B.B. King is right on this one. Im used to always seeing at least a rating > 12.5 for Yasujiro...when i see him at 11.5, i know that means he was out classes.
Weak ratings are normal and expected in this match. It was many seasons ago when Japan played in Repechages last time, so You could not know.
It is only competitive match in whole 28-weeks schedule when all players have default game shape = 7. In all other NT games GS is much better (8-9).
Simply put...the salaries on the nt are too small...only 5 salaries over 100k.
There is 6th 100k-ish player however he is SG, so it means he hasn't passing, however he has the best JR of all Japan players. Overall he is weaker than called players (all called guards are PG, I selected players with the best combination of OD+PS).
Here is full list of 36 Japan players with the best salary. 0 players over 200k, only 1 player over 150k, 6 players over 100k and even only 32 players over 50k. I checked all Japan players with salary over 8k and amount of players who can play in NT is very small. And players with worse salary aren't well rounded, so even if I would want to call C with 30k salary and great OD+PS, it's impossible, because they don't exist.
#. LINK AG PO BP SALARY NAME
1. (9632079) 31 9 PF 185 713 Furusawa
2. (9632142) 31 9 PG 123 587 Tagawa
3. (12180094) 29 8 PG 114 438 Eguchi
4. (12180136) 29 10 PG 113 676 Fujii
5. (6927944) 33 8 SG 111 258 Okita
6. (12180073) 29 7 C 107 831 Hayakawa
7. (18297154) 25 8 C 98 578 Takayama
8. (21305788) 23 9 C 91 387 Matsumoto
9. (14003048) 28 8 C 89 525 Sonoda
10. (21305663) 23 8 PG 88 868 Kawagichi
11. (16975268) 26 8 SG 87 695 Saiki
12. (16975286) 26 9 PG 87 539 Honda
13. (11001986) 30 9 SG 85 765 Ochi
14. (9632182) 31 10 SG 84 249 Aida
15. (13597232) 28 8 PG 79 013 Ueda
16. (8205619) 32 8 PG 73 842 Suenami
17. (4834329) 35 7 C 70 897 Kouzuki
18. (19825173) 24 10 C 70 051 Yasujiro
19. (9632159) 31 7 PG 66 570 Kanagaki
20. (18297126) 25 8 SG 65 976 Yokotami
21. (8205684) 33 9 SG 65 114 Hojo
22. (11002005) 30 6 C 62 540 Takizawa
23. (16975227) 26 6 PF 61 815 Shibukji
24. (9632171) 31 7 PG 60 775 Hara
25. (15030531) 27 7 SG 60 410 Umari
26. (21305594) 23 10 PG 60 404 Amori
27. (19990551) 25 9 SG 56 704 Asada
28. (16975188) 26 7 PG 53 533 Okada
29. (15030544) 27 7 SG 51 698 Matsumura
30. (21305793) 23 9 PF 50 963 Wakatsuki
31. (21682903) 24 8 PG 50 453 Akashi
32. (12180123) 30 10 C 50 444 Ochi
33. (11002133) 31 7 SF 49 492 Oishi
34. (20314475) 25 9 PF 48 473 Asano
35. (16975235) 27 9 SG 47 989 Honda
36. (16975255) 26 10 SG 47 797 Mizuno