I remember being a junior engineer and spending time to really make my software good and my first review had a comment that I spent too much time adding "bells and whistles" (which was only partially true). So it gets drilled out of you in US software.
But after 6 years living here, I find the image of the Japanese as perfectionists to be a myth. Sure, the old sushi master that has dedicated his life to the craft might a perfectionist; most other people are not. Take a look a the average Japanese city with its ugly buildings, chaotic street layout, and insane cabling. Or the average office or shop, with a mess of boxes and piles of documents everywhere. Or the countryside (where I live) and the abysmal state of most roads and infrastructure. Those are not the signs of a perfectionist society.
Heck, A LOT of things that have that desirable "made in Japan" sticker are made by abused migrant workers with very little protection and pay. They aren't even made by the "mythological perfect and careful Japanese hands."
Note: been here 15 years and I have many friends in the manufacturing industry
Same with made in Germany and the US. Actually, Made in Germany is worse.
Every consumer electronic I have labeled Made in Germany is absolutely crap. The Bosch stove has the sealing gasket wrongly mounted, the Siemens vacuum cleaner is poorly designed and built, so is the Fujitsu laptop I just sold which felt like bottom of the barrel e-waste.
Electronics from Xiaomi, Huawei, etc feels way better built and better designed than stuff labeled made in Germany.
The concept of "Miele lasts forever" is as outdated as the "German cars last forever". It used to be true in the past but we can't be coasting on that trope today.
More like finding a handful of people in the whole of US history making paintings by sticking pasta onto a canvas, and presenting it as some huge cultural thing.
They are perfectionist, just not anal about it. Their perfectionism is not about tidy small shops.
And compared to the average US city, the average Japanese city is a masterpiece, including the modern buildings and streets.
Second, I don't know how the average US city is, because I have never been to the US, but I think that you really overestimate how the average Japanese city looks like. People who have never lived here think that all of Japan is like the cool neighbourhoods of Tokyo, but that could not be further from the truth.
The average Japanese city suffers from serious urban sprawl, most are just a bunch of big box stores interconnected by stroads, and little houses scattered everywhere without any kind of planning. There are plenty of old, decaying buildings everywhere and streets in pretty bad condition.
Look, I live in Misawa, Aomori. Please take a look around on Google Street View, and then tell me how much of a masterpiece it is: https://maps.app.goo.gl/d5DDV3PT6MiSNYPYA
Compared to the average equivalent US city (all around, but especially in places like Mississipi, South Dakota, Alabama, the Appallachia, etc) this looks like Paris. Much less (essentially non comparatively) homicide, violent crime, or junkies there either.
For example, the city where I live is full of farms and orchards in the center of the city itself (totally open to the street because Japanese people don't like fences), and half the streets are unpaved. That is unthinkable in my home country.
Perhaps that home country could take a lesson or two and relax, instead of suffocating everything with rules and zoning then?
Second, it is true that they don't have much usable land (but they still have some big flat areas), but outside of the aforementioned big cities, instead of building vertically, everybody wants to have their own house. The result is sprawling cities made of a combination of little houses and narrow streets cramped together, and big box stores connected by stroads.
I beg to differ. They just apply perfectionism to different areas compared to what you have listed.
Different cultures attract efforts to different areas.