Ian Buruma's Behind the Mask was one of the seminal books (along with Nicholas Bornoff's Pink Samurai and John David Morley's Pictures from the Water Trade) that fueled my fascination with Japan, and A Tokyo Romance is a fine follow-up/companion. Unlike Behind the Mask, which is a relatively detached though still passionate examination of the bizarro world of Japanese sexual mores and related topics, A Tokyo Romance is a personal story--the story behind the study, I think you could say.
Buruma is always an engaging guide, and his insights and enthusiasms, now tinged with a touch of nostalgia and the patina of experience, has the eternal outsider's gift for seeing, and presenting, what insiders are too close to perceive. Part of the tragedy of being human, as Kierkegaard said, is that "Life Can Only Be Understood Backward, But It Must Be Lived Forward." Regardless of whether you love Japan as I do, this book is a beautiful example.
Well, if John approves…