Talking about blatant imitation, I guess you have not seen the
Singaporean shows. They are total rip-offs of Taiwanese stuff, and
are downright lousy. At least when the Taiwanese copy, they usually
customise and localise well enough to call the stuff their
own.
The same for F4, they were born due to the Japanese manga adapted
serial, but they are not crafted towards SMAP's direction on
purpose (No way, SMAP is too good). Happened that F4 are developing
in various areas is because of the company wanting to milk all the
possible worth from them whilst they are still hot, rather than
emulating SMAP, who have been up there for so long and had long
proven their worth and talents.
Well, my belief is that copying to a certain extent is fine, as
long as you do it well and do it right.