I've lived in japan for 5 years and your post strongly resonated with my experience. Japanese are generally very polite and educated. You will be treated very well if you are a tourist, but expect to feel alienated if you actually live there. Basically impossible to make friends if you live away from the big cities. At most, you'll have some work acquaintances that reach to you when they need something.

I was a huge sucker for Japanese culture and stuff but after living there and experiencing feeling so lonely and alienated by their culture and their world view (being treated like a nuisance that's coming into their country to disrupt their jobs or "take their girls") it totally fizzled out for me.