This entire interview is very Japanese. There’s certain mentalities, especially an ironic, self-aware, self-deprecating cynicism, that is really present in some Japanese people that Americans can only understand with some effort. Maybe the business could be fake for some unrelated reason, but the interview itself is entirely consistent with a Japanese mode of thinking, and the writing does not scream as fake at all to me.

The writing is definitely more self-aware and humorous than you would expect from an American in the same situation.