The main reason for this belief is that we have a distorted view of economy. For economists, business growth is the only thing that matters in a society. On the other hand, 99% of the people in a country don't really care about economic growth (above some basic comfort level of development, it must be said). This happens because most people live of wages, and wage growth is slow and sometimes non-existent (as presently in the US).
The standard growth oriented view of economy is important only for investors (people making money in the stock market and bond market), and business owners. Normal people will live perfect fine lives as long as the economy is not imploding.
It is politicians and developers who put a value-judgement on growth - specifically GDP growth. And they are perfectly rational in doing so. In most jurisdictions the developers hire the politicians and so they adopt that value-judgement. The other 99.9% of the constituents are largely ignored on this topic.
In the west we have this opinion that an economy should under go the maximum amount of growth at all times and so from that perspective Japan looks like a basket case and yet they have a good standard of living, an excellent life expectancy and by most measures are a successful country.
That said much of what happened in Japan is worth study in the greater world, the suppression of wages and the liquidity trap (their debt is 240% of GDP) have analogues in the western world.