Not the best expert here, but my opinion on Japan's military and industry is that it's more likely on par with Italy; it's early successes OTL are primarily due to being up against either very weak Chinese armies or weakened colonial troops alo Southeast Asia - think how *well* Italy did against Abyssinia and how much German help they needed in North Africa. State indoctrination probably did the rest in maki the individual Japanese soldier "fierce".
I wouldn't go so far as to say ITALY, but they weren't on average very well equipped, and lacked tanks and proper mechanized support. The IJA I'd say suffered from being mostly light infantry, which made them brilliant for allot of the warfare early on in heavily forested southeast Asia and Malaya, but not so hot once they were made to face highly mechanized western and soviet soldiers later on in the war. The IJN however I'd say was top notch for the time.
As for the actual question, I don't imagine there was anything that could have stopped the Soviets from pushing the Germans back, they did almost as horribly as humanly possible in he early stages of the war OTL, but operation Typhoon was still doomed then. At worst, the Soviet Troops that are still in the area well push them back with their Armour, and defend Vladivostok, at best , the Japanese get to stand around freezing their arses off occupying Eastern Siberia with very little to show for it, get ignored, then get rolled over by Soviet Tanks once Germany is dealt with. The first problem is that Japan is already vastly overextended and bogged down in China, the second problem is that the Japanese couldn't really deal with any real mechanized forces or heavy armour, and the third problem is that they really can't effect the war in a detrimental way it their all the way over on the pacific coast. Of course, under normal circumstances? certainly! but when all of Ukraine, Belarus, and a fair chuck half of European Russia under occupation, with Moscow and Leningrad under siege? that's a different story. From there, theirs nothing they can really do, no way in hell well logistics allow for them to come up behind them, even if they wouldn't be torn to pieces by Soviet infantry and partisans, and even if they were to somehow not all just freeze to death on the march.