It's not at all surprising to see this kind of Japanese exceptionalism about, especially on the BBC, which in various ways loves to show Japan as wacky and weird, without much understanding of the cultural context. While there are of course a great many things unique to Japanese culture, articles like this only serve to baselessly inflame Japanese exceptionalism. It doesn't help that nihonjinron ideas are very common in Japan too. The number of times I've heard "you wouldn't understand, it's a Japanese thing" in serious contexts is baffling.