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A Japanese person is only going to be able to answer "it is normal" unless they've lived abroad. Maybe it would be easier to ask them to debunk or confirm those misleading rumors?
Things I can point out from living in japan is:
healthcare is good
streets are clean
every Japanese person has seen at least a few Animes
Basic Japanese TV is 50% food, 30% reactions with facecam, 15% commercials, and once every Friday 1 movie. (Either ghibli, Harry Potter, or home alone).
You don't really need to know Japanese in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, but in less touristy places it would be good to know how to order stuff, talk to cashiers and understanding basic instructions in Japanese.
Akihabara is dying.
Disney is more popular than Anime, and there are far more women than men and children combined at Disneyland and Disney sea.
People stand in line just to play pachinko.
Japan doesn't have pork broth. (Biggest culture shock for me)
There is a place in japan for every single hobby.
Japanese people like uniforms. If they have a hobby that sometimes has uniforms, more often than not, the Japanese person is going to have the full set of the uniform.
It is not considered rude to eat while walking, or talk while eating.
It is considered rude to blow your nose at the table, to pass food from chopstick to chopstick, to eat or talk on phone while on the train.
Houses and apartments are small, but cheap if you live further away from the center.
Living even an hour away from Tokyo, you're still going to have giant cities nearby with everything you need, and everything will be cheaper.
Great response! Just a comment, 食べ歩き (eating while walking) is definitely not seen with good eyes in many places in Japan. Some very touristic streets even have signs to forbid it.
I think that's to prevent littering and people bumping into each other in very crowded places. For example Asakusa does this because it is very crowded, and a lot of the food there comes on sharp sticks, so it might be dangerous, but it isn't inherently rude or anything. There are spots suitable or even meant for it, and spots less suitable for it. I don't think culturally it is a problem.
That's the case for very specific places, but in general, tabearuki is considered 行儀の悪いこと, meaning bad manners, basically.
Take a look at this article, for example. Or this anectode. Or info from a language school. Or this quora answer. They all discuss how eating while walking is bad manners and can bring nuisance to the people around you, even in non crowded places. Of course this is not every Japanese person's opinion! I've even seen people advocating for it.
I think it's not such bad manner that you would be scolded by a stranger, perhaps by a Japanese partner or close friend, but it's definetly not seen in good eyes in general.