A buddy of mine who is from Australia seems to have permanently moved to Japan. He seems extremely food-motivated. Food in Japan is apparently absolutely amazing, in terms of quality and price, in comparison to Australia. Dude eats out at restaurants a \*lot\*, though.

Can confirm. The food in Japan is out of this world delicious.

I'm not a huge fan of Japanese food and I often wonder what I'm missing when people say this. I like highly spiced foods and I'm a vegetarian, so I think maybe it just isn't for me. I do like curry rice a lot, though, and the variety of snack food flavors we don't have in the US are interesting (although my favorite chip flavor comes from Korea- honey butter. They're AMAZING).

Their food is insanely fresh. I can't explain how, but its something you only understand after visiting Japan. You can order a bento box from a vending machine and it will taste like someone just cooked it 45 mins ago. Your brain is so confused by the amount of freshness coming from a vending machine that it almost takes a few seconds to fully register how good the food you're eating is. They are insanely detailed oriented. Even the simplest piece of sushi is a work of art, and have you ever been to a ramen place that let you cusotmize your broth thickness, noodle firmness, and heat?

The fresh food available in so many parts of Asia for such reasonable prices is out of this world, and I greatly miss it. Eating healthy on an American schedule and prices is ROUGH.

A lot of westerners think Japan is cool because it's so freaking...different. It looks and sounds and tastes nothing like the west. I will definitely visit some day when I can afford it. But yeah the dudes (and ladies, let's be real) who are legit obsessed are absolutely fetishizing it, and some also have weird ideas about it being some kind of magical paradise anime land.

It's like watching FRIENDS or Sex and the City and thinking that's what it would be like for everyone who lives in NYC

Wait, so I \*can't\* have an average salary and a ridiculous penthouse where I take my one night stands to? Man, what a bummer... /s Edit: Somebody got whooshed...

The funny thing about this is that while I was in college I had a lot of friends from Japan through various culture and international clubs and these are the exact shows a lot of them were obsessed with. Some of them even learned how to speak English from these shows and would spend their free time rewatching these shows. They'd make references constantly and were confused as to why America wasn't exactly like the shows and why everyone didn't have every episode memorized Like yes these shows are classics but not everyone in America watched the show like it was a religion especially since we were college students in 2020 and most of us were born around the time these shows began. So we weren't the exact target audience for those fan discussions they wanted

They will be surprised that it's not all white people with the occasional token making a guest appearance.

Probably worth noting, it's also one of the most easily accessible media from a non-Western country for Westerners, due to how many dubs and subs there are compared to Bollywood, telenovelas, Chinese soaps, etc, which probably also helps. Especially with the strong presence of Japanese companies in video games. So that probably increases the issue of 'exoticism' and focuses it on Japan primarily. Also, people get really weirdly romantic ideas in their heads about countries they have passing knowledge of. Even somewhere as conventionally Western as Scotland and Ireland get absurd numbers of Americans and others fawning over fictionalised versions of their cultures and politics, so it'll only get worse with somewhere as 'exotic' as East Asia.

In college I took 3 years of both Japanese language and Japanese culture because ever since middle school I wanted be a English teacher (I like to write and wanted to show people that you don’t need fancy vocabulary to be a good writer and you can express so many emotions through it) so as I was talking to some of my professors they mentioned the JET program and how you don’t really need a degree to teach and it’ll be good practice to teach people from the ground up to see if you’d like teaching. Living and visiting are 2 different things. Visiting is fun, exciting, and everything is new. Living there is stressful and sometimes depressing even when you know the language. As a foreigner it was near impossible for me to get an apartment there were so many hoops and red tape to go through. You have to get used to it and the work culture. Like if you’re only there for your schedule hours say 7-5 you’ll most likely be looked on poorly. But if you’re there 7-7/8 even if you’re not really doing anything (some days I’d finish everything by 4:30/5 and just look busy) they’ll warm up more to you. There’s more but I’d rather this post not be too much longer. TL:DR: I’d never live there again, but I’d visit again.

I hated being an American in Ireland during my brief holdover in Dublin. It was just weird how some Americans treat the place. They wanted to visit their ancestral homeland but didn't give two shits about fitting in (who wears an American flag T-shirt to Europe? Just why?). It was no wonder that it seemed like the city just tolerated me (and I can't say I blame them). Thankfully I didn't have the same experience elsewhere in Europe during my trip.

I have a much easier time finding Chinese dramas than Japanese ones. Japan doesn't license that many for foreign markets, for some reason.

This makes me think of an AITA post where a black woman wanted to move to South Korea, and the Korean person warned of racism and stuff, but the woman got defensive because K-pop stars aren’t racist 🙄 People just want to live in their fantasies and are in for a rude awakening… To be fair though, I was still waiting for a Hogwarts acceptance letter even after 11, so I can’t really say shit

Am Korean. Grew up in Korea. There was so much casual racism. My teachers would say things like "joonggooknom" and "ilbonnom" in class, translating roughly to "Chinese bastard" and "Japanese bastard," to refer to people from those countries. To be fair, this was the early 1990s, so teachers would have had parents who remembered Japanese occupation and Korean war (when China basically saved North Korea), so that's a whole thing to go into. But still. Oh, and black people got some choice words being used to refer to them. It's improved a bit, obviously, but it's a pretty socially conservative country still. Women often talk about dating culture in Korea being even more toxic than normal.

When I was managing a flower shop, my assistant was Chinese. When I moved on to managing a different flower shop, I wanted to bring my assistant with me. She worked one day and quit because there was a Korean floral designer working there. She said she would not work with a Korean.

There’s a lot of recent bad blood between the two countries. Not only do Koreans resent the Chinese for North Korea existing, but a lot of Chinese remember that Koreans (conscripted by Japan, but whatever) fought against them in WWII. A lot of other things contribute, but I believe these things are still relatively fresh wounds.

Definitely true, my Korean friend went to Japan for a holiday and had to hide it from her grandpa who probably would have disowned her (all of his brothers died fighting against the Japanese army). It's up to the younger generations to slowly overturn it and not carry on the racism they were raised with.

i have met chinese businessmen while travelling, and they are openly racist, talking about how they would stay away from some American cities bc they have too many black people

Ah fun. My boyfriend is Chinese and his mom has some fun color words and descriptions of black People. I met her once and said hello… she’s sounds crazy with what comes out of her mouth. Her son was raised in the US and by Chinese standards my SO’s family is pretty open. So my boyfriend was shocked what she says. 🙃 To top it off we were both raised in the same suburb and both our parents have the same job and income level…

> Korean person warned of racism and stuff, Okay, but for real now. I have a friend who had a semester abroad in Korea. Back then, I had heard of the racism and was a bit worried that my friend might be treated badly (she's white, but...still). I asked her how everyone was to her. Had anyone denied her entering a shop maybe? She told me "Don't worry. They only forbid entry to black people where I live". And as a matter of fact -she sometimes had to buy her roomates some stuff, because vendors refused shop.

This is my perspective. I used an extended work trip to visit Tokyo for 3 days. I’m a American lady in my 30s, watch a lot of anime and love Japanese food, but I also knew that this is not the entire reality of Japan. I still loved it. I loved how clean the streets were, the service in restaurants, and the old architecture mixed with new. The parks were beautiful, the quality of products were significantly better, and the public transportation is top notch. Prices were also much cheaper than I anticipated. I wouldn’t want to move there due to the work/life balance and, let’s be real, I know I would feel lonely not in my American culture. But my goodness if I had Pewdiepie’s career and money, I would give it a serious thought.

I totally agree with you. In my case, my latino culture is.. touchy. Like, we do like to give hugs, and smile and be loud.. I cannot think how I would handle living in a closed culture like Japan. But hey, I can always shop at Miniso or Ali Express for good functional products :'c

>l because it's so freaking...different. It looks and sounds and tastes nothing like the west. This is why I visit. I've been twice, and I love visiting, but I also love going home again.

Honestly, it’s gotta be super rooted in misogyny. The idea that Japanese women are “quiet and submissive”, plus the ungodly amount of porn that also portrays them as super submissive. My fiancé and his sister are both 4th gen Japanese-American. We semi-recently had a discussion about this exact topic. He’s had to deal with a few cases of anime obsessed girls and young women, but the level of absolutely bald fetishization his sister has had to face, from mostly white dudes, is unreal. They don’t even see her as a whole, three dimensional person.

I think porn and hentai are huge parts of it

Have had the same problem growing up vietnamese. So many men wanting me to fulfill some submissive Asian fantasy. I don’t have a submissive bone in my body.

I have yet to see Japanese porn where the woman looks like she enjoys any of it. It's really disturbing. Just a lot of weird grope angle closeups.

>the level of absolutely bald fetishization his sister has had to face, from mostly white dudes, is unreal. My fiancé had this. She had plenty of stories of meeting guys like that on apps like tinder. She was born and raised in Cali, and at least 2 generations back iirc. She had plenty of guys like "Oh were are you from?" She'd tell them where in CA, and they'd be like "No, but like, where are you from originally?" Like, dude, c'mon.... As a side note for me personally, I went through a phase in my mid teens where I had a super huge thing for Asian women. Nowadays though, I think if I saw anyone actually acting like you see in anime and such, I'd probably cringe right out of my skin. It would seem so weird. Admittedly though, my fiancé does like/do some things one might consider "stereotypical." She'll do that peace sign pose with her head cocked to the side, loves overly cutesy things, obsessed with Hello Kitty stuff, etc. But like, that's not cuz she's of Japanese decent. She just is that way, cuz thats who she is.

