Here she is with her spicy brains from the Ghost in the Shell discussion:
I'm keying on this, because one of the things we have in common is that we default to ourselves. I'm not saying there aren't a lot of people who subscribe to the American/Western ideals who aren't American or white or blonde or muscular/skinny as represented, but most often, prevailing local culture sways storytelling, and I think that's increasingly prevalent as more cultures shake off colonialisation and invasion after-effects (which Japan doesn't have to do).
I'm never going to say not to treat people like individuals who parse their culture(s) through their own experiences, but in absence of anything other than "An X wrote this", I think it's polite to assume until proven otherwise that X was talking about themselves. Because we're narrow like that.
(I still think the American Gods "he never mentioned race unless people were white" reasoning is a specious argument, because black people mention race all the time. It's a big deal in the West. That's the post-diasporic culture, which differs from many African countries.)