Are there Japanese software development / engineering practices worth learning?

That's a good question.

The first thing that came to mind for me was the bad, namely Toyota's unintended acceleration debacle some years back.[0] If anything this illustrated (at the time) a woeful lack of any proper software engineering practices at Toyota that was to some degree indicative of a larger problem across their entire industry. No doubt this was due in large part to Japan's corporate culture and their admirable-yet-deleterious work ethic.

As far as the good, the first place I thought to look was Hideo Kojima's games, namely their engine technology. The history of the Fox Engine[1] and in particular the Decima[2] engine appears very interesting. Kojima games are almost always bleeding-edge with respect to rendering technology.

There's of course Nintendo. I had a friend who worked in software QA there, and there wasn't much good to say about it. That said, it was some years ago and one person's experience in one location.

Japan used to be a leader in robotics, though I'm not sure how true that is anymore what with Boston Dynamics in the spotlight in recent years.

To answer your question however, my guess would be no, probably not—Japan is likely playing catch up right now in terms of software practices. The Japanese development teams and researchers that do output quality, I'd imagine they just use common sense good practices recognized internationally. Namely: hire high-caliber talent, pay them well and don't overwork them. Quality usually follows regardless of any specific methodology.

That said, it'd sure be really cool if they were harboring some hidden gem software practice that the rest of the world could learn from!

[0] https://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintend...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Engine

[2] https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Decima

I worked in Japan for a few years, mainly at small-ish software shops (some consulting shops, one making a CMS etc). We basically worked the same as I do in my home country (Australia) - 2 weeks sprints, JIRA, etc.

My personal experience is software is the same everywhere - some shops are organized, sprints etc, big on tests, others are waterfall and have basically no QA/testing.