if the story you're talking about is the Japanese folktale the aged mother. yes there are similarities, example is on how Filipinos' and Japanese value their mother and will do anything just for them to stay safe and as counterpart even though the mother knows what his son is gonna do, she still picked twigs and threw it behind them as them walk deeper in the woods for his son to follow back home, this shows how the unselfishness of the mother that is both present in Filipinos and Japanese.