The currencyappreciation has probably a lot to do with it. The USD to JPY exchange went from 160 (the worst I have ever seen) to 140, in like a week. Still needs to recover a lot more to hit the 100:1 rate it used to hover around. A lot of that is in on the back of the BOJ increasing interest rates in the first time in...an extremely long time.
A lot of people don't invest a whole lot/at all here, so for the average person outside finance people are actually quite happy with the way things are trending. I know a lot of friends who cancelled all plans to travel internationally this year because the yen was so weak that it just wasn't feasible.
Most interesting, is we are doing basically the exact opposite of what the US wanted us to do. Every time I see us break lockstep with the US, I allow a little bit of hope to flourish.