Japan used to be a tech giant. Why is it stuck with fax machines and ink stamps?

CNN —

When you think of Tokyo, you might think of neon-lit skyscrapers and its world-famous bullet train system, or films like “Akira” and “Ghost in the Shell” that depict a futuristic Japan filled with intelligent robots and holograms.

But there’s a more mundane side of Japan that you won’t find anywhere in these cyberpunk films. It involves fax machines, floppy disks and personalized ink stamps – relics that have long died out in other advanced nations but have stubbornly persisted in Japan.

For everyday residents, the lag in digital technology and the ensuing bureaucracy is at best inconvenient, and at worst makes you want to tear your hair out.

“Japanese banks are portals to hell,” one Facebook user wrote in a local expat group. A commenter joked sarcastically: “Maybe sending