I mean, Japan's experience with colonialism was decidedly on the colonist side: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperit...

That, and things like being an enthusiastic and early customer of British industrial/steam powered equipment in what we would broadly call the Victorian era. The early Japanese pre-dreadnought and dreadnought class battleships, for instance, were a clear descendent of British (or competing French) designs. Railway stuff as well. Lots of things that weren't British origin were American.