In what context is the alphabet known in Japan? Is it kind of an osmosis thing commonly known to the general public or is it sort of like roman numerals, giving people another way to tag the order of items in a list?
If they knew the alphabet, they'd know that's not how you spell "g".
Most Japanese people know Romaji, thanks mainly to Western imperialism. It's not commonly used, but every kid who goes to school is expected to learn it, sort of like cursive writing, or long division.
Everyone in Japan takes a few years of English in school and promptly forgets most of it soon after graduating.
Japanese words can be spelled phonetically using the Roman (English) alphabet. Everyone learns it in school. Keyboards like ours are very common in Japan; using them to type in Japanese consists of spelling the appropriate word phonetically and using something like autocomplete to select the correct symbol.
I spent a week in Tokyo, and the vast majority of the people I met knew a little English. Obviously that's not the whole country, but there's a lot of English in their culture. The major subway lines announce everything in Japanese and English, and their ads frequently feature English phrases. But the weird thing is that broken English is tangible even at very high levels. It's not uncommon to see Engrish on signs inside of multibillion dollar skyscrapers.
Why bother with a lighter? There are electronic cigarettes that plug into the USB port and allow you to use them as they charge. In essence, it turns your computer into a hookah pipe with a keyboard and mouse.
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