I really hope Linux does take off in Japan. I've never heard much about what OS the gov. uses. But there are a few Japanese specific distro's, like Turbo and Plamo. Some of the others, like Redhat and Mandrake support Japanese, but not 100%. All of the businesses I have worked with use Linux servers, and about the only time windows is used in my company is when we are localizing software from American companys. As far as home computers go, Linux is almost unheard of, but Macs are still very popular (a few Macs people in my company use macs as well).
In other news, the competition in the broadband market is insane. Broadband actually costs less then ISDN/dialup because the phone costs are so high.
And yes, the culture is wierd, very wierd.
V