It is very rare. Only a few specialty stores in electronic and gaming centers like Akihabara handle imports.  Most are the Asian Versions (NTSC-J for Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) since they are usually released at the same time as European and American versions.  This is done to help reduce the circulation of pirated copies.  The Japanese version of overseas games however usually come out much later after the American and European ones. Sometimes after half a year or more.  The original GoW came out here in Feb., not Nov. It is really lame for the Japanese consumer and it is one of the reasons the X-BOX has not done so well. Another problem is the lack of marketing late games get.

It is very rare. Only a few specialty stores in electronic and gaming centers like Akihabara handle imports.  Most are the Asian Versions (NTSC-J for Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) since they are usually released at the same time as European and American versions.  This is done to help reduce the circulation of pirated copies.  The Japanese version of overseas games however usually come out much later after the American and European ones. Sometimes after half a year or more.  The original GoW came out here in Feb., not Nov. It is really lame for the Japanese consumer and it is one of the reasons the X-BOX has not done so well. Another problem is the lack of marketing late games get.

So Gears 2 was marketed in Japan, even though it was banned and not supposed to be sold there?

That pretty much begs the question: why the hell was Gears of War 2 banned in Japan in the first place?  They shouldn't have a problem with the violence since the Japanese are accepting of violence as long as it doesn't involve decapitations.

Gears 2 has decapitations.