Thanks for the good news. Japan has been indifferent to Christianity for a long, long time. I wonder if it's real, or just a Japanese cultural fad, like Japanese KFC Christmas.
Wife is japanese - and while the shogunate definitely clamped down for hundreds of years, since the end of WWII it’s been growing. It’s showing up in mainstream cultural streams (TV, movies, novels more and more - I see more foreign shows then US in my home right now). There is some faddishness that shows up periodically, but that is often seen for even the older mainstays of buddhism and shintoism. The thing I liked about the article most is what it said about the youth.
By the way sorry about the pics that showed up in my post (if you saw them) not sure what I did to make that happen.