Japan as a model of a nation-wide existential ennui

I had this idea tonight while watching an episode of an Anthony Bourdain show in Tokyo. And I was thinking "man, those people are so weird/that culture is so weird", something like that. Then I remembered something I learned in a class, about how Japan has a population problem: they have too many old people and young people are not having enough kids to replace them. And they are just packed in that little space, with all that formality and weird rituals associated with 'too many people too little space'. They ritualize the care and reverence of the very old. The sexual culture tends to be a little odd, too - not a lot of real intimate contact and plenty of strange perversions, hentai, etc.

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I googled Japanese religion and see that they are on the whole somewhat a-religious, and I thought - that's it. That's what an entire existential culture looks like. A whole bunch of folks who somehow know, down deep in their bones, that life is meaningless.

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I'm a little drunk tonight, forgive the ramble.