Japan understood what had happened the day the Great White Fleet showed up. Europeans were a little slow to understand but THEY KNEW ~ and within a few years had gotten rid of the Shogun, the organized clans of samurai and everything else that stood in the way of modernization and industrialization.
Well . . . that really has nothing to do with my observations about Imperial Germany not being quite the innocent little lamb, but thanks anyway.
BTW--the "Great White Fleet" was in 1907, not 1853.