Andy, I phoned GAME, the software shop, yesterday and they seem to think the PSP will arrive in September. If you look on Amazon though, there are different dates than this, but until Sony officially release a date all of this is speculation.
The only difference between the Japanese and the UK one is that the instruction manual is in Japanese. The language of the console can be changed when you initially turn it on, so on mine everything is in English. The games on the otherhand are coded in the country of origins native language ie if you buy a game from Japan, the game will be in Japanese. Unless there is an option in the game to switch languages (this is quite rare at the moment) the game will be in its native language. For text intensive games such as Metal Gear Acid, this can be quite hard going.
Films on the UMD media are region coded like the DVD's we have here (from what I can gather) as Japan and UK use same code, an imported film will work ok to. The same cannot be said for films imported from the USA.
Lastly (this is turning into a bit of an essay!) there is no Japanese branding (unless you consider the SONY logo!) on the PSP.
Good luck if you are importing a PSP, and check he website carefully that you are buying from. Make sure there are no hidden charges. I recently purchased one from www.yesasia.com/? for £198. On top of this I paid £20 pounds for 'express delivery' (3 days) and my PSP arrived 7 days later! I have informed the website of this and they are currently trying to repay this. When it was delivered to my door, the courier also handed me a bill for £50 for import tax. From browsing this site, lots of people have paid less some have paid more, a lot depends on where your getting it from and what deals are around at the time. Hope this helps.
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