Why Everyone Loves Japan

This piece reads less like an analysis of Japan and more like a projection of Western desire onto it. The recurring assumption seems to be that because outsiders love Japan, Japan should recognize this love and reshape itself around it — economically, culturally, and socially.

What’s missing is Japanese agency. Tourism, foreign admiration, and expat enthusiasm are treated as unqualified goods, while the costs borne by people who actually live there — crowding, housing pressure, cultural friction, loss of local control — are minimized or waved away.

Admiration does not entitle outsiders to prescribe changes, nor does global popularity obligate a society to reorganize itself for foreign consumption. Framing Japan primarily as a solution to Western economic anxieties or lifestyle aspirations is ultimately a selfish lens — one that centers what we want from Japan, not what Japanese people have asked for or chosen.