One interesting thing about Japan is that the culture many of us grew up in where we could roam free as kids is (at least as it is apparent to me) largely intact here.

Kids are less supervised than their western counterparts. You see kids in parks on their own, little ones going to and from school with no adults in sight. Pretty much a similar circumstance I grew up in - out in the morning, in at night without supervision. Perhaps it’s not that lenient but certainly feels a lot more relaxed than what I’ve seen in the states.