But who's 'the media' here? Occasionally you'll see a piece in a major publication about Japanese consumer trends or strange products that become big hits. More recently I've seen articles about the hikikomori (sp?) "lost generation" people that graduated just as the bubble burst 30 years ago. But the rest of the coverage is 'normal'; political, business and sports news.

The only place I ever see "weird Japan" content regularly is Reddit and western vloggers living in Japan posting the most sensationalist stuff possible.