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Iyashikei, literally healing-type, took shape in Japan in the mid-1990s. The bubble had burst at the end of 1989, and graduates were entering what became known as the Employment Ice Age. On 17 January 1995, the Great Hanshin earthquake killed more than 5,000 people in and around Kobe. Ten weeks later, Aum Shinrikyo released sarin on the Tokyo underground. Paul Roquet, now at MIT, has documented what followed as a healing boom, in which calm itself became a marketable emotional state. By 1999, iyashi had been named Japan’s buzzword of the year.