I started a new trend to myself. I am importing videogames from Japan, if they are not available for my video game consoles or I cannot wait for the date of release in EU.
I play(ed) JP-imports:
Fire Emblem 12 Heroes of Light and Shadow
Tales of Vesperia
Kirby's Triple Deluxe
My experiences are different:
Kirby's Triple Deluxe is a platformer without a huge plot, so it is easy to play without knowlegde of JP. I haven't finished it yet, but it is not hard.
FE12 was not too bad either. The menu was easy to understand, because I played the prequel. The symbols of the weapons and items and the numbers helped me a lot. However I had to watch a LP to manage the spheres and recruit all the characters.
Tales of Vesperia came out in 2009 worldwide for the XBox360. But I don't own a XBox so I imported a copy for PS3. The "Tales"-games are JRPGs, so it is impossible to play them without knowledge about the story and battlesystem. I always have to watch a LP of ToV first so that I know, what I have to do. It's pretty laborious, but it is the only way to do it. The main point is that you have fun with this game! And this game is really fun, even if I cannot understand some parts of the story.
So your experiences of imported videogames from Japan interest me and how do you manage the Japanese language.