[james_s_tayler]

The no rural vs urban divide thing...

I never ever thought about it before but I see _exactly_ what you mean. And I think you're spot on. There isn't this idea/phenomenon of country folks being very different than city folks, rather there is an extremely strong cultural narrative around how a Japanese person behaves and what it means to be Japanese that transcends the settings in which one lives. The cultural machine just continuously markets Japaneseness to it's citizens.

I agree it comes with good and bad, but for sure when it comes to safety and stability it's huge factor.