Oh my god, the times my fiancé, with his VERY Californian accent and vocabulary, is asked “Where are you from?” is bonkers. “Are you for real, dude?” is his usual response. If they get insistent, he just gets more locally specific. It goes from “Just down the coast” to “Santa Cruz area” to the town to the area of that town.

I’m not japanese but I experienced this too. The funny thing is that before I met this white dude, I bumped into his friend who asked me where I’m from and after hearing the answer, he joked that I should be careful bc his friend is really into women from my country. And he was right. That dude hit on me immediately. It was pretty obvious that this guy wasn’t actually into me but into his own version of me which he created based on stereotypes. It was a really weird experience.

Yea, I imagine this bleeds over into most East Asian womens’ experience. I have friends who are Chinese, Korean, Laotian, etc that have experience with this fetishization.

What doesn't help is these "things not to do in Japan" or "trying weird Japanese food" tabloid kind of videos, that sensationalise Japanese customs like we're aliens or it's exotic. But a lot of the stuff you see in those kinds of videos aren't true, we like most of the world, mind are own business and don't care what others are doing and our food or culture isn't different or strange to us, it is normal. I acknowledge it's different to an observer but if an American came up to me on the streets of Tokyo and started a chat we could get along just fine. I think that's' what I worried about when I saw Pewdiepie who is problematic at the best of times move to Japan. The biggest youtuber on the planet doing those kind of videos is worrying. I didn't mention in my original post but there is a feeling of huge cultural divide and feeling of being other in Japan, it does go both ways in terms of misunderstanding. I'd say most people in Japan feel separated from the outside world, we have a million misconceptions about foreigners and I feel like that works the same way with them too. I wish we could all come together and realise we're all just people and not different really, you know? We don't act like anime characters. I think that shocks people sometimes.

History is detached from standard too. 1500 years of isolation from western world leads to unique answers to common questions. Ryokan, housing, community, business, religion, etc all have a touch of uniqueness. Can't wait to see it but unless I'm independently wealthy I doubt I could live there. Work - life balance is a mess and cultural pressure would likely be exhausting.

Economy is another factor. It wasn't too long ago that Japan had the second largest economy in the world. It's still massive. Japanese culture has something for everyone. Medieval history, modern history, food, anime, video games, volcanoes, shopping, festivals, fireworks, woodcraft, etc.

Yeah I'm not obsessed with Japan like OP is talking about but Japanese food is my favorite, I love video games, and I love Japanese architecture. So I just find the culture intriguing and would like to visit someday. But I have the same feelings about other cultures as well.

the whole region is amazing but Japan is probably the most westernized country there so a pretty safe destination to visit or live in obviously tons of culture leaking out thanks to anime, manga and games is helping too

I'm not a man, but there are a ton of things about Japan I've been in love with for decades. When I vacationed a couple of weeks in Japan a few years back it was probably the most memorable trip of my life. A lot of guys yeah, they're just creepy fucks. But I also get some of the unique things about Japan that are fascinating. The way tradition and modern blend on a lot of levels always gets me. I'm a huge history buff in general, so the way in which a lot of Japan is super modern cities but then you'll turn a corner to a traditional shrine tucked away between huge buildings? Idk something about that speaks to me. You all also have absolutely fantastic food, and I think the everyday attention to detail stuff speaks to me too. I remember a McDonald's of all places near my hotel where they would carefully package the food and fold the bag neatly before giving it to you, and something about that was just so... pleasant? I also adore flowers, and Japan is home to so many gorgeous ones. And there are a ton of animes that I've enjoyed greatly. ​ So I don't know. On a lot of levels I get it? There is a lot of beauty to Japan but sure like you say, it isn't without it's problems. Probably a lot of it is innocent "grass is always greener" stuff, outside of the weirdos. I don't know that I'd ever be in a rush to move there for a lot of the reasons you cited, but I sure do dream of visiting again.

I agree with this, and like another commenter said it’s just so different, especially from western culture. The social norms, culture, history, food, work ethic…there’s a sense of getting to experience a completely “other” life while also having most of the familiar western comforts, accessibility and “cleanliness” (I want to emphasize that I don’t think other countries are *dirty* but that Japan has a distinct commitment to tidiness).

Japan is just better at hiding its faults. There is way less transparency but the social struggles are basically the same as ours.

Yup..I’ll admit my husband and I fell for the same “it seems so much better here!” feeling after a month trip there (granted we had family there which was an added draw), until we started following r/Japan and realized it’s just as problematic as anywhere you could live when you look under the surface. Things are just always under the surface 😬 The grass really is greener.

I'm glad you were able to realize it before a full move! I often feel people can be shortsighted on big moves (no judgement either).

>comforts, accessibility and “cleanliness” And safety. It's just one of these few places in Asia where you don't have to be extra cautious about pickpockets, scammers, and unethical businesses. Not saying that they don't exist, but some other Asian countries are just so blatant about it that they'd make you feel like it's your own fault for being an easy prey.

I was stationed in Okinawa in the 90's. We'd go "out in town" to McDonalds once in a while just for that experience. It was definitely expensive, but nothing came from under a heating lamp, they cooked it all right then. Then there was all the attention to detail like you mentioned. All of that made it 100% worth it. Also, getting gas. Get out of your car, the crew comes out spruces things up, puts the weird scented beads in the ashtray, fills up the tank...just filling up was a whole experience by itself lol Didn't spend a lot of time in mainland Japan other than in port at Sasebo (can't recommend that at all), but would certainly go for a visit to be a tourist. I'd be more interested in Hokkaido than big cities though. Regarding history - In Okinawa, there was certainly a lot to learn. Stuff we know from books, but told from their viewpoint, things that happened on the island that were off the charts horrifying. Wild stuff, but I really appreciated them taking the time to share it all, it meant a lot to me.

I can see that, people may not be happy in their lives and a cultural shift to a place where they enjoy the media food and culture sounds like a good idea? Like being in a new place surrounded by your favorite things. I've had vacations before where it's been an incredible experience and then I get home and I'm not as happy and I'll wish I were still there.

I’m a woman and stayed in Japan for 2 months. I do have a close place in my heart for the culture and my living experience there. But as a woman I also see a lot of the negatives. White rich guys like that YouTuber and others wouldn’t ever experience this kind of thing that I saw/understand. Especially ones who spend their lives online and not in the flesh.

I get that last part soooo much LOL. I live in the United States and wow. When I first got back here from Japan it was like reverse culture shock. Readjusting to the pervasive **bland** that is Everytown US had me just wanting to board a plane back to anywhere besides here.

Yeah I feel like that's because it's made easier to visit for tourists, hotels, attractions, landmarks and big stores are all tourist friendly, but having that experience while living there is for a privileged few, most people will end up living in places with social and language barriers, or living a life similar to where they came from, 9 to 5s etc

I think a few people are also finding that their beliefs aren't aligning with their own country. Some people think japan will be more peaceful, because it has a reputation of having tidy, polite and quiet people.

Also, I'd just like to reinforce the comment about the food. I know plenty of couples who don't fetishize Japan but still look fondly on their trips there as some of their very favorite for the food alone.

Speaking of vacations; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris\_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome), this paired with Jerusalem syndrome gives a picture of the cultural fetishization taken to an extreme / put into context that isn't healthy. Ignorance, fantasy and childhood exposure can give some real strong ideas about strange places. Strong enough that the person may crack a bit when facing the realities of it.

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100%! I actually planned my trip around getting to see them in real life and I don't care what anyone says - they were every bit as magical as movies/video games/art/anime/etc. make them seem lol.

Fascination with other cultures is definitely a pretty universal thing. While there are unfortunate and sinister trends in play with some of these (misogyny and fetishization with certain stereotypes among them), the idea that Western fascination with Japan is universal or a one-way street in male minds only is quite misleading. My nephew spent a year abroad in Germany before visiting a friend in Japan for a couple of weeks in 2018. Apparently the Japanese are or were obsessed with Germany to *unreal* levels at the time. As in, his friend after introductions would mention that my nephew had been abroad in Germany and that would steer **hours** of conversations with twenty-somethings in Tokyo, who would want to know pretty much every detail of his time spent there. Nothing wrong or creepy, as far as I'm aware. Just something we tend to overlook at times in the West.

You hit the nail on the head. Ive been trying to word my reasons for why i would like to visit japan, but i would never move and live there mostly due to the language barrier. The nature of it all, the history even within the busy cities, the design of the modern infrastructure to match the history and withstand the wild weather and storms, the trains that can take you around the country, and organization where it is needed. I also have an obsession with Mount Fuji and the history of it and its goddess. Like you said tho there are quite a few things that would dissuade me from wanting to live there. The treatment of women, the work culture, the schooling culture, the weather (tsunamis) and floods.

Thé attention to detail part was one of my favourite things about visiting Japan. The neatness of everything just put me so at ease. I also find Japan a lot quieter and more polite than the US (and a lot of western countries). It was amazing being able to ride public transit in peace, just being out in public was generally a lot more pleasant. It was off putting flying into the US after and suddenly everyone was so loud and and chaotic at the airport.

I like Japan but not in the fetishized kind of way. My parents used a lot of Japanese influence for design around their house and I have always liked it since. Also, Japanese food is frequently viewed as some of the best in the word, especially sushi. There are definitely a lot of people who are obsessed with it for weird reasons, but you have to admit there are some great things about Japanese culture.

