Maybe I was biased as a stranger in a strange land. Blind to Japan's less savory side, if it has one. Being stationed in Japan as a young Marine changed me immensely. Such a beautiful country of beautiful people.
I'm rambling now.
I'm absolutely no authority but I get the feeling that Japan is a great place to live if you fit into one of the traditional societal roles, but otherwise can be very alienating. Luckily for the gaijin amongst us, one of those roles is "polite tourist", so expect to be welcomed and treated very well. Just don't expect the same wonderful experiences to continue if you try to put down roots.
Eh? It’s still a very nice country if you put down roots. It’s certainly one of the best countries in terms of social cohesion/structure.
Japan doesn’t cease to amaze me even after 10 years.
Today I was put on a sort of medical gyroscope and made to drink burp and glowjuice as part of a yearly medical checkup, after which the guy proceeded to yell instructions at me in half broken english, while he presumably took multiple x-rays of my stomach and throat. I didn’t even know this existed, but apparently all men 35 and older do it once a year as a matter of course.
To balance that, Japanese people have a fairly different idea of what constitutes ‘normal’, and that is hard to get used to. For example, everyone considers me a deviant for just wanting to start my day with cereal and milk, and not wanting to eat a (warm!) multi-course meal for breakfast.
My ideas about breakfast were turned on their head many years ago when a German friend (his typical breakfast: rye bread, cheese, cured ham) remarked that he "can't understand how you can bear to eat sweet food first thing in the morning".
I suppose most of the world's breakfast traditions evolved from whatever is left over from the previous night's dinner. The idea of a custom synthetic breakfast food is quite an American thing.
I was a huge sucker for Japanese culture and stuff but after living there and experiencing feeling so lonely and alienated by their culture and their world view (being treated like a nuisance that's coming into their country to disrupt their jobs or "take their girls") it totally fizzled out for me.
Miyazaki seldom based a movie location on any single real-world place, though. They are always combinations of several places.