"An expert on a very niche subject" made me laugh out loud the hardest, because it's the one that's most "just a guy", and yet it's also exactly how it's described.
Yes, a thousand times yes you can put your seat back you gentle soul.
Overjoyed that I understand this, allow me to explain it to those who don't.
Seats on the Shinkansen [0] are bolt-upright by default. You basically have to recline them a little bit to be even vaguely comfortable.
Every person, every time, asks the person in the seat behind them whether it's okay to recline their seat by 5°.
The seat pitch on the Shinkansen is approximately 1 metre. There's a lot of room.
[0]: My line, anyway – the E5 series cars that run the Hayabausa service.
Source: these dudes email me at a rate of about 5/week asking me to spruik their app to my audience.
no, i'm not responsible for global warming. please don't even try to shift the blame from corporations to me for doing this.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer)
Just have to ask, how do you know this???