I think the format is generally a pretty strong one, and this is a reasonable example. It covers a good range of topics briefly, so there's something for a variety of interests without getting too specific and while staying short. The illustrations are attractive and pretty easy to identify, either in isolation or in the context of the larger images that show items in use.

That being said, there are a couple of obvious weaknesses. One is that the book shows scenes that look distinctly Western, and I imagine were originally designed for European languages. As a result, culturally speaking it's pretty easy to identify what's there, but it may not be the most useful selection - things like shops, schools and homes will have some differences that aren't noted here, and more importantly, this means appropriate vocabulary is missed out. The most obvious example is furniture, which is entirely Western, with no sign of futon, kotatsu, rice cooker, Japanese-style rooms, Japanese bath, shoe porch and so on. This isn't a huge problem for study at home, but makes it significantly less useful as a reference or vocab-expander for travellers. That's a shame, as a pictorial reference is the best way to look up items you can't otherwise identify! Neither a dictionary nor the internet are much help in that regard.

Secondly, I assume this is to keep things simple, but the book doesn't include any kanji. Again, this makes it substantially less helpful for anyone going to Japan or studying Japanese who might need to read anything whatsoever. You can pick up the word to speak, but if you actually want to learn it you'll need to go and look it up and learn the kanji independently, which greatly increases the work involved. I'm sorry, but omitting kanji from a book on Japanese is basically inexcusable in my view.

At least one word - "erebeta" - is transcribed wrongly as "erbta" for no obvious reason. This doesn't seem to be part of any systematic approach, someone just forgot the vowels.

I'll probably find this useful, but the drawbacks above are hefty enough that I'd seriously recommend people to look into alternatives in the hope of finding something better. ( )