China's system has one major leg up over Japan's, which is that it's still pretty cost effective and has become faster and potentially more thorough in the year

China's system has one major leg up over Japan's, which is that it's still pretty cost effective and has become faster and potentially more thorough in the years to come (China is a much bigger country, so building out a thorough system is commensurately harder, but the East Coast and some major cities inland are already built out). That said if you're a tourist in Japan you can just get a JR pass and do it unlimited for a low cost—that doesn't apply to locals though, where Shinkansen is often more expensive than flying. I was living in China for the last 6 months, you can just show up to the station without plans usually and book a high speed train ride 5 minutes before you go, where you'll be whisked from Xi'an to Beijing, a 13+ hour, 1,000km drive (about the distance from Boston to Cleveland), in 4.5 hours, with huge, comfortable seats, panoramic views of the countryside flying by at incredible speeds, and almost nothing will change your expected arrival (traffic? forget it, delays? pretty rare). You get clean restrooms and food and almost no time wasted at security, no worries about checked baggage limits and fees, and the ability to rebook for 10-20 minutes from now if you miss your train, all of this for less than $80? Imagine if you could on an afternoon you decide that you want to go to Miami from Charlotte, and you can just casually get up and be there by dinnertime without going broke? It's terrific. Or if you're more into regional transit, you can go from Suzhou to Shanghai, a 2 hour drive, within 30 minutes for like $5 without planning, similar routes which expand access to Shanghai within an hour's reach of over 120 million people. It allows you to live in a small, isolated city in the countryside, yet be served by the huge scale airports and business of a megacity, with only a small fee and short time on a comfortable train where you can work, read, meditate, rest, or whatever it is you want to do. It expands your possibilities and brings equality of access in ways you wouldn't realize until you are a part of it. In comparison with buses, for longer distance it definitely makes sense. For travel within cities, higher reliability (eschewing traffic and potential for accidents), very high capacity, comfort (no abrupt stopping and going, for modern systems at least; also less likely to experience motion sickness, which makes reading, etc easier), speed (think express trains in NYC or being able to cut through very busy places), and from some people's perspectives, increased property values, are all good reasons for it. But it is true, you get 80% of the way there with buses probably.