Those numbers are wildly misleading. The Q2 2014 GDP drop was 1.7% but this is largely because consumers brought forward consumption of big ticket items to Q1 -

Those numbers are wildly misleading. The Q2 2014 GDP drop was 1.7% but this is largely because consumers brought forward consumption of big ticket items to Q1 - where the economy grew by 0.8%. The economy ACTUALLY only shrank by 0.1% in 2014 but then grew by 0.4%,0.2%,0.5% the following three years, which is actually a lot for Japan.