[toyg]

In creative industries the US always had the upper hand economically on pretty much any country you can mention, since WW2. The Japanese creative sector continues to struggle with profiting from exports to this very day, their income is overwhelmingly driven by domestic audiences (which themselves are a fraction of American ones). There is absolutely no chance that a Japanese film company or distributor could ever find the money to sue a major US player, whereas the opposite is very doable.

> I was more thinking about ideas of honor in Japan vs the US

I don't think there is any particular stigma with the concept of suing for plagiarism in Japan, or any higher tolerance for copying, at least since the '90s (in the '80s and earlier, their mindset was definitely different - more similar to modern Chinese attitudes for which ripping off is just a fact of life; but newer generations are less hungry and hence less unscrupolous).