For those of you who have any familiarity with it, how do you feel about how Japanese media/entertainment portrays Americans?

20 comments

  2. I’m mostly running on ridiculous American characters in a few mainstream animes but I think it’s hilarious and I’m 100% here for it.

  3. I think it’s hilarious except when they are portraying themselves as victims of the Second World War

  4. From what I’ve seen of the way Americans are generally depicted in Japanese media, they seem to be one of the very few countries who overall unironically like the USA. It’s a nice change from all the “A M E R I C A B A D” bullshit we seem to get from almost everyone else who expresses an opinion about our country.

  5. I’m more uncomfortable in how Japanese media portrays Germany and the pedestal it seems to be on, in light of their lack of societal reckoning for what they did in WWII

  6. Lt. Surge is a badass

    In the Japanese version of the Pokemon anime, he speaks with an American accent and mixes in English words.

  9. I think it’s funny that we are always blond with blue eyes. Sure that’s common but most people don’t look like that!

  12. Asian dramas in general crack me up when they introduce an “American” clearly played by an actor who is not fluent in English nevermind American English. It’s very very obvious every single time. And the directoring/acting is always something about this character being over the top. Usually way over the top. That makes me laugh as well.

  13. It’s kinda hilarious. They seem to think we’re all

    1.) physically giants

    2.) really loud and boisterous

    3.) very friendly

    4.) either a skateboarder, surfer dude, or cowboy

  14. There are basically three different versions I see:

    1. America being over the top, zany, and extremely business oriented but ultimately well meaning and friendly.

    2. America has abandoned Japan in their hour of need. (Typically done because they need drama, it generally goes down better when said crisis is also fucking up the US/has already fucked it up as opposed to evil empire or scheming type stuff)

    3. America is the evil empire coming to oppress Japan. Most typically done by weird Japanese nationalists. These ones can still be enjoyable, but are frequently tied in with WW2 revisionism which is kinda weird.

    Type 1 is usually absolutely hilarious and if they’re more than gag characters, it can often introduce a fun dynamic where the loud, but culturally ignorant American says stuff that everyone was thinking.

    Type 2 can be hit or miss depending on how they decide to go about it, but its usually pretty obvious that they just needed a reason why America isn’t mobilizing all efforts to help out the Japanese. Like I said before, its usually way less noticeable if whatever is causing a problem in Japan is absolutely wrecking the US as well or they give some sort of excuse like the US collapsed from political drama or whatever.

    Type 3 are the trickiest and most often done badly. When it’s done well, it’s often just as much a story of American politics and skullduggery with clandestine groups seizing power and making Americans as pissed off about what happened to America as the Japanese are pissed off what the fictional American Empire is doing to Japan. Being a neighbor/ally of Rome after the Fall of the Republic would obviously be worrying.

    When it’s done badly, it’s usually ultra-nationalists causing a stink that America didn’t just let Japan do whatever it wanted in the 1940s and that they ruined Japan forever, which is usually weird and uncomfortable.

  15. President Michael Wilson from Metal Wolf Chaos is actually based on my life.

  16. It’s not America-specific but their depictions of Christianity-coded religion in their media are interesting – they don’t have a strong local attachment to the religion so they adapt the aesthetics and themes in much the same way we adapt ancient Greek religions in our media.

  17. I love it.
    They seem to think we’re overconfident, machismo, gun-obsessed cowboys who eat burgers, fries, and hot dogs 24/7.

    The new Yakuza game takes place in Honolulu and they really, really embrace the culture clash. I loved the [brash corrupt cop](https://youtu.be/H5coWsFGny8?si=Pp0mbmDyZnlBccpA) who fires one off on the protagonist. Even better was [Danny Trejo](https://youtu.be/gEaYc2R6eEo?si=95-zlMYXX9kgjfVb) playing the only depiction I’ve seen of Mexican-Americans in Japanese media.

    Everything is dialed up to 11 and while they address some real issues inherent to America (the police, wealth inequality & homeless crisis), they also aren’t one sided as criticizing the Japanese justice system is the focal point of the series.

    Aside from those scenes, there was a lot of “wow! America has lemonade stands!” “Wow! Americans are very diverse and have lots of multiculturalism!” “Wow! Americans are very friendly and social!”

    It was honestly a more accurate America than I’ve seen in any mainland European depiction.

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