"Rip-off" vs. "homage"

I understand that a lot of film-makers like to allude to prior works which inspired them, Kon-san, but my problem with Inception is that Nolan did not even address Paprika until the fans and reviewers themselves put pressure on him so that he could not avoid addressing your film. In addition, a lot of Nolan fans were writing off your work until then, some possibly implying that it was inferior, simply because it was animated, others complaining about the mature and/or surreal content. And even now, Nolan only indirectly addressed you, when you had no problems citing your influences when asked about them. In addition, they're still hyping Inception as "original", which pisses me off in general. Hollywood likes to steal ideas, and sometimes does it legally, by remaking films(including its own) and then fooling audiences into thinking that their version was the original. [Kurosawa himself had to sue Leone over A Fistful of Dollars vs. Yojimbo.]

Furthermore, while anime's a lot more mainstream in the West than it was 20+ years ago, there still appears to be some sort of cultural stigma that it only appeals to our equivalent of otaku, and can't possibly compete with live-action films, even though, say, a 3-D film like Avatar has less depth than a 2-d film like Honneamise. Yes, we've embraced Miyazaki, but theatrically, his films do as well here as a hit indie film. [Americans seem to think it's not worth seeing unless it's in CG.] So it sounds like, in my humble opinin, Nolan was a little afraid of ruining his own image by suggesting he watched anime. In other words, if there wasn't this much pressure, Nolan would not have admitted it as such, just like Disney did not like to admit their Tezuka-san, Miyazaki-san and Gainax influenes.

Besides, Oshii-san allegedly at least got a free LD of the Matrix, while Miyazaki-san got a Totoro Toy Story 3 cameo. So, at the very least, you should be gettin' some studio omake, too, Kon-san. Especially since H'wood did its damnedest to screw you out of a Best Animated Film nom, just because your stuff wasn't CG, Ghibli and/or targeted towards children.