[sedatk]

Eh, spent two weeks in Japan in mainly Tokyo and Kyoto a couple weeks ago, and I can safely say that the quality of taxi service varies a lot. Fantastic ride from and to the airport with the driver handling all our luggages. But, taxi drivers who didn't speak English and who couldn't read romanized addresses were common. It was a problem because Google Maps defaulted to romanized addresses on our phones due to our phone language being English.

A taxi we called up using Uber (Uber can only call taxis in Japan) even delayed cancelling our ride passive-aggressively long enough that we missed other rides and lost a lot of time.

My friends had even met with a rude taxi driver (I know impossible, in Japan, right?) that refused to take them to a place that he deemed too close in Kyoto.

We also had numerous great experiences with taxis too: accomodating our stops, having lovely conversations, giving out touristic information and they tried really hard to go accross the language barrier. Great people overall. But, having said that, as a tourist, I'd take a Waymo any day over a taxi in Japan just because I think it would be less friction for me.