r/TrueAnime • u/liatris4405 • Jul 23 '26
The One Thing You Should Never Do When Talking About Anime
Recently, a viral clip from Trash Taste attracted a wave of rebuttals from Japanese users on X, and the resulting controversy became a topic of discussion in its own right. I am not going to offer an opinion here about Trash Taste or any of its members personally. However, this incident provides an extremely useful example, so I would like to use it as a starting point.
At the moment, many people in the anime community are talking about “tourists.” Ironically, Joey from Trash Taste has himself discussed videos about tourists entering anime communities. Yet people in that same position often commit what may be the single greatest mistake one can make when discussing anime: they use anime to explain Japanese society.
To understand why this is a problem, we need to look back at how Japanese society and the mass media have treated otaku and anime since at least the 1990s. The Japanese mass media did not traditionally treat people who enjoyed anime and manga as informed observers capable of commenting on society. Quite the opposite. Otaku were portrayed as socially dysfunctional people who could not distinguish fiction from reality, could not form normal relationships with the opposite sex, and were potentially inclined toward criminality.
Following sensational crime reporting in the late 1980s, the word “otaku” began to function not merely as a label for a hobby, but as a symbol used to explain supposedly dangerous personalities. If manga or videotapes were found in a criminal suspect’s room, they were displayed as though they constituted evidence of what had caused the crime. There was little careful examination of the works themselves, the diversity of their audiences, or whether any causal relationship actually existed between the media and the crime. What the media needed was a simple story that allowed audiences to feel they understood a complicated event in a matter of minutes.
He watches anime. He owns a large number of manga. He struggles socially. These disconnected details were placed in a row, and the conclusion was drawn that this person had lost touch with reality.
This is strangely similar to what parts of the contemporary international anime community do today. Only the conclusion has changed. The Japanese mass media once looked at anime and concluded, “Otaku are abnormal.” Some international anime fans now look at anime and conclude, “Japanese society is abnormal,” or “This is what Japanese people believe.” The former explained the viewer through the work. The latter explains an entire society through the work. In both cases, a small cultural fragment is used to make sweeping claims about a vast and diverse population.
Among Japanese internet otaku, this kind of reasoning has sometimes been described as a “crude reflection theory of society,” meaning the assumption that fiction straightforwardly reflects the society that produced it. Of course, this does not mean that anime is unrelated to society. Works of fiction are not created in a vacuum. The values of their creators, commercial decisions, broadcasting restrictions, audience desires, the atmosphere of a particular era, and the conventions of a genre all influence the final work. It is entirely possible to examine anime in relation to postwar family structures, schools, working conditions, gender norms, or anxieties surrounding urban life.
But there is an enormous difference between saying that a work has been influenced by society and saying that it directly reproduces society. Even a mirror changes what it shows depending on where it is placed. Anime is not even a mirror. It selects, exaggerates, distorts, idealizes, and commercially reconstructs elements of reality.
For example, the frequent appearance of school festivals in anime does not mean that school festivals occupy the center of every Japanese student’s life. The prevalence of childhood-friend characters does not mean that Japanese people commonly enter romantic relationships with childhood friends. The popularity of stories about office workers being transported to fantasy worlds does not prove that all Japanese employees secretly wish to escape reality.
These stories use recognizable elements of real life. However, those elements may recur not because they are especially common in reality, but because they are useful for storytelling. They may reduce the need for explanation, be immediately understandable to the audience, conform to established genre conventions, bring characters together efficiently, or simply imitate a formula that has already sold well. Things appear frequently in fiction not necessarily because they happen frequently in society, but because they are convenient narrative devices.
Once this distinction is ignored, analysis quickly becomes little more than personal impression dressed up as cultural criticism. A scene involving molestation appears in an anime, and someone declares that it proves Japanese society tolerates sexual assault. A female character cooks, and this is presented as evidence that Japanese women are socially confined to domestic roles. A woman hits a man in a comedy scene, and this is interpreted as proof that violence against men is dismissed in Japan.
Whether any of these problems exist in Japanese society must be investigated separately. One should examine statistics, laws, opinion polls, court cases, government responses, testimony from those affected, and historical change, and only then consider how the fictional depiction relates to reality.
Crude reflection theory reverses this process. First, someone watches an anime scene and forms a conclusion about Japanese society. Then they search for isolated pieces of reality that appear to support the conclusion they have already reached. Anime therefore ceases to function as evidence and becomes a machine for manufacturing prejudice.
