>>16558736My experiencing watching multiple generations of foreigners come here is the ones who didn't really know anything about Japan first leave within a year with no interest in returning. The ones who want to stay long term, often anime fans, reach a point, usually around 3 years, where they will become utterly BROKEN. They have a mild breakdown, and then after that they either can't take it and go home and write blogs, OR else survive and emotionally adapt to becoming comfortable long-term residents. That three year mark seems to be the point where, no matter how much you LOVE Japan, anime, video games, "the culture", shrines, mountains, all that shit, eventually you reach a physiological point where the stress of the societal obligations, the norms, the everyday differences in thought and interaction and what's expected of you right down to differences in eye contact and mannerisms becomes so much of a burden that the brain snaps, and either rewires itself to the new environment, or doesn't recover and goes home with sour grape horror stories of how awful Japan is.
It isn't anyone's fault, I think it's just an unavoidable consequence of transitioning to a completely alien environment. Every foreigner I know here who's been here for more than 5 years is one of the coolest, most level-headed, interesting, well-adjusted people I know, regardless of where they first came from. America, Finland, France, India, Bangladesh, Korea etc. I'm genuinely happy to know people from all over, because they've shown they want to adapt to Japan, rather than bend Japan into being what they want it to be.
