That's definitely seems to be the attitude of the author I interpret his words ("The level of English in Japan is shockingly low, despite everyone studying it

That's definitely seems to be the attitude of the author I interpret his words ("The level of English in Japan is shockingly low, despite everyone studying it for 6 years at school") not to mean that he expects fluency. It's clear that the author is not talking about this level of fluency. I disagree. I think the author simply says that the level of English is shockingly low. I don't think that we can infer from those words that he's expecting a high level of fluency.