Yep, Japan has a strange history with its private buildings - the 'Flowers of Edo' a catastrophic disaster (earthquake, typhoon, flood, fire) that would revisit the capital on average every 25 years ensured that many people stopped building to last and developed a culture of ad hoc functionalism (and the birth of modernism that Le Courbousier came to study). These days that's been exacerbated by archaic residency and land laws - either lack of or too much, such as rules enshrined in the constitution that permit you to use or build what you want regardless of neighbours or community councils, and zoning laws that make land prices high and encourage bulldozing for new builds - but without the demographics to back em (read: temporariness).
https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-...d-2fc0c26b3c60