Why Japanese Web Design Is (Still) the Way It Is
info.moravia.com
info.moravia.com
The entire thing is massive, it's full of tons of stuff that you wouldn't find American corps even bothering to put up there. There are tons of articles, facts, diagrams, fan sites, historical information, photos. At one point they had games with little virtual cities. So many cool, and fun things.
The US site is nothing but marketing. It's so boring, I never even bother going to it. There's no hidden stuff, nothing interesting, just a very sales-centric site. It's like anything that doesn't directly make money isn't bothered with... while the Japanese developers are having fun putting together cool things.
Another thing that you don't see as often anymore, that most Japanese sites have, is a site map.
Crooter: "I have a position open at Foobarco that I think you'd be a great fit for, be sure and have a look at their web site."
le me, goes to Foobarco's web site
"Foobarco's solutions can help raise your company's metrics while minimizing costs."
later
Crooter (calling back): "So how do you feel about Foobarco? Do you think you want to move forward on that?"
Me: "I don't know what they do exactly."
Crooter: "Did you look at their web site like I asked?"
http://www.starbucks.co.jp/ vs https://www.starbucks.com/
http://www.toyota-ej.co.jp/index_top.html vs https://www.toyota.com/
Personally, I prefer the American versions of these websites. That may be biased, however, since my command of Japanese is limited, which impacts my ability to navigate the sites.