I have a hard time reconciling the general nature of your comments w.r.t Japan isn't westernized with the specifics as well. If westernization is mainly about philosophical traditions (secularism, individualism, etc.) I think Japan is certainly less westernized in some ways (think like many attributes that skew in different directions), but if you look at other things, maybe it's not? You could examine attributes such as the tight alliances with the west to how anime characters are represented.
I'm still wondering if what we're talking about here is just a different expression of being "westernized" versus a meaningful difference.
Personally I actually have a view that's moreso that the Anglosphere (US, Canada, Australia, UK, New Zealand) + Japan and perhaps to a lesser extent South Korea are more "westernized" together than say the Anglosphere and Germany and France.
As my original comment was saying, the reason Western people get so confused by Japan is that it is technologically “ahead” in many ways while apparently “behind” culturally, from the Western perspective. This cognitive dissonance is a result of the Progress ideal which merged culture and technology into one entity. This isn’t the case with other countries that are just perceived as being “behind” entirely, technologically and culturally.