You're both kind of right. Best bet when you see this kind of message is to use a Proxy server. I used to have to do that in Australia, then we loosened up. I will say that Japan has not been a problem, but Asia has been, so there are some very large "blocks" of IP addy's in those areas . . . Sorry
We do have certain blocks on locations. I don't believe Japan is on the list. However we have had an increase of spammers recently and certain blocks were put in place, it may have affected certain areas of Japan.