I had a similar rosy view of the Japanese nuclear industry in 2010. After the Fukushima accident in 2011, I found that it would have been prevented if the Fukushima plant had followed regulations as strict as the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires, or if it had just built protections like the nearby Onagawa plant had built [1]. With further digging, I found that Japan had a rather poor nuclear safety culture before Fukushima too [2] [3]. I had even read about the 1999 criticality accident around the time it happened but downplayed its significance in my mind. Due to a combination of excellent consumer products exported from Japan and positive cultural stereotypes circulating in the US about Japanese attention to rules and quality, I incorrectly discounted prior evidence of defective nuclear safety culture in Japan.

With hindsight I also think that language barriers play a role in leaning on stereotypes. When companies with English-speaking employees have internal problems that leadership is ignoring, I can read complaints from lower level employees (anonymous or otherwise) posted online. But I don't know where Japanese power plant workers hang out online. Even if I did I wouldn't be able to understand what they're writing. So my views get colored more by whatever makes it into English-language media, which may be less representative.

[1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2014.037...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant#1995...