Name: Anonymous 2007-10-11 14:02
My main gripe is the lack of efficient distribution of Japanese goods, leading to an increased bootleg market much like US movies in China. Games, game sountracks, anime, anime soundtracks, manga, adult manga. Most of it is copied freely on the internet when someone could put it on store shelves, but even then, many fans rely on getting their goods for free and wouldn't pay for them if they had to. So you have a reverse economy where goods are traded based on kilobytes and not actual dollars. And the goods that are brought over are usually butchered beyond recognition, so a large number of fans stay away anyway and go straight to the source. Perhaps downloadable content with a small fee is the way to do it in the future, but that admits a certain percentage will be shared for free and you just have to deal with it. This is the plight of US comic and video game companies that want to distribute online but will have a large number of their goods pirated. Then again, there are Japanese sites like DLsite with a good number of US customers willing to buy adult games and manga, so perhaps the lure of wanking is enough to offset the cost. Until someone puts it on a CD and sells it on ebay for 2.00.