Is this a myth about Japan? From the book Guns, Germs, and Steel

[Fenster]

If you live in Japan, or have been there, can you verify this with a source? I can't find one.

It's from the wildly popular book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond:

The Japanese are fanatics for fresh food. A container of milk in a U.S. supermarket bears only one date: the expiration date. When my wife and I visited a Tokyo supermarket with one of my wife’s Japanese cousins, we were surprised to discover that in Japan a milk container bears three dates: the date the milk was manufactured, the date it arrived at the supermarket, and the expiration date. Milk production in Japan always starts at one minute past midnight, so that the milk that goes to market in the morning can be labeled as today’s milk. If the milk were produced at 11:59 P.M., the date on the container would have to indicate that the milk was made yesterday, and no Japanese consumer would buy it.

Is it any substance to this what so ever? That milk is normally (or even sometimes) bought less than 24 hours after the cow has been milked?

[RadioKid]

There can be three kind of dates indicated on the package of milk (in Japan).
I have never seen the product with product time.

1) date of production : not milked but processed date
2) date of limit for best by (before opening the package) : less than 3 months from production date
3) date of limit for consumption (before opening the package) : less than 5 days from production date

Refer to Expiry dates | The Japan Times for details.

One of Japanese milk vendor stated that they indicate 2) for high temperature sterilization or indicate 3) for low temperature sterilization.

賞味期限と消費期限 - 東毛酪農業協同組合 (in Japanese)

As the common sense in Japan, we usually buy high temperature sterilized milk and consume within two or three days after opening the package.