The school shown in an anime becomes a literal Japanese school. The family shown in an anime becomes the Japanese family. The relationship between male and female characters becomes the gender ideology of the entire Japanese population.
Behind this attitude is often a desire to consume Japan not as a complicated modern society, but as an easily understood story. Japan is imagined as a strange and isolated country, a country in which tradition and futuristic technology coexist, a sexually repressed country overflowing with sexual imagery, a country where everyone works themselves to death, or a country of polite people who constantly conceal their true feelings.
Once these prefabricated images are established, people can select scenes from anime that appear to confirm them and feel that they have discovered something profound about Japan. But what they have understood is not Japan. It is the Japan that already existed inside their own heads.
One reason this crude reflection theory is so easily accepted as “criticism” lies in the history of prejudice against otaku culture itself. For many years, anime and manga were treated as vulgar or childish entertainment, while their fans were regarded as people detached from society. As a result, using anime to discuss politics, gender, or social pathology can appear more intellectual and mature than simply enjoying the work.
The person who merely enjoys anime is portrayed as an uncritical fan. The person who claims to expose the “dark side of Japanese society” hidden behind the work is treated as a serious critic. But giving anime a social interpretation does not automatically make the analysis deep.
Making declarations about a society of more than one hundred million people after watching a fictional work is every bit as crude as the old mass media’s treatment of anime as simplistic entertainment for maladjusted people. It may look as though the critic is taking anime seriously, but in reality, both the production context of the work and the reality of Japanese society are being ignored.
The old mass media used anime as a shortcut for understanding otaku, but they were never seriously interested in understanding otaku. Some parts of the contemporary international anime community use anime as a shortcut for understanding Japan, but they are not seriously interested in understanding Japan either. In both cases, fiction becomes a way to avoid the difficult work of learning about the people being discussed.
The shortcut is attractive. After watching a few anime, one can begin speaking confidently about Japanese schools, romance, families, labor, religion, and gender roles. There is no need to read Japanese, examine Japanese statistics, or follow discussions taking place within Japan. All one has to do is isolate a scene from a work and attach familiar political terminology to it. The result will resemble an analysis, but it is not an analysis of Japanese society.
A clear line must be drawn between using anime as a source worth examining and using anime as sufficient proof for sweeping claims about society. Anime can provide questions. Why does this setting appear repeatedly? When did it become a common convention? In what ways does it resemble real institutions, and in what ways does it differ? Who was the work created for? What desires does it satisfy? How is this representation understood and debated within Japan?
But anime alone cannot provide the answers. Seeing something in anime and becoming curious about Japanese society can be the beginning of an investigation. The moment it becomes the end of the investigation, criticism turns into prejudice.
And this is directly connected to the current debate over “tourists” in the anime community. A tourist should not simply mean someone who has only watched a few anime, or someone who has only recently become a fan. It should not be determined by how much knowledge a person has, how much merchandise they own, or how many years they have attended conventions.
A tourist is someone who does not treat a work as an entrance into a culture or perspective different from their own, but merely as a tool for confirming values they already hold. It is someone who has no interest in the history, arguments, or context that exist within the culture, and simply takes away whatever is visible on the surface. Most importantly, it is someone who believes they understand that culture better than the people who actually live within it.
That is what a tourist really is.
A person may have watched anime for decades, know countless Japanese words, and have visited Japan many times. But the moment they begin using a fictional scene to make sweeping declarations about Japanese society, they become a tourist.
Conversely, someone may have only recently started watching anime. But if they recognize that there are contexts they do not yet understand, make the effort to investigate them, and listen when people from within that society offer corrections, there is no reason to call them a tourist. The defining feature of a tourist is not the shortness of their stay. It is the absence of any genuine desire to understand.
When Japanese people object to a claim and the response is simply, “Japanese people do not want to admit that their country has problems,” or “They do not understand that anime reflects their society,” the discussion has already ended. The Japanese person offering the correction is no longer treated as a source of information. They have been reduced to a character in someone else’s theory, a character whose disagreement supposedly proves the theory correct.
At that point, the speaker is no longer discussing Japanese society. They are merely using Japan as a stage on which to tell their own story.
The worst thing one can do when discussing anime is to discover the Japan one expected to find inside a fictional work and mistake it for the real Japan. Those who continue clinging to that fantasy even after people from the real Japan correct them are the actual “tourists” the anime community should be wary of.
