Doesn't corporate Japan need activist shareholders to get active?

I have mentioned in a previous post, that activist shareholders in Japan were on the rise between 2004 and 2008. It failed miserably.

What do activist shareholders do, when they target a company?
"Real activists" target companies that have a sluggish operational performance, but where the activist sees great potential for the firm by restructuring the company. Usually, the activist buys into the company big time. The intention is to get a seat on the board of the company and than actively pushing through a restructuring of operations, with the intention to get the company back on track (turnaround of operations into profitability), with the intention to sell its stake in the future with a gain.

But there is a second type of "activist" shareholders. In general they are not "real activists", but rather portfolio investors. They haven't got the intention to get a seat on the board of a company, but do try to influence payout policy of a company, e.g. maximize profit distribution to shareholders. They target companies, where operational performance is good, but that hold excess cash. To improve capital efficency, they "pressure" management of those firms to pay- out what they deem excess cash holdings in form of dividends and/ or stock repurchases.

As far as I am concerned, due to ristricted pocket money, I am in the latter camp.

What is strange in Japan at the moment is, that I don't see a lot of activist shareholders of any type in my japanese holdings, but payout policy by the companies do indicate a change of mindset in management, tilding towards shareholder friendly profit distribution.

Here are some examples:

Company 1;