I've used Lonely Planet before, always loved them, but this guidebook was a real pain: Half the directions were innaccurate. Sometimes the directions were so vague (and then, upon finding the ryokan or hostel, found to be patently incorrect), that I suspected the authors were writing about it several weeks after the fact. Similarly, the locations found on city maps were occasionaly obvious guesswork. Area maps didn't include kanji names or train-transfer cities, making them nearly useless. City maps were cursory, and I always got a real city map first thing I could, from the tourist board.

As always with the LP, its popularity is so widespread that its advice must be viewed with suspicion. For instance, it strongly recommended a noodle shop in Nikko. Upon going to the place (against my better judgement!) I found the LP review hanging in the window, the restaurant full of other gaijin, and unnappealing food obviously aimed at satisfying those who find Japanese cuisine weird.

It's probably still worth having the book, just because it's so comprehensive...it's bound to have a place to stay if you pull into a city at 10pm. However, for those touring Japan in detail, not just Tokyo and Kyoto, I would recommend a combination of Will Ferguson's _The Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan_ (even if not hitchhiking, he describes interesting travel routes that can be branched out of), an atlas of Japan (I used the Kodansha english/Japanese atlas, but anything with kanji place names and road&train routes is good), and JNTO pamphlets (easy to pick up) listing all hostels and various ryokans. Japan is a safe, easy, and consistently interesting country to get around in. A comprehensive book (especially one laced with inaccuracies and an obvious bent towards the cities) isn't as useful as it would be elsewhere.