Are Japanese cars reliable any more?  

Since the Toyota incident, and other Japanese cars defective report, here is a question pop up my head, are Japanese made autos reliable anymore? The Honda Accord my father purchased on 2002, it has transmission problem, and we ended up brought it back to the dealer had it fixed. Recently in news, Lexus has problem with its acceleration too, a lady complained all of the sudden the car accelerated to 100 miles per hour.
From my impression, Japanese autos are most reliable and durable vehicles. What went wrong with their engineering, and the auto manufacturer? Did anyone hear any similar incidents from other countries complain about it? What about in Japan, do they report the same complaints from the Japanese drivers?