One thing that's interesting about Japanese zoning is that I wouldn't describe it as "no zoning," (for that matter I wouldn't in Houston either because that's more rhetorical than reality but anyway).

They key is that they don't do Euclid, or exclusive zoning. You can build housing in almost every single one of their (iirc) fifteen different zoning designations.

So to US norms, this feels like "no zoning," but it's still restrictive in many ways. Just not in a way that says "only housing here" or "no housing here." (again on that last one, in the vast majority of cases, but not strictly speaking all.)