This made me realize that countries with only one major city may be more susceptible to these sorts of problems. While Japan has a handful (well, 3) of big cities, for most of IT and advertising it really is just Tokyo. The details are different than your experience, of course, but the general pattern is one of too much control by a small group of middlemen.
To be fair, when you head up north, places like Manchester and Leeds have a similar set up with local recruiters. The M25 belt recruiters and London recruiters don't want to go North, and the Northern recruiters generally don't want to go south for a job.
It's a really cutthroat role and recruiters can easily get screwed over by either the person they're placing or the company they're placing in. The combined mediocrity of the majority of recruiters (at least in my industry, and IME) with the paranoia tends to make for some wacky situations.
Realistically the role of a recruiter shouldn't exist. You should just put your job advert up and that should be it, but there seems to be a place for them at the high end and the low.
