This film was made to thank Betty Boop's many fans in Japan, so the studio strived to depict the country accurately and to avoid stereotypes and racial caricatures.
The Fleischer brothers' views of Japan took an abrupt turn for the worse after Japan's invasion of China in 1937 and, of course, after Pearl Harbor. This change was made very clear by several of the wartime Popeye shorts they produced in 1942.
The far east was a popular spot for films to be set in the 1930's. The allure of the mysterious Orient was fascinating to cinema audiences. Even film icon Shirley Temple had an adventure there. Sadly, the optimistic and modern thinking era was just about to end abruptly with the advent of WW2.
Betty is shown taking off from New York City, with a caricature of the Brooklyn Bridge snd a helpful of Statue of Liberty included.
In the front row of the audience at the beginning of the short, one of the audience members looks like Olive Oyl, from the Popeye cartoons. Not only was Olive Oyl a character in cartoons at Fleischer Studios, but Mae Questel voiced both Betty and Olive (and, on some occasions, Popeye, too (!) ).