The Sydney Morning Herald is not immune to such trends, as we can see from some of Justin Norrie’s own writing on Japan. As well as providing many articles on crime or nationalist tendencies, occasionally intriguing but mostly irrelevant to everyday life in Japan, he often reports on unusual aspects of social life especially in Tokyo. On 31 May, for example, it was “Hungover? Tired? Pop out of the office for a quick intravenous drip”.

But how many healthcare providers in Japan offer vitamin supplement drips, compared to other services like remedial massage, and how many people actually use them? More importantly, why do they use them? Are workers feeling more stress from changes in socio-economic labour markets and corporate governance in the 21st century? Has Japan already implemented a neo-liberal revolution (as ANU Emeritus Professor Gavan McCormack insists), or is there more of a “gradual transformation” taking multiple forms (as we conclude after a major study for the Australian Research Council)? These are the sorts of questions about Japan that I would like to see raised and investigated by Australian journalists.

The best way to deal with more sensationalist and superficial media reporting is basically to ignore it, while occasionally correcting its most egregious errors or omissions. We should respect freedom of expression, expressly entrenched in a written Bill of Rights in Japan (but not yet in Australia). Outer limits are set by market forces and defamation laws, which are quite strictly enforced in Japan (as Professor Mark West shows in his highly readable yet carefully-researched 2006 book on Secrets, Sex and Spectacle: The Rules of Scandal in Japan and the United States). Those of us who want more than tabloid reporting on Japan need to support more serious media forums, like this new East Asia Forum.