Japanese Prime Minster Junichiro Koizumi has a cheer squad of economic experts who believe that privatising the struggling behemoth of Japan Post will speed structural reform without wrecking private firms or costing a great many jobs.
Yet a risk remains that concessions made in a failed bid to get the privatisation bills past parliament last month have watered down the transformation of the world's largest financial institution so much that the government's experiment might turn its long-docile cash cow into a 10-tonne gorilla tearing up the private sector.
Yamato Transport, which pioneered Japan's private parcel delivery in unison with Sagawa Express, is already suing as the still state-owned corporation stomps into its territory, with government privileges such as tax-free status.
Japan Post also wants a chunk of private banks' fastest growing revenue source, investment trusts, which it plans to start selling at 575 of its 24,700 branches next month.
Mr Koizumi's basic plan is a good one: privatise the 340 trillion yen ($23.8 billion) monster to staunch the flow of its funds into government - which largely wastes the money on unnecessary public works to prop up Liberal Democratic Party politicians' popularity among rural voters - and redirect that capital into the private sector, which is more likely to generate higher returns.
Japan needs better returns on investment as its population ages and shrinks. It cannot afford to have the financial colossus turn into a massive liability, which will happen if nothing is done to halt declines in each element of its unconventional marriage of mail delivery, savings deposits and life insurance businesses. Those declines contributed to a plunge in net profit from 2.3 trillion yen in financial 2003 to 1.2 trillion yen in financial 2004.