Piper,

If the manufacturing went to Japan, the quality would go up, not down. Name one Japanese made reel that's not of the highest quality. Most of Shimano, Daiwa, Garcia, etc. used to be made in Japan ten years ago, but unfortunately it's no longer the case. Those now made in Japan are the top-quallity reels usually costing upwards of $100.

I just ordered a couple of $115 Daiwa reels, thinking that they were made in Japan. Alas, they're made in Thailand. I just hope that it was designed in Japan. The reason that I like things that are made in Japan is that they have an abundance of engineers. The last I've heard that they have the same number of engineers as we do here in the US, although their population is only half of ours.

A friend of mine who's in semiconductors industry told me that he was shocked that his counterpart engineers in Japan work in teams of several dozens on a chip project while his team consists of less than a dozen to design basically the same stuff.