Falling Cherry Blossoms as Cliché

"...the Japanese retain a high regard for convention and relatively low regard for originality. This means that clichés are endlessly repeated and stereotypes welcomed. Despite the many exceptions to this generalization there remains a tradition which insists upon such invariables. The Japanese film is filled with them: falling cherry blossoms for doomed lovers, dark glasses for bad foreigners.... The Western film is, to be sure, equally replete with clichés and stereotypes, but whereas the Japanese accept these as a matter of form, the Western audience tends to decry them."

Donald Richie: Japanese Cinema (1990)