Part of it is programmers aren't sexy in Japan like they are in the USA. There is not much of a "hacker culture" in Japan. Programming is just a means to an end

Part of it is programmers aren't sexy in Japan like they are in the USA. There is not much of a "hacker culture" in Japan. Programming is just a means to an end in business or technical work, so it's done either by engineers, scientists, and business people as part of their other work, or by staff programmers servicing other business needs -- almost a form of clerical work. It's not a good place to find people who dedicate themselves to programming as a craft in its own right. There are pockets of hobbyists and otaku, but the work culture there doesn't really support that kind of dedication to programming as a calling the way it does in for example the USA, UK, and elsewhere.