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I find it really lame that this article includes a long list of "fails" instead of successful examples.

Successful confessions are all alike; every unsuccessful confession is unsuccessful in its own way.

Slightly more seriously, the format of a confession is pretty basic ("I like you, wanna hang?") and the article does include several canonical versions. But at the end of day it's just confirming that the attraction is mutual, and most of the fails are about randos totally failing this part.

I think the article implied pretty clearly that some things which count as successful confessions in Japan would be viewed as awkward or otherwise inappropriate in Western countries. It would have been interesting to see a list of such examples in order to see the difference in culture.

The successful, reliable format is right there in the beginning: Saying that one sentence face-to-face in private.

That's half the point of the article, that the culture is to follow that one clear format to avoid ambiguity, and that other formats are seen as creepy, privacy-invading, etc.

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