This is a significant weakness in Japanese scientific communication and one that the government is trying to turn around. The persistence of research has some downside too. We have seen some anecdotal evidence of a lack of flexibility in research directions. One example is related to dataflow computers. We have also seen this phenomena in the Prolog hangup associated with the 5-th generation project and wonder if the same might not occur in fuzzy logic in due time.
Western researchers seem to have less difficulty changing directions.
Our problem is actually that we sometimes move too fast to a new direction without fully exploiting or understanding an older one. On the other hand we know many Japanese researchers who are very much willing to reorient their work when science, fashion, or budgets change. Research environments in Japan and U.S. are quite different. As noted above, the industrial researchers we met were all young. There seem to be very few career paths in Japanese industry to accommodate senior researchers.