I thought the Guardian article was ok-ish - it was hitting the point, yet interspersed with anecdotes and definitely clickbait titled.
The worst was BBC's documentary (which I would expect to be of high quality and standards) that was painting Japanese men as all being part of this in fact very tiny niche of a niche of virtual-girlfriend-dating otaku from AKB.
As a westerner living in Asia, I must admit that some have quirky habits to my standards (but then again, which nationality hasn't in the eyes of foreigners), but the way they are portrayed in media is sensation seeking, mostly plain wrong, and a caricature akin to "the infantile Africans in Tintin in the Congo".