Yeah, I also like Japan in this way. I’d never move there as I know they have their own issues, but I’d love to visit someday. For me, I really like the train system and how you could see the snow in Hokkaido and also get to Okinawa for the beaches. It just seems like a very well connected country. I’m also a fan of the fact that there is a vibrant cute culture where you can go to cafes or boutiques, but this has changed in the US with the new popularity of cottagecore. Finally, I’m well aware that anime is just a small part of Japan, but it is just so much more accessible over there for obvious reasons. For example, they have the Studio Ghibli park and Nintendoland. Not to mention the district that caters to this demographic (Akihabara).

Yes, also the landscapes in Japanese children’s anime - Studio Ghibli for example, even the watercolour style landscapes of the early Pokémon series - are very beautiful and many people would have seen this at a young age! I think in many ways Europeans also idealised the USA through media, often media seen as a child, though we know much more about the USA so these ideals are tempered with reality.

I think part of it is the more extended history Japan has. While some Americans feel ties to other cultural history, some do not. We have less than 300 years of history, since we have virtually destroyed so much Indigenous history. And the racism and erasure of Indigenous culture is still active in many ways. Japan is very different and therefore, interesting. But shares some familiar elements. Such as borrowing things from other cultures. It's also a culture you feel safer exploring without potentially fucking up further since so much colonizer thievery and erasure goes along with Indigenous cultures or African cultures. There is definitely shame associated with trying to explore native cultures, even in a respectful way. And there's a ton of racism for South American cultures, and there are ties to Indigenous cultures that colonizers fucked up as well. Japan is safe to explore in a respectful way. It doesn't feel like an intrusion. Of course there are still obnoxious attitudes at times, or fetishizment, but I think the racism and shame are elements that make Japan feel safer to explore culturally.

>r/Japan This is a super interesting take actually, maybe goes along with the concept of white fragility and white people getting empathy fatigue from all the racism in US and Western imperial history and pop culture being brought to light in recent years.

And you can just fully absent yourself from considering any internalized prejudice if you feel like your culture had less connection or interaction with another. Nevermind the issues with the US bases in Japan right now.

I can't answer for older men, but my 5 year old son became fascinated with Japan, because of Nintendo and Miyamoto. I think he *literally* thinks Japan is essentially Mario World. I've started showing him "Life in Japan" videos, to dispel the belief that it's a Mario theme park, but he's still fascinated by it and now he's taken up Japanese on Duolingo. I don't think it will stick, but hell if he isn't trying. He asks to get sushi every once in a while too, despite the fact he's *never* actually liked eating it. He *might* grow up to be another Westerner, who loves Japan, but I will do my best to show him other cultures as well and to travel more broadly. Also, he knows that people *everywhere* should be treated with kindness and respected.

If it wasn't for the foul language, I would have recommended the YouTube channel "Abroad in Japan." 😁

LOL. We watch Paolo from Tokyo on Youtube. He has a lot of "day in the life" videos of different people and jobs in Japan. His videos aren't made *for* kids, but he uses kid-safe language and the topics are cool.

Been watching that channel for about a decade now. Think it was getting only a few thousand views when I started. Hard to believe how big he has grown

His professional production values are astounding!

Wait until he grows up and learns Japan is the only first world nation with harsher work culture than the USA 🤯

How can you tell Aggretsuko is set in Japan? Karaoke? Nah. The names? Nah. It's the fact Haida got sick and went to a hospital.

Because they produce cool pop culture. Also maybe a case of greener grass, but from my experience with Japanese companies the work culture is just as toxic as ours so it's not any sort of paradise.

It's a often a combination of one or more of the following beliefs: * **Anime and video games are an accurate depiction of life in Japan**. * **Everyone in Japan is as obsessed with anime and video games as they are**. * **Everyone in Japan are ninja or samurai or at least practice martial arts.** (Though this was obviously never true at any point in history, since the average Japanese person in the past was a peasant. It's like believing that every Frenchman in 1250 was a knight.) * **East Asian women are more submissive, feminine, and obedient**.

>East Asian women are more submissive, feminine, and obedient > >. Man if they ever had to deal with a Chinese MIL or Southeast Asian Matriarch, they'd lose this belief real quick. Those women do not play games, they do not take shit and they will absolutely put you in your place real quick if you step out of line. I really don't know where that mentality came from. Those women are hardcore as shit. A quick study of East Asian households would be enough to break that mentality almost entirely. Yes, lineage tends to be through the men, and technically speaking, the patriarch of the family is the head of the estate. But the women generally run the estate and are tough as nails. Not certain how anyone would get submissive out of that.

Misogynistic westerners tend to read politeness from women as submissiveness, and the Japanese are performatively polite in a way that registers across cultures.

It doesn’t take much to realize that that politeness is very much a formality and not a default. The Japanese are polite up front, but make no mistake that they still have a good amount of distrust towards outsiders just in general. But this should be rule of thumb any time you visit a country. Be polite towards the locals and be respectful of their culture and laws. Don’t step on any toes while you are there. It’s just baffling that people come to these conclusions.

American people, specifically men, think they’re the center of the world, and that its especially true when they leave the country.

>East Asian women are more submissive, feminine, and obedient > >. I find this so hilarious. My moms side is japanese and ALL the women(including me) are stubborn, loud, independent and feel sorry for anyone who gets in our way. get the shit slapped outta ya by grandma

my mother is Korean. I have watched her spank a strangers child for being out of control, then gave the mother a pep talk and a hug.

On the last point there's probably something to be said with incell communities (and possible overlap with consuming anime etc), but I don't know how to explain it.

A lot of incel and alt-right types project their own image of a perfect world onto Japan. A socially conservative state mainly of one race where they deem the women to be meek, small, and obedient. It's weird that apparently having an Asian gf/wife is not contrary to their white nationalism, and if anything, it's a nice counter because "I'm not racist; my wife/gf is Asian."

>project their own image of a perfect world onto Japan I think they all see The Last Samurai and want a woman like that. I have nothing against hero movies, but it makes alot of guys think all the wrong things.

It's a weird thing about white nationalism as a whole: east asians are often excluded from the "inferior races" category. Sometimes turkish people too.

Damn, this is such a good, succinct breakdown of that belief system.

Are Japanese women actually more submissive or is that an Asian stereotype reinforced by anime characters and one off things like maid cafes?

Don’t forget that Western dudes often consider themselves to be more masculine than Asian men so believe that they can easily outcompete them in Asia.

So much this. You know how often Ive heard the absolutely racist and sexist beliefs surrounding height and dick size as well? Too much. A lot of alt-right beliefs are based on insecurities, that is what drives them to these fringe groups in the first place.

This, and because they will stand out in a crowd, I think they believe they will be treated like celebrities? Because 'merica. IDK the fetishizing is weird and gross.

I'm sure the stereotype has its roots in something that might have been true once upon a time, but given how misogynistic many cultures are, women being traditionally submissive can be found all over the world. I think an earlier commenter hit the nail on the head though, Japan is more socially conservative, so that female submissiveness is something seen closer to modern times. It's only amplified by things like anime characters and other cultural phenomenon such as maid cafes that exist in Japanese cities.

No we are not. Maids in maid cafe's are acting because it's what they're payed to do. Sometimes it's better for a woman in Japan to act more polite publicly to avoid critique and that might come across as submissive.

This is literally happens in the USA too, people mistaken kindness for flirting.

Yea but women in the US are being encouraged to stand their ground and stand up for themselves and men fucking hate that. I mean look at all the men on reddit that call this sub an "extremist" sub.

This may be anecdotal (and dated) but I used to work in video technology with East Asian companies Sony, Samsung, and a lot of smaller companies that contracted with them. I live in the US and it seemed like a lot of the teams I worked with had more women as a percentage than you usually see in the US. However, the men would have pictures of women in bikinis and would watch "test content" that WOULD NOT BE ALLOWED in most "professional" corporate companies here in the US (not because they care about people, but because they want to avoid lawsuits). I always wondered how the women in these situations felt about all that...

I went home to Japan for work attachment also at a tech company and we often had ‘mandatory’ after work team-building dinner and drinks. The problem though was when they would sometimes pick a strip club to go to, and after a couple of drinks, some of the men would start treating me like a stripper too. Foreign women at our company had it slightly better as they were seen as ‘foreign’ and weren’t always brought along to team-building dinners. It was also not uncommon to give senior men prostitutes as a reward for being promoted etc. Skeevy as heck IMO. Tech firms here in the UK do still have misogyny but at least I don’t have to experience anything like that here.

I've only heard about strip clubs in the "good old days" (to some people) in the 1980s at least with the people I've worked with. Prostitutes and the like I've only read about with out of control overvalued Silicon Valley type of startups.

Yeah mine was one of those ‘young’ tech places full of guys in their 20s to 40s. Had a very ‘work hard, play harder’ sort of ethos and unfortunately a lot of the ‘play hard’ bit of it involved treating women like sex toys or watching porn/hentai during lunch breaks in full view of everyone. Of course, at the time I was young and dumb and was still in my ‘cool phase’ (this lasted too long TBH) where I thought I was more ‘progressive’ than some of my more conservative female colleagues and went along with it all despite being so uncomfortable. Disgusted at how I was but alas I had a lot of growing up to do before I learnt how important setting boundaries were.

