After three decades of extraordinary monetary accommodation, the Bank of Japan has raised its benchmark interest rate to levels unseen since 1995, marking a quiet but consequential turning point in one of the world's most unusual economic experiments. The decision, shaped by persistent inflation and long-standing pressure from the United States to normalize Japan's monetary stance, reflects the difficulty of unwinding policies that once seemed permanent. Yet the central bank's own governor has spoken with enough ambiguity about the path ahead that markets have grown skeptical, and the yen — wh