Been to japan 3 times, seriously trying to get into a 2 year language college currently. I feel so much more comfortable there, I don't even have time to be depressed cuz I was always doing something. I usually can turn off my job life the moment I leave the office so even if the work culture is kinda crap, I know as long as I'm living there it'd make me happy. I don't have friends in the US so living in another country with a fresh start is something I always want. On top of all that it was just nice being so close to everything or just needing a small commute to go somewhere while in the US you got to drive for miles usually for anything interesting.
We're fascinated by Japan because our perspective of it through their media is absurdly sanitized and false. While you could point to more intense anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion" or other things that are more melodramatically intense, MOST of what anime makes is bright, light-hearted, escapist fantasy - stuff that's designed to make you feel good or fluffy. Anime is, in essence, Japan's biggest tourism attraction because it allows the studio / writer / production team to filter their culture through animation and make it look pristine, clean, EXACTLY as they want, etc. Culture festivals, bon festivals, Shinkai backgrounds, etc. This is admittedly a gross oversimplification, but there's a reason why some anime fans hate things like "Welcome to the NHK!" or any other show that basically points the finger at the otaku audience - they don't like the idea that life in Japan can suck or is anything but awesome.
"Cool Japan" is/was an initiative by the Japanese government to boost tourism to the country during its lost decade especially as gaming/tech and then Anime products became a smashing sensation wordlwide. Interestingly, Anime and Otaku culture was derided as "uncool" as opposed to traditional aspects of their culture so it was initially sidelined amidst Western media's satanic panic but ofc we know how that all turned out :) I don't know if I can agree with the assessment that anime is inherently a tourism product for this reason, at least not until recent years as budgets ballooned and studios reshuffled their staffs as legit streamings sites opened the gateway for profitability and exposure. But for a long time Anime was simply meant to sell its worlds to its "Japanese-only" consumers, and some of the most popular Anime don't depict Japan in a good light or the country at all: DBZ, Gundam, Naruto, One Piece, NGE, Death Note, Code Geass, SAO, AOT, Cyberpunk, so on and so forth. Even Studio Ghibli movies are critical of the nation. There are many layers to this Okonomiyaki but I put the blame on western nation's inability to solve alienation and all of us escaping to our waifus yearning for a brighter, colorful world.
Man the fake VPN advert got me, really had me thinking "wow, tota got a big boy sponsor, who's it gonna be? Nord? Express? Maybe a niche one like atlas?" Nope, just tota being tota. Great bit tho, and great vid.
Games like yakuza and anime is what made me love Japan culturalwise, from learning about the lost decade to watching animes with stories that i can relate to, it's one of the few countries that I want to visit but not to the point where i just bluntly assume its the same as it's anime version.
I got into anime in my teens mostly because, at a time when I was supposed to transition out of cartoons into something more mature, the highest rated show on TV was Pawn Stars. The late 2000s were pretty rough for American TV. So, my buddy told me to look up Fullmetal Alchemist on my parents smart TV and the rest was history.
@@Totaraum Writers strike. It's why reality TV was so big back then. Get a bunch of BPD wine moms in a mansion and let the chaos ensue. No writing staff needed.
Dang this video just made me subscribe. Excellent video bro. So very relatable and fascinating. Would love a video of your personal favorite anime of each genre if you haven’t made one already.
That "Fukuoka is trash" comment brought a very large onset of emotion that was best described as "incredibly conflicted" because I realized I didn't remember where Fukuoka was on a map, despite practicing Japanese geography.
At first, I was about to comment something like, "The Japanese language is easy to learn! You can learn to speak and read Nihongo in no time!" I wanted to say this in order to encourage you, but then I thought about it and became cognizant of the fact that Nihongo probably feels easy to me because I have been studying the Japanese language ever since I was a teenager. It's easy for me to say that it's easy. I get the impression that you enjoy consuming Japanese media. Learning Nihongo can be very rewarding, because doing so allows you to understand and appreciate Japanese media in its original language (the vast majority of Japanese media is in the Japanese language). Hopefully this comment succors you in your life decisions!
