The Question on Everyone's Lips

These days, most of the emails from friends and relatives usually revolve around the same question, or varients thereof: "What's playing Basketball in Japan like?" and here I will post my answer.
In Japan one can see vast spaces in parks dedicated to concrete, sculpture or fountains, there are also large playing fields that resemble gravel pits in which four or five people are usually doing some kind of stretching exercise. Basketball courts are extremely incredibly rare, although for no practical reasons such as a lack of public space, or to utilise such spaces for activities of broader appeal, like being homeless, or staying home.
So finally even after asking my successive hosts if they know of a court in thier area, I stumbled across one, quite accidently in roppongi hills.
By "court" one could infer it is a sizeable flat surface with painted lines. It is, but the size is that of two billiard tables and the lines are all flat green, painted parrallal up and down continuously until there is nothing but a flat small surface.
Then a hard unforgiving rim, the likes of which is so stiff it puts the Brunswick hoop to shame.
Furthermore, the Japanese themselves are not particularly possessed of free time to go shoot hoops, so most days are just me practicing my Jump shot and Hook shot, while the infuriatingly hard rim and small court, with waist high barriers restricting my movement but not actually containing the ball in any way has me constantly chasing the ball around the hilly surrounds.
And what of the Japanese I have been able to play with? Well one thing can be said, basketball is a universal language, and I am awesome in any country is precisely the point of that language. It makes it easy to get in conversations with locals and such.
But I dominate the boards, am by all extents actually a superior shooter, and are light so I can push them around quite easily. So challange wise it hasn't sofar lived up to my expectations of having dozens of allen iverson wannabe's running rings around me and having to use brute force to get my way.
That being said, basketball in any form is a tremendous reief for me. I feel relaxed after playing. And the excitement of playing means that it in the end becomes the equivalent of getting laid.
So with that in mind, the best way to describe basketball in Japan is like having sex in a closet, as opposed to a luxurious bed. Also with significant height difference.