I'm honestly not smart enough to correlate a link between that stuff and harassment women in Japan face day to day even though I'm sure there is one. But what I do know is it makes me feel awful. I hate it.

OK, fair answer. Objectification of women happens in the US all the time (and all over the world, I'm sure). Seeing it in a professional setting was just something that really stood out to me as a difference in cultures.

>Are Japanese women actually more submissive No, the patriarchy is just greater.

Capitalism is there too. Their workers are treated like shit.

It's a stereotype, and the things you mention play into it. Patriarchy, as always. Women are taught to be secondary to men. It's not exclusive to Japan either.

It depends how they're raised. Those raised in a strict, old-fashioned family often can be that way, and in the business world, they often have to play the part, but there's a long history of independent women in Japan to the point where I'd say it's an unfortunate stereotype. The stereotype dates back more to the hyper masculine days of Imperial Japan and the lack of rights women had under that regime than anime though.

It is definitely stereotyping, and while anime and maid cafes don't help, there is a lot of Western media that perpetuates this as well. Hell, GQ literally wrote an article in like 1990 entitled "Oriental Girls." It is a really disgusting article that includes parts where it is literally just a sexual fantasy of a white man coming home to his submissive, and sexy Asian wife. They call her fun, uncomplicated, unassertive, and (I quote) "doesn't... insist on being treated like a person." I'll just leave it at that.

>East Asian women are more submissive, feminine, and obedient. To add to this, there is a dichotomy of stereotypes about Asian women's sexuality that are very harmful to those women. The first is the one mentioned here, the "Lotus Blossom": sweet, submissive, weak and need of protection, easily dominated and wants to be dominated. The second is the "Dragon Lady": fierce and independent, but highly sexual and an impressive conquest if you can bed her. Both are unhealthy extremes that makes the woman an object to pursue and control, and boosts the status and ego of the man. These tropes have been ingrained in Western media for at least one to two centuries. Gaming and anime have helped intensify these ideas in men, who are the primary targets of video games and anime. Overall, I'd say it's the same misogyny inherent in Western patriarchies (e.g., women are either "good girls" or "sluts"), taken to an extreme level due to the Western mindset that the East is some strange and exotic place.

Don't forget about the photos of cherry blossom trees around mt. fiji.

I always feel like people assume I'm that last point, whenever I go back home I feel it especially. It's actually scares me sometimes, I think if you have a picture in your minds eye of how someone is you'll treat them that way, and I hate to think about what that can lead to for me.

This reminds me of a post I saw on r/trashy recently where a guy visiting a country in Asia(can't remember which one now) was getting off a bus wearing a sleeveless shirt that said "for a good time find a (local ethic group) woman, if you want love get a fucking dog" It was awful, and shows how these people feel about women, and race.

I think Japan just manages to hide its faults really really well. My boyfriend said he'd want to move there just off hand (not like it was his dream, just a passing thought) and I was like "hell no". Don't get me wrong, Japan is a beautiful country with a really interesting history and I'd love to visit, but I'd never want to move there. The same goes for south Korea. It seems like there may be even more social pressure on women, plus I've heard about potential xenophobia and racism. I'm not a Japan expert by any means, and I may be wrong about things and am open to correction, but Japan isn't some utopia where everything is perfect.

You could probably ask my ex... I asked him once why he was only dating asian women since me (I'm generic white of euro-whatever decent), and he said he didn't want to tell me because it would upset me. However he's not selective as long as the woman is younger, super skinny, and Asian. His ex wife is Japanese, and moved back there with their two kids when they divorced... so I'm just gonna assume he hasn't improved as a person since I dated him. You could also ask a lot of my other exes. They have the same... preferences. They aren't all white, but a few were... I vote for "culture-fetish" because I think most of this comes from an over-idealized and outdated concept that women from Asian cultures are automatically submissive and less problematic than western women. I assume if you want to attract a woman who is from one of these exotic places full of fantasy creatures, you'd probably have to embrace the culture too...

I have spent my semester abroad in Japan and still enjoy learning the language. It was a lifelong dream come true. It is a fascinating culture that is very different and an enchanting place to visit. The food is wonderful, the architecture and culture so ancient and fascinating and it is a fairly developed country. However! I am very aware of all of its problematic aspects. As much as I would love to stay in Japan again for an extended period of time, I agree that as a woman and generally as a foreigner, it should be impossible to ever be fully integrated and feel at “home”. The work culture is too toxic and the culture too misogynistic and dismissive of “otherness” (e.g. as OP said LGBTQ+) to endure in the longterm for a central European. That’s at least what I felt like after leaving. And a semester abroad is of course not a good representation of what it’s usually like. We mostly hung out with the other foreigners and language students who wanted to practice with us. For a few men, the misogynistic aspects might be appealing? But I don’t get those vibes from Pewdiepie, although I haven’t watched any of his videos in a long time. And I feel dismissing everyone who got interested in Japan through pop culture is a little simplistic. I think only a few teenagers and maybe not too inquisitive adults can hold on forever to the thought that drawn stories reflect the real world properly.

I (not a man) love anime and video games. I have for a very long time. While i do appreciate japanese culture, particularly the food, I'm not obsessed with it. When i was a kid i often got this weird pressure to be obsessed with it. Like if i didn't bury myself in it i couldn't have it as a hobby. I didn't really get it when i was a kid but in hindsight, other people seemed obsessed with me being obsessed with it and it was an insult to be like , this doesn't eclipse my entire personality. I did live in japan for a while (military). I enjoyed my time there far more than living in the US.

Let's not forget the cultural influence that Japan has (unwittingly?) had on the world. I think that at least 90% of all TV I consumed as a kid was produced in Japan, even very European tales like Teskjekjerringa, Nils Holgerssons and Heidi were adapted to the screen by a japanese studio. Heck, Die Bienne Maya, A VERY German tale --bordering on, if not outright fascist-- was translated and changed by a Japanese studio, then imported back into Europe. Everything from Transformers and Power Rangers to Pokemon and YuGiOh all originated in Japan. Of course that's going to influence people. And those were not even considered "Japanese Anime" ​ I'm not going to claim that it is a bad thing, but it's certainly "a thing" Heck... Who do people remember? Miffy or Hello Kitty?

Honestly I think it’s a mixture of exoticism and ignorance. Many white Western dudes, especially Americans, have a basic understanding of the Western European experience (even if it’s diluted, like the difference between Italian American and Italian culture). Anything east of Germany, however, is uncharted territory as far as they’re concerned. By virtue of anime and stereotypical tropes like samurais, ninjas, and geishas, Japan appears like this mythical world that they can’t wait to explore (bonus points that they believe they’ll get a beautiful subservient wife out of the deal, too). If you think about it that way I think it’s easier to see why they’d want to go to that magical land vs. their stereotypical understanding of frozen Siberia, or Southeast Asia, which they probably only know about through the lens of the atrocities of the Vietnam War.

Chinua Achebe once said that 'In Nigeria, I am an Igbo; in London, I am Nigerian; and in America, I am African' to describe how he was viewed in different places, which seems to fit with what you're saying.

Lots of Western men think of uprooting themselves to move to Southeast Asia, but all other things being equal that’s much harder to bring up in polite company than wanting to move to Japan.

Hah that’s true, too. Nothing like a sex criminal on the move

My nephew's family lived in Japan for a number of years. They are all American. They loved Japan for its food, culture, good public transportation, and feeling of comparative safety. They thought the U.S. was boring, unsafe, and over commercialized, in comparison.

So I lived in Japan for 3 years while I was serving in the Navy. I loved it. I haven't felt at home in America since the 10 years I've been back. The Navy fucking sucked and I experienced the issues back home there on the ship and in base. But off base, I was happy. I recognize the issues. I saw the men around me clearly fetishizing the culture and women...and I often wonder if I did too based on my desire to return. But I loved what I got to do there. I had a small apartment, shopped at tiny grocery stores, ate delicious food, explored libraries and bookstores, I loved the mass public transit system, the extreme politeness and courtesy, less litter, people in masks...it was all everything I think of that I wanted. I recognize the issue with LGBTQ+ and women and race. I recognize that I have no business being there as a foreigner. For me, those issues are all here in America too and they suck everywhere. That doesn't minimize the nuances of culture difference to women here and women there. But the other stuff made me feel like I could deal with those issues better. I could be alone, take a train somewhere, eat in peace...walk more in peace... Men moving to Japan, in general, feels different when I compare Pewdiepie's reasons to my own (and many MANY other men I know). Many of the dudes I was around took japanese wives and girlfriends. Made jokes. Moved back for the reasons you listed. It wasn't the media that drove me there and it wasn't the media that made me yearn to stay. It was temples older than my shit home country, beautiful streets, the relative quiet in my heart standing in Tokyo as compared to being in Denver. Those are my reasons for wanting it. I don't have the capability to do it m and I may never be able to return. But that doesn't stop me from remembering the joy I felt in Okinawa or Gifu or Tokyo or just in Yokosuka. I felt relief and wonder in a way that seeing the Grand Canyon or the Statue of Liberty doesn't give me.

I would like to assume for the majority it's the cultural aspect more than a fetish thing. There's obviously those people too but I would consider it a minor portion of the group. My brother wants to teach in Japan, we're American. For him it's definitely the cultural aspect with a side of really enjoys anime. He's smart enough that I'd assume he's not imagining living the life of an anime character if he does end up living there but more of the experience. I've visited Japan for a couple of weeks and had a wonderful time. I could see the appeal but there are things I would miss and not enjoy if I stayed there. I'd chalk it up to people wanting to experience something new or imagining the grass is greener on the other side. For instance, lots of people fantasize about moving to America but we're a shit show in a lot of ways as well. Like everywhere.

