When I came to Tokyo, a lot of foreigners I met who had been living here complained about the uptight nature of Japan. Too rigid, too exclusive, too slow to change.
Before Tokyo, I lived in a very nice part of Brooklyn. I remember I was walking down the street and I saw a man with his child come out of a store. The kid unwrapped his new toy and promptly threw the package onto the curb. I had a flash of anger and was thinking "what's wrong with that guy not correcting his kid?" As I was thinking this, the guy threw his cigarette pack cellophane on the sidewalk. He had different values than me, and I had a dirty street because of it.
In a place like Brooklyn you learn tolerance and how to live with other people's values on a day to day basis. In a place like Tokyo, the system shuns you until you adopt their values. I don't think either is necessarily better but you should be aware of it when you live in Japan and feel left out.