Perhaps but by any objective ranking it's much harder to get a permanent Visa to work in Japan that your average developed nation. I assume south Korea's similar. I don't see either nation has any choice but to accept more migrants as their native populations age.

It’s incredibly easy to get a permanent residence visa in non-authoritarian East Asian countries, especially compared to anywhere in the west.

Asia just isn’t as popular of a destination because of 1) huge language barriers, 2) wages are lower than the west, and 3) visas are contingent upon stable employment, and gaps in employment plus zero tolerance policies towards visa overstays/illegal immigration make that risky to a large proportion of people.

But if you stay at a company or only job hop with offers in-hand, East Asia as a whole is insanely easy to move to, get permanent residence, or even citizenship. Anyone who’s gone through the process, doubly so those who’ve dealt with processes in the west, can readily verify this. The conditions for Japan are literally just: college degree or 10 years experience, job offer, no criminal record. Then stay a few years, don’t have a major criminal record, and you can get citizenship in as little as 5 years with a 95% acceptance rate. Permanent residence is a similar process.

I felt zero obstacles the entire way. It felt like renewing an ID card and nothing more.

Sure, I was including the language barriers and the challenges of getting job offers and maintaining stable employment. I wouldn't consider Australia a country it's particularly easy to get a PR Visa for but if you have any experience at all in high-demand industries (esp. Health care) I gather it's pretty straightforward. My partner moved from Japan exactly on that basis (she didn't have a college degree that was recognized here, and had to do one while she was here, including learning English to a sufficiently proficient level) and seems to think it was far easier than for someone trying to go the other way.