If you go to the
Honda Japan website, they have plenty of square, boxy type vehicles like this, so it's not really anything drastically new for Honda, just something new from Honda for North America. (You'll also see some cooler vehicles they get there that we don't, like Type-R Accord, Integra and Civic, Civic 5-door, and Civic with sport shift)!
I actually like the way it looks... Honda said they went through a lot of focus groups containing people in their target market and keeping them involved in the development of the Element, in an effort not to create another Pontiac Azzcrack.