Did Japan invent the Toyota Prius?
No. As you yourself said in your question, it’s the Toyota Prius. Not the Japan Prius. If Japan had invented it, then you would probably be seeing virtually identical hybrid cars from Honda too; but their hybrid system is very different than Toyota’s. Edit: To the person that said “The Japanese own the Toyota car company” — no. Toyota is a publicly traded company; anyone in the world can buy shares of Toyota, and they are traded in many stock markets around the world (not just Japan).