Rating: 
Summary: Informative and helpful
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good general info but starter reference only
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: My choice of guide to Japan
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the Bunch
Review: I have been to Japan five times in the past two years and this is the one book that always comes with me. This book is light-years ahead of the typical travel book (eg: Fodors, Frommers). I really enjoyed how the authors made an effort to cover towns not usually mentioned in other guides. If you only want to carry one Japan guide in your luggage this is the one it should be.
Rating: 
Summary: Movie Synopses are just plain wrong
Review: I only encountered this book while searching for Japanese movies on amazon, but after skimmin the movie synopses, I've found that a lot of them are misleading and a surprising amount are just plain wrong. Swallowtail Butterfly is about Chinese immigrants in Japan, it's not sci-fi. Black Rain is about the consequences of the bomb (radioactive rain), not yakuza. Admittedly I havent read the entire book, but if the sample pages are any example of the whole, this book is fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: vs Lonely Planey
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: not so hot
Review: i used this guide on a recent two week trip in japan. although it is packed with practical information, inaccuracies are common. maps were terrible and some reviews unreliable. it's a first edition so i would recommend lonely planet until they get this one up to snuff.
Rating: 
Summary: this book is a mistake
Review: I'd say that I'm an experienced traveller and this is one of the worst tavel books I've ever experienced. A lot of wrong information. Too heavy on accomodations/where to eat and not enough cultural info. and background on festival which Japan is famous for.
Rating:
Summary: Take it from hardened sceptic - yes, the book excellent
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: useless
Review: Maps were useless. Lonely Planet always denotes suggestions on map. This book mentions a subway stop for your DETAILED directions. That is it. You are on your own from there. Sometimes there is no map, no address, and not even a phone - i.e. Megero Parasite Museum in Tokyo. I personally would suggest that a Paris map would be more helpful in Tokyo than the maps in this book. At least the Paris map would not falsely lead you into believing that any effort was spent on making it helpful for you to get around Tokyo. I assure you, the people of Japan will thank you for not buying this book, and asking their assistance every time your foolish enough to open it and try to follow the cryptic directions to a suggested site.
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