Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Japan (Japan (Rough Guides), 1999)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

It is an uphill struggle to get me to praise a Rough Guide. I have written many unkind words here about many other books in the series - dull righting, self-righteous tone, preachy ambition - and I stand by what I had said. I continue to feel that travel is a happy business and guidebooks should be written by people who are positive and cheerful, not by grumpy and cruffy backpackers with enormous aptitude for righting the world and with handfuls of easy answers to every question of Third World economic developent. I am also convinced that a guide is not a forum for political campaigning.

So you can imagine I approached Rough Guide Japan with very, very low expectations. However, I can now say that whatever is wrong with other Rough Guides (poor writing quality, excruciating boredom, naive anti-capitalist rhetoric), you will not find it in this book. Whatever they do right (detailed research, up-to-date info, accurate maps) - there is plenty of it, heaps, loads, all you need! My God they are good. In Japan, they are better than DK Eyewitness, my long-time favorite for most destinations. They even finally sorted their writing - it is readable, and you don't fall asleep after first three passages.

I find very little to fault in this book: the maps are accurate, listings exhaustive and detailed, and they have most of the practicalities covered, unlike Lonely Planet, who still live firmly in their senile eigthties as far as any transport and banking information is concerned. And let me repeat this (listen all of you who, like me, detested Rough Guides for their oversized egos and belief that they have a role in fixing the world) - there is no usual garbage about how capitalism and tourism ruined a beautuful country. All the annoying whining is gone. The authors really like Japan, they admire it and help you to enjoy your trip. That's all I am asking for.

The only remarks would be that there could be more photos, and please, PLEASE, change those heart-stoppingly ugly chapter icons and tacky logo. I know you at Rough Guide use those icons everywhere, they're part of the design, but believe me they are hideous. Those drawings look exactly like something that adorned local authority leaflets cautioning against vices of drugs and smoking 20 years ago. And your logo looks like a fire exit sign.

I wrote earlier that DK Eyewitness Japan, although not perfect, was the best. Well, now I have read and used both DK Eyewitness and Rough Guide in the field. Rough Guide is much better. In fact, this Rough Guide is so good that, despite my earlier promises not to touch them with barge-pole, I will be checking out Rough Guide for all my future destinations.

The Rough Guide is hands down the best travel guide on Japan. The writing is fresh and informative, the practical information is up to date and helpful, and the data is accurate. For the amount of material covered, the depth is amazing ... From Hokkaido to the islands of Okinawa you can navigate the entire country with just this book. And not just "navigate", but plan what to see, where to eat, and where to stay with a variety of options.

The main complaints previous reviewers have concern the occasional mistake and the lack of pictures. Of course, when you try to summarize an entire country in a thousand pages there will be mistakes and omissions, and of course information will go out of date. Which is why you should always double check your sources, or be prepared to roll with the punches. Most places have websites and even the smallest cities in Japan have at least a little bit of tourist information in English. If you're spending the time and money to come all the way to Japan, what does it hurt to spend a little bit of extra time on the internet double checking the details on places you want to see.

The same goes for pictures. Personally, I'd rather wait until I get to a place and see for myself what something looks like, but when it comes to pictures (or maps) the internet is a treasure trove of information.

No matter how well you plan things, there will always be hangups. Traffic is bad. A place you want to see is taking the day off. A bar you want to go to has closed its doors. The best you can do is get as much information ahead of time and hope for the best. From my experience living in Japan, if you are going to rely on one main source for your travel information in Japan, use the Rough Guide. It's better than anything else out there.

Although I tend to favour Lonely Planet over the Rough Guide, in the case of Japan, the Rough Guide is definitely preferable, and this is increasingly the case now that the latest edition of the Lonely Planet has cut coverage of lots of off-the-beaten-track areas. The Rough Guide to Japan has the edge is conveying the feel of the places covered. I have lived in Japan for more than two years and the guide was practical and sensible on my first trips to Hiroshima and Kyoto - I still find it informative and helpful when I travel around the country now, after substantial experience of Japan. One caveat - while the coverage of such cultural sites as temples and castles is very thorough, the author is obviously not that interested in painting or sculpture. Museum after museum is dismissed for being overpriced, often when the entrance fees are, by Japanese standards, really very reasonable (600 yen or so). Some readers might be put off visiting interesting museums by this bias.

Japan is a fascinating and frustrating country. So much of its natural beauty and traditional architecture has been destroyed, but it remains an endlessly intriguing place. It deserves more visitors than it gets, but many people are put off by two main difficulties: expenses, and the scarcity of English speakers, especially outside the main cities. The Rough Guide gives useful tips on reasonably priced and pleasant accommodation; I have rarely been disappointed by a hotel or traditional inn they recommend. It also gives detailed explanations of how to get around off the beaten track, which should ease the path for the non-Japanese speaker. Newcomers and veterans alike should have few complaints.

