Yakudoshi: My horoscope said it would be a bad year

Happy 2012! Would be a shame if anything bad were to happen to your nice new year...

Your yakudoshi is an "inauspicious year," or a "year of calamity." Other translations put a more positive spin on the expression as a "critical year," but overall, during the ages 24, 41 and 60 for men and 18, 32 and 36 for women, you should stay sharp. You are supposed to be extra vulnerable to sickness and general poor luck during these years and the years immediately before and after. Luckily, you can go to a shinto shrine and have the bad juju removed by purchasing some combination of charms and purification rituals. And lest you think you'll take your chances with the less-bad luck of the year following the main yakudoshi, my friend says that this atoyaku is trouble for the people around you, you selfish bastard. Have they got every angle of this protection racket covered or what?
This photo is at Meiji Jingu. I strolled over in the late afternoon today. There were hundreds of people lined up waiting to go for first prayer at the shrine. I stuck to my new year's resolution to stay out of insanely long lines and just walked around. I had a bowl of restorative tonjiru pork soup and enjoyed the atmosphere. Most of the friends and families were casual, and some were in suits or kimono. It was crowded but relaxed, except near the subway entrance that appears among the trees only once a year and opens directly onto the shrine grounds. Here uniformed traffic controllers with bullhorns stood every few yards.
I imagine there were a few prayers that the deep earthquake this afternoon is the last one for a while. This is year Heisei 24 on the Japanese calendar. Entire countries can't have a yakudoshi, can they? I'd buy a charm if it would help.