I tend to agree that the gradations are at least equally complex in both countries, each in its own way, but I also agree very much with Em: they aren't equivalent and attempting to translate one into the other when writing anime fic in English we can't use most of what might seem like the most direct translations of the Japanese terms/forms without sounding absolutely ridiculous in the English language context. To match the impact we have to fiddle around and try to find contextual or even emotional equivalents and the cultures are shaped differently enough that it rarely sounds "natural" in the setting. (For example, the thing I was wrestling with before I jotted this down, using "thee" and "thou" as a translation of archaic/old-fogey language just doesn't work because those are downright unnatural in most modern dialects of English and the character is definitely modern; the best compromise I could come up with was not having the kid use any contractions, but that doesn't really convey the same nuance. Gngh.)