Fun fact: Japanese tech tree hasn’t received a single new tank since September 2015. Not even a single premium tank.

I just find it pretty amusing that a tech tree that has been in the game for over 8 years now still only has two lines, only one tier 8 premium (every nation has at least two), and hasn't received a single new tank since patch 9.10. The patch added the Japanese HT line, and it was released in September 2015…which is 6.5 years ago. If you want to be very nit-picky, Valkyrie Chronicles tanks were added in late 2016, but those are server-locked and aren't even "true" Japanese tanks. And even if you count them in, there's STILL a 5 year gap of not a single Japanese tank added, which is still the longest of any nation. By far. Every other nation other than Japan received at least one new premium tank in 2021.

Polish tech tree of all things now has more tanks tech tree than the Japanese tech tree. Japan still has overall slightly more tanks, as they have a few lower tier vehicles that became collector's vehicles, but on actual tech tree, Japan has less. Assuming Czechoslovakian TD line is actually planned (while likely due to the new premium), the Czechoslovakian tech tree will likely outnumber Japanese tech tree even with the collector tanks counted in. Funnily enough, unless WG's PC department suddenly releases a Japanese TD line or something within 2-3 months, Blitz will actually have a bigger Japanese tech tree than PC. In case you didn't know, Blitz is getting a tier 5-10 Japanese HT line later this year, which is completely different to one we have, and before you ask, yes, entire line apart from one tank (Chi-Se, which even then is like 90% fake as it is on Blitz) is just as fake as the WT E 100.

And it's not like Japan is out of new tanks to add – no, far from it, actually. Not just one, but two TD lines is possible and a LT line is also possible. That alone is 3 new, unique tech trees with (mostly) historical vehicles, so this is without even considering less historical stuff, which is what WG has been doing for the most lines past few years. Thanks to Blitz, a 2nd HT line is possible, and WG's "dark magic" makes it for just about anything to be possible.

Sure, I get that Japanese archives are a pain to research, which would be a valid excuse…until you realize that Blitz already has the Japanese TDs, and work was also done for the Japanese TDs for PC as early as 2015-2016. One could also argue that the Japanese TDs on Blitz are "not interesting", but even that isn't a valid excuse. You still have other Japanese TDs to choose from, like the Type 60 SPRG, which is small and has multiple 106 mm recoilless rifles. A small TD with multiple guns sounds completely different from…anything else, and sounds like a perfect candidate to slap gimmicks in. Even the "less unique" Ho-Ris from Blitz could be easily altered to be far more unique, by either giving them wackier stats to make them stand out more, or some kind of unique mechanic. And again, the possibility of making fake tanks to fulfill any role makes any of this irrelevant, anyway.

I just find it very odd how Japanese tech tree hasn't received a single new tank in such a long time. Not even a single tier 8 premium. As someone who's favorite tech tree in-game is Japan, realizing that it hasn't gotten a new tank in so long is…extremely sad, not gonna lie. The extremely questionable balancing of the Japanese HT line doesn't help, either. The changes done to the Japanese heavies have almost always ignored their core issues (poorly designed armor layout and shit AP guns), as most of the changes have either been lazy or just outright terrible (remember that someone thought the old Type 5 derp gun was a good idea). We're now left with a massive carcrash of a HT line that serves almost no purpose whatsoever in the current meta, so Japan might as well have just one line instead of two.

I guess there's the fact that the Japanese WoT community is pretty small, so WG thinks that introducing new Japanese tank(s) isn't worth it at all from the marketing perspective. But still, there's no way it's such a big deal that WG has avoided adding even premium Japanese vehicles that make them money for last 6.5 years. At this point, I'd be happy even with an O-Ho copypasted as a tier 8 premium or something. Sure, it would be completely useless, but at least I could happily say that WG has finally added a new Japanese tank after several years.

Thoughts?