I was just reading Rough Guides Japan, and of course, the traditional western values had to be shared.
"...raw meat and river fish are best avoided." Yeah right!
Well, fortunately, this is not the superior knowing, western world. Here, they LIKE raw food!
And it's not only raw fish...

A few days before christmas, we went to a restaurant (supposedly famous). I thought it was a normal izakaya (japanese pub/restaurant)
but was that was not the case...
On the pictures below you can see some of the things we had:
The first pic, with the yellow, slimy things shows chicken liver.
The second pic shows three things: chicken hearts to the left, chicken breast in the upper part
and finally, gizzards (which is called "sunagimo", すなぎも, 砂肝, in Japanese.). Everything raw, of course!

I wouldn't exactly eat raw liver and sunagimo everyday but the hearts were not that bad!
The chicken breast is actually quite good stuff - like a good piece of sashimi.

My advice if you hesitate about eating something here: Just try it. Sure, a few people die every year from
fugu (globefish) that is prepared in the wrong manner but you gotta try what locals eat to really get to know the country.

Next thing on my wish list are moving octopus arms and sashimi cut from live fish where the fish is served on sticks in front of you. Moving around!