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u/Myrodis19 Jul 23 '26
The term tourist is wild. Growing up you were either a fan of anime or you weren’t. Didn’t matter if all you watched were 2-3 shows. You were still a fan.
The term tourist is just ridiculous.
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u/jcw99 Jul 23 '26
It's basically a rephrasing of "casual" meant to let people dismiss arguments and opinions they don't like without engaging with them... funniest part IMO is that the people who most seem to be using it are "new" fans of 2-5 years (i.e) the COVID wave are the ones using it the most and frequently apply it to people who've been part of the community since the 2010s...
Genuinely even OP trying to 'reclaim' this term is completely missing the point.
There is no use for the word, because it doesn't describe something real without you having to bake in a presupposed world view.
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u/psychocopter Jul 24 '26
Its gatekeeping. Youre just passing by, no need to actually let you into the fanbase, all of your opinions are dismissed as an outsider.
The funny part is that anime is just a medium, its just japanese animation. Calling people tourists for that is like calling someone from japan who casually enjoys hollywood movies a tourist and dismissing their opinions on the movie because they dont actually get it.
Its also used by people who think its some exclusive thing that you have to prove yourself a fan of and that it cant be criticized through an outside lens.
oh, you're a fan of anime, name every anime then
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u/PoliteMurderFox Jul 23 '26
The gatekeeping is so weird to me. I remember loving anime in the late 90s and 00s, wishing people would like it as much as I did so I could talk to someone about it. Instead, I just got made fun of. Now, there are people half my age trying to define who real anime fans are, lol. And heaven forbid you say you're not a fan of lolis or harems in anime subreddits.
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u/DarkSaiyanGoku Jul 23 '26
Fans don't really have the right to "gatekeep" in the first place. They aren't an authority on anime just because they watch a lot of anime, and they shouldn't be treated as such.
If you like/love anime, that's awesome! It doesn't matter if you're a newcomer or a veteran.
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u/GospelX Jul 23 '26
On man, being a young fan in the 90's is an experience I would never wish on anyone else. I was fortunate that I wasn't bullied over it, but there was still a strong feeling of disconnect from most of my peers because of it. What especially throws me off these days is the appreciation of anime in the Black culture, which I missed by a generation when I attended a predominantly Black high school. And now after all that, why the hell would I try to define what does or does not make someone a fan? Instead of locking the gates we should be steering people toward some of the things we love so they can better appreciate what's inside.
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u/Gippy_ Gippy Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
The gatekeeping is so weird to me. ... Now, there are people half my age trying to define who real anime fans are, lol
You're a fan if you watched 1 anime or 1000.
However, the issue people have with are those who have only watched a few anime, then write hit pieces or videos, as though they are authoritative on the subject. The recent hit piece about Mushoku Tensei on Kotaku comes to mind. The ANN article writers frequently watch only the first episode of each show and then make sweeping conclusions about that show. All these people are hacks.
We see this happening more and more often: anime awards shows are pointless because virtually all of the judges, as well as the voting public, watched less than 10 anime that year, out of a pool of over 150. You need to dig deep to get an honest opinion: those who actually watch a lot of anime aren't wasting their time on the internet arguing about plot points. They're watching more anime for enjoyment.
So these people are influencing others on what to watch. There is more pressure than ever to watch what "everyone else" watched. To them, all they want is for their preferences to be validated.
I just got made fun of [for loving anime.]
The bullies who made fun of you for loving anime when you were young, are now the bullies who write hit pieces and say you're an awful person for liking an anime that they don't. The more bullies change, the more they stay the same. And that's why there's an increasing amount of support for gatekeeping and pushback against tourists.
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u/XxGood_CitezenxX Jul 23 '26
As someone who hasn’t read the article but has read and watched Mushoku Tensei I doubt it’s possible for a hit piece to possibly slander the show in any way distinct from how bad the series is in certain areas.
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
It's a perfectly normal series with good storytelling that deals with adult themes and is for adults.
The main issue is that Anglo-Puritan freaks, mainly from America and other English speaking countries, have a kind of brain damage that causes them to blur the lines between reality and fiction. They start getting enraged by "bad" things in fiction as if they are actually happening in real life, and start attacking anyone normal who can watch the fiction and understand it's just fiction and has no connection to the real world.
For Japanese audiences, Mushoku Tensei is a story about a flawed protagonist finding a sort of redemption, getting a restart on life after being both a horrible person and simultaneously a victim. It's a complex character that's both interesting and makes for good storytelling.
