Japanese IP laws are no more strict than other major blocs due to trade agreements. Nintendo has never “lost out on licensing” due to IP laws. Beginning in tbe 1980s, they have been extremely and aggressively litigious as a matter of company policy. They literally see everything they produce as theirs… you don’t own the things you buy from them. You pay them for the enjoyment of using their things. They’re about as hardcore neoliberal as it gets. In other words, they seem evil because they are evil.