I am from southeast asia. Thai rice is lovely. But for dishes where I need the rice to be more "soft" and "sticky" without being mushy, japanese rice is wonderful. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. Import taxes makes japanese rice cost almost 4x or 5x more.
I am from southeast asia. I prefer Thai rice. It is a level of dryness/firmness that is in between japanese rice and indian basmati rice. I like japanese rice for certain dishes because of its taste/starchiness/stickyness, but they're always so expensive at supermarkets because of import tax. I wish japanese rice was cheaper outside of japan. For Indian/Thai style curry, Indian rice works because it helps deal with the spice. For japanese style curry, japanese rice is perfect because japanese curry is so sweet. Japanese say it's spicy, but maybe its my southeast asian tongue, but japanese curry is not spicy at all.