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I don't know if it is just the smaller market (thus most pages have fewer links going to them) or may be it is just the way Google picks up links.
Any thoughts on English language text links to Japanese language pages?
However for ranking purposes it does not matter that much as the Japanese competition will face the same dilemma.
A link from an English site should have the same effect as any other link from any other language. Though I do not think Google is sophisticated enough to automatically translate the meaning of the (text)link towards the language of the receiving page.