Let's Talk About Japanese Nationals for a Second

Aside from the lackluster performance and sudden retirement of Tatsuki Machida following the Japanese Nationals last week in Nagano (another good use of a former Olympic venue), the results were unsurprising but for one discipline.

Yuzuru Hanyu trounced the men, cute little Satoko Miyahara won the ladies, and Cathy & Chris Reed won the dance.

However I was surprised to see that only one Japanese pair team competed. In all of Japan, there is ONE, single, senior-level pair team. How can that be? The country has never produced any competitive pair teams, this is true. But it does have a robust skating program, and skating champions are superstars over there. Why is there only one???