the Japanese response of "fuck it, who cares," has been shown to be much healthier than the German response of repression and denial.

I agree entirely. I think at a time much closer to the incidents you could make claim that the full denial was the wrong way, when the literal victims could look into the eyes of the literal perpetrators. That's something you can put the "bad men" on trial for and decide if you think they deserve to be punished for their actions by a jury of their peers or superior officers in the military (in theory, we know it wouldn't be so clean).

But now its meaningless guilt slinging to be exploited for manipulation. And anyone trying to do anything on that branch is not to be trusted in their intentions.

And the current trajectory of both nations is, as you said, showing the Jap way to be far superior in terms of end result. Maybe our bloodlust for justice and morality might want some of those aforementioned literal perpetrators to suffer, but if the cost of that is the Germany of today then it is not worth it.