I agree with your objection to "magical." There are a lot of wholesalers and distributors that frantically promote such a viewpoint of Japanese tools. It is lies to put money in their pockets. No one who makes a living with such tools believes a word of it. You would be wise to label anyone who promotes such a dishonest fanciful viewpoint as a crook (aka "marketing genius").
There is a lot of hype in Japan too. But there is a difference. Japanese people have been obsessed with sharp cutting tools for centuries. It is a part of the national memory. The Brits have the Tower and the Crown Jewels. The Americans have the Liberty bell and Declaration of Independence. The French have the Louvre and Versailles. The Japanese have an ancient sword (Kusanagi) as a national regalia (although it has never been seen in public and may not even exist anymore). Sharp things matter greatly in Japan.
Ask any sushi chef in Tokyo whether or not the cutting ability of his knives make a difference in the flavor of his foods. Ask any temple carpenter if the cutting ability and durability of finishing plane's blade has any impact on the quality of his work. These people complain like harpies and return tools as defective that do not meet their expectations. Not so much in the West. Western manufacturers are focused on making a usable (tool-like?) product, with a statistically-acceptable number of defects, at a price their customers will pay. The result has been lowered expectations and debased quality from what it once was in the the West. Americans nowadays place highest priority on large volume at low cost, and do not angrily complain and demand refunds and badmouth low quality tools.
It wasn't always this way in America.
I am afraid the scrap metal from Nash Ramblers and Edsels turned red and went away long ago!
I understand from direct contacts with the manufacturers of high-quality tool steel in Japan that they put some carefully-sorted scrap from known sources into the pot, not cubed cars from Mexican junkyards. There is a lot of chemical testing of scrap
before it goes into the pot, which is unusual in the steel world. The majority is Swedish pig-iron (ingots), I am told.
The thing about manufacturing steel is that, like most things, steel makers simply make the steel that their customer wants at the price point they will pay. Those buyers in turn sell to others, and down the line until it ends up in our hands. I hope Larry Frank chimes in and shares his professional expertise on the subject with us, even though he dislikes HC steel.
When making steel, one can easily
add chemicals to the pot (cost issues are not irrelevant, of course), but it is expensive to
remove or eliminate many chemicals. So if the metal in the pot starts out with too much phosphorus, for example, one can add the chemicals and control the temperatures and do the careful mixing that will remove Phosphorus, but this costs money and brain damage. More efficient to start with a pot of purer steel. Ergo Swedish steel and carefully selected scrap.
But the demand for high-quality HC tool steel is relatively low. A common complaint blacksmiths here in Japan frequently make is that Hitachi can't or won't supply the high-quality steel they want anymore. White Paper and Blue Paper steel are prime examples. Demand is too low to make a pot every month, I am told.
BTW, something I have observed on this and other forums that is very different from Japan, and I think highlights an interesting difference between the US and Japan in consumer products like tools and washing machines and automobiles. If someone complains about a poor-quality product on a US forum, he is soon silenced by the moderators. I assume this is because the forums are dependent on funding from retailers and wholesalers. Complaints, true or not, are not tolerated for long. In any case, Americans tend to think "that's just his opinion," ignore the complaint, and mind their business. Japan, however, is a very homogenous society, where people think alike. The Herd. People talk and people listen. A bad reputation quickly spreads and is fatal. Lawyers, courts, PR consultants, and conflicted moderators have no control over public opinion. Companies are therefore very careful of their reputation and take complaints very very seriously. This is the forge in which the Japanese automobile manufacturing industry was hammered. Not so the US, as anyone over 50 years of age will differentiate.