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Based on everything I know about Japanese culture, amplified by what I've seen in regards to Johjima, I have to side 100% with Taro on this one.  I don't think anything remotely like Doc's "don't blink" scenario happened.  Why?
Japan is *NOT* all about greed and money.  It is about FACE.  The weight of doing things "the right way", (based on Japanese custom and decorum) is vastly more important than in America, where "do you own thing" is not simply allowed, but is nearly a cultural imperative.
From what I've read, the extension Joh signed had a $0 opt-out clause.  He can walk anytime to return to Japan.  He *SIGNED* that contract.  So, at the time he agreed to accept the $24 million for the next three years, he ALSO agreed that if he wanted to head home, he could, WITHOUT STRINGS.
It is a purely American contrivance to approach (and view) every situation as one where you're calculating the leverage and odds of making an extra buck FOR DOING NO WORK.  Oh, yes, I'm certain that any agent is going to look at the situation that way.  But, I don't for a minute think that the majority of Japanese players would -- and this one in particular, absolutely not. 
The same thing that made Joh's stay in America a bit bumpy is what made his return home so smooth.  He has a completely different world view than your average American.  Family, honor, integrity ... these are not just words to him ... they are a CODE.  If he signed a contract that says he can walk away without any extra money, then it would be ... unseemly and a great disrespect to the organization to decide to leave and THEN ask for some extra traveling cash.  If he wanted it to be a buyout, then it should have been a buyout WHEN HE SIGNED THE CONTRACT.
I think it is a sad comment on America, (and I really don't mean to bash the Doc here), that we have come to expect and accept that it is perfectly fine and standard operating procedure for athletes to sign contracts and then whine and moan and do everything possible to break them.  I remember some people painting Michael Jordan as an idiot for not DEMANDING the Bulls renogiate his contract when salaries escalated and his contract was a relative joke.  And his response was, "I signed the contract, so I'm going to honor it."
But, ultimately, the best argument for Doc's scenario never happening is Doc's own position that HE would never have done it.  In point of fact, if any GM on the planet got offered a $2 million for $16 million walk-away and turned it down, they would be excoriated for the idiocy of the decision.  In point of fact, while Doc suggests in the scenario that this would make Z "brave" (or something), IMO, it would make him a complete and total moron *AND* would make him the worst kind of penny pinching Scrooge of a GM, without a single shred of human decency in regards to how he treated a player who did nothing buy give his best to the team during his stay.
I certainly HOPE that Doc's scenario didn't happen.  If it did, the club has a moron for a GM who is so out of touch with monetary reason that there is no way the club won't be doomed to suffer an even worse fate than it did under Bavasi.  I think not.