The same can be said in reverse for Japanese people on how they see the Western world: Do they assume the USA is like Hollywood or the UK being like British Television? They perhaps assume that all Americans live in a large home with a white picket fence depicting a nuclear family as if its 1950.
All they talk about US is California or New York since most movies and TV shows use either as their main setting. Is the US in real life similar to Hollywood (everyone having a nice car, big home & white picket fence)? That’s the kind of response from non-Japanese assuming Japan is like anime.
This is barely related but I just remembered one day in Amsterdam when I turned round and saw the waiter we’d just ordered pancakes from out the front of the restaurant sobbing into the phone. The image stuck with me and I wondered quite a bit about what that conversation could have been about.
Trying desperately to make this relevant… I guess that would be enough to shatter any romantic image about a place, not that I really had any about Amsterdam…