Question: why is the Japanese economy tanking?

So their economy has shrunk by the fastest rate in 35 years, why is this happening? Simple. What does Japan make more than any other country? Yup. Cars. All of these are Japanese: Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, Suzuki, Honda... Chances are, you either own or have owned a Japanese car.
The car market has been killed by the destruction of credit markets. Thus any country with big auto-0assembly plants are going to feel the pain. They are:
USA
United Kingdom
Germany and a few others...

clipped from biz.yahoo.com TOKYO (AP) -- Strangled by the collapse in global export demand, Japan's economy shrank at its fastest rate in 35 years in the fourth quarter and shows no signs of reversing course anytime soon. Japan's gross domestic product contracted 3.3 percent from the previous quarter, or an annual pace of 12.7 percent, in the October-December period, the government said Monday. That was worse than expected and the steepest slide for Japan since the oil shock in 1974. It is more than triple the 3.8 percent annualized contraction in the U.S. in the same quarter. "There is no question that this is the worst economic crisis since the end of World War II," said Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano. "The outcome clearly shows that Japan's export-dependent economy has been severely hit." Already, Toyota Motor Corp., Sony Corp. and a slew of other companies have announced deep job cuts and projected net losses for the fiscal year through March.