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Hey, Answerman! [2008-04-04]


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Astraea



Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Posts: 85
PostPosted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 3:47 am Reply with quote
Doc Tater wrote:
Whew! It's been yonks since I posted; where'd all the time go?

Anyway, in response to this week's Answerfans, I'd have to say no. Sure, anime's a part of my leisure life, but as an advertisement for Japan? Not for me, but neither it is a discouragement either. Anime's just another form of entertainment for me, and if the Warhammer 40K franchise didn't make me want to visit England, how could anime persuade me that visiting Glorious Nippon is the first and last thing I want to do with my life?

That being said, I'd have to say that it may mostly depend on local culture anyway! Take me for example; while you palefaces are obsessed with the Land of the Rising Sun, I'm over here in Malaysia drooling at the thought of wearing a Prussian uniform. While
bleary-eyed gaijin pore over their Japanese Language books, I'm busy working my gelatinous rear off for German lessons (preferably with a good, Northern German accent). And while Westerners think the katana is the bees knees, I'd give you two of those oversized sushi knives for a good, solid zweihander any day. Samurai code of honour? Please- any true hero worth the name follows the codes of chivalry!

Basically, it's simply the lure of the exotic. Trust me, I'm not the only Asian who feels this way.


As a British 'paleface', I feel rather obliged to point out that surely not all people who found an interest in Japanese/Asian culture through anime would be obsessives who believe that "visiting Glorious Nippon is the first and last thing [they] want to do with...life". I think there's an important distinction to be made there, as you appear (that is, I could be misinterpreting) to be making an over-generalisation about westerners who are interested in Japan and/or Asia as a whole.

Some might watch anime and be inspired to find out for themselves what life is really like in Japan, or what its other forms of entertainment are like. Research, learning Japanese, whathaveyou. In that case, an interest in Japanese culture is just that. Not some sort of....cultural fanboyism based on an idealistic obsession with all things oriental.

Oh, and in a slightly OT point, give me a longsword over a katana or a zweihander any day. Wink
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