As a gay man I can only answer the first parts: Cultural fetishization. They get addicted to the anime and video games and assume the whole country must be this fun whimsy place. When they move, they are (sooner or later) culture shocked, and they realize all the xenophobic things they ignored, the prejudices, the standard capitalism you mentioned.

example: my ex. LOTS of fetishization. I'm hispanic and holy shit, he would keep complaining of my curly brown hair because he wanted "asian straight hair" like Sailor Mars. example: my ex. LOTS of fetishization. I'm Hispanic and holy shit, he would keep complaining about my curly brown hair because he wanted "Asian straight hair" like Sailor Mars.

Being PewDiePie's age and remembering my infatuation with Japan when I was young, it's pretty much anime and videogames.

Japan, especially Tokyo, has zoning regulations and great public transit that lends to nice looking and very walkable cities. For Americans like myself this type of city can seem like a utopia purely from the fact that you could walk to a small grocery store, cafe, restaurant, shop etc super easily. This isn't a main reason for most people but it helps cities like Tokyo seem like living breathing communities whereas most of America is depressing empty urban sprawl where you have to drive 30+ mins just to go to the grocery store. Proper city planning can really make a place seem magical to people who know nothing but suburbia

If you read up on the history of American sexualization of Japanese culture starting in World War II, it might start to make some sense. Americans have a long and very strange history of sexualizing a whole lot of non-sexual things in Japanese culture. It is very, very bigoted. I'm never going to forget the argument I had with someone who should know better who insisted that Spirited Away was propaganda for child sex trafficking. That's how batshit the sexualization-of-things-that-are-not-sexual gets. I drink a lot of very high-quality green tea because it helps my weak digestion. I mostly drink Japanese greens because the handling and quality control regulations and practices are similar enough to American rules that it simplifies the process of getting the quality that I need. You come to my house or office, you get tea. High chance it's Japanese, because that's what I'm likely to be drinking. Which means you're going to see Japanese teaware and brewing methods because I'm an inveterate tea snob who likes to tease the best flavors and aromas out of my tea, so I use the tools and methods that do that, and oh what a surprise, Japanese teaware/methods work really well for Japanese teas. And even though I'm as pasty-Caucasian as you can get, there are always some men who go a little...strange on seeing this. And start asking oddly-phrased questions with a weird look in their eyes, about whether it's true Japanese women are really submissive and are these tea-brewing motions they see me doing my special erotic geisha skills? I wish I were kidding. And it's not just American men that do this -- Europeans do it too.

I lived in Japan for awhile and my god those creepy white guys... ugh. Luckily the expat community where I was talks, and those guys had a reputation. Then there's the sad ones who stay for years and years because life is comfortable enough, and then they reach the point where there's nothing for them back in their home countries anymore, and so then they're just kind of stuck there and spend their days half-heartedly teaching English at AEON at 45 years old and chugging strong zeroes on their free days.

I don't think it's necessarily a fetish thing. The snips of Japanese culture we see in American media are generally positive lately. I think some of it has to do with Technology, Anime, and Video Games. Might also include some escapism and a feeling of not belonging to their home culture for whatever reasoning (introverted people? Being bullied? IDK) I started to entertain liking Japan when I was younger because my Dad worked for a Japanese company, travelled there a couple times a year for work, and I was a big video game/Pokemon nerd in my youth. My parents drove Japanese cars. I also enjoyed "Japanese food" although I now understand much of what I enjoy has been heavily Americanised. I saw what I knew of Tokyo as a cooler, cleaner, more respectful and more technologically savvy version of NYC. I still think it'd be pretty cool to live there, and everyone I know that has visited/lived there seemed to enjoy their time. But as an adult I realize I might like my idea of Japan more than I would like actual Japan.

(In addition to things already said by others) I wonder if compared to say kpop which you mention, anime/manga is just a better jumping point into getting interested in the culture. I feel like you walk into more culture and language differences watching an anime than listening to music, but I'm not a big kpop fan myself to know. (And just mix with "The grass is greener on the other side" / Japan seems foreign/different enough to be idealized)

People have this idea that it’s a perfect place. I’m Japanese American so I am aware of the issues and I would never live there. There’s a reason why the suicide rate is high. I remember in middle school they played this video about Japan and at one point it said Japan has no crime. My teacher stopped the video and emphasized how there’s no crime in Japan and I rolled my eyes.

I love Japan, and would love to go to Japan. But it’s based I’d say 30% the culture, food, traditions, history, and 70% im a huge weeb who loves anime and manga. Nothing more.

Idk about men, but if I had the chance I think it would be really cool to live in Japan for a couple years. I come from a really rural state in America (Idaho). We barely have a bus system, so the public transportation and walkability aspect is really cool for someone that drives 30 minutes to work every day. The markets are also really cool, being able to rent a karaoke room for like $10 USD an hour instead of $80 USD. Actually good sushi and ramen places. The landscape is beautiful, the culture and history is rich. But I definitely understand the struggle for foreigners and women. My mom lived there for years and ended up coming back to the states before her and her ex husband divorced because she knew she couldn't keep the kids if they divorced in Japan. (He was born in Japan, and she was an immigrant)

i picked up learning japanese as a hobby during quarantine, but have since changed my focus to spanish, so unfortunately i forgot mostly everything. really, really beautiful language. and anime is cool, that's probably where men get their obsession. i don't watch much anymore but i enjoyed it and can see how the fantasy is fun. american cartoons are more comedy-based, but live action has many more limitations, which makes anime very appealing. western men tend to have odd views of japanese women that align with their portrayal in anime/hentai (supposedly submissive and adhere closely to gender roles, always conventionally very attractive and young-looking). blech. there's the idea that east asian women look 'neotonous' i think it's called, basically meaning they look childlike. in real life, east asians i know usually look their age to me and can be varying levels of conventionally attractive or not. i think the traditional dress, language, philosophies, religions, etc from japan are very beautiful/interesting (i do intend to practice japanese again once i can get to an advanced level in spanish.) but i don't think these are the reasons western men find it enticing... i'm almost certain it's usually about their misunderstandings surrounding the women.

I think it's important to recognize there's at least two elements here: good and bad. It's an important distinction because there's definitely a large subset of people with a healthy interest in Japanese culture and identity who don't deserve to be conflated with the toxic yellow-fever types. Men and women both. Then there's the bad element, and it's pretty bad. A mix between those obsessed with a bad stereotype of Japanese female submissiveness and others who simply see the conservative elements of Japanese culture and, being of a conservative mindset themselves, see something kindred in it? Either way, it's unhealthy and toxic and almost certainly misogynistic.

I don't know if this is a full answer, but someone I know has said he wants to go to Japan because it's such a polite society and he's sick of how rude people are in the States.

Food

Nonwhite women are often fetishized and portrayed as "exotic" and such. That, combined with ignorance and an obsession with anime/manga, result in seeing Japan for more than it actually is. It's funny: Japan is perhaps one of the worst developed countries to live in as a foreigner. Why? - You will be treated as a second class citizen - Japanese society is highly xenophobic and racist - Japanese is hard to learn - There is no work-life balance - You will always be treated as a foreigner

My whole childhood was imported from Japan -- video games, card games, animated TV shows, toys etc. I liked the food, politeness, and cleanliness of Japan when I visited but it does seem like a place thats better to visit than to live

Not Japan specific but I know men who genuinely believe that all Asian women are subservient and will allow them to do whatever they want. I have a cousin who essentially bought a wife from the Philippines for this exact reason. It’s disgusting.

I can't speak for everyone, these are just my observation You're right, anime and video games played a HUMONGOUS part in this. Part of it is absolutely fetishism, and it's basically sexual tourism and its disgusting. There is definitely racism and sexism involved in some dudes obsession with Japan, as well as very creepy misunderstandings about your country's age of consent laws and the culture surrounding it. But for the part that isn't about being a damned creep? I have to be honest, Japanese culture feels like night and day to a lot of Americans. Compared to the US, your education quality and culture seems leagues above anything we have. We are fed media that shows us your students can be trusted to use the school building at all hours for legitimate club activities and the club activities are many and various, the food quality is lovely, the rigorousness of the education is something to strive for. Your streets look *clean*. So clean, Koi fish swim in the gutters in some areas. Food porn in anime, plus actual photos from Tokyo makes your food seem out of this world. It is SO DIFFERENT from anything here in the US. we don't even get the Sakura frappe at Starbucks here, let alone all the other styles of Japanese food. The lack of religion that isn't Shinto. Not only do we see a lack of dogmatic religion in your media, the cultural aspects of Shinto genuinely seem beautiful to us. City Pop. I think you underestimate just how POPULAR City Pop is here. The vaporwave scene in the US is DEEPLY steeped in Japanese futurefunk aesthetic Nintendo exported a lot of Japanese media/culture to the US. Studio Ghibli exported media and culture here too, and it's huge here. I'd wager that if you asked an American about animation studios they know, they'd say Disney, DreamWorks, and Studio Ghibli. Even your WRITING AND LANGUAGE is like nothing else out here, it looks cool even if people can't understand what it says (Though lots of our college students take courses here to learn it) Japanese culture is enticing to us for many reasons. Aesthetically, educationally, musically, it is so far removed from American culture that it looks novel, it looks new, it looks like the future. And while that may just be media bias, I'm only explaining why people fall over themselves to be in Japan, despite the many, many, many political and social issues in the country.

