According to a chart on Wikipedia, Japan has the fourth lowest intentional homicide rate behind Singapore, Senegal, and Andorra respectively. The rate actually appears to have gone down, from 0.5 (intentional homicides per year per 100,000 inhabitants) in the year 2000, to .44 most recently. America, on the other hand, is in 95th place on that chart with a rate of 5.4, and behind a slew of countries that are supposedly "evil-doers."
List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia