you can see that even they copied an american past time, they still hold onto much of their cultural identity of being a collectivist society, supporting the greater whole instead of individual ambitions. Which is why you see the japanese beating americans in the world baseball classic, with physically inferior athletes. they're just a more efficient force than the US, which is why japanese cars are dominating the US market.
This documentary really opened my eyes, and how culture plays such an instrumental part in how a country operates and how it competes with one another.