Rob... I make okonomikyaki every once in a while. I can assure you that while "pancakes" might be a fair equivalent, it has nothing in common with pizza other than having a flour as a major ingredient. (And pizza is made with a water-and-flour yeast dough stretched by hand and baked in an oven, while okonomiyaki is made with eggs-and-flour batter that is poured on a grill. And pizza uses bread flour while okonomiyaki uses cake flour.) I've been trying to correct that Viz-inspired misconception for years.
Topic on Talk:Overwhelming Obsession
It's a difficult one... Okonomiyaki is much thicker that crepes are, so that isn't an ideal fit, either.
Mechanically and ingredients-wise it's a lot closer match. The only real difference is that (depending on the variety of okonomiyaki) some ingredients may be mixed into the batter instead of being applied to the "pancake" during or after cooking.
(EDIT: Hm. Sounds like a topic for the food thread in my forums.)
Maybe we should just point people at wikipedia:Okonomiyaki.
<chuckle> Yeah, this is turning into more of an... exchange of views than is really merited.
EDIT: However, I do note the Wikipedia article repeatedly uses "crepe" to describe the dish and its precursors. <grin>
...and we both make the same edit within seconds of each other. I've never run into that before. <grin>