Why does my camcorder start up in japanese and have a vertical line through it sometimes

My guess is that the internal battery (not the main battery) is faulty and it has lost it's stored settings. Try changing it to English and keep it charged, don't let it deplete, see if it retains the setting. As far as the line is concerned, without a proper description its hard to say, but often bright highlights will cause a line down the display because of the way the imaging chip works, that is normal if it is only present with highlights