Japan might be better than U.S. But the high suicide rates, the unbalanced foods, the ridiculous immigration unacceptance, and the poor TV quality (http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/international-research-data.pdf), despite the great anime and manga, took me away from considering the Japan (in my point of view) one of the balanced countries: Is more balanced than United States, but is less compared, for example, to Australia. In fact the Down Under (aka Australia) has less criminal rates, better TV quality, better climate, more respect to nature (they don't fish whales) and more immigration acceptance.