Making property not a form of investment is a feature not a bug. See the article about Tokyo a few days ago for example (how rent is relatively affordable & Japanese don’t expect home value to hold).
It is pointless trying to compare a country with population growth against a country (like Japan) where housing availability is increasing due to population decline.
It has not had a decrease in population since 1995 and the latest data point (2020) shows an increase of +3.5% compared to 2015.
You can say the same about Germany (and probably most western countries) - vast rural (or depressed urban) areas are depopulating because people move to Berlin/Munich/Hamburg/Frankfurt/etc. And yet Japan solved affordable housing to a much greater extent than us.