Rating: 
Summary: Too personal to be objective
Review: This booked stirred up mixed emotions in me. Partly because what a lot of what he says is true, but also due to the zealous & overly cynical viewpoint he takes. I think we must make a distinction between criticism & bitterness & I feel Mr. Kerr has been led too far from the truth by his personal emotions. This is a strong book & for good reason but to say that Japan is the ugliest country in the world is to deny the existence of certain American, Asian & European landscapes. Such generalizations undermine his argument & make other more valid points of his less convincing. His focusing on certain architects as destroying Japans culture is also counterproductive to his goal as over & over he brings his own personal taste to the fore. What Mr. Kerr is trying to write is a passionate & necessary critique on the very real maladies that now disaffect Japan, but somehow his own passion burns down his arguments. I feel he could have served this book better by distancing himself a little further away from it to allow the facts (which are otherwise well presented & backed up) to speak for themselves. I think this book does have an important message to offer & if it were read by the right people could in fact change things in Japan for the better, however as a book written in English for western minds it comes off as a little too condescending & certainly not an enjoyable read, even as bitter medicine. In the end, what I think brings this book down is its push/pull of facts & taste. Choose one or the other, but mix them & you have bad religion.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth Reading If You're Interested in Japan
Review: This deeply pessimistic book about contemporary Japan is often repetitive, but I still recommend it for any person who is interested in the subject. Japan has been very good to Mr. Kerr, both personally and professionally. Therefore, Mr. Kerr's case for Japan's current malaise cannot be dismissed as the opinion of an embittered expatriate. This is how negative books about Japan written by foreigners are typically viewed. Nor can one say that Mr. Kerr does not know Japan well enough to write about it; he lived there for 35 years from the time he was a little boy, and I presume he is fluent in Japanese. This book is something to be taken seriously.I think a good measure of a book's quality is how quickly or eagerly one reads it. Well, I basically put aside all other business and read "Dogs and Demons" in a few days. I didn't want to put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: Hits the Mark
Review: This is a fascinating and well-written book, both disturbing and reassuring to anyone familiar with Japan. I have been living in Japan for 3 years now - a period in which I have shed my rose-tinted glasses (the kind everyone wears for a while) and begun to look more deeply and critically at the society in which I live. I read "Lost Japan" before I came here, and then twice more in Japan. Some reviewers of the earlier book criticised Kerr for being an elitist, inhabiting a rarefied world of art collecting and calligraphy. No such criticism can be levelled at "Dogs and Demons", which is solidly researched and deals with a range of mundane issues such as the construction industry and the education system: the personal anecdotes alluded to by another reviewer are never used as linchpins supporting Kerr's main arguments. Nor do I agree with the claim that the 'dogs and demons' metaphor is overused: Kerr applies it plausibly to different spheres of Japanese life, thereby identifying a common trend within modern Japanese culture and augmenting the power of his argument. While by no means as well-versed in Japanese language or culture as Alex Kerr, I often found myself crying out "Yes!" as Kerr identifies incongruities and perversities in the operation of Japanese society that I too have observed. Kerr is neither a disgruntled Japan basher nor a naive foreigner infatuated with an 'exotic' culture, and it is this overriding sense of objectivity and balance that makes this book especially persuasive. Admittedly I read "Dogs and Demons" in a mood of some jadedness and frustration with Japan, much as I love some aspects of living here. However, far from making me feel worse, this book reassured me that others have seen the same things I have seen. It also made me realise that Japan's cultural malaise runs deeper and wider than I had thought. Perhaps some concrete could be used to stem the flow.
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