It goes without saying that by the mid-nineteenth century most non-European peoples had become pretty wary of any pale faced interlopers just kind of showing up uninvited, which is understandable given the general "nice place you got here, think I'll just take it" attitude of the Europeans of the time. Given this, it’s really no surprise that many East Asian nations, including Japan, had what were known as closed door policies, which were pretty much like putting up a no soliciting sign for the entire country. Unfortunately for Japan, the United States was having none of that shit. In 1853, they kicked in the proverbial door with a fleet of warships and gave Japan an ultimatum of either open trade or an ass whooping. Japan, its military made up of samurai and some guys with spears, went with the first option.
Admiral Perry's arrival was a turning point for the Japanese. They soon after shifted gears from a “stay the fuck out” policy to a “if you can't beat them join them” extravaganza. In less than fifty years Japan transformed itself from a feudal society to an industrial powerhouse, and like any good industrialized nation of the day, it decided that it wanted in on the whole global empire thing which was so vogue in Europe at the time. Unsurprisingly, these aspirations got a little out of hand, by which I mean the Japanese went on a conquering tear for forty odd years, beating the shit out of all of their neighbors. This eventually led to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the end result of which I'm pretty sure most people are pretty familiar with. The U.S. nuked Japan, twice, and fire bombed everything that wasn't irradiated.
Well, as one would expect, one of the most devastating wars in human history and a double nuking did little to help the Japanese economy. The country was devastated and occupied by American soldiers, and it was from this double combo that most of what we picture as modern Japan today was derived. One of the more obvious changes was that the Japanese started hunting whales. This was done on the suggestion of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, who not really being a big fan of whales, thought it was a perfect way for the country to avoid starvation. Another obvious change was the introduction of Godzilla movies, which were a pretty non-subtle metaphor for nuclear weapons. However, there was some less than obvious changes as well. When you think of Japan do you think of a bunch of businessmen literally working themselves to death. Well, that’s America’s fault too. In the 1950’s an American statistician named W. Edwards Deming created a theory that companies should pretty much never be happy with anything because people could always be doing better. While everyone in the United States thought this was a stupid idea, the desperate Japanese ate that shit up, resulting in a whole generation of men frantically working their asses off. Sure, it did result in the Japanese economy being reinvigorating at a record pace, but it also resulted in the country having the highest suicide rate in the world. So you know, a bit of a mixed bag.
While all the above was kind of weird, perhaps the strangest change forced upon Japan dealt with their views of sex. You see, historically speaking, Japan was once pretty open and out there with the whole bumping uglies thing. It was common for Japanese women to stroll around topless and pretty much every family had some porn, classily called shunga, just lying around the house. Unfortunately, when the country started industrializing the government began cracking down on such things, mostly because nobody wants to be that weird new kid in school. You know, pretty standard stuff.
However, things really began to ratchet up a weird notch with the arrival of the American GI's in 1945. Prior to this time, very few Japanese women wore underwear, but for god only knows what reason, the American GI's preferred Japanese women who did. As a result, for a time underwear in Japan was only worn by prostitutes, which resulted in it becoming so sexualized that today you can buy used panties in vending machines in downtown Tokyo. If that wasn't weird enough, the American occupiers, rather disgusted by the still impressively large amounts of Japanese porn just lying around, also forced the Japanese government to outlaw the depiction of any hot genital on genital action, if you know what I mean. However, some enterprising, and obviously desperate, Japanese artists figured out a loophole by using monster tentacles instead of......never mind, you get the idea. So yeah, Japan is kind of a weird place, but it's mostly because we made it that way.
Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:140405_Tsu_Castle_Tsu_MIe_pref_Japan01s.jpg