I think a lot of that is more "Tokyo" than "Japan" though. My general experience outside of the metropoolis (and even within Tokyo proper, there are good chunks that are properly dead beyond a certain time) is that the evenings are nice and dark.

This isn't even really limited to the countryside, plenty of decently large cities will have most all of their evening activity be focused on a handful of streets.

This is fine, of course! I do think a lot about how much of the image of Japan is mostly the image of Tokyo itself. Not the largest city in the world anymore but quite close.

Tokyo is def very cool though. Huge city that you can actually move around in easily enough means that no matter how microscopic of a subculture you belong to there'll be _some_ people out there in the same category. And very fun to walk around in. Really a great joy to just be able to walk in the middle of a street and not really worry about cars.