I'm an Aussie (rules were made to be broken) but I'd never try to dictate what anyone wore. Having said that, in this lady's case, she certainly had the right to remove 'miss spiteful' from her special day.
This is the first I've heard of this happening in Japan. Usually the stories that hit the headlines are about Aussie tourists behaving badly/disrespectfully in Japan and the over crowding of sites sacred and others.
For this old bird, the best place to celebrate New Year's is with family and friends. And as far away from any city, especially those with environmental vandalism fireworks (controversial I know).
I remember seeing people (on the news) having a punch up in Woolies over a packet of toilet rolls. I have no idea what was going through their heads. I just hope they were not representative of the general population.
My little brother was a very precocious child and at about 12 he answered the phone with "Murphy's Brothel, Murphy speaking". The response he got was "Senior Sargent ****, put your father on, smart arse".