Japanese Studies Leuven

That partnership between content provider and consumer is exactly what's missing in the Western world's debate over intellectual property, where movie studios and record labels talk about their customers as potential criminals. In Asia, media companies have a much closer and more interactive relationship with fans, treating them as partners in evangelizing their products -- even when that means blurring the lines of copyright restrictions. Kai-Ming Cha, manga editor of Publishers Weekly, notes that Japan's media industry has "developed a detente" with fans. She points to the example of doujinshi -- amateur "homage" publications that depict popular anime and manga characters in original, sometimes pornographic storylines. "They realize these unauthorized spinoffs help to build the fandom, and ultimately drive sales of the original," she says.

The opening was overshadowed partly by transport minister Seiji Maehara's recent comments that the government wants to turn Tokyo's Haneda airport into an international hub.