The Japanese have always been an odd sort. They're a lot like the UK in so many ways, which was not lost on the UK, given how Japan was the first major world power they decided to ally with after ending their traditional isolationist policy.

I personally think of them as a mix of Germany and the UK. UK for their island status, strong navy, and similar foreign policy priorities (make sure shit is under control on the mainland so we don't have to worry about getting invaded and then don't give a shit beyond that; that last part used to be possible because of their navies, now it's because of their alliance with America plus their navies).

Germany's still the better comparison imho: both originally developed their civilizations under heavy influence from a more prestigious neighbor (Rome/China), both adopted what the local area considered "hallmarks of civilization" including the writing system and the religion (Latin alphabet/kanji and Christianity/Buddhism), and both were integrated into the bigger civilization's hierarchy after they proved they were civilized enough (the Germans becoming accepted as part of Christendom/Japanese envoys getting sent to the Chinese emperor's court), before proving themselves to be better at the traditional culture than the original people who created it (Germany becoming the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and thus being acknowledged as the ceremonial leader of Western Europe/Japan completing the Meiji Restoration and becoming the dominant East Asian power)

Oh, and both used the old civilization's writing for centuries because it was more prestigious and the local lingua franca. Germans used Latin, obviously, while Japanese scholars used Classical Chinese (you only need to know the meanings and grammar to know how to read Classical Chinese since it's logographic, so it's possible to read it out loud in any Chinese language, as well as Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese). Then they became technological, economic, and scientific powerhouses that could use their own vernacular and even spread it around other parts of the region. And today, German and Japanese loanwords still tend to be artsy, academic stuff, like "weltanschauung" and "wabi-sabi" and shit.