Not a good apology but it is a start. Many more peoples around the world they owe a apology. They do really need to teach their peoples about their war.

Some nations at end of WW2 wanted the Emperor hanged, there were quite a few War Crime trails involving Imperial Japanese personnel after WW2 and a quite a few Japanese were hung. It did not receive anywhere near the amount of publicity as the Nuremberg trails.
You were right about MacArthur he was like a warlord who took control of the nation his and other nations troops defeated. The Japanese at the time accepted this. When MacArthur was removed Japanese people lined the streets waving him off, like he was akin to a emperor. It did help that Gen MacArthur had his own propaganda machine geared up just for him.