"The Science Ministry announced late on Friday highly radioactive materials were detected in a 300-km north-south stretch from Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture to Choshi in Chiba Prefecture, the Kyodo news agency reported."
One city huh? As I said before, the Nuclear Disaster is MUCH worse than the West is reporting, it never stopped and is still ongoing (another explosion was heard near reactor 4 as recent as yesterday). Not to mention the fact that Typhoon season is upon us and Fukushima is prone to getting hit which will only hinder efforts to get things under control. Because of the fact that radioactive material is so light and travels so easily through the air, there is no such thing as "only one city" being affected by a nuclear disaster like this.
EDIT:
By the way that quote is in reference to this past Friday (May, 27th). Not a quote taken earlier in the crisis.
I think you're overreacting to the size of the situation... I never said that it wasn't devastating, nor that it would only effect one city... However, it's not about to wipe out the Japanese race. Or else they would have been finished at the end of WWII, thanks to a certain western country >.>
I don't know where you live but where I'm at people haven't exactly stopped spending money, the money spent has simply shifted to other areas. People are spending less money on entertainment and more money on Fuel, Food, etc...because of rising inflation costs. In fact some areas affected by the current economic situation are seeing people spend money more freely, with the extremely low costs of houses right now a lot of people are taking advantage of the fact that you can buy a house that 5 years ago would have cost 100k+ for as low as under 15k (at least in Michigan where I am you can easily find houses that low), including my uncle who bought a house for 13k that in 2009 sold for over 100k and my parents who bought 5 bedroom, 2 and 1/2 bathroom house for 5k, 5k they would have never spent on that house were the economic crisis not happening.
I live in Canada, which is doing relatively well compared to the rest of the English speaking world. And as for the rest of your paragraph... Two things:
a) The Great depression is considered the worst time period in all of human history, don't think that the US' current situation even scratches how bad that was

Because people stop spending money on certain areas, the people in those areas have to stop spending money. Just as well; decreasing prices is done only to increase sales... If people start waiting till things are dirt-cheap, which they know will happen, then that means the seller is getting ripped off and cannot spend money on things they would have otherwise. It's a dirty cycle that goes on and on; If you don't spend money, then other's can't make money. If others can't make money, then you can't get paid.
The great depression was already seeing signs of ending in many countries a few years before the outbreak of WWII (the United States being one of them), while there is no denying that WWII did play a role in helping to end the depression the reality is most nations would have seen the end of the great depression in the early 40s even without the war.
Even if they did see the end of it, they would not have seen the economical prosperity the war brought.
While relief efforts and rebuilding projects in Japan will certainly create jobs for the Japanese, it doesn't offset the many many jobs that were lost due to the destruction caused by the Tsunami.
If someone lost their job in a tsunami then, as cruel as it sounds, they have a larger than 50% chance of being dead. Also reconstruction efforts are a lot harder than you might think.
When did anyone debate the success of JRPGs in Japan? You mentioned it sold over 1 million copies in NA and Europe in it's first year, a milestone many western shooters and WRPGs (not to mention sports titles) are able to hit in a much shorter time. The argument was how much of an effect Microsoft having no popularity in Japan with their consoles would effect what system got what games, Dragon Quest selling 2.3 million in the first week in Japan isn't going to have any effect on western gaming. Dragon Quest was a huge success for a JRPG in the West but comparing it to WRPGs, Shooters, Sports Titles, Etc...it was a moderate success at best. Like I said, I LOVE JRPGs...I've invested so many hours in Final Fantasy and Suikoden games it's ridiculous...but that doesn't change the fact that JRPGs and other games that are huge in Japan are at best moderate successes in NA and EU where the market is dominated by Shooters, WRPGS, Sports Franchises, Etc...there are certainly exceptions to the rule but if you look at those exception many of them are shooters as well (Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, etc...)
Did anyone debate the success of Shooters and WRPGs in NA/EU? I know I didn't.
However, do you know why those games get so many sales in the western world? Advertising. And word-of-mouth.
JRPGs rarely get 1 Million sales, let alone in the first year. DQIX was advertised better, though, and got more sales that way. Just the same, it got much better word-of-mouth advertising. Nintendo is started to do this for third party 3DS games; People will know about games that they would have never heard of had they never travelled to an Internet chat room or an Anime club.
Plus, if you think about it, if a niche game in a small country like Japan can sell the same amount as a popular NA game in the first week, then you can tell which place is less anti-video game