I read a book called "Angry White Pyjamas" a few years ago, which is about a guy who ends up doing the same super tough Akido training as the Tokyo Riot Police. Trains alongside 'em IIRC. There's a load of "bushido" warrior philosphy in the training and the author, the cops literally couldn't give a fuck about it, but you have a buch of whiteys who've washed up there who make it their lives centre of meaning. A familiar story. Wiggers but with Japanese martial arts.
Alex Kerr's Lost Japan is I suppose similar in some ways - a foreigner projecting and discovering himself in Japanese culture - but he goes deep on architecture, calligraphy and other traditional Japanese arts. He buys a house that's several hundred years old in the opening chapter, and you do get the sense he's discovered a vanishing world. Wonderful book.
Has anyone here ever been? Would love to go almost more than anywhere else I think.