In addition to this explanation, I believe Anne exhibits a struggle between "saving face" and "respect for elders" that people in Japan would be familiar with. In chapter 9 of Anne of Green Gables Anne defends her honour at the expense of respect for elders when Mrs. Lynde makes too-frank comments about Anne's looks. In Chapter 10, at Marilla's insistance, Anne apologizes - verbosely and perhaps sarcastically, though the text identifies the apology as a pathological self-abasement on Anne's part.

These chapters are striking enough in the English language world, but in a culture where honour/face and respect for elders are more intense, these chapters must be even more deeply powerful to the reader. And in the middle of the apology, Anne's words pull the reader out of the moment in a jarring way that makes the reader realize Anne has not compromised her commitment to Truth: "What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't have said it." The point of a face-saving apology is to arrive at a tacit social agreement that the Truth is to be ignored and set aside in the interest of social harmony and maintenance of proper social structure. With those words, though, Anne undermines this apology's social function in a peculiar way, and it slides right by Mrs. Lynde.