I don't think anyone leaped out in front of the others, but Fuji did something very smart, which was to introduce its top models before the others. That gave the name prestige. As @
repechage says, it depends on locale. I lived in NYC and spent a lot of time in Boston. I believe Fujis were imported by a Boston company.
I started working at a bike shop in NYC in 1978. At the bottom end of "good bikes," we pushed the Peugeot UO-8, UO-9, and UO-10 and some Raleigh bikes. If you wanted something above that, we recommended the Fuji S10-S. We had some Panasonic bikes, too. For us, the Fuji bikes had the lowest defect rate of any brand, by far. They were a joy to assemble. The Raleighs and Peugeots often had problems. NYC is an unusual place where brand loyalty matters less than elsewhere. We didn't have to carry Schwinn. Some people thought that a Panasonic bicycle was weird, but when we assured them that they were very high quality, they took our word for it, and rightly so.
In the 70s and 80s, in every industry that Japan was in, they didn't try to make the very finest product. Their strategy was to give the finest product
at a given price point. And it was an excellent strategy. This is probably why Nikon cameras were regarded so well.