I have three custom sticks using Japanese parts and they are great, there is a reason I paid a lot of money to get them over the years. I have just found for my personal preference I like the American style. I'm a firm believer that if you are a good player Japanes vs American shouldn't matter, I have seen top level players at different tournaments playing with shitty no name sticks with whatever knock offs were in there. Looks at Tomo, LAakuma, Alex Valle and those guys back in the day, they could vream any current players using old beat up parts on whatever they were given.
There is no type that is superior to the other, it is ALL a matter of preference. I went to a lot of tournaments all over the country and all you have to do was watch a MVC2 tourny and you never say Japanese parts.
You're right, it is about preference. I think Tomo still uses American style parts, but Jeff & Alex have both switched to Japanese parts because they both feel their execution is better with them. As for MVC2, I think there are some benefits in that game with the American stick going back to neutral quicker. Marvel has pretty much always been played competitively more by Americans anyway. The one clear advantage Japanese parts have is with charge characters, with a square gate at least.
