記事内容 元号が変わるので 注意がいりますよ

何故か古臭い制度を維持してる 中国ですら捨てたのに となってる・・ 
流石NYT
Japan Has a New Emperor. Now It Needs a Software Update.

It isn’t exactly Y2K, but the country is scrambling to reconcile its systems with the ancient demands of an imperial calendar.



本文
By Ben Dooley, Makiko Inoue and Hisako Ueno
April 23, 2019

TOKYO — Lost data. Emails that disappear into the ether. Servers that never connect.

All thanks to the ascension of a new emperor to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

Japan is scrambling to update software, revise forms and print new calendars before May 1, when the world’s third-largest economy begins a new imperial era. For most of the rest of the world, it will remain the year 2019 when the clock strikes midnight. Across Japan, which relies internally on an ancient calendar that honors a reigning emperor, it will be the first day of the first year of the age of Reiwa.

The new era, christened just weeks ago, will force the country’s sprawling bureaucracy to literally turn back the clock to Year 1. Experts compare it to Y2K, the digital threat in the lead-up to the year 2000, if on a much smaller and less consequential scale.

“The change of the era name will have a huge effect on big companies that have complicated systems,” said Gaku Moriya, deputy director of the information technology innovation division at Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, or METI.
Major companies with relatively modern systems will most likely handle the shift with aplomb. Still, the full consequences are not entirely clear, and for many the change will not be cheap. Every government form, including tax returns and marriage registrations, uses the imperial-style calendar, making it impossible for government workers and companies to avoid.

Already the tally is mounting. The city of Nagoya, an industrial center in central Japan, estimates it alone will spend about $4.3 million dollars preparing for the new era. In the city of Koga, employees preparing for the changeover accidentally erased 1,650 water bills. Scam artists have sent out letters that target older people, telling them to submit personal information to ensure that their bank accounts make the transition, according to the national broadcaster NHK.

For those companies that cannot get their paperwork in order by the deadline, METI recommends a distinctly old-school solution: correcting documents with rubber stamps bearing the Japanese characters for the new year.

At a small factory in the outskirts of Tokyo, just three days after the “Reiwa” name was announced, Osamu Takiguchi and a crew of about 20 worked overtime to rush out orders of the distinctly Japanese product.

“We ran out of rubber in the first three days,” said Mr. Takiguchi, managing director of Hanko 21, an office supply chain that owns the factory. He said he was considering hiring temporary staff to help with the last-minute rush he expected at the end of the month.

The headaches have prompted a national conversation over whether it is finally time for Japan to move entirely over to the Gregorian calendar. The country uses the Gregorian calendar when dealing with other countries and to coordinate global events, such as the 2020 Olympics. Most people here have also already adopted it in their personal lives.

One lawyer, Jiro Yamane, has even sued the government over the change, arguing that forcing people to measure time by the life of the emperor violates their constitutional right to individual dignity.

“Only Japan exists in this different space and dimension of time,” said Mr. Yamane, who is scheduled to argue his case in front of a Tokyo district court at the end of May. “It’s incompatible with international society.”

“Why are the Japanese so hung up on it?” he added.

It may just be that Japan has a hard time letting go. The country still depends on fax machines. It is one of the last places in the world where Tower Records, the once iconic music store, has stayed open, still selling CDs.

The new era, to many, is symbolic of a fresh start. Government offices expect couples will rush to register their marriages on the first day of the new era.

The Japanese adopted the imperial calendar from the Chinese in the seventh century, and government agencies have been required to use it since the late 1970s. Other countries in the region, including China itself, have moved on and adopted the Gregorian calendar for official business.