Some thoughts...

The light in Japan is not so different, but the type of vegetation and shade of green is very different from North America and Europe. Japan looks exactly like it does in anime movies. The city and landscapes in Miyazaki movies very accurately depicts what Japan looks like. Even Sailor Moon can give you insight into what Japanese streets, schools, houses, food, and school children look like. One thing I've noticed about Japan is the cartoony-ness of everything, especially foreign things. The bread here is horrible. It's all really white and sweet, but looks like bread SHOULD look like. Italian and French cuisine here is almost a parody. We went to a boulangerie in Kyoto and it exactly copied what a French breakfast place should look like. There were even artificial bird chirping sounds. We went to the Murakami cathedral in Nagasaki, and in addition to being really out of place, all the statues of Mary and jesus were almost animated looking. Maybe the perfectionism of Japanese culture causes them to make everything aspire to the ideal world of animation. I've noticed that Japanese art is always stylized. They obviously don't feel any pressure to accurately depict reality. It's the other way around: life tries to live up to art.