The best guide to Japan, from a resident of ten years in Hokkaido. I'm not refering to the coverage of Hokkaido, which is better than most guides available, but of the entire country. Should a visitor wish to see off the beaten track destinations, this guide will help to take you there. The information is up to date and almost any aspect of travel in Japan, and difficulties of travel in Japan--there are many--is covered.

Incidentally, but importantly, I'd like to point out that there is an error in an earlier review, which may or may not any longer be part of this list. An earlier reviewer gave an extremely low rating, which influences the entire average ratings total, based only on his reading of a few movie synopses contained within the book. Claiming the movie descriptions were wrong, he gives two examples. One of those examples was in error, because two movies called "Black Rain" have been made: one earlier movie was,just as the reviewer claimed, about the atomic bombings and their terrible aftermath. However, another more recent movie with the same title starred Michael Douglas and was indeed, contrary to the reviewer's critique, a suspense drama concerning Japanese yakuza. I have included this information so that no one should be influenced, when deciding whether or not to buy the book, by an inappropriately given rating of only a single star which must have dragged down the average ratings as a whole.

I am constantly looking for good travel guides to Japan. I've used three of them. I choose to use the Rough Guide now. It is the most accurate and the most interesting, and also the most recent.

I am surprised that the maps have been criticised. In some cases (Nikko, for example) they are much better than those of other guides.

Finding things in Japan can be harder than elsewhere, and books can only help you so much. I had trouble finding a particular restaurant in Kumamoto because the book only gave its address and map location, but another well-known guide gave no contact information for any of the restaurants it mentioned.

The Rough Guide is my first choice. The Lonely Planet guide would be my second choice. None of the other guides come close to offering the right combination of practical data and background information to help you enjoy what you see and do.

A useful tip to people who get very upset over errors in guide books: first, learn to expect some, second, take two guides if you can afford the extra space and weight - if a phone number or address is wrong in one of them it is usually right in the other.

This is a book in the LP- or Moon guides- type vein: information for the individual traveler looking for places to go, stay, and eat. It is not the Fodor- or Insight Guides-type that is filled with nothing but big glossy pictures with some history about the big tourist places to visit. In other words, if you're taking a package tour, most of the info contained here isn't necessary. However, if you travel, as opposed to being a 1-week book-a-tour tourist, this book contains information that will help you find places to stay and how to get to them, as well as the souvenir stops.

I purchased this book in the hopes that I could find out about places other than those that were already covered in Lonely Planet Japan. However, place for place it covers almost the exact same ground with about a 95% plus overlap. There are a few hotels/ryokan that are not listed between the two and a few places that are in one but not the other (i.e. Goto Islands in LP but not RG). I was disappointed; not that much is different.

Its strengths lie in its writing style, which is not as abrupt as LP, its maps which are simpler (this can also be a detriment), its context chapter at the end, and its having the area codes on all the telephone numbers (very annoying in LP where you have to find the beginning of the section to find the area code).

Weaknesses include an inconsistent subtitling for basic information. For example, in some chapters, hotels are under "Practicalities" and in others it's under "Accomodations." This slows you down a bit until you get used to it. Another is the hotel pricing system. As anyone who's been around the inexpensive hotels in Japan knows, pricing is done per person, and not per couple (double or twin). Even a "discount double" is often only Y500 less than 2 singles. Many business hotels have very limited twin and double accomodations, being mostly singles (Hotel Hawaii in Akita has over 300 singles but 9 doubles or so). In some ryokan/minshuku rooms, a double price is misleading because if you squeeze a 3rd or 4th person in the room, you pay for each person. A Y5000 per person room is only Y5000 with one person, but Y20,000 with 4. That said, the Rough Guide at least has a few different accomodation listings from Lonely Planet, but not always. Train and bus connections are sometimes hard to find as they are only at the end of main divisions, and not at each destination. I would mark them with post-its or just get a JNTO rail schedule at Narita.

In conclusion, look over the maps and styles, but don't get both the Rough Guide AND the LP Japan; they both fill the same niche in travel books. Pick the one that looks good to you and you'll have a useful tool. If you want the pretty photos and all your hotels and meals are already paid for, you don't need this guide or the LP guide.

You can now also check out "Let's Go, Japan" for another option.

