The effect looks decent in the foreground of some pictures, particularly the wolf and the cat. It really exaggerates the depth of field in the background, though, and those areas feel like someone ran a posterise after a blur, rather than brush strokes. Might just be a side effect of the author's predilection for bokeh, I guess. The Tokyo shot looks good throughout.
It was more of a stylistic choice on my part. I could add more layers to flesh out background details. And it's Hong Kong actually. :)