Easy to explain, Japanese deny themselves the right to be weak, they are all supposed to be samurai. Same as in Russia, you are supposed to be a Communist hero

Easy to explain, Japanese deny themselves the right to be weak, they are all supposed to be samurai. Same as in Russia, you are supposed to be a Communist hero whatever happens, mental health issues, especially among men, are as if don't exist there - guys just 'fix' themselves with vodka when they have to, or with suicide if vodka doesn't help anymore. In Russia people can't become hikikomori en masse just because the country is poor so their parents won't be able to feed them - and also because they have same hero mentality so would just beat the crap out of their kids if they tried to lock themselves up in their rooms. Also, on the good side, in Russia there are much fewer social obligations before people. As in Japan, if you didn't get a college degree to become a salaried employee in a huge company, you are fucked and no one respects you. In Russia, you can do a lot of things and with vast majority population being dirt poor and apathetic, social standards of what constitutes 'successful enough' are very low - some kid who dropped out of college to make $1500 on Upwork writting crappy PHP code at the age of 30 is a success story and his parents are proud of him - in Japan he would be a hikikomori because it would be a total shame to be in that state.