Hilarious as always I see, eh? That aside, when I consider my own interest in Japan both as a culture as well as potentially living there, I find that my circumstances are a little bit different. Many people's concerns or grievances that you talked about in the future is very real, but I was born in China and raised there for a good 10 years before I moved to America and spent my life up until that point here. Sure, I was introduced and hooked towards the culture for all the same reasons my friends and seemingly you were drawn to it, but the culture and language and their way of life there wasn't completely the same as completely alien and fascinating like if Spongebob had visited Rock Bottom through rose-tinted glasses Instead for me, because I recall very little from my childhood in China, the similarities in Japan feels... oddly welcoming and familiar? Not in a literal sense, but the culture Japan developed practically feels like a remix of my own original culture to me. Their overall stricter rules, mindsets, and way of life also doesn't seem so unappealing to me because I've already been used to that typical Asian way of life back in China. With the current day China being taken over by a communist government and most of its culture being far more obscured and censored though, Japan to me feels like a living embodiment and remix of the closest thing I can find to a long-lost home I feel I belong to Of course, that's not to say I'm eager to move over and properly live there firever even if I could get past the language barriers and financial costs of doing so. I'd love to visit for a while for my own reasons beyond simple interest, but it is interesting to me that my own experience and intrigue in the country doesn't completely come from a "it's a culture so different to ours! Wow!" fascinating that many of us can get from an alien yet beautiful environment we find ourselves in (why else does some well-written world building appeal to us?), and instead feels like the very culture I can recall in my childhood: only that it's not Chinese, but Japanese; so similar, yet so different at once. It's an odd but comforting feeling
Going to Japan for a family trip this year was an amazing experience. We visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Mishima, where we watched a concert a jazz pianist - Jacob Koller (check him out :D). As someone, who is currently studying jazz piano in Europe, and knowing that jazz is extremely popular in Japan, I would love to go there again after I finish my studies here and just go play in some bars or at jam sessions and meet new people. Who knows what connections one can make! :)
My guess is that considering the fact we’re so used to American culture, we’re naturally attached to different cultures and how they operate By the way Happy Belated New Year
My great grandfather who fought the Japanese in WW2 so that his familiy won't speak Japanese looking down at me spending my free time watching Japanese cartoons and admiring Japanese culture
wait, animebrit is british? Thats cringe. Also, Funny how his reasons are similar to mine, Though i learned Japanese for a far petty-er reason than school. but in the end, it made me appreciate the culture, and discover my favorite language
I liked Nintendo and did a presentation of Shigeru Miyamoto in the 5th grade and did my research and found out the forests near Shigeru's home were the inspiration for the Legend of Zelda series and it kept rolling from there. I started watching the Pokémon anime in middle school and my anime watching only increased from there. In high school I found a love for MLB partly because I wanted to learn about players like Ichiro and Masahiro Tanaka and how Japanese baseball works. And my interest to watch NPB increase my desire to learn Japanese and that's where I am today. I have no real desire to move to Japan but I would like to live in Japan even if for a few years. I guess I'm more entranced with the landscape of Japan rather than the culture. And anime like yuru camp made me want to visit certain areas in Japan like Yamanashi prefecture.
Yes, Asian Kung-fu generation🤟🤟🤟.I absolutely love this band. Thanks to Bocchi the Rock! I have discovered them. Can you please advice some more J-Rock/punk bands, please? Well, if we talk about Japan (as well as any other country). Here, in Russia, we folks just simply (and sometimes blindly) followed the western culture - that is some kind of sad. Of course, there's nothing wrong in terms of culture (except some things as лгбт, as for me) and I myself really like music, memes, even language (I include USA to the west too, even if "the west" usualy means Europe throughout our minds in general.). But then the Internet came to our life suddenly, so lot's of people (mostly young) have heard about the East - China (I think, it's way less popular) "South Korea and Japan. As for me learning all this animation culture and especually music was kinda... refreshing. I still hear a lot of things from west (like, in AKG songs), but it sounds so unique, and that's great. So, thanks to Internet, I can watch your great videos, share my opinion, as well as try understand Japam (or any other country). That's great! It also means, that I can learn language way easier. Of course, I will not forget about Mother Russia) I think, that russian language is the most beautiful in the world, as well as literature and, especially, poets (tbh idk how it is called, we call it стихи or стихотворения). I also love to study history, and Russuan history is very intresting for me. But I can't say this about music - all our music sounds cheap for me, I don't listen to it at all. Well, I guess, you can't be the best in everything - every country has its pluses and minuses, and there's nothing wrong if u take something good from other countries/cultures. I also decided for myself, that there's no better place for me to live than Russia, so I'd like to visit other countries, but only as a tourist. Well, wish you to study other cultures (that's intresting!) and good luck!
Here are some jrock bands/artists i discovered after discovering Asian Kungfu Generation if that helps. Galileo Galilei, Hitsujibungaku, Alexandros, Yorushika, inabakumori, bump of chicken, toe. Also the lead singer/songwriter of Akfg has some solo stuff. A good starting point for his stuff is Endless Summer, Vegetable, and Nothing but love.
Been to japan 3 times, seriously trying to get into a 2 year language college currently. I feel so much more comfortable there, I don't even have time to be depressed cuz I was always doing something. I usually can turn off my job life the moment I leave the office so even if the work culture is kinda crap, I know as long as I'm living there it'd make me happy. I don't have friends in the US so living in another country with a fresh start is something I always want. On top of all that it was just nice being so close to everything or just needing a small commute to go somewhere while in the US you got to drive for miles usually for anything interesting.
