why live-action movies are so uncommon in Asian countries.
I'm really not sure they are. According to the numbers here, for example:
en.wikipedia.org
Both China and Japan yearly produce a similar number of movies to the USA, that is, multiple hundreds. Meanwhile, Japan has never produced even a hundred theatrical animated movies in a year.
From 2012 to 2021, the highest number was 91 in 2019. On the other hand, for well over a decade at the very least, Japan's total movie production was over 400, with
this study from 2014, for example, claiming the number to be 448, while
the chart here of data from 2011 also has the number at over 400. Meaning that the animated movies were always just a small minority of their total output.
And I'm only focusing so much on Japan because all the sources I have there claim that China produces more movies, and let's be real, there's no way they produce anywhere near as much animation as Japan does.