The Dutch and Japanese actually have quite an history together, but the average person here has no clue about that anymore. Is it the same over there? I actually see the Japanese build some kind of Netherlands-themed romanticized theme park with windmills and dikes and stuff, where you can buy some kind of insane vision on gouda cheese in the gift shop :p

Oh god that was appalling! "I move to a different country with a totally different culture and expect that all my desires be fulfilled no matter of the traditions of that country, its history or current sociological climate"
I read it because, even though Kotaku sank like a fucking brick, I still hoped that maybe you guys were exaggerating but oh boy was I wrong.

Well, I came to Japan with the idea to work in a University, as I have a PhD, but, not unexpectedly, I ran into a brickwall, so far... ^_^ Now I'm looking for a job in teaching french, but that's alos a quite overcrowded sector, especially since the demise of NOVA language schools...
LordCinnamon>I have to confess my ignorance about the Netherlands-themed park, but I would say the probability for such a place to exist in Japan is quite high. WAIT ! No ! I remember now, it's called Huis Ten Bosch, enjoy : http://english.huistenbosch.co.jp/
In the same kind of things, you have Spain mura (aka "Parque Espana") : http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4308.html

I *knew* there had to be something like this :D
Though I have to confess, it looks a lot less tacky than I thought it would. Seems pretty cool.

I skimmed it, as i sure couldn't be bothered reading it all.
I guess it's mostly true. But the thing to bear in mind is that you could make a list like that about anywhere, there'd always be a lot of negatives you could write.
There is a lot of japanese culture that's very frustrating for foreigners, as it's based very much on a japanese traditional mindset, and that can be very hard for me to understand at times. On his points, in no order:
Anime is now 90% crap. Luckily for the anime fans in the US you only tend to get the best stuff, rather than all the detrius that's on tv here. Again that's true of most cultures. In the UK we used to only get the best US dramas, and I guess in the US they don't get all the awful UK ones.
Japanese comedy is totally impenetrable to me.. but i don't discount that this is because of my language/cultural comprehension problems. The problem isn't that a lot of the comedy is bad though, it's that the tv is 95% comedy shows. No variation. Terrible dramas. I like the travel shows and education shows though.
Mostly terrible movies too, but at least they make their own movies.
Smoking has seriously reduced here in the last few years. But it does worry me to see the toddlers in the smoking section. And the guy downstairs DOES send his smoke up here.. so that point made me laugh.
No-one has ever grunted at me on the train, and people have been really nice to me. Though the "set polite language" that gets spouted out every time you go into a shop is a little annoying at times. I tune it out now though.
I'd never want to work for a japanese company. But i think the company culture is rapidly becoming westernised, and their system does have some benefits.
The institutionalised racism can get frustrating... it's rarely meant nastily, but more of a case of "following the rules".
I'm tired now.
The food and the people are great... and the weather is pretty good except summer.
The festivals are awesome on so many levels.
I love it here. But i think all expats get frustrated about small things from time to time.
Like - why are there 100 kinds of white bread, but nothing else?? ;-)

In my personal opinion, this man seems to be the worst collection of bones that God had stretch some skin across.
He doesn't eat meat in a country which favours meat, he doesn't like parties, whether forced or voluntary, and he doesn't smoke. What the HELL does this guy do to unwind?? His tone reminds me of a spoiled, smelly hipster who whines about his host country simply because he is being ironic.
Protip: if you write a novel about the negative aspects of a country which you are currently residing in, maybe, just maybe, you should fucking move.

i am japanese and was born and raised here in Tokyo but i agreed almost everything he said. lol

This thread is now about bitching about the country you live in! GOGOGO!!!

I live in the US, so I'll just let George Carlin's and Lewis Black's complaints be my own.

Very first bullet point this guy says that DBZ was great and One Piece sucks. That's all I need to know to discount everything in the article.

after reading this comment I felt guilty, so I decided to try reading the whole article. I still didn't like it, so my initiial reaction was actually the correct one. You owe me an apology!
The only thing I enjoyed was learning that the women he dates also find him annoying

"My favorite little organic vegetable cafe". Hold the press, he's a twat.

Hehe, it's fine if you don't want to read it without any further justification. It's just that it's stupid to actually have an opinion about it without have read the article. I should have worded that differently, I suppose.
And yeah, what's up with that? Why does he feel the need to add to every description of a date that 'she must hate him by now'? I'm fascinated by the mind behind those statements :p
You have to admit that at least from some kind of meta view, the article becomes pretty entertaining.

Unless of course, you've tried to suffer through any of his other ramblings before. They're all pretty much the same.