There's a very rare honesty and charm to "Tokyo Pop." Although I never knew the music scene in Japan, so much in the movie is immediately recognizable from life: The naivete on many sides. The fun of being exotic for a while and the uses made of it. The value for Westerners of being in Japan for a while; the sterility of living there long-term (generally speaking). The harmless chintziness of much in Japan. A degree of gentleness. The story is believable and the characters endearing. In tune with the lightness of the movie, there are few of the crudest sorts of stupidity one is likely to run up against: Westerners who set themselves up as experts on everything under the sun. The Japanese love of grandiose abstractions; verbal bombast about uniqueness and subtlety. The extreme moral and intellectual obtuseness involved in occasionally hammering down nails that stick up. Or that if you are inclined to pithiness, then you too may be unsuited for life in Japan.