Ever since the reopening of Japan to the outside world in the mid-19th century, people from the West have categorized Japanese life in terms of one or another social model. Whatever the category chosen, though, the inference has always been that Japan is "different." How else would you account for something like the 1904 British bestseller, "More Queer Things About Japan"?
But is it possible that Japan, though so commonly categorized as bizarre and exotic, is actually a pretty normal place? Certainly, if you judge some American and European "ways" against the civic harmony, relatively equitable income spread and low level of violence in Japan, it is the West that comes out looking somewhat outlandish.
And yet the model-building goes on.