alt Hacker News> Also, Japan doesn't actually have a 'colonial history' having never been colonized by another nation.
It was never colonized but I've often heard it talked about in a similar way due to the effects of the Commodore Perry and the post WWII occupation (i.e. see their infamous pornography laws), as well as neighboring affects from China's colonial history.
The infamous 'anti-pornography laws' actually predate Perry by a significant period of time. Those were a Tokugawa era law originally. Post WWII occupation has had very little actual impact on Japanese culture, no matter how impactful the occupiers think they were.