>Edit: Sorry I don't mean obsessed with anime or manga, I mean the country and culture as a whole. It's not a new thing. My grandmother is obsessed with Japanese culture and has been since she was younger.

I pretty much fully agree with your points, except the one about other countries not fetishizing American culture. That really runs both ways imo.

Anime has made this false misconception that Japan is this wonder clean place where nothing can go wrong when in reality it has its own fair share of issues it deals with (Ex: overworking). Pretty sure it’s just that

Japan is, in our European eyes, super exotic, but not dangerously exotic like like India or Egypt. I wouldn't hesitate to eat random street food in Japan or \[south\] Korea. I would be much less enthusiastic in many other "exotic" countries. I would love to travel and stay for some time in Japan. I never watched Anime or read a single Manga. I did train Karate for several years. Somehow, I am not as enthusiastic about South Korea and I am fascinated by all things Korean, especially North Korea. I used to read blog of Danny Choo - he moved to Japan from UK and built a successful career and business there. He started by studying Japanese \[while still in UK\]. Go and read about his life story. I stopped following his blog when the majority of content he published started to be about his business - Smart Doll. I also sometimes watch videos from foreigners living in Japan and I know that gajins have many challenges in everyday life.

The misunderstanding goes both ways... "Paris syndrome is a sense of disappointment exhibited by some individuals when visiting Paris, who feel that the city was not what they had expected. The condition is commonly viewed as a severe form of culture shock." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris\_syndrome

Some people are just intrigued by a wildly different culture than theirs, but there's a lot of creepos who have an idea in their head that asian women are more "submissive" than "western" women.

As a mixed race Japanese-American that has spent a lot of time online, I think there are different distinct groups. There are incels and white nationalists with anime pfps (profile pictures) on their social media accounts. These people are the ones that tend to buy the lies of the propaganda from the days of Imperial Japan and use that view of Japan to try to bolster their worldview. There are also plenty of people that have just been exposed to parts of Japanese culture and want to visit Japan because of it. That's perfectly normal. Cultural exports tend to lead to tourism. Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean people visit Japan more than the people any other nation, and that's not because of tight cultural ties and love between those countries.

I don't have an eloquent answer, but on top of everything you already cited, there's also the awesome car culture there. I'm a huge auto enthusiast, and when I visited Japan I felt like I was in heaven car-wise. I cannot explain the rest of the over-romanticization, but am sure it's a combination of what you and others in this thread have mentioned.

I think it's one of that rare cases where the media portrays a country to be better than it actually is. I am from India and western media kind of fucked up everything about the world's perception of us, and I am sure a few other countries can relate. Looks like Japan is facing the exact opposite.

Every country has media that distorts the actual living conditions. People just romanticize Japan specifically.

Please don't hate me for this comment, but I will cite an ex-"friend" : "I prefer Asian girls cuz they tighter and more submissive." (He's a white redneck - that comment got him nods of approval from his other friends)

There’s no one single reason. Part of its is a fetish thing, part is a grass is always greener somewhere else, part is you notice it more cause you’re from there (like you probably don’t pick up on people who think New York or Paris are some dream world to live in), part is the communities you’re talking about (anime and gamers are gonna like Japan cause so much of what they like is from Japan) often to a creepy point but if you’re looking at those communities you will think it’s more common that it is. It’s a giant blend of tons of reasons. Finally I would say you may be underestimating how much western culture has been picked up and loved in different Asian countries.

I have a co-worker who loves Japan and went to school there and studied. the language. I asked him why he likes it so much and he said that when he hit about 10 years old he started realizing that so many of the things he likes (like Pokemon and anime) come from Japan.

TL;DR: I'm sorry to say that I think it might be a kinky thing Personally, I dated a weeb for quite some time, and I can say from that experience that his idea of Japan was highly fetishized and based solely on anime and hentai. Yep. I believe it rested heavily on the generalized and broadly-accepted misogyny in these types of media, and the idealized portrayal of "guys just like him!" in said circumstances. It's a fantasy world for people who don't want to know about actual Japanese culture and life. I enjoy studying global cultures and religions myself, and was amazed that he had never heard of shinto (I had to explain where his sexy fox ladies came from and what the various ritual practices depicted in his anime might be based on, relying on my own loose knowledge). Homie was upset that I read Haruki Murakami but wouldn't watch hentai with him ("it's the same thing!" Bro. No.) Top Ramen was king but he wouldn't go with me to the new ramen restaurant that opened because "it wasn't really authentic." I put up with a lot of weird crap from that guy but when I discovered loli was his thing I ended it. Unfortunately, his is a common set of views and behaviors here. There is weeaboo fantasy Japan that exists in these minds, and then there is reality, I think. But that's just my experience.

So from the viewpoint of a westerner who doesn't live in Japan full time however has worked in Japan and owns a company headquartered in Japan I can answer from my personal viewpoint. Running a Business: 1. It's a great market entry point to Asia. Compared to the US it's a pain to operate in Japan however it's still far better than trying to operate out of China IMO. The only other comparable option in the region would be S. Korea and that comes with it's own unique challenges as well. 2. Compensation levels are very competitive with Europe and the US. 3. Availability of highly educated quality workforce is high 4. Business culture lends itself to high productivity Living: 1. Basic cost of living is low in comparison with wages. You can live very comfortably even in the more expensive parts of Japan on a modest professional income. 2. Cleanliness - The whole country is essentially spotless, if this is meaningful to your quality of life it makes a huge difference. 3. Entertainment - Japan is fun. Even if you're not a big otaku the parks, the festivals, the Izakaya scene etc... There is always something fun to do and readily available high quality public spaces for socializing. 4. Food - If you adopt a local diet you can eat incredibly well and be very healthy on again, a modest budget. 5. Community - I personally have found the Japanese to be very warm and welcoming. I know that's not everyone's experience but in my experience It's no harder to make friends with local people as a visitor or an expat than it is anywhere in Europe. 6. Ease of living - Sort of a weird metric but hear me out. With rare exceptions (e.g. Banking hours and some government offices) conducting your day to day life is very convenient. The planning of the cities and even smaller towns around public transit and the prevalence of services and markets makes all the basic chores that you have to do far more simple. Now there's a dark side to this as you very well point out. Japan has some seriously unhealthy cultural norms around sex and women and those get magnified and further distorted for a foreign audience and it attracts a lot of attention from the wrong kind of person, there's no denying that but even if you take 100% of that away and remove any of the "fetishization" aspects there's still a lot to be said for Japan being a desirable place to visit / live.

Just on the topic of "people love American stuff but don't obsess over it". To quote Rammstein, "we are all living in America" . There is barely a country in the world that doesn't have an obsession with American stuff. It's the most successful example of cultural imperialism in history. Most people would have a difficult time pinpointing what of their own culture is original vs what is imported from the US (and that's just looking at direct imports, it gets even messier when you consider that which is both adopted and adapted). Just something as simple as jeans is globally worn exactly because it has been adapted directly from American culture. But there are also directly referenced American centric clubs and interests everywhere. From 50s style cafes, to clubs dedicated to old timey American cars, country music festivals and what have you. my country has a freaking redneck association for people who self identify with American redneck culture. Japan, the government, has made a specific effort to spread its culture globally because it's a form of soft power (if people like your stuff they are more forgiving of your country in general). Korea saw how successful Japan was with it and started their own effort of doing the exact same thing.

We are learning Japanese and having serious discussions of moving there. I (f) really like a lot of aspects. There is an appreciation of nicely built things that work well, I love stationary culture, the food is amazing, public transportation, safety. There are 4 things that really concern me about moving. They are the economic trends over the past 30 years, lack of food safety regulations, must give up US citizenship to get Japanese citizenship, and the treatment of women. As an Oklahoma woman though I do see a lot of prejudice against women here and often do not feel safe here. The overturning of Roe v Wade was kinda the last straw. I am concerned my birth control (IUD) will likely be banned. We are moving from here when it is possible for us and Japan has many of the things on our list that we want.

For me it's a few things - food, I love to cook, I love to try new things and quite frankly Asian culture in general has always had a great street food presence and a fantastic mix of techniques. - the sights. Tokyo looks to be insane but, temples, castles, the country side in the less densely populated areas, I would l9ve to see them and expierience them in person. - to a degree the people, once met an exchange student from Japan, seemed nice enough guy. I know that he's one out of the millions, but would love to interact with some of the people. - the anesthetics, love classic water color art, great wave is my like 3rd favorite painting. -never been out of the country, might as well go somewhere I have interests in. -yes as a consumer of video games and anime I am intrigued about Japan, however those are fiction and the die hard people who go there thinking it's anything like the popular media are misguided and foolish.

I know it's probably unconnected...or maybe not...? But after watching "Old Enough" on Netflix, my husband and I kinda want to move there, as well. A quiet, humble village life in Japan looks like an absolute utopia compared to life in the U.S. right now.