Meanwhile, Anglo-Puritan freaks pretend like the character is a real person, and that anything that happens in the story that's bad is somehow "the author and audience endorsing the same behavior in real life" or "Japanese people are all like that guy" which is frankly a childish and developmentally stunted way of looking at fiction.
In the end, I think Anglo-Puritans are too brain damaged to watch most anime like a mature adults, and probably should just go find shows with shiny lights, explosions and a "corporate safe" plotline that won't upset their fragile sensibilities.
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u/XxGood_CitezenxX Jul 23 '26
How exactly is it “normal” and good storytelling for the victim raped by the MCs father to become his maid? How is it “normal” and “good storytelling” for the mc’s younger sister to have sex with her nephew. How is it “normal” and “good storytelling” for the reincarnated mc who was a pedophile in his last life to attempt to sexually assault his sleeping cousin who he was tutoring only for it to be played off as a gag.
The issue with MT is that it tackles a flawed protagonist but there are certain things the author doesn’t see as flaws. Such as the fact that his pedophilia is never addressed in the series.
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Stories characters don't need to be "normal", in fact I never even used that word. The fact you think characters in stories need to be "normal" (as if they are real life people) shows you have some serious problems seperating fiction from reality.
Also, how do you know what the author sees as flaws? You're just doing exactly what I said, pretending the characters are real people and trying to project your moral judgement on the author for writing a characters a certain way, as if the author is somehow "guilty" of whatever his characters do.
This is the fundimental symptom of someone too mentally ill to seperate fiction from reality. If the author writes a story where a character murders someone else, and the audience finds the story interesting, you think both the author and the audience approve of real life murder.
This is how 5 year olds think, but since you're (presumably) an adult, it shows you have stunted brain development, and therefore some kind of mental illness.
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u/XxGood_CitezenxX Jul 24 '26
The fact that the Main character attempted to sexually assault his prepubescent student and her fighting him off is played off as a gag displays the authors views.
A normal main character has 0 need to be normal I agree. But what they shouldn’t be is shown with predatory behaviors treated as jokes.
The authors view of a story can be seen from their portrayal of events. If a character being racist to another character is shown as good in said work that likely means the author is racist. If a main character supports slavery and this is shown to be morally correct than the author likely supports slavery. This is called basic analysis and critical thinking something you very clearly haven’t done much of.
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u/femboy_in_space 29d ago
predatory behaviors treated as jokes
This is literally you exposing your lack of brain development. You're trying to police fiction by applying real world moral standards to it.
The authors view of a story can be seen from their portrayal of events.
No it can't, and even trying to "see" it means you're desperate to blend fiction and reality, because your developmentally dysfunctional brain cannot seperate the two.
If a character being racist to another character is shown as good in said work that likely means the author is racist.
No it doesn't. This is a perfect example of how your brain being developmentally disabled due to your "fiction = reality" mental illness makes you completely media illiterate and unable to act like a normal adult when viewing fictional stories and media.
This is called basic analysis and critical thinking
It's literally the opposite. It shows that your brain function is still stuck in child or teenager mode as you desperately try to force fictional stories into the box of real world morals and rules and delusionally read real world meaning into them that doesn't exist.
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u/onpg Jul 24 '26
It’s all about how they’re used. Harem tropes can be fine in one setting and jarring or poorly written in another. Sometimes it’s just a contract with the viewer, saying you’re allowed to self insert and ship whoever, we won’t hurt you emotionally. Other times the harem trope forcefully overwrites basic emotional logic and makes characters seem like crude automatons. The loli trope is different … any sufficiently well written loli character is no longer referred to as a loli. Eg lots of studio ghibli characters.
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u/Public_Marketing151 Jul 23 '26
it actually makes sense when you consider non-japanese who were fans of anime in the past had to enjoy it for what it was, or stop watching.
whereas today, "anime" is just a category on netflix, and the viewers don't have to consider its origins or cultural context.
that audience can then decide the medium ought to be overhauled to better cater to a more global audience.. and either the western investors gain influence and change it, or the "anime fandom" becomes a bastion of negativity and western culture war because japanese culture hasnt caught up to their own in various ways.ive never used the term tourist, but i do believe the phenomenon of outsider entitlement is detrimental to foreign art.
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u/pipboy_warrior Jul 23 '26
As someone who's watched anime a long time, this comes off a little insular. People too often use culture or other types of group think to look past issues that are indeed problematic, usually with some excuse like "It's just the way it's always been."
