Carey is a bit ageist, seeming to think that anything not directly influenced by traditional Japanese culture and/or the devastations of WWII are not ‘the Real Japan’. This is mildly annoying.

His pretension is more interesting, more or less being the point of the book. He learns first hand that he can’t grok a culture from the outside, no matter how much of it’s output (manga/anime) he consumes. It comes as a relief that by the end he has stopped trying. This strengthens my resolve to live in the places that fascinate me, Japan being only one of them.