A little late, but I think one of the most important distinctions between "otherness" in a place like Tokyo versus a place like the US is the fact that you can

A little late, but I think one of the most important distinctions between "otherness" in a place like Tokyo versus a place like the US is the fact that you can "become" an American in at least one sense if not completely, but you can basically never be Japanese in almost any sense. It's always felt that America is the kind of place that once you've put in your 6 years (I think it's 6 now) on the way to citizenship (or however you get your citizenship), and are sworn in/become a citizen, the next person that implies you're un-american you're free to punch in the face (most of the time not not literally). People may imply it, but the way the country is built/the culture is structured is at least supposed to imply that once you choose to join "Team America" so-to-speak, you're a team-member and that's that. America struggles with the divisions and history between the cultures/races within it, but I think that's natural, sometimes healthy, and to some degree inevitable -- there's no way you're going to have lots of cultures mix without conflict/racism. So if you start with the preconception that friction is a 100% certainty, the question is whether you can see it, and whether the culture is one where you can freely discuss it or not. Japan on the other hand, is like 95%+ Japanese last I checked -- there just isn't enough mixing at any sort of scale to widen the idea of what a Japanese person is, and much of the segregation is intentional (which is fine by me). Even Japanese people who go abroad for a long time as children and return are treated differently, and have to be careful when re-entering society, there just isn't any hope of melting into the society in any reasonable sense for someone who is in actuality 100% gaijin (and looks nothing like a japanese person). While I haven't lived in the UK, I imagine it's the same, they seem to have a melting pot culture very similar to the US in this sense, in some ways they seem even better mixed than the US -- I feel like I see less overt racism there. I don't think this phenomenon is limited to Japan of course, just happens to be on topic right now -- I imagine being a white person in Nigeria or some other prosperous African country would be a somewhat similar situation as far as otherness goes.