One thing I want you to keep in the back of your mind the whole time is I really don't think it can be overstated just how much weebs of all stripes have impressed on the western cultural consciousness that Japan is basically perfect by a combination of superficiality and sheer desire. If say... K-pop had come first I strongly suspect we'd be saying the same things about Korea.
I think the unpleasantness of Japan and peoples' ignorance of it―earnest or willful―broadly comes down to two points: the cultural emphasis on maintaining appearances and the fact that Japan is actually a really, really nice place...to visit. There's a synergy to this combination.
Odds are you've already got an understanding of the whole Japanese honor and shame society, even if it's tainted by the cherry blossom and lotus eating perceptions of pop culture and history. I can't emphasize just how big of a deal the shame culture is and its promulgation through every facet of society has lead to a bit of a weird situation in which pretty much everything has to
appear perfect. If it can be fixed (by one's in group), great. If not Heraclean effort will readily be applied to construct a potemkin village around the problem and try to memory-hole it as much as possible. The problem's still there, of course, but unless you're one of the unfortunate affected you're going to have to look
very hard to find the problem. It doesn't help that the actual affected will themselves assiduously deny the existence of a problem, and if pressed simply respond しょうがないね。 There's this attribute of the Japanese, at least in their own heads, of
gaman which is basically some uniquely oriental combination of the stiff upper lip and don't snitch. I could hypothesize many hypothetical explanations for how gaman and its attendant virtues came about and the social purpose they serve but I feel like I'm already venturing a little too far into speculation. The essential point is that if a problem exists and can't be readily solved without engaging external groups or superiors beyond one's immediate boss effort normally reserved for moving mountains will be utilized to eliminate all evidence of the problem without actually solving it. To do anything less is shameful. One of the things that utterly blew me away and to this day I still have trouble understanding is that there is a very fine and natural distinction in Japan between a public group (ie company, government) actively working to fixing a problem, and simply creating the appearance that they are doing so, as if somehow the latter is acceptable. IIRC, the government is engaged in some kind of intiatives to rectify this, primarily because the behavior was one of the primary causes of the Fukushima mess, which as we all know committed the cardinal sin of making glorious Nihon look bad, and worse! look bad
on the world stage. I should also mention that the extent of this mindset and its implicitly chilling effects appears to be more or less Orwellian in scope. The worst insult a Japanese can do another is to ignore them entirely, to turn the cold shoulder forever, and in such a socially tightknit culture (spoiler: there's a lot of scuttlebut in Japanese society) this can lead to grand unpersonings of extremity that we in the ["]civilized["] world usually reserve for child sex abusers. What's interesting about this is that it extends to inconvenient historical facts that can't be whitewashed. I've heard enough tales of a foreigner instantly turning persona non grata for having the audacity to broach the subject of the Rape of Nanking or Bataan Death March to a supposed friend that I've so far only dared discuss politics at all with my closest buddy.
The perceived absence of negative leads to a vaccuum which in turn is filled by and magnifies the positive, something reinforced in many ways by all the cultural idiosyncracies I discussed above. But all this is amplified by the fact Japan really is a very nice place to visit. It's packed with delightful vistas. full-to-bursting with fascinating history, has done a great job of exporting pop culture in easily digestible formats, and a bunch of other things I could list if I really wanted to fellate it. It's also one of two countries people think of when they think of the exotic and inscrutable orient, which of course works to its advantage. But the unique thing is the emphasis on politesse. This is another thing I'm sure pretty much everyone reading this is already well familiar with, but when combined with the focus on appearances as discussed above it leads to a society that basically bends over backwards to make as positive an impression as possible on visitors. People, places, institutions, they all really go the extra mile to make the visitor's perception of the country as perfect as possible; partly for appearances, partly because treaty your guests well is just good manners. A lot of peoples' most positive stories are borne of this, I'm reminded of one where the cashier at a McD's just finished taking an order and broke into a sprint to hold the door open for someone leaving. Stories like that stick out in the mind, especially if you've had the misfortune to visit the golden arches stateside, or pretty much anywhere else. This behaviour might also have something to do with the notoriously short-tempered samurai in times past and similarly inclined citizens of arbitrarily high social standing today, but I wouldn't venture any positive assertions. I am rather shocked by just how contemptuously some higher in the social hierarchy treat those lower on the foodchain, but I guess we're all familiar with the asshole DA, chief of police, or elected politician that treats regular people like shit so maybe I should give them a pass. Regardless, it all combines to form a society that works very, very, invented-a-word-for-death-by-overwork(過労死) hard to make its country look better than it actually is. This of course extends to basically all cultural exports.
It seems to me like the more one knows about Japan itself and not just its exports, the more nuanced and typically negative opinion they have of the country, or the more qualifications they have for their recommendation of it. I've never encountered anyone that professes ambivalence toward Japan while on top of Mount Stupid.
www.reddit.com
