Its a shame, Tokyo of the 90s and 2000s felt like stepping into a new cyberpunk world with arcades, advanced cellphones, net cafes and karaoke booths, wild fashion music and subcultures etc. When Thomas Freidman came out with the World is Flat around then I thought it was kind of ridiculous, and it hasn’t played out in work but the world of consumer culture sadly is becoming much flatter. No market can resist the iPhone and Netflix forever.