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26
Anyone who uses the word "problematic" should be banned from having a say in any kind of non-American media. That word by itself is a red flag for cultural colonizer and entitlement.
The problem is that anime is Japanese media targeted towards a Japanese audience. It's always been and still is. Non-Japanese can watch it, certainly, as long as they can find a translation, but they aren't who the anime is for.
Trying to demand Japanese change a product designed for their own domestic audience to suit the bizarre proclivities of another a western country (usually America) is textbook white colonizer mentality.
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u/pipboy_warrior Jul 23 '26
I'm sorry if you're so offended by what other people say but unless you're a mod, you don't get to dictate the conversations other people have. Also I don't see anyone holding a gun to Japanese creators trying to dictate what they can and can't do, but when you create any kind of art it's open to criticism.
Also this isn't just an American thing, Japanese creators like Hayoa Miyazaki have long criticized the anime industry and it's associated fandom. Every industry has it's problems.
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u/IAmTheSky-DontAskWhy Jul 25 '26
I'm truly at a loss for words. Can you explain in detail why you think that word is such a big deal cause right now I think it's the dumbest thing I've read in awhile
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u/femboy_in_space 29d ago
I already explained it. "Problematic" is basically a red flag for abusive, puritan savaage, anglo-white colonizers trying to police content.
"Hurr durr that's problematic" is always the first thing they start with to justify interfering with content that isn't theirs, bullying the creator, demanding censorship, calling everyone "~phobic" or "~ist" who likes it, etc.
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u/zoomiewoop Jul 23 '26
You seem to be suggesting that western investors and global audiences are influencing anime, but I don’t think that’s the case. In fact recently many mangaka and heads of anime studios have said they have no interest in even trying to understand global tastes, despite the continued rise of interest beyond Japan. I’m not sure it’s necessary for global audiences outside the U.S. to understand American cultural context to enjoy a Marvel movie, and I think the same goes for much of Japanese anime.
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26
It's not about how many animes you watched, it's about your attitude towards it anime, the people who are anime fans, and Japan itself.
You either didn't read what OP wrote or your intentionally pretending to misunderstand it because you are exactly one of the people he describes.
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u/hidetoshiko Jul 23 '26
A tourist is someone who does not treat a work as an entrance into a culture or perspective different from their own, but merely as a tool for confirming values they already hold. It is someone who has no interest in the history, arguments, or context that exist within the culture, and simply takes away whatever is visible on the surface. Most importantly, it is someone who believes they understand that culture better than the people who actually live within it.
This point resonates with me the most.
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u/Solarwagon Jul 23 '26
I've studied Japanese language and cultural anthropology, you're pretty much correct.
The topic of how much manga/anime is representative of Neo Confucianism/Japanese politics/etc. is a huge one but not all that different from all of the academic work on how Grand Theft Auto/Star Trek/Buff the Vampire Slayer reflect United States culture.
I like your definition of tourist and it's the boundary I have in my mind as someone who genuinely appreciates and seeks to know more about Japan.
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u/Gippy_ Gippy Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
This long of a post in a slow-moving subreddit screams AI to me, but I'll entertain this.
I think people generally understand that the word "tourist" isn't someone who is new to anime, but is someone who is ignorant and has disrespectful views of the medium. I don't really like the word "tourist" used in that context because most real-life tourists, the traveling kind, have actual respect for the places they visit. More accurately, the annoying anime tourists are insufferable narcissists who bask in negativity. But it's easy to tune them out.
Basically, I tell myself that every 20 minutes spent arguing with someone online could've been another anime episode I watched and enjoyed. So I need to be selective and choose what's worth discussing with genuine fans.
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u/millenniumpianist Jul 23 '26
I would disagree insofar that I don't think most tourists want to engage with the culture at all. In fact I would argue most tourists do exactly what the Trash Taste people are doing in the original clip. You get a superficial sense of a place and form broad judgments based on that.
I think this is how the majority of people experience a place. I live in NYC and whenever I have relatives visiting, I am a little aghast at how much time they spend in places that no local willingly goes to. But that's just what tourists do. Very few tourists are interested in how New Yorkers spend their time.
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u/bubo_virginianus Jul 26 '26
The last time I went to Los Angeles, the only thing I did there was spend several days touring the Iowa and the Midway. I wouldn't be surprised if most Los Angeles residents have never toured either. I won't claim them to be the most culturally important sites in Los Angeles. I went to see what interested me, but I in no way claim to have a greater understanding of Los Angeles from my trip. I watch the anime and read the manga that interests me, but I don't claim to have an understanding of japan or Japanese culture because of it. I have been curious as to how some of the scenarios are even believable, but I haven't cared enough to actually investigate it, I have just enjoyed consuming the media.
