Earlier quoted context omitted.
Karoushi incidents are national news and are rare (although overwork is common, for reasons that are too much to get into in this post). These also happen in Korea and other parts of Asia; more so than Japan now, possibly. I'm breath taken by the casual disregard for life that you imply the Japanese have.
It reads like overdramatized amateur fiction.
During the 3/11 earthquake, I was shocked and appalled by the stupidity of one of my co-workers who went on coding as normal while the building shook. (It was experienced as a Shindo 6 earthquake in Yokohama, so it was quite strong - I never ever experienced anything like it in my life). He probably saw it as macho, but it was dangerous - other people then were confused as what to do. He eventually left the company for not being very competent. (Good riddance.)
For every person like him, there were 50-100 people on the staff who were shocked, shaking, crying or scared. I find they reacted pretty much as I'd expect people in any school in Canada would have reacted. It certainly was more-or-less how we reacted when one of our class fellows put an end to his life.
I find it distasteful that people fetishise another group of people (especially people with the same capitalist democratic strain of lifestyle) to the extent that they basically superhuman or inhuman.