One of the more persistent, and pernicious, misconceptions about the unshakable - at least to date - tower that is Japanese debt, all Y1 quadrillion of it, is that there is no need to worry (literally, see prior) because the bulk of it is held by retail, i.e., domestic household, investors and as long as that is the case, nothing can possibly go wrong: after all the Japanese population holds its own debt, and as such is a beneficial creditor to the world's largest sovereign debtor. Alas, as so often happens with conventional wisdom, it just happens to be completely wrong. And while one may be entitled to their own opinions, the facts in this case belong squarely to the Japanese Ministry of Finance. The Japan MOF chart below summarizes the true state of retail appetite for Japanese bonds. In the wise words of Dennis Gartman, the chart is unmistakably headed from the top left to the bottom right, in perfectly obvious terms.
Source: Japanese Ministry of Finance