Upon reflection, I want to apologize for the overly pessimistic and harsh tone I chose to use.<p>Japan is almost always presented to the West from a unbalanced, exaggerated perspective (which has irked me in the past), and upon reading your post, gleaming with optimism, I instinctively reacted by adopting an exaggeratedly grave perspective to attempt to balance it out -- which in retrospect was simply uncalled for.<p>Thanks for your optimism and hope for the good in all of us. I could use some of that too.