Yes, Japan's state religion, everything upon the earth has a soul, dogs, cats, cars (all Japanese cars have a "face" smiley ones usually) , cows, people, flowers, trees, stones....
it's a nice idea, but you have to qualify that with the bushido code of Imperial Japan of the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
It's claimed that bushido was an ancient practice but in reality it was a revisionist policy, look at the treatment of German P.O.Ws in Tsingtao (northern China) during the Great War and you'll see.
The maltreatment of foreign nationals disapeared in the mid 19th century after America threatened Japan with war if it harmed it's shipwrecked sailors, it was around about the same time that Japan chose to modernise.
Coincidentally if you look up western policy in northern China after the Great War you'll see that it brought down the governmennt of Yuen Shih Kai (because of the 21 demands) and restored Sun Yaet Sen, Tsingtao was the starting point of the Sino Japanese war of 1933 to 1945, the actions of the Japanese in this conflict alone made the Nazis look like nurses.