I've literally had Tokyo people go 10-15 minutes out of their way to help me find where I was going and so have several of my friends. Sounds like you just has a bad experience. It's not the norm.
But this is my point about them feeling obligated to help you. In Tokyo they are so strict about working. You cannot leave 5 seconds before lunch time and you can’t arrive 5 seconds after lunch time. If you ask the wrong person for assistance they may help you but they aren’t genuine about it. This is not the experience outside of Tokyo.
Whether it’s genuine or not is a personal non-objective opinion. It all comes down to whether they actually helped you or not. I can think of tens of countries around the world where they would completely ignore you in a similar situation; this is way rarer in Japan.
> https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-worker-punished-for...