Wrong about Japan is a 2005 book by Peter Carey. It is subtitled A Father's Journey with his Son.

Superficially a piece of travel writing, Wrong About Japan, is a partially fictionalized account of Carey's cultural investigation of Japan alongside his son, Charley.

Overview

Carey relates his experience traveling to Japan with his twelve-year-old son Charley, a fan of manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 and anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

. During this trip, Carey meets, together with his son, and interviews Yoshiyuki Tomino

Yoshiyuki Tomino

is a Japanese mecha anime creator, director, screenwriter and novelist. He was born in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, and studied at Nihon University's College of Art...

 and Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...

. The main theme of the book is the contrast between the son, mostly interested in manga, anime, and technology, and the father, interested in Japanese history and traditional culture. Another important aspect of the book is the difficulty Carey encounters in his attempts as a foreigner in understanding Japanese culture.