Your comment would imply they both lack certain innovations we have but also have equally big ones they're ahead of us on. I don't really find that to be the case. I think it is awesome you can board a bus with a 10,000 yen note and the machine can give you change no problem. Also, ATM machines take your coins for deposit and all. But that has been around twenty plus years, and I can't think of anything else substantial I'm jealous of.

Do you have any citations for this? I'd love to explore in depth what the lateral tech track looks like.

My husband is Japanese so all my information is second-hand, but if you want to learn about Japan in a non-anime-manga-etc based way, I can recommend the TV channel "NHK World", which is in English, and also English-language Japanese news sources like the Japan Times.

Thank you!

They have flying cars. See the documentary Red Sun (1993) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(film)). :-)