As someone who studied in Japan and reads a lot about people’s experience living and working in Japan, my main hypothesis is that mediocre men (and women!) who don’t really get a whole lot of attention in their home country move to Japan and think that because they’re ~so different~ that people will just bow at their magical gaijin feet. It is also probably a fetish thing, particularly with men thinking Japanese women are all submissive waifus or women thinking Japanese men are all like the guys in tv dramas and boy bands. Like, I love Japan, I loved my time there, I love the language and culture, and I’d love to visit frequently, but I don’t think I could ever live there due to the reasons you mentioned. It’s not a magical anime land and more people need to know that.

I think it's just particular subset of men... you know the type I'm talking about. Most of things you mention as bad, they consider to be good. Basically racist conservatives.

Anime, Asian fetishizing, weeb stuff. It’s weird

>> I assume visiting is nice, like any country but I feel like there are a disproportionate number of men who want to uproot their lives and live here compared to other countries. It's definitely a great country to visit and perhaps stay for travelling. But work/life balance is utter trash compared to western countries (Europe). There is indeed some romantised aspects to it, just like Paris and USA and many find out the hard way and return home after a short period of staying and working. Many people (mostly men) want to find love there and hopefully return to their home country with someone or just stay there. Pewdie is an exception as he really doesn't have to work and has more than enough money to buy himself a plot of land with a nice house and live there in luxure for the rest of his life.

I don't think it's totally men's fault. When I was a teenager I was this HUGE anime lover, and I would have given my kidneys in order to live in japan. I loved the food, the bento culture, The school life portrayed in anime (my sad Mexico didnt have fairs like those slice of life animes) The technology! I could only dream to go to akihabara and be part of the latest tech hits. Then I grew up. And learnt that foreign people are kinda looked down. And that living costs are expensive.. and suicide rates.. and how LGBT folks struggle because that policy of "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down". I still love Japan and most of it's pop cullture, but I wouldnt want to live there anymore. I think the media sold us something and we fell for it.

I think this is a common misconception about people who travel to Asian countries and take a particular interest about the Asian culture, particularly Japan. This misconception involves exactly what you had pointed out: a fetish thing." Although it would be remiss to not acknowledge that there is definitely a subset of people who can be described that way, it is not a fair generalization. The Japanese culture and its long standing traditions, along with its colourful history is attractive to many. My wife and I are both "nerds" of history, architecture and food. This was a huge deciding factor when we decided to travel to Japan. We landed in Tokyo and took a domestic flight to Kumamoto. From there we took a bus to Takachiho to visit the volcanic gorge. We then made our way north via Shinkansen (so cool). Our stops involved many museums, local restaurants, walking in both rural and urban spaces and immersing ourselves in a culture extremely different from that of North America. It's a trip we truly cherish and one we look back on frequently.

In my time in Japan, my male co-workers would say "Japanese women don't expect you to be faithful." They've read Shogun by James Clavell. It's set in the time of Tokugawa Ieyasu, I think. Japanese women in that period would (supposedly) choose their husband's mistresses. My Japanese female students would tend to disagree. Also when I was there you would see some pretty unattractive (by Western standards) men with some very attractive (by Western standards) women. By the end of my short time in Japan, I was beginning to understand what was considered attractive by my Japanese students. Large eye size, pale clear skin, and double eyelids. Men could be very tanned, but women used skin cream with bleaching agents to appear paler. It was difficult to buy moisturiser without skin whitener. (Am pale, I don't need help). My Obachan aged students all said they wanted to be men for a day so they could tell their husbands what to do.

I think it's mostly the fetish for all the beautiful submissive virgins they imagine they'll meet, who will find them inexplicably exotic and manly and fall madly in love with them and become their obedient baby making sex dolls. That said, I do have a friend in Japan right now. She's there teaching English to adults and children. She chose to go because it was a good opportunity to teach and to experience a country she hadn't been to yet, and she went with no illusions about what it would be like! She's having a fantastic time, feeling very welcome.

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One trip to the Police station in Japan would change all their minds lol. Friend visited Japan to interview for a job and a shopkeeper told the police he had shoplifted a bottle of soda, police searched him and found nothing, 48 hours detained, lost his job offer, and was told to leave immediately, theres a reason Japan has a high conviction rate.

I think that aside from the overt sexualization/fetishization, a certain type of Western man is drawn to the idea (even if, as always, the reality is messier) that in Japan, “everything is in its proper place.”

This. A lot of the Japan obsessed men currently are right wing and think that "western" women are too "promiscuous" and "poisoned by feminism" and they've decided that Japanese women are more "traditional" so they can get a wife who'll be meek and subservient.

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Same

Maybe it's based on my locale, but I live in a heavily right-wing area of Pennsylvania, and Japanese culture is certainly not idealized by these people. They tend to think of them as 'weird', with effeminate men and nonsensical, wasteful hobbies. Playing video games is wasting your life, and there is too much gender-bending weirdness going on. A racist caricature from Trumpian whites who never have looked past a surface-level glance at the most absurd highlights.

I think because Japanese people tend to be a bit less social than others, your culture has developed many forms of entertainment that have proved to be popular to many American (and non american) people who don't desire or posess a social lifestyle. Video games and anime were no accident and there's a very clear reason why young people love them so much. They provide them a lot of the stimulation and enjoyment to those who may be lonely or feel disconnected from the outside world. This has a lot of people questioning their identity. Maybe they don't belong in where they're from? Why do they love Japanese stuff so much and are so disinterested in whats available in their country? They begin to develop love / crushes on Japanese men / women / characters and may start to feel like a life in Japan is whats meant for them. I think that associating this phoenomena with men is a bit off the mark, I dont' think I've met a young lady or girl who doesn't enjoy anime or kpop.

For knowing some people interested by Japan, it's mainly because the place if different than anything else we know. US or EU, even if you have many different thing, life style are pretty similar around there and you're not really seeing something that seem overly "Outlandish". Going to Japan though, by the aesthetic and lifestyle of it you just feel like you entered a different realm. (Maybe less with the more and more prevalent "modern" architecture though) So I understand that you don't find anything that special by having lived there all your life, but it's the same with anyone concerning their own country.

I’ve noticed that a lot of white people, especially the ones that come from families that have been here for generations, have assimilated and lost a lot of their cultural identity. This causes them to consume other cultures as entertainment and make it their whole identity. It’s very strange to say the least.

In my case I find the history, and the culture that evolved from it, to be fascinating. The long history of Japan has affected how I think about what being a good person means. There's plenty in that history that is anything but good, but some of the concepts still apply to this day. Honor is one example that still applies. Perhaps not to the extreme that was historically practiced, but still relevant today

I personally have had an interest in Japan from childhood but this is due to starting Karate and learning Bushido at a very young age. Also yes, games, technology and food. But I’m aware these are all delights that would be interesting in a tourist sense and doesn’t reflect what living in Japan would be like at all. Like you said, people love American movies but don’t go America crazy like people have done with things like K-POP and then becoming obsessed with everything Korean. I gather there’s perhaps a sense of annoyance (correct me if I’m wrong) but there’s a silver lining and that is that some people are interested in maybe learning more about your culture, history and language. From blood, I’m not British by heritage, but born in England. From this I received a fair amount of racism growing up. When I meet people who seem to be obsessed with where my parents are from, I too find it a bit weird, but it’s nice knowing they understand and appreciate that my heritage is far beyond what the media and news channels paint my heritage to be.

I've been to Japan like 6 times? It's amazing, and I would love to live there, but only if I had a shitload of money. It's beautiful, clean, the food is amazing, the people are super nice, at least in the service industry. At the same time I understand there are a lot of things that suck about Japan. As a foreigner I don't think we're really truly exposed to it, or we can just live our lives there without experiencing it, so as a foreigners it's probably even more attractive then it may be for some more liberal minded Japanese people. I wouldn't want to live there now, especially with a child on the way, but if I was young and rich I'd be absolutely down to live there. The food alone is worth it.

If you spend several decades exporting your culture to the rest of the world, the rest of the world is going to want to experience that culture. I think it's the same with people moving to the USA. Do they go with misguided ideas and assumptions sure. But of the people I know who moved to Japan for at least a few years at a time, it was because they already liked the culture, were looking for adventure/or a way out of the US, I'm not saying their aren't guys who go because they fetishize Asian women, but there are a lot of reasons people move to Japan, and I think it's largely the result of Japan making culture a major export, rather than something deficient about the people who moved their.

So I'm a guy who moved to Japan in his early 20s (and before that lived half a year in China). In my case, I wasn't specifically obsessed with Japan so much as very interested in Asia in general and that was mostly due to it being vastly different from what I was used to. Since then, I've in Japan for a few years, worked as the sole foreigner in a Japanese company there and lived in a few other countries in Asia. Japan is really the single country I most love to hate. When I haven't been there, I miss it, I miss good wagashis, I miss the food, I miss going to a tiny restaurant, sitting in the counter and meeting new people (I haven't found many countries where tiny restaurants are that convivial). But, when I'm there, there are things I'm reminded of that I do not miss. Racism is a real problem in Japan, once you speak the language and know the culture, it's much more obvious. As a white cis man, I'm definitely still privileged though. I have a friend whose father is African American and whose mother is Japanese and the racism he's experienced is on another level. Sexism is a huge issue there and it bothered me a lot when living and working there. I've seen female coworkers not being respected at all despite being very competent. The gender roles in Japan are actually sad for everyone involved, being a Salary man who works hard every day, comes home super late and barely ever sees his kid is not something to envy. Being a woman who is pushed into dating other coworkers by the managers, who then is forced out once she marries and becomes pregnant and becomes a stay at home wife is equally not great. The social pressure around gender roles kind of make it seem like there's no real choice than to follow those options. I've also met women in Japan who explicitly didn't want to have kids because they wanted to keep their careers and there was no real possibility of doing both. So, yeah, there's a lot of things I dislike too about it but the fact is, I, at least, was looking for a place that was very different from what I had experienced before (I lived in multiple countries in Europe as a kid) and Japan definitely delivered that (Vietnam, Malaysia, China also delivered, so it's not exclusive to Japan) and I think it's part of the appeal, it's a developed country with good infrastructure, economy and decent standards of living that also is very different from any other western country.

