The heterosexual marriage system is no shock whatsoever and no one really should be all that disappointed in its limited scope. It's important to remember that a large (and I mean LARGE) portion of the gay male community of Japan is in a committed marriage with a woman, because of not-so-publicized cultural factors (that I may or may not have misinterpreted):
1) extra-marital sex is a MUCH more common practice in Japan, for BOTH spouses, and isn't considered quite the marriage-destroyer it is in the west, as sex and love are very often considered in many ways to still be 2 very VERY separate things
2) gays are pressured by their parents to conceive children in a "traditional" family environment and have their "fun on the side", thus basically CONDONING #1
3) many Japanese women will marry a man knowing full well that he's gay and engage in a (mostly) sexless marriage, allowing a win-win situation for her to make a family and dodge the bullet of an arranged marriage or being labeled a spinster and the man dodging suspicion from parents about alternate sexuality by basically having a cover.
I kept my talking points to gay men because this is where I hear this information from, but I imagine that gay women in Japan have similar pressures and safe-guards.
Gay marriage isn't even considered part of Japan's political dialogue and is SO far off the radar as to make it completely impossible for the developers to consider it an option based on their own cultural understanding. Heck, we give people in the US a lot of shit for being backwards in their thinking on the subject of gay rights, but at least it's CONSIDERED and DISCUSSED in North America.
