[Evnoir]

If you want to make good money and work in a lax environment, I can tell you right off the bat you're not going to get that in Japan.
Engineers are treated very differently in that they're more of a 'disposable' worker in Japan.
I went to the Coop Japan presentation in UBC (Vancouver) to talk to some of the presenters there and they accentuated more about the experience outside the work than in the workplace.
Personally, I would choose to work in my hometown and make 3-4x without having to deal with the culture clash.