seeing news like this really brings me down, no matter what i hate when employees take the hit and i sure hope they can find another job sooner rather than later.
Been there and done that, it is key to manage expectation with both companies AND yourself. Make sure every assignment is very well thought out and planned, try to minimize long meetings by doing more small ones asking stuff like : what was achieved yesterday, what will we achieve today, and do I need help from anyone?.
Make sure to get rest and definitely try to scale your operation and avoid moving work to weekends because it will get out of control very fast. I made the mistake of taking more than i could chew and had to let go one of my clients because I was so tired i couldn't keep the quality of my work just as I wanted to.
This holds true for Japanese companies outside Japan, my wife was working as a developer for TOTO Mexico and they had a lot of personnel rotation because of these differences, mainly the meeting culture, it would often get in the way of the work and people ended up quitting or getting fired. It was however a good experience because of the high quality and standards it kept up with the product.