Is Japan a strange country?
What a strange question for a country to ask itself! The question implies the answer. Merely to raise it is to invite an affirmative reply, as Shukan Gendai magazine this month is by no means the first to prove.
"Strange" is not always bad. If the opposite of strange is normal, and normal is the business most people and nations go about as a matter of course without thinking twice, the state of the world is not such as to give normality a blanket recommendation. Strangeness is as likely to be better as worse.