I agree that most Japanese have pretty low English fluency. But, the part about that that rings true is that sometimes there's a quiet Japanese person who could speak very good English, but chooses not to speak at all because they're embarrassed that their English isn't perfect. Compare that to something like Italy, where people are eager to try out their broken English on you, and don't care that they forgot most of what they learned.

One memory I have of something like this was standing in front of a map in a Tokyo metro station, trying to figure out how to get from where I was to somewhere else in the city. This was in the days before Google Maps, etc. I'd probably been staring at the map for 5 minutes, and hundreds of people had walked past me, then suddenly out of nowhere a young woman appeared next to me and asked me in very clear (but accented) English if I needed any help.

Something about that situation made me think it wasn't just someone walking by and casually saying "oh hey, need some help?" Instead, it felt like someone who had been watching me for a bit and had taken some time to practice the phrase she was going to use until she felt confident that she had it right, then she approached.