Why Japan and Japanese Things Has Unique Appeal in the West

 

It is no secret that Japan is very popular around the world. It's not just Japanese games and electronics, but other aspects of culture as well. Nowadays there are at least as many sushi restaurants as there are McDonalds or Pizzerias if not more. 

To top it up there is also anime that people enjoy watching with subtitles despite American Hollywood can offer life action movies in many languages. Yet people around the world choose subtitled anime instead. There is supposedly large cultural barrier between Japan and the west, yet it does not stop fans. 

A similar problem prevents people from enjoying cultural products from other countries. China, Russia or France are supposedly huge countries with long history of culture, yet they only enjoy very limited to non-existent interest around the world. A far cry to the interest Japan has.

However, why Japan wins the hearts of the globe, while everyone else misses by a longshot? What does Japan have that other countries do not?

A simple answer would be humble women; I wrote a separate article about why Western Men choose Asian women. In this article I will cover reasons not related to women.

Imitation

Back in the past, Japanese heavily borrowed from Chinese. culture, technology, even writing system. Some Sinophiles might even say that everything originated in China and Japanese and other Asians simply copied it. That however will be shortsighted. While Japan indeed copied a lot from Chiese, not everything Japan has comes from China. For example, even if Kanji are from China, Hiragana and Katakana are not. The same with other things.

In copying and imitating good ideas from other cultures, Japan is remarkably similar to the Western civilization. Greeks borrowed from Egyptians, Romans from Greeks, barbarians who destroyed Rome, later grew to imitate it in many ways. Even at its pinnacle, West does not grow complacent and start thinking that everything great comes from us and there is nothing to learn elsewhere. That makes it much easier for western people to understand Japanese who think the same way, than say Chinese who think that everything good originated in China and everyone else is just a barbarian compared to us.

Language

Japanese language a lot closer to western languages compare to say Chinese or Vietnamese. Japanese may be using Chinese characters, but their spoken language is rather distant from Chinese. Chinese and Vietnamese normally limited to one syllabus per word and are heavily tonal. Japanese language is not tonal, and words typically consist of several syllabi. Most other languages share these features with Japanese, making Japanese more accessible and easier to understand than Chinese. 

Japanese also have access to Hiragana and Katakana, that allows them to write words phonetically, like in most other languages. In contrast Chinese a limited to characters that represent objects and concepts and have no ready way of writing down sounds.

The sound of Japanese language is pleasant to ear, its soft and gentle. Much unlike many other languages. It sounds almost childish and wins Japanese people much sympathy because people tend to like children.

Religion

Japanese religion, Shinto, while different from either Christianity or more ancient Hellenic, Norse and Egyptian religions, but it does have many parallels with them. All of these have a lot of stories about gods. Japanese gods, much like Olympians or Norse have humane personalities and flaws. They also have complex human interactions and relationships with each other. Each also has world founding myth as well as stories that explain various natural phenomena. Finally, each has dedicated places of worship (shrines), elaborate rituals that performed at such places and even formal religious authorities in charge of religion.

Japanese attitude towards religion is also similar to increasingly secularised west. There is more curiosity towards religion than righteousness and zealotry. That allows for communication and mutual appreciation of religion and culture of each other.

History

Japanese history has many parallels with the western one. Japanese daimyos were much like Western feudal nobility; samurai were like knights. Both even had a peculiar code of conduct for warrior class, Chivalry in the West and Bushido for samurai. Both of these codes were equally far from how warrior class actually behaved. Nonetheless legends about knights and samurai continue to exist in both cultures even in present day.

Even warrior states period division during times of shoguns are similar to how medieval western society have operated. In both cases warrior class took control of the country after defeating barbarians. 

Long periods of war are also common for both Japanese and the West. Peace is more of an exception than a rule. That is different from say China where one dynasty just takes down another in a coup or a very fast war that does not affect broader country that much and peace returns, just under different authority.

Past Poverty

Modern Japan and the West are rich, prosperous and well developed. That was not the case in the past, however. Europe has cold climate and poor-quality land. Better and richer lands were that of Byzantines and later Arabs in the South-East. Japan geography is also not very fortunate; there are not that much habitable land between mountains in the middle of the Japanese islands and sea that surrounds them. One of precursor of modern Western civilization, Greece has similar geography. 

Compare these with near endless plains of China and huge rivers that make these lands very fertile or vastness of Russian lands, that are full of valuable natural resources.

Poor geography and resulting poverty pushed west towards exploring the world and eventually allowed them to discover New World. It also encouraged innovation and creativity. In the same way Japan too became much more creative and innovative as a result of their circumstances.

Dealing with poverty of the land, while secretly envy those lucky neighbors who have it much better simply because they were born on better piece of land, is something Japan and the West have in common.

These similar experiences allow Westerners to relate to Japanese and their experiences. Just like Chinese can easier relate to Russia instead. Much like in my previous article about paradox of wealth of nations. Russia and China are poor Kraterocracies on rich lands. West and Japan are rich democracies on poor lands.

Understanding Emotions

Despite distance and physical differences, similar past experiences ended up shaping West and Japan to be broadly similar to each other.

That allows Japanese to better understand feelings of a Western Person. That allows them to create video games and anime that appeals to Western audiences even when they do not particularly try to. Similar past allows for an unspoken understanding and relatability.

Meanwhile China, Russia, France, Arab World, Iran or Latin America all had different past and history. Thus, their experiences and works of art are not as relatable as those of Japan.