[ThirdSight]

Lose that first line; once again you'll thank me later. The first line is there to bait the reader, and hook them. "They killed the white girl first," is a famous first line from one of Toni Morrison's novels. It gives away everything, but tells you as a reader nothing, but most important, it baits you to want to read further. Keep that in mind when writing your first line, it's important.

Nice way of giving away only so much within a good amount of time. A first I thought this guy was a vampire, but he's an elf instead.

The setting is important, and there wasn't enough of it in here. Why is the city broken? Why does crime and homelessness overtake the streets? It's important to know, and there's not enough of it here. However, the kind of description of the city you give here would be good to use at another time in the novel, once you've already described the setting in full detail. You could do one of two things: either move the setting to someplace less important (without forgetting to describe the setting there as well), or keep the setting within the city, but building on more exposition describing it. Exposition is never a bad thing unless it's got nothing to do, so use it.

What's the Devil's Eye? It sounds sinister, and of importance to the point where dealers are more than willing to kill each other over it. Starting within action is good, but not in every situation. If it's so important, how did the main character get it? Was it easy to get? Did it take a long time? Did the main character possibly run into other characters which could shape the rest of the story? It's not just a ruby, it's a stone precious enough to be called the Devil's Eye. Why? Furthermore, something's not adding up with the deal here at all. If it's a precious enough stone to be called the Devil's Eye, then why is the shaddy loose-toothed dealer going to just sell it? And if it's so important, why would the main character go through the trouble (whatever that is, the reader doesn't know here) of obtaining it only to sell it to some shmuck who's got murderer written all over his face? On top of all that, the main character knows a great deal of magic, so why is he so tense throughout the whole deal if he finishes everyone off with little to no effort? Rethink this whole scene, because it's not adding up on a good number of levels.

Once again, you're thinking cinimatically. The dialogues lumpy and wordy throughout, which not only makes for a problem within the narrative, but also in the genre you're trying to write in, which I'm assuming is fantasy. There's a great deal of creative liscence that can be used in fantasy, but there's also some expectations; though it's possible to break these expectations, but only with good enough skill to convince your reader that you're capable of doing it. Namely, in fantasy novels, the characters have something to say, usually of some importance. If not, it's just not in there. Never be afraid to substitute exposition of them talking to each other in place of dialogue; sometimes, it's favored and better placed that way.

Lastly, it's good that you can see the cliches that are rampant throughout this piece, but that doesn't mean that you should allow them in the first place. Sure, it's a rough draft that'll be greatly edited later on, but you should remove the cliches from the get go; it'll improve your writing skills exponentially, and you'll have less work to do when you're editing it later.

As far as your first question is concerned, the answer would be no, don't write about Japan in any way if you're a born American. Write what you know about, what you're familiar with. Even if it's boring, that's when writers find more creative ways to say something boring in a better way. If you haven't been to Japan, don't know anything about Japanese culture or it's people, or anything in general about the place, then don't write about it; your readers will see through it easily, and know that you don't know what you're talking about.