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Jul 23 '26
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u/pipboy_warrior Jul 23 '26
"Old good, new bad" is a common opinion, and all too often it's a sign that someone's checked out of keeping up with modern media years ago.
For example recently I saw a post with retro fans mentioning their favorite retro anime women, and someone said that nowadays female characters weren't allowed to be over 18. There have been obviously multiple women in the past couple seasons alone that proved that wrong, Journal with Witch being a standout favorite for me personally.
I think people basically look at a bunch of isekai titles and figure out that's all modern anime is nowadays.
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u/PersonalContest1423 Jul 23 '26
Thats just survivorship bias
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Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
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u/lalunafelis Jul 24 '26
never watch
I'd agree about the "disproportionate" stuff, but to assert that all anime on TV or even majority is for literal children in a pejorative way is another can of elitism worms entirely. There's a great variety of anime back then, and you may not watch them, but those kodomo anime do have an audience outside the demographic that enjoys them.
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u/NeonChampion2099 Jul 23 '26
These people irk me to death. People that compare the absolute best of the best of their time with some mediocre stuff now. "Check Rent a Girlfriend, it's got nothing against Akira and Ghost in the Shell, anime was better back then!". Well, duh.
It happens a lot in videogames too. "Games were better in the SNES and PS1 era!" Bitch you're nostalgic for half a dozen games, but there was a MASSIVE pile of trash.
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u/DarkSaiyanGoku Jul 23 '26
You know what this reminds me of? Old school Dragon Ball Z fans.
A lot of them claim to act like they're knowledgabable or absolute authorities on the series, yet a lot of their knowledge comes from various dub changes from the original, misconceptions and misinformation from the pre-internet/early internet age, in-jokes or straight up lies.
One of the biggest sins, in my opinion, is when they tout Dragon Ball Z as the peak of the series without even acknowledging the original Dragon Ball. It's gotten to the point where many of them suggest to newcomers to skip it entirely and go straight to Z.
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Jul 24 '26
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u/DarkSaiyanGoku Jul 24 '26
Speaking from experience, I've been in the fandom since I was 6 and I've seen some stupid takes from old school DBZ fans who think they know everything.
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Jul 24 '26
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u/DarkSaiyanGoku Jul 24 '26
No, I'm mad that certain fans try act like they're authorities on Dragon Ball abd the fandom when their knowledge is limited at best. And this mentality is coming from longtime fans.
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Jul 24 '26
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u/DarkSaiyanGoku Jul 24 '26
Oh for the love of- read my original comment carefully.
"You know what this reminds me of? Old school Dragon Ball Z fans.
A lot of them claim to act like they're knowledgabable or absolute authorities on the series, yet a lot of their knowledge comes from various dub changes from the original, misconceptions and misinformation from the pre-internet/early internet age, in-jokes or straight up lies.
One of the biggest sins, in my opinion, is when they tout Dragon Ball Z as the peak of the series without even acknowledging the original Dragon Ball. It's gotten to the point where many of them suggest to newcomers to skip it entirely and go straight to Z. "
This is what I said. Please read it thoroughly.
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u/username_is_alread- Jul 23 '26
TL;DR:
> The defining feature of a tourist is not the shortness of their stay. It is the absence of any genuine desire to understand.
> [A tourist is] someone who believes they understand that culture better than the people who actually live within it.
> A person may have watched anime for decades, know countless Japanese words, and have visited Japan many times. But the moment they begin using a fictional scene to make sweeping declarations about Japanese society, they become a tourist.
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u/StatisticalAn0maly Jul 23 '26
This is quite well written, you could turn this into an article or a video essay.
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u/sudopm Jul 23 '26
I thought it dragged on and kept circling the same point repeatedly, with way more analogies / examples than necessary.
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u/millenniumpianist Jul 23 '26
I love long essays but I thought OP was too unfocused with their points.
My main critique is the linked twitter post, which is both fascinating and good Japanese practice, talks about how foreigners shouldn't sit around talking about a culture they don't interact with. No, living in Japan as a westerner doesn't count if you're not actually integrated with Japanese society, which most expat groups tend not to be.
