Had never heard of this before but saw it as a throwaway reference in an old story. In Japan they are apparently known as Komanezumi (spinning top mouse) or Mainezumi (dancing mouse) and said to come from China.
Hey Paul, nice to see on you HN. How likely do you think it is that China is the origin of the mice? Doubly so these mice being brought over during the closed country policy of Japan era.
The mice seem to have become popular around 1890, so that was after Japan had opened up. No idea if the mice actually came from Japan or China though, haven't been able to find much of anything about them that isn't in the linked article.
I remember a genetics exercise in high school biology that involved "running mice" and "waltzing mice" with a recessive gene selecting for the "waltzing" trait.
Unfortunately it might be a case of (no relation, just coincidence) since the article is marked as communicated in 1925 (from a LSU affiliation) while William H Gates II was born in Washington in 1925 according to his wiki page. There are further publications from "WH Gates" an LSU affiliation going into the 1930s.
https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E7%8B%AC%E6%A5%BD%E9%BC%A... https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E8%88%9E%E9%BC%A0/