I've enjoyed a great many games about Japanese culture as well, I suppose I just don't find modern American culture particularly interesting or appealing, it's all stuff I'm familiar with through Hollywood and the like and I just don't like it that much.

Even as a third generation American, I must say that the themes in GTA make me feel quite uncomfortable. Looking through the recently released 70+ screenshots, for instance, it was just a ton of drugs/alcohol and sexual degeneracy. I get that the game isn’t showcasing the highs of American society (matter of fact it’s showcasing the exact opposite: life among the (economically) lowest in society), but… IDK. I’d rather just stick with my Elden Ring and Zelda fantasy worlds.

That's a problem I didn't have with other GTA games but had a major role in why I didn't like V.

In San Andreas and GTV IV, you're someone that escaped the bad life but is dragged back into it by family or by the circumstances, and neither CJ nor Niko enjoy it, especially the second one. I can get that "you do what you have to do" position and play along.

In Vice City you're a mafia guy that has just been released from jail after keeping your word and not being a snitch. You're reward is a new position in Miami Vice City but what you find is that you've been betrayed by those you didn't rat about. It's a classic revenge plot where I can also get along.

But with V it's different. There's a psychopath that just likes hurting people, a rich "retired" bank robber that starts all this mostly because he's bored, and a gang guy that at first gets involved by accident but then just sticks around. I didn't found any way to connect with the characters or their motives.

No, because I think the franchise has become horribly overrated, I think most people only play it because "Hey hey, it's edgy!!", and the highest selling GTA game has pretty much no likable characters in sight.