The parallel that springs to mind is that they look very similar to the NLQ fonts ('Near Letter Quality') used by dot matrix printers in the 1980s/1990s - and m

The parallel that springs to mind is that they look very similar to the NLQ fonts ('Near Letter Quality') used by dot matrix printers in the 1980s/1990s - and made, for the most part, by Japanese manufacturers: Epson, Star Micronics, etc. At the time, NLQ was a passable imitation of real typesetting. But somehow it looks like that style has become fossilised as "how you write Roman characters".