Hey Everyone on E4! This is my first post. I’m a longtime collector just recently coming in on the internet scene. I have a question that I would like answered by someone who really knows what they’re talking about. Question: Are Japanese cards generally rarer than English ones? For instance, do you think that print runs for Skyridge and Pre-Skyridge cards were far less for Japanese than English? I always see a much lower pop report on psa and far less listings on Ebay for them. Maybe its a popularity thing? I have a strong hunch that Japanese cards are totally undervalued and have been the past few years. Anyway thanks for the read and I hope everyone’s having fun!
Welcome @yaghma 
I guess it’s fair to assume that the overall printruns (1st Ed + unlimited) for English sets are larger than on the Japanese side. The international market is simply bigger than the Japanese market on its own.
However regarding pop reports you’re right, for the longest time there wasn’t much incentive to grade Japanese cards.
I wouldn’t say that they are undervalued though. They have precisely the pricepoint that our open, optimized market determines for them at any given time 
The JP and US second-hand collectors markets are very different. Here, we love to proclaim how valuable our cards are. Others see this and scour their own childhood collection for anything valuable and put it up on eBay. Over in JP it’s much less “cool” to flex the monetization of old cards, it’s sometimes even frowned upon. So people keep them in their collections. Thus, less flippers. And it is a process to get them all the way over here to grade.
So, the answer I’m sure you’ll love to hear - Maybe. English is more realized, JP will trickle into the 2nd-Hand market slowly over time. Still, I think JP is a much better, more stable buy because they never got a much hype. Hope this was useful to you and I hope the more experienced e4ers agree.
Sorry, as a more experienced e4er I have to tell you that Japanese cards are a terrible buy. Nobody should buy them. Stick to English Base unlimited please 
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We don’t really know exact print run numbers, but it’s generally accepted that for all eras Japanese cards have lower print numbers than English cards. Most of what we know for print runs is very relational (i.e. Japanese ex series is the lowest print run, Japanese e-series 1 has more than the later e-series).
However, Japanese cards also have different pull rates, so there’s some variation there in terms of “rarity” if that’s what you’re looking for. Japanese neo-era Shining cards were very difficult to pull, while the English ones were comparatively not as hard. In XY7 Bandit Ring, Ultra Rare cards (especially the shiny Primals) are much more common than they are in English.
I would caution you on assuming that a lower population report and lower eBay listing number reflects card rarity. Often enough this just means that there isn’t as high of an interest in the Japanese cards. For the vast majority of set cards, the English printing has the most interest and that will lead to the most market activity (e.g. grading, listing, visible sales).
Let’s keep this discussion to the rarity/print numbers. If you want to discuss whether something is undervalued or not, do so in the Giant Market Thread here: www.elitefourum.com/t/the-giant-english-market-thread/27424/1
Common sense would imply that Japanese print runs are much smaller than English print runs. I mean, we’re talking about Japan vs. the U.S. and much of Europe.
Interestingly, in MTG, Japanese cards have historically carried a premium because of their rarity. For cards printed prior to 2011-ish, it’s not uncommon for Japanese versions of Legacy/Vintage-playable cards (especially in foil) to be worth 2-3x as much, sometimes more. But the demand for Japanese cards in the western market increased significantly over time and WotC began to print much more Japanese product. And now modern Japanese MTG cards are generally worth less, not more, than their English equivalents. Mostly unrelated tangent, but yes Japanese cards very likely had smaller print runs than English simply because many fewer people are native Japanese speakers than English speakers.
See this is all so interesting to me. Do you think that eseries cards have a much lower print run than in the standard four sets? (Original 3, Gym-Rocket, Neo and eseries?) That’s another thing I noticed. Super lower numbers in comparison for Japanese and even lower for Japanese eseries. Any thoughts? Thanks guys its awesome to finally be a part of the community.