We have lived in Japan for 14 of the last 20 years and have spent the last 11 years living in Tokyo. Over that period of time, we have bought and used Lonely Planet, Fodors, National Geographic, and several less well known guides to Japan and specific cities. Of course the best guides to Japan are written in Japanese, and there are many of them. However, if you are like us, looking for an English guide, we have consistently found the Rough Guide to Japan (third edition) to be one of the best books available, particularly if you are hoping to visit smaller cities in outlying regions. It covers many more cities than will a Fodors or National Geographic, although you will not have the glossy photos of some of the other books. In a guide of this size, complete coverage of Japan's geography, history, culture, and attractions is simply impossible. And there will always be a few errors and omissions. Nonetheless, this is simply one of the best guides you can find for trips that include visits to more remote regions of Japan.

We have used this guide book for trips to Okinawa and outlying islands; Hiroshima, Himeji, Okayama, Matsue, and elsewhere in the San'in / San'yo region, and to Matsumoto and the Kiso Valley. The regional maps are good; the city maps are just ok. We have found the material on transport informative and useful. The information on hotels and restaurants is incomplete, but is more comprehensive than just about any other guide out there, and the recommendations and reviews for hotels are accurate and useful. It lists the major sights, and picks up many notable sights in the smaller cities that are completely forgotten by most other guides. One thing we like about this book is that it tells you where to find more information once you arrive at each city or station.


Conclusions:
* If you are looking for a solid general reference that offers as much coverage as possible in one English language book, it is hard to go wrong with the Rough Guide to Japan.
* However, if you want to be comprehensive, you'll need to use this book in conjunction with other references and material. The internet is often a good source of recommendations and up to the minute information. Maps published in Japan, some available in both Japanese and English, others only in Japanese, are also very helpful. If you have the time and money to consider other books, the following would complement the Rough Guide to Japan:
- Gateway to Japan (Kodansha). It's old (1998), but still very useful for remote cities and attractions. There will be a fair amount of overlap, and the Rough Guide will be more up to date, but this book is one of the best for trips to outlying areas.
- National Geographic Traveler Japan. Good photos and walking routes, but the coverage is nowhere near the level of the Rough Guide. Together, they make a good set.

Hope this helps!

I cannot recommend this as a good travel guide to Japan, especially for independent travelers, as the book is not helpful with daily planning and navigation. I used it for a 25-day independent tour of Japan and found it so frustrating that I tossed it in the trash before I came home instead of keeping it to proudly display on my bookshelf with my other travel books. The maps are a complete waste of space: many streets are not labeled and the maps often do not appear near the narrative discussing the area, so you have to page back and forth. Maps for specific sightseeing areas such as Arashiyama in Kyoto are not included (where I really could have used a map and I noticed that Lonely Planet provided one), and the maps that are provided contain various errors. One of the main maps of the entire country has the locations of Osaka and Nara switched - an inaccusable error and one that leads me to believe that the book was not well edited. There are also various errors of omission. Fushimi Inari is not discussed in the Kyoto section, which I found strange, as it's one of Kyoto's most photographed and fascinating sites, it's easy to get to, and it's free. I rarely used the recommendations for places to eat as I found they were often not applicable for budget travelers and unrepresentative of local tastes and habits. For example, usually for every city one curry or Indian food place and an Anglo-style pub is recommended. I would rather the author's individual preferences not be so obvious and more precious space be spent on recommendations for what locals typically eat and enjoy. Similarly, the nightlife and cafe recommendations really miss the mark and are out of touch with Japan's more modern, hip, and youthful scenes. Too many run-of-the-mill gaijin haunts are suggested. I found the best places on my own. Honestly, overall the whole book seems geared towards travelers over 40. I did enjoy one of the sections in the back that summarizes Japan's religious life and history and explains well what you see at shrines and temples, but incidentally, this section was not written by one of the book's main authors or contributors. This book might be OK if you are traveling with a group tour or staying with friends for most of the time and just want some supplemental information, but if you are traveling independently and relying on a guide book to get you around and show you the modern as well traditional heart of a place, I believe you are much better off with Lonely Planet.

As it's names suggests, this book is a good comprehensive and readable rough guide to Japan. However, if you want a more in-depth source of info you'd be better off contacting the Japanese Tourist Office and asking them to send you pamphlets and maps. There are places which are not covered by this book and many rural places are mentioned only in passing. There are sections where the authors have clearly visited and remembered enough to write down directional guides, but on the whole, I'd say that the book provides an overview of what's on offer. Overall, I'd recommend it to someone who has never visited Japan, but to get the most out of your holiday, I'd use this as starter reference only. My only gripe is that there aren't enough pictures and you don't get a feel for the places.

I spent two weeks in Japan with this book and the previous edition of Loney Planet. The Rought Guide consitantly had more infomation and was better presented. There is substantial crossover between the two books.