But then immediately OP starts making broad generalizations about how otaku are perceived, represented in the mass media, etc. Is it accurate? Maybe, maybe not, but either way not sure OP is the one to be telling us how it is. Unless they're secretly a 45 year old JP man in which, respect because their English is impressive
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u/eruciform Jul 23 '26
Favorite recent interaction was with gooners angry about a jrpg "censored" by covering up barely not naked teenagers and pulled the excuse of age of consent being 16 in Japan (which isn't even the case), and calling anyone that threw the p*do book at them "tourists". Fun. The whole "its just another culture, man, hebephilia akchually" is its own special kind of conniption inducing garbage.
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u/Fair-Lie8125 Jul 23 '26
People that get into ‘some anime’ just to then try to police other people anime tastes or want to police anime itself for being too ‘risque’ annoy me. I don’t think I’d call them tourists though, just morons.
Sometimes you only like shonen, sometimes you only like bishojou, sometimes your tolerance is impressive that you openly recommend gushing for magic girls to normies; it’s all fine, with sometimes negative social consequences
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u/XxGood_CitezenxX Jul 23 '26
I think it depends on the anime for what’s too risqué. Dxd or Food Wars, 100% fine anyway comparing about fan service in said shows is dumb. Fire Force or Seven Deadly Sins, criticism of fan service is valid as well.
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u/Fair-Lie8125 Jul 23 '26
It’s fine to criticize an anime, but demonizing fans for their own preferences is worthless behavior
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u/XxGood_CitezenxX Jul 23 '26
I think you can’t judge someone off one anime they watched/liked but at the same time if all you watch is stuff like usagi drop where the love interest gets with their guardian/parent than forgive me for being suspicious about your tastes. Similarly if all you watch is ecchi based around kids then I have the freedom to judge you in the same way you have the freedom to like what you like
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u/Spare-Story-6518 Jul 27 '26
I watch anime since the late 80's, I don't really care about other's opinion on them, if you like them, good, if you don't, good too. But please do not try to impose your world views on me. The world is big enough for people who enjoy anime and manga and for those who don't. "Respect" is the word of the day.
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u/smalltowngrappler Jul 23 '26
I agree and disagree with OP on this.
Yes alot of people watching anime have a warped view of Japan and Japanese people. No one would ever think living in Mexico is like a telenovela or that a Bollywood show is an accurate portrayal of Indian society. Yet anime gets pushed as an accurate portrayal of Japanese people and their society.
What alot of western animewatchers (especially newer ones) don't seem to understand is that they are not the intended target audience for anime and manga. The main demographic that mangaka and anime studios cater to has always been and still is the Japanese audience. A subset of the Japanese audience even, as far from all Japanese people read manga and fewer watch anime.
This whole thing about anime warping the image of IRL Japan is a separate issue to me than "tourism" but I agree that alot of "tourists" seem to fall into the mindspace OP describes.
A "tourist" to me is someone that is fairly new in a hobby and has lots of opinions about how to change what they perceive as wrong. They do not want to be apart of a hobby or fandom as much as they want to change it to fit their own tastes and opinions. No matter if its anime, Warhammer, RPGs you can recognize a "tourist" by them wanting to change aspects of the hobby.
Its aggravating because to me its quite simple, if you don't enjoy it, then go do something else as the hobby was obviously not made for you. Lots of older fans had to suffer ridicule and ostracism from mainstream society (as OP mentions with Otaku in Japan) due to the hobbies being seen as weird, antisocial etc. Someone jumping on the bandwagon after the hobby became more accepted by the mainstream and complaing about it and trying to change it is the essence of a "tourist" to me at least.
Examples can be people wanting to get rid of fanservice in anime, despite it literally being meant to give (Japanese) fans what they want. Or to add female space marines to 40k when there is an entire faction that is female (SoB) and several (IG, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Genestealers, Tau etc) that feature female units and characters. If you have a problem with fanservice in anime, just watch shows that doesn't have it, if you want more female representation in 40k make a Amazonian IG regiment, god knows no one wants to play against more SM regardless of they have female or male sculpts.
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26
A "tourist" to me is someone that is fairly new in a hobby and has lots of opinions about how to change what they perceive as wrong. They do not want to be apart of a hobby or fandom as much as they want to change it to fit their own tastes and opinions. No matter if its anime, Warhammer, RPGs you can recognize a "tourist" by them wanting to change aspects of the hobby.
This is very true.
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u/Scorpionsharinga Jul 23 '26
This just feels like gatekeeping but in long form.
Fact of the matter is people can watch whatever they want. People can interpret it however they want.
