Ranpitsu

In America, there are a limited number of people who can be called readers. […] In Japan, the ordinary citizen likes to read — reading is seen as entertainment and has been since the 16th and 17th centuries. In America, there seems to be a psychological barrier for people to go to a bookstore. Here, it isn’t uncommon, even in the smallest of towns, for people to set a date to meet at a bookstore.

— Tetsu Shirai, deputy executive director of Kodansha International who headed Kodansha America in the 1980’s, in a Jan. 1999 NY Times article about Sawako Noma, who was and still is the president and CEO of Japanese publisher Kodansha Ltd.