If I can just follow up on my own post... I don't think I made it obvious, but the average Japanese person tend to be just as frustrated with this whole system

If I can just follow up on my own post... I don't think I made it obvious, but the average Japanese person tend to be just as frustrated with this whole system as you or I would be. This isn't some inherit trait they all have from birth. The "Taro"'s of Japan, who always manage to find their way through a loophole & will go out of their way to help you find it, are quite common. A story, that may only be urban myth but was certainly believed to be true: After the 3/11 tsunami, when the govt. was engaged in its usual slow response fumbling, a US military helicopter was trying to deliver supplies to the region, but red tape prevented them from unloading. So the chopper crew claimed they were having engine troubles & needed to reduce the weight for takeoff, and dumped the pallets. This became one of the favorite stories in Japan and was universally considered to be a clever way to get around the bureaucracy (rather than people not following the rules, as you might think). One of the reasons Taro knows that Lloyds is the intermediary is because he'll probably want to use that to help him with some similar situation someday.