Such cultural aspects of Japan are indeed attractive and I hope they will endure. However, the current economic model is not sustainable for a country of 120M, or even 80 - 90% of that (after shrinkage of human assets). Ironically, from the perspective of the country as a whole, sustainable agriculture / craft industries are very far from being so.
I believe, Japan needs to find a way to attract economically stimulating diversity into the midst of its cultural homogeneity, without generating excessive social disapproval. OIST[1] is an interesting experiment and I'd like to keep an eye on its progress.
Otherwise, it'll eventually come down to a drastic upheaval, along the lines of Meiji or Post-WWII. And that can only happen after the other countries have laid down a bright new model for Japan to follow and improve upon. Which could be a long time hence since, as the article says, Japan is in the vanguard right now.
The interesting difference to eg. the Meiji revolution, and what makes this really uncharted territory, is that the extreme aging of Japan makes both democratic and violent upheaval near-impossible. You can't vote out the bastards, because the pensioner vote outweighs the youth, and any violent students/revolutionaries will not be able to get the majority of the population on their side.
As a practical example, my father-in-law was a salaryman with a rock-solid pension and amazing health care (a month in a hospital costs $50, etc). His generation has no incentive to change the system that has worked for them -- even though it imposes an increasingly unsustainable burden on the ever-shrinking working generations paying for it.
If and when it happens, a sharp transition would include seizure of debt assets owned by your father-in-law's generation. Either through default or inflation.
Furthermore I understand, but cannot provide evidence, that 10% of true believers is enough to revolutionize a whole population. Indeed the Meiji succeeded with only around 10% support.
They need to bring in immigrants of only a single gender from any given nation. They will assimilate much quicker than those who will have the opposite gender to form relations with and isolated communities with. Early immigrants right after the war in Britain assimilated quite well, even normally conservative ones like Muslim communities when only men were brought over.
I am not sure that I am arguing for large-scale, planned mixing and assimilation.
Rather I am proposing that native Japanese and resident visitors could each benefit from co-habitation of the physical space, despite having very divergent social and economic models.
I believe, Japan needs to find a way to attract economically stimulating diversity into the midst of its cultural homogeneity, without generating excessive social disapproval. OIST[1] is an interesting experiment and I'd like to keep an eye on its progress.
Otherwise, it'll eventually come down to a drastic upheaval, along the lines of Meiji or Post-WWII. And that can only happen after the other countries have laid down a bright new model for Japan to follow and improve upon. Which could be a long time hence since, as the article says, Japan is in the vanguard right now.
[1] http://www.oist.jp/