To Prevent Japanophiles from Eventually Being Disappointed by it, Japan Needs to Preemptively Ween Them off Anime and Manga

"Ah, Japanese? I love Naruto!" This is a common refrain for a person from Japan when they find a Japanophile in another country. The prevalence of online video platforms, combined with a good dollop of government support, has led to a global boom for the Japanese manga and anime industry. Japanese for power has surged as the popular series in Japan become popular everywhere. With the advent of AI and accurate transcription/translation software, the ability to take Japanese digital content and localize it has never been easier and cheaper.

Yet, as the world associates Japan with anime and manga, it also raises a difficult question. What if you are interested in Japan but do not care much for either? Japan, being a culinary destination with a unique cultural, natural, and architectural heritage, certainly has much more to offer. With an ever-increasing number of inbound tourists in Japan, the world clearly agrees. But those who have the time and the money to make the trip to learn about Japan deeply, after all, are a tiny minority. Those who will never be in Japan and never meet a real Japanese person must stick to the easily transportable cultural snippets.

But cultural snippets need not be the animated kind. The fixation with anime and manga for Japan-lovers is systematically crowding out everything else they could learn about the culture that is much more grounded in the everyday reality of the country. Even within the realm of digital content, Japanese movies, especially its vaulted horror genre, produce works that are grounded in the social reality of the country, touching upon the themes of overwork, peer pressure, generation gaps, and urban decay, among many others. That is not to mention TV shows, documentaries, and music so integral to everyday Japanese life.

Of course, this is not to say that manga or anime is completely detached from everyday reality in Japan. Rather, it presents a biased picture, focused on the exaggeration of the glamorous, powerful, beautiful, and extreme aspects of society that are much less black-and-white on the ground. Just like the advent of K-pop created a legion of international fans that assume that South Korea is a country of thin, multilingual, polished dancers, anime and manga threaten to turn Japan into an imaginary drama land, where every conflict is grounded in the power of mythical proportions.

That image of Japan is not a problem so long as it is all fun and games. But soft power is ultimately not about just consumption of content, but for the content to be a source of affinity for the producer country. Japan wants anime lovers around the world to love Japan, not the one that is portrayed in the anime, but the real country that foreigners would be motivated to contribute their knowledge and energy to. But to get these foreigners motivated to learn the language, spend money traveling to, and even work for, anime may be a hindrance rather than a help in the long term.

The Japanese have a term called "Paris Syndrome." A generation of women brought up with fashion advertisements and cosmetics marketing campaigns grow up believing in an impeccable image of the French capital: romantic, clean, and classy. On their first trip to the Eternal City, they are immediately disappointed with its rowdiness, graffiti, and dog poop, with years of clean image shattered almost overnight. The worst suffer mental breakdowns, questioning the very purpose of their pursuing everything French for all these years.

Perhaps one day, in some corners of the world, "Tokyo Syndrome" may become a commonly used term. After years of imbibing anime, the young foreigner touching down on the Japanese metropolis finds himself let down by the sheer ordinariness of the place. No superpower-wielding romantics are running between avant-garde architecture. There are only overworked salarymen dozing off on overcrowded trains running amidst a jungle of concrete boxes. The sheer homogenous tedium of urban life in Tokyo maybe even less exciting than the ups and downs of multicultural Paris.

Perhaps the throng of disappointed Japanese women in Paris could be a wake-up call for those pushing Japanese culture abroad. They should cherish those who are interested in learning about Japan without buying into the boom in anime and manga. Perhaps in their yet-nebulous conception of what the country is, they can offer inspiration for a new, more diversified way to introduce its real culture and society, unburdened by the fantastical amplification of digital content. Only then will the seriously enthusiastic continue to study Japan without facing an ultimate disappointment.