From some acquaintances with whom I occasionally meet when laying over in Japan, they say that the money is okay however the extremely high cost of living erodes it away much faster than elsewhere.
Discrimination appears to be a problem, and whilst not overt to the casual visitor or tourist, for those residing there it is the cause of many unpleasntries from time to time.
The extra perks that Japanese pilots get, over and above their (extremely) high base salaries would be the envy of many of us. For example, the company pays for ALL of their uniform laundry, they are transported to and from work by private taxis, all Japanese employees receive either free or generously subsidised company accomodation and/or an accomodation allowance (I believe it is around USD1,000 per month for the ANA pilots).
Hours flown per month are around 30-50.
Night stop allowances for Japanese is approx. USD100 per night - handy for buying drinks for the young, blonde Russian, English, and Australian hostesses who work in the lounges that are exclusively for the Japanese men.
But forget all of that if you are not Japanese (perhaps non-Japanese are made of stronger stuff!) - you will be expected to work double the hours, for half the pay and half the number of days off per month. That may well be the reason for the strict medicals.
Rome, nor the Burma Railroad, were built in a day.
One of the fellows commented that they treat their dogs better!