Imagine a sweaty japanese man with a meg griffin body pillow.
Howdy, my name is Rawhide Kobayashi. I'm a 27 year old Japanese Japamerican (western culture fan for you foreigners). I brand and wrangle cattle on my ranch, and spend my days perfecting the craft and enjoying superior American passtimes. (Barbeque, Rodeo, Fireworks) I train with my branding iron every day, this superior weapon can permanently leave my ranch embled on a cattle's hide because it is white-hot, and is vastly superior to any other method of livestock marking. I earned my branding license two years ago, and I have been getting better every day. I speak English fluently, both Texas and Oklahoma dialect, and I write fluently as well. I know everything about American history and their cowboy code, which I follow 100% When I get my American visa, I am moving to Dallas to work in an oil field to learn more about their magnificent culture. I hope I can become a cattle wrangler for the Double Cross Ranch or an oil rig operator for Exxon-Mobil! I own several cowboy hats, which I wear around town. I want to get used to wearing them before I move to America, so I can fit in easier. I rebel against my elders and seniors and speak English as often as I can, but rarely does anyone manage to respond. Wish me luck in America!
Reminder that Shoji Tabuchi is Rawhide Kobayashi in real life.
Funny you mention this, but it drives western weebs up the wall when they ask a Japanese person what their favorite anime is and they reply "Minions movie" or "spongebob". Same if they ask for manga recommendations and they get recommended to read some classic spiderman.
This is because to the average Japanese person "anime" is what "cartoons" is to a yankee because it's literally a literary shorthand for 'Animation'
Minions and spongebob is a bit of a stretch honestly, but if you substitute that with the more traditional Disney movies than yeah it is not surprising at all, in fact quite common, Frozen was very successful there.
not the wording I'd use, they're more like people baby's first "foreign culture-philia" experiences where you become enamoured with a mix of the projected image and stereotypes of a foreign country without actually doing any research into the history or reality of said foreign country.
Common examples of the past can be how European countries, such as France, were seen as in the past in America. Where France was this mystical far-off exotic foreign land where romance is everywhere, the food is sublime, and every moment there is like a painting from the romanticist or impressionist art periods - when in reality France is rather mundane. Same with how in the 80's there was a lot of mythologizing about the unique paradise that is tropical life, be that in Hawaii, Fiji, other pacific islands, or the Caribbean, etc.
Weebs, BTS-stans, and the rare wuxia fan, are basically that but rather stripped down in the fact their exposure is primarily through the medium of entertainment.
Where France was this mystical far-off exotic foreign land where romance is everywhere, the food is sublime, and every moment there is like a painting from the romanticist or impressionist art periods - when in reality France is rather mundane.
In Japan, disappointment with France was so strong and so common that it got a special name.
Having lived in Japan myself and having visited Europe a few times, I've gotta say there isn't much for anyone in a developed Asian country to get from visiting the west. Pretty much everything over there is better even after you remove the "greener grass" filter and acknowledge the problems those places have.
Having lived in Japan myself and having visited Europe a few times, I’ve gotta say there isn’t much for anyone in a developed Asian country to get from visiting the west.
yep spending plenty of time in Korea, and visiting a lot of the western europe countries, I'd have to agree. The only thing I wish Korea would change, outside of politics, is their bread culture. That shit looks yankee cake-bread look rustic, holy shit lmao.
I've seen a comic about that before: it was a Japanese guy obsessed with Spongebob and gatekeeping about it, I think. :squidward-nochill:
"I had a Sandy Cheeks body pillow before it became popular"
Maybe not with animation, but I was under the impression that certain western subcultures had some popularity there, like rockabilly: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/tokyos-rockabilly-scene/
Also I think part of the appeal of otaku culture to westerners is that there doesn’t seem to be nearly as much equivalent media in the west that caters to groups like that, since most stuff is more profit driven and instead made for a more general audience. So I can’t really see people in Japan identifying with western media in the same way that westerners do with Japanese media.
I’ve never been to Japan and am not super well versed in actual Japanese culture, though, so maybe I’m way off base on that.
Check out the movie Wild Zero, it's based on a real japanese rock and roll band called Guitar Wolf (who fucking shred). It's amazing, there are zombies, ufos, motorcycles, and an explicitly pro-trans romantic storyline, which is kinda suprising for the time/place it was made. It fucking rules, the dvd came with a built-in drinking game lol
Holy shit this looks amazing. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely be checking this one out.
If you want to play the drinking game, the rules are to drink every time:
- Someone combs their hair
- Fire shoots out of something
- A head explodes
- Someone yells "Rock and Roll!!"
Be careful though, do this with light beer or something and not liquor, because you'll be drinking a LOT
Weebs are largely a mirror of Otaku. So a westaboo would likely be a mirror of people who are obsessed with cartoons in the west.
Can't really think of a Western cartoon eqvivalent to the waifu-bait, borderline hentai and harem shows. Sure, people will still make porn of it and get weirdly obsessed, but it isn't something that the shows are marketed on, nor do I think that there are any official Marge Simpson body pillows.
westaboo jumping on a mos burger counter demanding sezchuan sauce and repeating the "you need a high IQ to understand rick and morty" pasta in broken english
Not really the same thing, but Osamu Tezuka took a lot of inspiration from earlier Disney works
Pretty sure this bit was already fulfilled multiple decades ago
