Good reviews

You're leaving out a key thing. Crime, journalism, and Japan is his thing. Someone else living in Japan for a different reason might not raise an eyebrow at the lack of murder in the newspapers -- but he's the guy reading, watching, listening like any person with that rabid journalism mindset would. His whole thing is forensics and a desire to uncover the reality. They show him with certain titles and clippings, as you would expect any crime geek to have. If there's a type who'd already have heard that Japanese newspapers handle things this or that way, it's that guy. He's someone who interacts with all the locals, observing shady characters going into clubs, just like you'd expect a journalist to do. Accepting at face value is exactly what that type doesn't do. He'd chat up the local bartender, shop owner, guy at the newsstand, etc, etc, always sniffing around, understanding how things really work there.

And he'd also know the differences in the culture, which he seems to in many scenes, but then rebels against the parameters of his first writing assignment. What Japan loving person, already living there, would decide that he could defy authority in his first writing assignment? You wouldn't do that in the US, never mind as the one white guy at a Japanese newspaper, where there are major cultural differences in what's considered disrespectful or insulting. But he seems to know all those differences when you see him in the neighborhood.

I've said all I can. Not that important, but I didn't understand him well. Initially, I even thought he might be acting extra green on purpose b/c he was playing some long game for some reason we'd later learn, but by the end it just seemed like it didn't have that depth. We'll see. I think Mann only directed the pilot, or the first two, I forget.