There does seem to be a unique form of escapism in the aesthetics. I often think of it when I think about the jazz cafe phenomenon that is popular in Japan. It's warm and cozy but it can also be a cozy sterility (but hey we have cats!) that a lot of societies seem to be going through now (in the West as well). A sleepy existential crisis that plays itself out in quotidian surrealism. It's not unpleasant but also feels somehow like a miss on both an individual and civilizational level.