My husband and I lived in Japan for quite awhile so I am always looking for a good cookbook to recreate my favorite tastes. This one is pretty good. Some of the recipes are merely decoration and aren't so useful for day to day cooking, so I might have only given it 3 stars. However, it has the best recipe for homemade teriyaki sauce that I have found yet, its just really lovely! So overall, a 4 for some usefulness. Some of the other recipes are decent, too!