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I'm moving to the Tokyo area in a few days, and would like to start getting into Infinity. If all I can do is collect and paint figures that's fine, but it would be ideal if I could learn how to play the game. Does anyone know how big the game is over there? Do you know a good distributor to Asian countries or if the game is big over there?

I dunno if there's anyone on Dakka that plays in that region. Have you tried the official forums as well?

The game had its fans in Korea when I was there, a fair ex-pat community as well as some locals - although realise that it might be quite different 'across the pond' as it were.

I know of one person who plays there, but unfortunately, he doesn't live in Tokyo.
He has the same issue. Finding players.

I'd speculate that the thing that draws some western players to Infinity - the anime aesthetic, is not what would appeal to Japanese players as it is a commonplace feature of their everyday lives.

Possibly.. although you know that the aesthetic is popular in Japan (Korea, China also).

Isn't there the chance that it will appeal to the core demographic, rather than those who like more foreign styles?

I made a post some years ago (on a GW forum) about why GW should try and expand into South Korea (and possibly China) as it is a massive untapped market. Of course that company is so risk-averse now that it would never gamble on such a thing, but there is no reason a company like CB couldn't succeed. Having lived in the country, and spoken to Koreans (who agreed) elements of this might also apply in other areas of Northern asia. So far I think it is the cultural, but also most importantly the business disconnect which is still quite strong that has prevented it from happening.
- Most importantly, massive amount of disposable income. Reason LG, Samsung and other Korean companies release so much technology (and 75% of it never appears outside domestic markets) - very low taxation combined with high earning rates, average working families have a lot of money to spend and a large chunk of it goes on leisure items.
- Kids, and young adults, are really into collectable things. Think of the Pokemon craze in the UK, or anything similar, and multiply it. Every kid is collecting Yu-Gi-Oh, or whatever other card game is popular at the time. Small toys/miniatures and collectibles are extremely popular too. It's more of an observation as well, but the kids there seem to have more of an attention span than those over here which would lend itself to this kind of thing..
- Strong supply and delivery chains. Much more focused than in Europe definitely, not sure about the US, but if a gaming company 'got in' with one of the department stores (perhaps the wrong word for it - Lotte/Hyundai stores are like Walmarts/Asda but that sell everything in 15-story buildings) you would have an immediate country-wide network of sellers. There are plenty of other smaller examples.
- The culture has a thing for 'small and detailed' things, Infinity is arguably the top candidate for this. And you don't have piles and piles of stuff (Alpharius excluded ) that needs to be stored.

I meant to offer CB one day if they wanted help translating to Korean - they seem a very forward thinking company, so why not one day? Korea, maybe Japan and China too, are ripe for a miniatures company to try and expand into one day.