About half the porn I watch is American, while the other half is JAV. They are opposite in virtually every way, except for the basic premise of hardcore sex. Almost everything I like about one, I dislike about the other. Certain things I dislike about both.
JAV PROS -
1. They do a better job with clothing, hair and makeup by far than American porn. Not overdone. Nice hairstyles. Real world sexy clothing instead of thongs and 5 inch heals. Their women are attractive in a believable, non cheesy way.
2. Fewer implants and obvious work done.
3. No tattoos on basically any of their women. Maria Ozawa finally got one tat. I think it's the only one I've ever seen in JAV.
4. They take the time to build up scenes and tease the viewer.
5. Their sex scenes don't follow a laundry list of check the box positions and activities. The scenes vary a lot. In one, it might just be BJ. In another, it might just be fondling. The content of the sex scenes actually relates to the story lines, which they take more seriously than we do.
6. The acting, especially the women, is better than American porn.
JAV CONS
1. While it's nice that they like to draw things like clothing removal out to tease the viewer, some things get drawn out too long. You might be treated to 10 minutes straight of breast play in one scene, three minutes of just watching the guy suck her nipples. There has to be a happy medium between the American concept of rushing to the ultimate acts as fast as possible and the sometimes plodding nature of JAV scenes.
2. The clothing is great, but pantyhose? I think in the US we think of pantyhose as something our moms used to wear. Japanese men obviously have a huge fetish for them.
3. Vibrators? Boring. Virtually every movie has a least one lengthy vibrator scene.
4. Pissing and other odd fetishes are mainstream, and so they occur not just in fetish themed movies, but all the time, and when you don't expect it. If you're into watching a chick piss, there should be themed movies for that. It shouldn't be in every third porno movie with no warning.
5. Virtually no anal sex ever. I like to watch anal.
6. Small dicks. I like to watch chicks being fucked by guys with big dicks.
7. Genitalia is censored/blurred. Awful.
8. It's in Japanese and I can't understand the dialogue. This is a problem because their porn is more story and dialogue oriented.
9. JAV focuses a lot on breasts, while American focuses more on ass. I like both but generally prefer ass.
For American porn, just invert everything above. The pros are cons and the cons are pros.
The camera work is a little better in JAV, but honestly, it sucks in both.