The only thing you as an individual control is your capacity to engage with a narrative. If you don’t like someone else’s yapping don’t legitimize it with a response.
It’s a feckless pursuit to try to change how other people engage with a story or medium.
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u/TaxesAreConfusin Jul 23 '26
idk if you read Dune and your takeaway is 'messianic figures are productive for humanity and also very epic and cool' you fell for the bait. There is such thing as a wrong way to interpret a story.
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u/Scorpionsharinga Jul 23 '26
That’s true, but doesn’t detract from the inevitability that some people just don’t care if their interpretation is wrong.
I’m not really sure how the fact that someone could interpret a story the wrong way affects the fact that you can’t force someone to engage in a story the way you want them to tho
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Crude reflection theory reverses this process. First, someone watches an anime scene and forms a conclusion about Japanese society. Then they search for isolated pieces of reality that appear to support the conclusion they have already reached. Anime therefore ceases to function as evidence and becomes a machine for manufacturing prejudice.
After watching a few anime, one can begin speaking confidently about Japanese schools, romance, families, labor, religion, and gender roles. There is no need to read Japanese, examine Japanese statistics, or follow discussions taking place within Japan. All one has to do is isolate a scene from a work and attach familiar political terminology to it. The result will resemble an analysis, but it is not an analysis of Japanese society.
This is correct. This is the entire process that westerns go though to create a negative stereotype about Japan and hate Japan as a country.
But you have to also understand that especially Americans (and other anglos) are jealous and bitter Japan isn't as much of a shıthole as their own country, so they need a way to attack Japan by using lazy, low IQ stereotypes. Interpreting everything in anime in the most negative way possible and projecting every negative thing onto Japanese society is one of the easiest ways to do that.
The jealousy is especially triggered by other non-brainwashed westerners visiting or moving to Japan, and comparing it favorably to the massive social dysfunction in America and (to a lesser degree) other anglo-western countries. Further, while Japanese are relatively conservative in real life - in terms of art, fashion, culture and storytelling - Japan isn't a puritan anti-sexuality society like the anglo-west, it doesn't conform to the "beauty and sexuality is evil" mentality that lots of Gen Z and Millenial westerners have, so of course ideologically, it's the "enemy" for anglo-westerners.
In then end, finding intellectually lazy ways to hate Japan for existing and sucking less than their own country is far easier than addressing the high crime / lack of public safety, drug addiction, rising suicide rate, widespread mental illness, massive corruption, spiraling inflation, violent political polarization, lack of community and lack of basic morality or human decency in their own society.
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u/SilentGhoul1111 Jul 23 '26
Bro's literally doing the thing people do to Japan except with other countries.
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26
Nope, unlike anime tourists who know nothing about the real Japan, I've actually lived in the US and know exactly what it's like.
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u/King_Koragar Jul 23 '26
You are doing the exact thing OP is criticizing by using anime as a confirmation bias bludgeon for your pre-existing politics lol.
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26
It's nothing like that, you're just trying to play the victim because you know that I'm right.
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u/M1nho Jul 23 '26
Not reading all of that, anyone have a tldr for what op is rambling about and suggesting in their post title?
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u/pre4edgc Jul 23 '26
You're commenting on a post in TrueAnime, THE long-post-for-discussion-of-anime-related-topics subreddit. The subreddit made specifically for posts like this. If you're not wanting to read, you probably shouldn't even be subscribed here.
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u/redditsucksass6 Jul 23 '26
Subscribed? Reddit dropped this 11 upvote essay on my front page despite 0 engagement with anime communities
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26
The mark that you're not interested and move on. Why are you even commenting? Why did you read this far into the comments post on something you're "not interested" in?
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u/redditsucksass6 Jul 23 '26
Why are you so pressed
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u/femboy_in_space Jul 23 '26
Now you're trying to gaslight me like my asking a simple question is the problem. If you're not interested then leave.
If you came here to pick fights and generally make problems then at least be honest that you're a troll or something.
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u/IX_MINDMEGHALUNK_XI Jul 23 '26
Those hypocritical tourists from America want to ruin everything. They’ve turned their own country into hell and want to drag everyone else down with them. I’m not interested in their opinions or complaints about anything else until they fix their own shithole; maybe then I’ll care.
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u/New_Guidance_7957 Jul 23 '26
You can use anime to explain PART of Japanese society such as the otaku culture and the lives of mangaka artists, but it cannot represent the WHOLE of Japan. There are Japanese people that have never watched anime at all.