Seriously, Japan, WTF? [NY Times Magazine] "Love in 2-D"

Before that it was ganguro. Seems like it's trendy to be anything but.

 

Posting as someone who has played a fair number of them, I would point out that there is a difference between visual novels and dating sims, persay, with the latter being a subset of the former - there are certain visual novels that are pretty much nothing more than books on a computer where there's music and the characters are drawn out. Furthermore, while these are frequently top-selling in Japan, they are not definitely not pedophilic.

Honestly, this article doesn't surprise me at all. Speaking as a Japanese-American who's semi-fluent, the Japanese are more or less a completely screwed up group of people, though I am surprised with their interest in white people, given I've taken a lot of flak from native Japanese the few time I've been there.

 

I think there is a difference regarding your ethnicity and as an Asian, especially a Japanese-American, they have a different expectation of you than a non-Asian. As I said when I was in Japan I wasn't treated very well and was on two occasions openly berated by Japanese for how I dressed and acted. On both those occasions the impression I got was that they thought I was Japanese since they were speaking in Japanese and I understand a small amount of it. A few times some Japanese asked me if I was Korean and that probably explained why some of them treated me coldly.

This seemed pretty prevalent in Japan but I did notice in other parts of Asia the locals often treated me differently than they treated non-Asian Americans that I was with. On converse side I was treated much better in Ireland than another friend of mine who was travelling with me. As an Asian-American I seemed to be much more of a novelty for the Irish. For my friend who is descended from Germans and Norwegians didn't seem that much of a novelty and at times was looked down upon a couple of times since the Irish thought he was Polish, who apparently the Irish look down upon.

 

the silver lining is that those full body pillows can be lifesavers in an earthquake - as long as she's on top

 

I didn't think to point this out because I figured there wasn't much of a point. If an American person doesn't know enough about the subject to know the differences, they're not touching either with a 10 foot pole.

I personally agree with you that most of this stuff isn't nearly as hardcore as one may think. I do enjoy a lot of Japanese stuff. Mainly animes and light novels though, and mainly for comedy. But there is quite a stigma on the subject though.

Well, it's not like you're white. And you probably don't sound like an American either when speaking Japanese.

The word that comes to mind when I think of the Japanese is "extreme". It seems they're just extreme in everything they do. You don't go from being in ruins to economic superpower in 40 years, with very little resources I might add, unless there's something wrong with you.