I've traveled to Japan and Asia many times, and they are indeed wonderful places with a very different culture. Just watch those YouTube videos of how the Japanese reacted at Tokyo Disneyland during the big earthquake a decade ago, and realize that will NOT be how things go down during the Big One at Disneyland.
But it should also be remembered that Japan and South Korea and others are island nations, quite literally, and they cut themselves off from the world. And they have not even begun to start vaccinating their population yet, so they need to hope and pray these new more easily transmitted Covid strains don't get into their countries. They don't start vaccinating there until this spring.
If Los Angeles County had erected a giant steel wall along the border with Orange and Ventura counties, closed the ports of San Pedro and Long Beach to passenger service, and shut down LAX, it might have had a better chance at emulating the results of Tokyo or Seoul or Auckland.
But that's not how America works. There have been no border checks among any states, and I'm not sure that's even constitutional for the free flow of American commerce and citizens.