class of '89 Fix Japan? For graduates of Japan's top universities, the future never looked sweeter than it did in 1989. The economy was booming and success seemed inevitable. Then Japan fell apart. But this watershed generation might have what it takes to save the nation BY ANDREW MARSHALL / TOKYO PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME BY MARK HESS Hope for Japan's future lies with the boom years' best and brightest Most Likely To...: Catching up with the class of '89 Timeline: Dark Days If you were Manabu Sakai and it was March 1989, then you were a very lucky man indeed. Imagine... You are 23 years old. It is spring. The cherry blossoms are out, drizzling with pink the Elysian campus of Tokyo University, better known as Todai. You have just graduated in law, which means that after three years of drinking, partying, tennis and more drinking?the study workload at Todai is famously untaxing?you now possess the most bankable degree from the most prestigious university in the second wealthiest nation on the planet. With corporate headhunters trampling one another to hire you, and with the stock market soaring to stratospheric highs, unemployment is not an option. It's not even a concept. Beyond the 200-year-old Red Gate, Todai's hallowed entrance, awaits the rest of the earth?and you, as one of your nation's best and brightest, are about to inherit it. "The country was wealthy. Next year it would be wealthier," recalls Sakai, now 37. "We took it all for granted."