Koreans have pushed back over the years, and it's much more reasonable now. It was a "trend" at one point, and now that the phase is over, the work-life balance is more favorable. I'm not sure what the situation looks like in Japan, but based on my experience living in Asia, China seems to be lagging behind Korean work culture -- so they will catch the 996 trend for short-lived amount of time, and then it will also normalize again as workers protest and the ill-effects become known.
Working as an engineer in a traditional japanese tech company(大企業), I can say that 996 is not a norm here. In fact at my workplace, working on two consecutive weekends is prohibited. A significant fraction follow 995 though.
