[akamaka]

Thanks for sharing your point of view. Also, sorry that some people are picking on small parts of your comment rather than listening to your overall point, which I think is valid.

I do have one thing to say about housing in Japan. It does look extremely bleak, but I think the looks are deceptive, and much of it is actually of quite a high quality. The way it was explained to me by a Japanese person is that everything is designed with earthquakes in mind. Anything extraneous might fall off in an earthquake. Any decorative features, fancy light fixtures, or signage are excluded.

The result is that even the most important buildings end up looking like bland, featureless blocks: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_60