It's only from a distance that they seem similar, they are in fact extremely different and scholars of pre-Tokugawa (pre1600) Japan will almost never use the term feudal to describe Japan. There certainly was a time when historians did use the same term, but this derives more from the believe of early European historians that societies evolved along a relatively linear route and therefor societies like Japan or Hawaii would be expected to pass through a feudal age similar to Europe. In the case of Japan it was relatively straight forward to to equate the country with an extended feudal age and a rapid evolution to modernity and relative parity with European nations (parity not equality mind you). This way of reading social evolution definitely owes a lot to Marx inspired readings of history that see societies moving through very particular ages.

They can certainly seem similar even to us today- especially at first glance things like chivalry and bushido can appear comparable- but if you start looking at them and thinking about how the operate, they really just aren't the same thing and can't be equated as such.

As for modern understandings of Japan I'll go ahead and plug Wayne Ferris' "Japan to 1600: A Social and Economic History." I hate to say don't buy a book I'm telling you is probably one of the most well regarded recent works- but it's more like a textbook. So it's a synthesis of recent scholarship by one of the top scholars in the field. It definitely fulfills a mission and does so well. That said, I find textbook reading often pretty boring, so I hesitate to say run out and buy it. However, if you can get it at a library, or don't mind buying an e-copy (which just a quick search shows are very cheap for a history book!) then go ahead and check it out.

Just to spoil some of the key differences to answer your question: Knights in Europe could own land, especially if they were themselves a minor noble, and therefor control serfs. However samurai were paid from the land the daimyo controlled -or- especially in earlier times and in the south, worked the land themselves. Samurai were not minor nobility but a class of people unto themselves and part of the social order or class system in Japan. The Confucian ordering of Japan, the philosophical underpinnings, just don't really have a clear equivalent in European society.