Comment by thedailymail

Japan was never colonized in the usual sense of the word. I guess the first event you're referring to is Perry's gunboat diplomacy that brought an end to the Tokugawa isolationism, and the second is the occupation post WWII. Neither of these involved the economic exploitation and imposition of total hegemony that typify imperialistic colonization. After all, we don't generally say that the US colonized West Germany after the war.