Japan has something of it's own game renaissance going on (some games make it big in the West), but space is a major consideration there. So almost all Japanese games are very compact (often, but not exclusively, card based)
Yes, some designers like Pawn and Seiji Kanai keep working mostly in that small-box style (not unlike lots of NA/EU designers), but e.g. Hisashi Hayashi's or Yasushi Kuroda's games weren't small "because of Japan", they were small because they didn't have money to make big ones!