I worked for a large Japanese manufacturing company. For sure my employer was more old school in a lot of ways simply because it was a big old company. I bet some of the newer industries are less like this. However, I would still be surprised if they were that much better. I had friends in different industries and heard similar stories.

A Japanese citizen sees the full breadth and complexity of the Japanese economy. They would naturally perceive foreign media as oversimplifying and unresponsive to more recent changes. It's true that Japan (government and industries) are attempting to move away from this style of work but, like many things in Japan, it's extremely slow, mostly symbolic, and plagued by inertia. Us salarymen clocking in and out was probably implemented with good intentions at first. I never asked but I bet it was enforced at one time. One of the big reasons they're trying to change is because men that work all day can't find a wife and have kids. Japan is in a demographics crisis. The cultural xenophobia makes them reluctant to let immigrants in to help with labor shortages. I remember government sponsored dating programs which is funny to think about.

This cultural inertia isn't all a bad thing btw. It makes institutions very stable. My company had hordes of procedures and burocracy for everything which was inefficient but you could count on them to do what they planned to do. I remember finding out about a government plan to stimulate the economy by giving some money to some companies so they could invest in growth. They had the problem of the companies just giving the money to shareholders in big dividends. They don't have the expectation of explosive growth like we do in the US.

The thing they really do well though, is soft power. Any time I bring up that Japan is a very racist, sexist, xenophobic, or homophobic society, an army of anime fans and sushi lovers are ready to defend them. Japanese society is complicated and no one person fully fits a generality but I couldn't keep living there.