it's a typical new world vs old word sort of thing. In Germany its not much different. In terms of general tolerance, safety and so on most European countries are perfectly fine but if you brought a girlfriend or boyfriend to your parents who is black or muslim or 'foreign' in some way you might get weirder looks than in the US, say.

Japan is also like this. As a foreigner it's one of the safest and formally nicest places to be, but you will run into a lot of underhanded double standards.