Quote Originally Posted by Kei_Shugojin
Well, going by geographic definitions, Japan is an eastern nation, because it is in what has been designated the "eastern" hemisphere. That is, it is on the other side of the international date line.
Before writing this, think whether Australia and New Zealand are Western nations or not. If you are not sure where they are located geographically, let me remind you that Japan's longitude fits exactly in the middle of Australia.

As for the international date line, you must be kidding right ? All the world id somewhere between GMT+12 and GMT-12. You didn't mean that the separation is GMT 0 (=Greenwich, East London), otherwise most of the UK, Portugal, Spain (without Catalonia) and the West of France would be Western, while the rest of Europe would be Eastern, which is ridiculous.