I just finished Cyberpunk 2077's Konpeki Plaza heist and yeah... the immediate nosedive into the WORST Japanese cliches to emerge from Neuromancer and the like is startling and really cemented my feelings about the severe issues with the overt Orientalism in this game.
https://twitter.com/wouldhaus/status/1338419857541328896
Obviously my focus is usually on the architecture, and something is also really bothering me about the faux Japanese and Chinese urban fabric which is ripped from its context and layered on top of Los Angeles of all places. There is such a strong disjunction to this.
In particular the obsession with Tokyo's vernacular street architecture of vending machines, pocket parks and small public spaces becomes completely nonsensical when spread across the wide, US style, highway-defined grid system.
Meanwhile the towering, connected megastructures, buildings clearly poached from Shanghai and Hong Kong, have none of the networks of walkways, atriums and layered public space that define those cities. Instead you are left stumbling around next to roads that are wide and empty.
I need to document this more, but in the screenshot below, which I took in the heart of "Japantown" you can already see how the street market, surrounding architecture, even telephone poles feel like wholesale imports. 
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