Hi, I came accross this post (possibly indirectly) via metafandom. Anyway, I'm feeling rather unwell so this may be a totally dumb comment, but talking about "Lost in Translation" made me think of an australian film which came out around the same time, Japanese story. A Japanese man comes to australia on business and has a clash of cultures romance with the australian geologist assigned to him. It's a bit Australia=big empty country full of lovable larrikins, Japan=uptight cities full of business people (as an indoorsy urban australian who knows lots of freewheeling asians this rubbed me slightly the wrong way) but still breaks sterotypes a bit and is a sweet story. Unless there were just different stereotypes and I didn't notice :)

Also, I personally think "Lost in Translation" is ok since it doesn't pretend to be about Japan, it's about the alienation of being overseas and how desperate you get for a taste of home. Telling this story did mean having to make the Japanese characters alienating and strange but I at least got the feeling that this was in no way meant to be a reflection on what Japan is really like if you have a chance to get to know it (which the main characters didn't) But YMMV