Big-business cubicle farms and salarymanhood are only about a third of the Japanese economy/labor force. Wave me down someday when I have more free time and I'll gladly talk about this, or you can just look out your door in the US at someone working and ask "Do they have that sort of job in Japan?" and I'll tell you, right now, the answer is yes. We have people selling food out of carts, bored DMV clerks who punch out at 5:00, part-time English teachers, retirees who run cafes, quirky musicians who made stuff for the App Store (my town has multiple App Store millionaires), and folks working at the 7-11.

That said, I think you may have gotten the wrong impression about what I do for a day job. For about three of the last five years, and continuing through the end of this month, I've had a job that virtually defines Japanese salarymanhood, making Big Freaking Enterprise Web Apps for a multi-national with thousands of employees that is listed on the stock exchange.

"quirky musicians who made stuff for the App Store (my town has multiple App Store millionaires)"

Examples?

I worked in a small-medium business in Tokyo for a couple of years. The developers were primarily other foreigners, but the rest of the company was Japanese.

The company never really had any drinking parties, and from my perspective I wish there had been. On the other hand, I never really worked overtime, never felt pressure to do so, and didn't suffer from any of the other major stereotypical problems.

For the last year I've been running my own consulting firm here. Around me it seems like there are many other people do their own innovative things here, but maybe those are just the circles I run in.