"they manage to create ingenious and functional appliances, furniture, homes and cars to handle the close quartered living conditions they are forced to live with. of course there's a lot of useless crap created too, but all those compact spiffy litte electronic devices you are carrying around were either made in japan or were irrevocably influenced by japanese design."

I checked my pockets...Japaneses coins, a Korean mobile phone, Taiwanese mp3 player, a Swiss watch, Italian glasses, and cotton clothes maid in India and Indonesia...well, I eat sushi today!
about my apartment: I had never lived in a so bad insulated flat, ever. And it's not the worst I've seen here, by far!
My car is German...

"And how can you even compare Osaka with Paris or Rome?? osaka is mostly business district! of course it's gonna have buildings and freeways and concrete! how else are people going to work and provide a living? you want everyone to recess back to ancient japan and tend the rice paddies for their local daimyo? just to restore some misty woods and sparkling rivers to satisfy your aesthetic void?"

I'm not comparing, since they're UNcomaprable! Osaka is utterly ugly and Paris and Roma are not. that's the point! Have you ever been to Paris? Have you ever been to "La Defence"? an that's the 'business district', guy, and it's made out of concrete too, but is not obnoxious! Why?

My theory is that Japanese don't see what they don't want to see, they don't complain for what authorities do, and officials work for companies interests, which are basically three: concrete, steel, and department store. And this is basically what you get. Ugliness...sorry.