I don't know for certain, but I believe he is just referring to the practice of Japanese companies reporting their shares outstanding including treasury shares instead of the US practice of reporting shares outstanding net of any treasury shares the company owns but hasn't yet officially "cancelled."
To get an accurate share count of a Japanese company by the US GAAP understanding you would want to net out any treasury shares (repurchased shares) if the company wasn't reporting share count both ways. Most of these companies, at least in the English filings, are showing the share count both ways and regularly updating their share repurchase activity by press release.
An amusing illustration in the US would be Biglari Holdings which has an official share count (including all GAAP treasury shares the company owns in itself through LP interests) and a GAAP share count that nets out the shares the company owns in itself as treasury shares. It is a big difference in Biglari Holdings' case. Since this is unusual in the US, it causes quite a bit of confusion on what the actual market cap / valuation of the firm is.