@Vidmastereon @PurpCat @ChristiJunior @Soma It's the parasite version of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". When they couldn't co-opt Japan, they sought to contain it. Having repeatedly failed to contain it, they sought to "join" it by "assisting" in distribution, something Japan has always been weak to in accessing overseas markets (mainly because they didn't care; the Japanese make things for the Japanese). Having succeeded in gaining control over their distribution and gobbling up any wildcards who might break lockstep, they sought to creep linkages into their creative corps under the guise of helping access the markets they could manipulate data from. So now, full circle, they've returned to the original tactic of trying to co-opt.