The pic on Wikipedia doesn't say much without context. You could have gone to the supermarket nearest to my apartment in the week after (I live in Tokyo) and it

The pic on Wikipedia doesn't say much without context. You could have gone to the supermarket nearest to my apartment in the week after (I live in Tokyo) and it would have looked similar. People were definitely hoarding, but as far as I know they were paying for the stuff. Mostly, anyway. Obviously, there is going to be some looting. But, consider a previous natural disaster of approximate magnitude* which took place a few years previously on a coastal city in the US. Compare the response by the US government, the Americans there, and more broadly American society. The Japanese have something figured out that Americans have forgotten, or more probably never had. (*Not really, Tohoku was considerably worse than Katrina in magnitude and scope.)