Yeeeeeeaaaahh... I heard of that and how it impregnates their media. Kinda explain some of the vices of their society. (Just out of curiosity, do they know the concept of unions? or societal revolutions?) No question westerners look like extremely outgoing aliens to them.
I don't know the details but a quick bit of google and wikipedia shows that there is unionization but not as much of it as there used to be. Some of it will likely be part of the move away from union-heavy industries like manufacturing and into more white-collar stuff that tends not to go in that direction so much. And part of it, yes, might be because some people may see unions as unsavory since they run contrary to Japan's tendency for extreme deference to superiors. Like a "the company allows me to live my life so if I join a union that will fight against them then I'm being disloyal" sort of thing. I think it's also potentially why you don't see so many people change jobs and why there had always been all those stereotypes about "black companies" and the like, based on the idea that you can't quit because you owe the company and if you do leave nobody will hire you because you're a lazy, greedy quitter who is only out for themselves.
I'm pretty sure I've also seen that they tend to be somewhat derisive/dismissive of westerners and our tendency to be more outgoing and individualistic in some regards. But honestly in some cases they have a point. The western ideal of looking out for yourself about everyone does tend to make us more prone to being disruptive, narcissistic assholes. Just like the collectivist ideal of Japan makes them more prone to being submissive, deferential doormats. But it also comes with positive flip sides that the other country lacks. Japanese are often more willing to put up with inconvenience and soldier through adversity that a westerner might balk at or demand be changed to satisfy them even if it inconveniences or is detrimental to people around them. While a westerner might look at a situation that is truly poisonous to themselves and maybe others and be willing to stand up against a boss or co-worker who's corrupt or a jerk.
Neither is entirely right or wrong. It's mostly down to what you've lived with and are used to and embracing the positives while mitigating the negatives.
Yet in many mangas who deal with constructed fictional worlds they push of the one with the most personal initiative, even at the cost of intelligence, to win. Weird.
I think this has to do with a classical Japanese social concept called the Japanese Spirit or Yamato-damashii. It's a collection of personal virtues that is supposed to spur success and proper conduct through the lens of what Japan views as their most important or valuable traits. One of those is "seishin" or spirit/persistence which I think is what you're getting at: the ability to overcome obstacles with willpower and competitiveness and what I often derisively refer to as "the magic of wanting something really badly and trying harder". It's that ability in manga and anime where a character should be fatally damaged by an attack but persists because they need to win and fight to protect someone. Or when a character gets beaten down until they suddenly unlock a new reserve of power they didn't have before so they can rise up and defeat the villain to show that they're the superior person. It's new powers as the plot demands and 'this isn't even my final form' and 'I'll never let you win as long as I draw breath" and everything of that sort.
Because it's something applicable to the real world, more than simple natural (or often in manga and anime, supernatural) innate talent or unshakable faith in one's own correctness (which can manifest as arrogance in an extremely negative way), it is the trait that is most often prized in such stories as a means of teaching a lesson to the audience of "put your head down, work hard, and trust that everything will go alright. And if its' not then just work harder and never give up. " that is often used in the workforce or school or whatever.
That doesn't fully explain it, though. Shyness and having no confidence, like Seto in Yamcha-Gal, is one thing; this guy has such problems he's literally jeopardizing his relationship.
This guy is seto at teh beginning of Yancha Gal albeit turned up to the extreme which is my and seemingly also your annoyance with him. He's terrified to talk to the girl because he believes that he's a worthless, useless slug who has no right to be near her or he's going to say something stupid to make her hate him (a fate worse than death since he had a preexisting crush on her before the relationship started) or she's going to reveal that this was obviously all a joke from the beginning because no real respectable girl would ever want to go near a loser like him except as a prank or a punshiment game or whatever. Seto was spineless to the extreme at the start of that story, swept along with Anjou's antics because he lacked the initiative to say 'no', couldn't decipher what her intent was, and after a while honestly began to see her appealing traits while worrying that he was still too much of a worthless leech to actually have anything to offer her. It was only in the last few volumes that he's found the confidence to understand what she sees in him and also actually stand up for himself and more importantly her.
The hope would be that he gets over this to some degree in short order so they can move on to other bits of drama or conflict, but that's not guaranteed and the thickness with which they laid on all the tropey, cliche-riddled standard school rom-com bits is a bit of a red flag that we might not get there. But I guess for as much as this chapter put me off the series it might deserve a couple more entries to see if they can't right the ship.
