Japan is only in economic decline, we in the west are in a societal decline, we just lie to ourselves that we're not, due to the fiscalisation tricks we employ to pump up bullshit metrics like GDP graph and the DOW(cough Pam Bondi cough), that only benefit the top 10% asset owners, as if that means anything to the average city worker who lives paycheck to paycheck, has six figure debt, lives surrounded by homeless people and hears gunshots at night in the background.
There are absolutely some (very) weird cultures/behaviours in the Japanese workplace that do set them apart from every other first-world country I've experienced (working in global organisations).
It's decline stems from favoring bullshit work over efficiency, change and adaptation.