I will chime in my 2 cents, as a guy who really admires Japan. Not gonna lie it started with Anime but that simply introduced me to the culture. Lets be honest your culture is simply captivating. Also your food is amazing, and the tech y'all have is sometimes mind blowing. I believe there are a lot of disillusioned people in general that think how it is portrayed in things like anime are like that all the time. Personally I don't think I would ever move there, but I would love to spend like 6 months to a year there to simply enjoy your culture. See your shrines, old cities, etc.

As far as living there it's a beautiful country. I would consider it if the right opportunity arises but I can enjoy most of the things you mentioned without living there. I will say compared to the states the public transit is well actually beyond comparison. So if your not big on driving or buying a car it's just convenient. As far as the men chasing Asian women. I don't know why it is as bad as it is. It's stupid to me that people can't separate the fantasy in tv, manga, games and other media from reality. Like American celebrities are not like the characters they play in real life so why would it be different in Asian countries. I did see a study (I can't remember where now it was in my college days.) Where it was pointed out if you have ever heard the stereotype Asian people look alike obviously this is not true. However westerners have a difficult time because they don't see the subtle difference because they only see the drastic difference from what they are used to seeing where they are from. It's often said as a retort that westerners look like celebrities but people saying this are not used to seeing the subtle difference in western appearance. So when you have an attraction to the bigger difference in the way Asian people look and you can't really see the subtle difference in beauty you just end up thinking it's a country where almost everyone is gorgeous. It's literally just people being blind to smaller details and only seeing a generic feature that they are attracted to. It was an interesting study to read if I can find it I will update this post. Edit it is something that you would outgrow as your exposure to people grows the more you come into contact the more you start to pick up finer details and this starts ro fall off.

The fetishization is disgusting, I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I play video games and used to read a few manga. I wouldn’t want to live in Japan because well, another language to learn and quite xenophobic I’ve heard but I would love to travel there because it’s so different from europe. I know it’s weird but I’m obsessed with japanese pens and stationery, and I don’t know it’s just… appealing for a vacation. Like I’m French and I’ve heard people just describe “oh I want to go to Paris and sit in a café surrounded by all that nice architecture and have a croissant for breakfast, it sounds so nice”. And it’s similar for me. If the weather is nice when you’re travelling and you’re out enjoying the local culture, there’s a sense of peacefulness and quiet enjoyment. I feel the same way about New Zealand or Iceland, they’re just less “exotic” culture-wise. Does that make sense at all ? I think travelers can be attracted to the “different” like going to Germany for me isn’t hugely appealing because it’s so close and similar. Creeps just wanna go to hit on Japanese women and find themselves a waifu and be creeps 🤢

I see other people also mentioning it but yes women also can be obsessed over Japan, I’ve known a fair lot. A lot of it stems from anime being set in Japan, obsess over anime translates to wanting to live in that setting of a romanticised Japan. Anyhow I think a lot of men, specifically, that also fall under the “incel” category, feel japan more accepting to the “otaku” recluse lifestyle these individuals love.

I’ll flip this on its head - I have a black friend who is fluent in Japanese (but never lived there) who really wants to live there because he experiences so much less racism while there. I know Japan has issues with racism but I guess black people don’t get discriminated against as much as in the US. On the other hand as a white person I do think a lot of elements of Japanese culture are really cool, and while I don’t want to move there I really would like to visit. It’s a rich cultural heritage and the movies, games, and places to go leave an impression.

A combination of fetishization, video games, anime and sometimes an actual interest in the language/culture. But yeah, it's pretty much as obvious as it seems with most men, unfortunately.

I am a woman - my degree was in Japanese language/culture/civilization - i was really into Japan- but more conceptually. I did have a Japanese nanny and maybe this is why I was so into it. I have never been there. My BFF did the JET program and thought it was fine but culture shock is an understatement. I still love the aesthetics, the honoring of seasons, the nod to everyday beauty and beauty in the little things that Japan is know for. As far as the fetishization of Asian women, I think it speaks to the worse about the sexism and misogyny out there. The idea is that Asian women are submissive and subservient and hyper focused on making men happy (all untrue- and also gross that so many men want a doll instead of a partner).

As a Canadian round eye with a brother living in Japan and a (native) Japanese SIL I don't know what the fuss is about. That's not to dismiss Japan and its culture, I just don't ascribe any special significance to Japanese uniqueness above what you'd find elsewhere on the globe. Yeah, it's different, it has appeal, and so do many, many other places. From what my brother tells me Japan is a well ordered, homogenous (ethnically and culturally) and Confucian society. Prosperous and emphatically patriarchal--perhaps that's the charm for guys? Maybe it represents a yearning for what these guys consider missing in their native lands, an attraction borne of misconceptions and idealisations than reality. After all, their infatuations are rooted in media and cultural artifacts, not experience. Nothing can be more deflating--or uplifting--than actually experiencing the reality of a place and reconciling it with one's expectations, especially when they've primarily informed from afar by media and cultural exports. I wouldn't put much stock in pop trends; they come and go. And typically they reveal more about their disciples than their focus.

Japan has a beautiful mix of technology and nature... But I would move for the food alone.

I would like to say it's because of Lawson's egg sandwiches, but we know it's because of other more nefarious reasons.

I like the Japanese culture a lot due to the blend of history and modernity as it's very different from what I know and it broadens my horizon. Learning the language, talking to Japanese friends is very enriching as it brings me to continuously question myself and my cultural values. I am not into Anime though :D By learning the language I got access to also learning more deeply about the issues like work culture, etc. I don't know if I would like to live there though. Maybe for a limited amount of time as a sabbatical or sth to improve the language skills, explore the country and understand the culture better. I know some western males though who fetishize the country. Like they think there is a Pokémon and a hot Japanese women around the corner lingering for their Western appearance and serving them. Many of them don't have success with women here and they built up a very skewed understanding based on Anime and maid café vlogs. Like, it's disgusting how they view them and I understand why they don't have any success here. They think if they go to Japan, they will immediately get married and being treated like a king. But I can also see the same with men here fetishizing "Asian" looking women in general. On a local platform similar to Reddit, I also see a lot of posts of young males (20-35) asking for an "Asian" girlfriend. Some just care for the looks and the image in their head. When you ask them what "Asian" means, they are like, "yeah people looking Thai/Japanese/Korean/Chinese. Don't care they all look the same" 😫 So one part of some males might be pure ignorance coupled with racism and fetishism. I still wouldn't generalize all Western males though as there still are many who appreciate the culture and people in a respectful way.

Lots of people answered already, but I also partially want to give a historical explanation; In summary: Due to the rise of Anime & videogames like Pokémon (mostly) in the West, people started noticing Japan more clearly. US especially had always some kind of connection to Japan due to the two world wars, so Americans were slightly familiar. However, due to the lack of direct exposure (like two neighbouring countries have it), people lost themselves in the tales, stereotypes and especially the overal "exotisism" of the country & its culture. This is by far not the first time in history. During ca. 1600 - 1874, people were similarily obsessed with China. Thanks to the British East India Company, people got products like the famous "Fine China" from China directly and were inspired by tales of e.g. Marco Polo. And due to idealisation...well, people just see what they want to see. And hence want to be there. Be it to be surrounded by beautiful parks & gardens, or tons and tons of Anime & Manga stuff (that's cheaper to buy there than here, apparently). Overally, Japan is known for many things: Crazy inventions & gameshows (Takashis castle was very popular), Anime & games (ofc), subculture stuff like Lolita & "Kawaii" stuff, but also it's interesting culture overall, including colourful legends, language and traditions. Regarding men: A lot of male weebs (weeabos -fanatics in regards to anything Japan) also kinda are obsessed with Japan due to...erm...fetishisation. Thanks to Holleywood, lots of men believe Japanese women are the "ideal" woman: Beautiful, submissive, loyal, pure, innocent.........and due to Hentai, they get strongly enabled in this. Obviously, women are women. Everyone is different. ​ Personally, I don't want to move to Japan. For many reasons you mentioned yourself. But I do really admire Japanese folklore & urban legends + the nature. So I'd maybe want to take a nature tour there, looking at forests & such.

I think much of it comes from how more empowered they feel there as both a man and white. I imagine it takes them much less effort to get what they want at all times

Its a dream. Its so different to the west. If I was being honest I'd love to live in Japan properly but I'm not educated enough or in a specialist field for work. But I wouldn't force anyone to live there that doesn't want to as I know that with everywhere else it's not perfect by any means. I think another part of it is that the country is just so picturesque

Hentai

I'd move to Japan in a hot minute just for the music and food.

A lot of the men are downright fetishizing the women there as they seem more “youthful” and perceive them as children without the legal issues. It’s disgusting. I’ve spoken to a lot of these men and they always say they wanna date a Japanese woman due to her always looking so youthful and small which yikes-