Even here in Japan, I don't recall seeing any news outlets cover this as top story material; in fact, the first place I heard about this was from non-Japanese news sources...
I wonder if it's these values that simply led to Japan letting the story take a natual course rather than wasting funds to pumping up a PR campaign. If so, I wish Japan all the best in being the first to tap into the virtually limitless space mining resources. They deserve it.