My guess is that it's mostly economics, not culture. Japan has lifetime employment (you generally work at the same firm until you die) so a lot of the incentive

My guess is that it's mostly economics, not culture. Japan has lifetime employment (you generally work at the same firm until you die) so a lot of the incentives for quick, flashy, shoddy work are not there. Second, they have a export economy with a high-value currency. That means that they can only compete on the very high end of the quality scale. Third, they are right next door to China, and the one area where Japan is sort of leading the world (robotics) makes sense when China is your biggest export market. I feel like japanese culture is pretty willing to take big bets - the whole AI (FGCS)thing in the 80's is an example.