Well, Japanese uses syllabaries.
The Korean alphabet is a better example of an 'independent' alphabet although it was likely influenced by existing alphabets and there is a theory that it was in particular influenced by Tibetan, which would link it to the "alphabet genealogical tree".
I think you may mean it may have been influenced by the Phags-Pa script [1] (which was influenced by Tibetan, but quite different). Which was invented by a Tibetan and used during the Yuan dynasty.
