I don't know how to describe this, but Japanese enjoy putting a little bit of joy into every thing, like Ronald McDonald, but real.
The reduction of similar behavior in Japan to things like animism fails to capture the texture of why these things happen, and how they are reproduced in other places, and how ultimately societies across the world act similarly, but for timing issues.
People don’t talk about the Dutch being obsessed with serious work ethic and cleanliness due to protestantism and thus generating De Stijl.
I do legit wonder what the history of anthropomorphism on inanimate objects looks like though. Who was the first person to draw a toothpaste tube that smiled and talked?
Japan just gets a lot of attention as 1. The earliest Asian developed economy and 2. The earlier bubble-era panic over Japanese economic dominance