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Good concerns to focus on - seeing how there are extensive times in Japan's history where Christianity did the same thing which was seen in other cultures of Asia by harmonizing with it/reflecting the culture while remaining distinct in what it stands for......and at many points, it was well accepted in Japan with Christianity being a dominant religion.
For more excellent information on the history of Christianity on Japan, I'd recommend investigating the book known as Rediscovering Japan, Reintroducing Christendom: Two Thousand Years of Christian History in Japan
Also, for other good reads, one can investigate A History of Japanese Theology by by Mr. Yasuo Furuya - or investigate here:
But politics may have more to do with the issue than anything else - with the focus on European forms of Christianity (which have some aspects being imperialistic while other forms are far from it) being used to create a scape-goat for those in the Japanese culture who were always against Christianity finding a reason to keep others in the dark on it.
There is no escaping the fact that throughout her history, Japan has repeatedly rejected Christianity because of her suspicion of Western influence (as goes the claim) - despite where that being an issue was not the same as Christianity in the Eastern world being reflected since there was much incorporating of their traditions and festivities into their faith and to worship God in their own distinctively Japanese ways.
Politics does impact a lot - for the Japanese daimyo on Kyūshū welcomed foreign trade because of the new weapons ...and even though Europe was a rival, they tolerated the Jesuit missionaries. Although many Daimyos converted to Christianity in order to gain more favorable access to saltpeter (used to make gunpowder), these missionaries were successful in converting large numbers of people in Western Japan. Between 1553 and 1620, eighty-six daimyos were officially baptized, and many more were sympathetic to the Christians. But as with many actions in government, you only see success as long as it may be profitable to one group or another - and then, when wanting to shift things, you find a way to place blame onto others.
Apparently, in the late 1500s, the Daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his clan, Oda, were on trying to take over Japan. And by 1587, Hideyoshi had become alarmed. The alarm wasn't based on too many converts but rather because the Christian daimyo reportedly oversaw forced conversions of retainers and commoners, - in addition to where t they had garrisoned the city of Nagasaki, participated in the slave trade of other Japanese and, apparently offending Hideyoshi's Buddhist sentiments while allowing the slaughter of horses and oxen for food.....all of those claims being things which could easily be attributed to the Portuguese Missionaries from Europe who came in rather than all Christians and perhaps many claims simply being a false flag operation to allow for persecution to occur.
That same year, Hideyoshi conquered Kyūshū and banished Christian missionaries to exert greater control over the Kirishitan (Christian in Japanese) daimyo ( plural). 10 yrs later, on February 5, 1597, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had twenty-six Christians killed as an example to Japanese who wanted to convert to Christianity - known as the Twenty-six Martyrs of Japan (including European Franciscan missionaries, Japanese Jesuits, and Japanese laymen including three young boys) who were by public crucifixion in Nagasaki. From this moment, the history of Christianity in Japan took a different turn from being proud and confident...and the Christian enterprise slowly went into reverse. Going into the 16th century, in 1614, we see how the Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu signed the Christian Expulsion Edict which banned Christianity, expelled all Christians and foreigners, and banned Christians from practicing their religion - resulting in history showing how many Kirishitans (early Japanese Christians) fled to either Portuguese Macau or the Spanish Philippines.
One interesting read on the issue is entitled The Samurai and the Sacred: The Path of the Warrior by Stephen Turnbull. From The Samurai and the Sacred (pp. 110-111), the critical moment that went against Christianity appears to have been the San Felipe incident, which culminated in the martyrdom of the Twenty-Six Saints of Japan. As said there:
When you see the long history of Japan's Christian heritage, you cannot help but think it was not necessary for them to respond as they did unless there was a lot of fear, misunderstanding....and outright propaganda for larger goals. You've got Europeans coming in as many did (with Christians present from centuries before/respectful of the culture being cautious in what Europeans wanted to attempt) - and they are seen as a direct threat to your power base built on the divine authority of the God Emperor and the Shogun, his personal representative.
While you have Christians familiar with the culture who know how to interact with it, you also have a lot of misunderstandings - for the Buddhists don't claim that Siddhartha Gautama was divine in the sense that Jesus was supposed to be divine.....even though many Christians already knew nuances on what it meant to be divine and honor authority (with it even being the case that there was already a concept of grace found within Pure Land Buddhism just as it was within Christianity if aware of Shinran Shonin, deemed to be Japan's "Martin Luther .... more shared here and here/here in Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think about and Discuss Theology ).......and in the midst of things, the Japanese nobility saw a threat to their power from the outside and lopped off its head before it could really take root.
Many have felt that Christianity was not allowed to flourish as it did in other parts of Asia due to the fact that while Japan was closed to Christianity for 200 years because of the Christian Expulsion Edict, Buddhism was not, which gave it even more time to spread....and grow in strength while Christianity (including its Eastern form) was placed in a stranglehold that caused it to shrink and be forgotten from the collective history of Japan for how important it was in the centuries of development for Japan's culture.
People don't tend to follow something if it seems to not be important to who they are - and they may even reject it further when those in government not wanting it to be remembered point to negative variations of it as being the sole definition of how it always was.....leading to people mentally thinking it's simply a "foreign" thought to be rejected to keep themselves pure. Although there have been similar cases throughout other parts of Asia with Christianity being persecuted (including those forms connecting with the culture), in Japan it seems to be a case of having great disconnect in history due to a lot of history forgotten...
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tall, measuring system was different in those time. Yasuke could already speak some Japanese when he met Nobunaga. He impressed the lord with his strength and intelligence....although Nobunaga believed that Yasuke Kurusan skin was painted black and so Nobunaga’s vassal were commanded to strip Yasuke bare. The vassals then washed the skin of Yasuke and this proved that Yasuke skin was indeed black. This surprised Nobunaga, and got him much more interested in Yasuke. ..and eventually, Yasuke was made one of Nobunaga's bodyguards and Yasuke married a Japanese wife.
