Wait, what ? What makes you think (and other commentators) that it's the Japaneses who changed and not the view held by post-colonialists ? (Managers complaining about their workers ? How weird)
It wasn't just the Japanese. "Korean time" was a thing back when Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Germans also used to be stereotyped as dishonest, thieving, dull and overly emotional before their country industrialized.
> overly emotional before their country industrialized.
After all some of the most famous Romantic artists came from Germany: Heine, Beethoven, Hölderlin and Goethe himself. The latter's Werther was the most emotional novel until at least Madam de Bovary, which was written about 80 years later.
TL;DR (it's a 213 page grad thesis) Old Germany used to be basically Hufflepuff, a simple-minded, loyal, obedient rustic bumbler who's too stupid to really be a threat or even much of a partner. New Germany arose post-German unification and especially post WW1, where the stereotypes shifted to the modern more sinister concept of a nation of amoral mad scientists and clockwork soldiers - largely as an attempt to justify Germany being the great rival of England.
