Religious tolerance is also an important aspect, but that is actually not unique to Japan, but is something you can find in many South and Southeast Asian countries. It is usually not so important which religion you have and Japanese culture traditionally actually viewed things very flexibly (with a dent of 100 years between 1848 and 1949, where nationalism required the declaration and abstracting of a state religion). Nowadays, if you want to see religious intolerance, the only things you find regularly are the posters "You shalt have no other God", which are spread by those friendly youths New Zealand's Christian churches constantly send over to do missionary work.
I didn't read much of the thread, but I just wanted to pop in to say that this is not terribly true. Or at least, not true to the major Christian churches populated by Japanese people over there. Right, so, I'm a Unificationist. Look it up if you want, I'm not here to explain the history of me or the church and start a religious debate here as that is besides the point. But one thing that people of this faith have endured, particularly in Japan and Korea is deprogrammers. And while I acknowledge their ability to save people from brainwashing death cults they can and have been used illegally on people within this philosophy. After being recognized by churches around the world(Christians, Catholics, Muslims, etc) as an actual religion they are cool with and after a good amount of time has made it painfully clear that we are not a fanatic cult that will go out with a mass suicide, deprogrammers in Japan are still going at it. And while I may not know the motivation behind the calls for them I do suspect that at this point it is more of a forced conversion than the intended purpose of saving them.
But then again I can only say this about the Japanese that are part of those particular Christian churches and not their culture as a whole. Still, this is a decent amount of their culture behind this.
Also, Damascus Steel side swords. For when you want the most technologically advanced weapon with the best steel in the world. Or the Mongol composite bow. Or the firearms developed at the time. Or even basic European armor can make up for having a knife and a bag full of rocks.
And finally, the Japanese are
really into our hip hop culture. Being able to breakdance will make you the popular dude on the block.