I'm glad you like it so much, best of luck on getting into that college!
We're fascinated by Japan because our perspective of it through their media is absurdly sanitized and false. While you could point to more intense anime like "Neon Genesis Evangelion" or other things that are more melodramatically intense, MOST of what anime makes is bright, light-hearted, escapist fantasy - stuff that's designed to make you feel good or fluffy.
Anime is, in essence, Japan's biggest tourism attraction because it allows the studio / writer / production team to filter their culture through animation and make it look pristine, clean, EXACTLY as they want, etc. Culture festivals, bon festivals, Shinkai backgrounds, etc. This is admittedly a gross oversimplification, but there's a reason why some anime fans hate things like "Welcome to the NHK!" or any other show that basically points the finger at the otaku audience - they don't like the idea that life in Japan can suck or is anything but awesome.
Yup. Like I said it's important to not see it with rose tinted glasses
"Cool Japan" is/was an initiative by the Japanese government to boost tourism to the country during its lost decade especially as gaming/tech and then Anime products became a smashing sensation wordlwide. Interestingly, Anime and Otaku culture was derided as "uncool" as opposed to traditional aspects of their culture so it was initially sidelined amidst Western media's satanic panic but ofc we know how that all turned out :)
I don't know if I can agree with the assessment that anime is inherently a tourism product for this reason, at least not until recent years as budgets ballooned and studios reshuffled their staffs as legit streamings sites opened the gateway for profitability and exposure. But for a long time Anime was simply meant to sell its worlds to its "Japanese-only" consumers, and some of the most popular Anime don't depict Japan in a good light or the country at all: DBZ, Gundam, Naruto, One Piece, NGE, Death Note, Code Geass, SAO, AOT, Cyberpunk, so on and so forth. Even Studio Ghibli movies are critical of the nation.
There are many layers to this Okonomiyaki but I put the blame on western nation's inability to solve alienation and all of us escaping to our waifus yearning for a brighter, colorful world.
Man the fake VPN advert got me, really had me thinking "wow, tota got a big boy sponsor, who's it gonna be? Nord? Express? Maybe a niche one like atlas?" Nope, just tota being tota. Great bit tho, and great vid.
Games like yakuza and anime is what made me love Japan culturalwise, from learning about the lost decade to watching animes with stories that i can relate to, it's one of the few countries that I want to visit but not to the point where i just bluntly assume its the same as it's anime version.
I got into anime in my teens mostly because, at a time when I was supposed to transition out of cartoons into something more mature, the highest rated show on TV was Pawn Stars. The late 2000s were pretty rough for American TV. So, my buddy told me to look up Fullmetal Alchemist on my parents smart TV and the rest was history.
what an origin story lol. How the hell did pawn stars get to be number 1?
@@Totaraum Writers strike. It's why reality TV was so big back then. Get a bunch of BPD wine moms in a mansion and let the chaos ensue. No writing staff needed.
@@gilles4prezudent650 Ah that's right that was a big thing in the late 2000s. It's funny because all reality shows have writers too lol
Dang this video just made me subscribe. Excellent video bro. So very relatable and fascinating. Would love a video of your personal favorite anime of each genre if you haven’t made one already.
Does America even know I exist? Besides taking half my paycheck and keeping checks on my SSN lol
Alright that's fair lmao
underated af video
That "Fukuoka is trash" comment brought a very large onset of emotion that was best described as "incredibly conflicted" because I realized I didn't remember where Fukuoka was on a map, despite practicing Japanese geography.
At first, I was about to comment something like, "The Japanese language is easy to learn! You can learn to speak and read Nihongo in no time!" I wanted to say this in order to encourage you, but then I thought about it and became cognizant of the fact that Nihongo probably feels easy to me because I have been studying the Japanese language ever since I was a teenager. It's easy for me to say that it's easy.
I get the impression that you enjoy consuming Japanese media. Learning Nihongo can be very rewarding, because doing so allows you to understand and appreciate Japanese media in its original language (the vast majority of Japanese media is in the Japanese language).
Hopefully this comment succors you in your life decisions!
Since you brought it up, your shirt says 枯れた (かれた/kareta), meaning “withered”.
I was hoping someone would be able to tell me lol. Thank you!
Hilarious as always I see, eh?
That aside, when I consider my own interest in Japan both as a culture as well as potentially living there, I find that my circumstances are a little bit different. Many people's concerns or grievances that you talked about in the future is very real, but I was born in China and raised there for a good 10 years before I moved to America and spent my life up until that point here. Sure, I was introduced and hooked towards the culture for all the same reasons my friends and seemingly you were drawn to it, but the culture and language and their way of life there wasn't completely the same as completely alien and fascinating like if Spongebob had visited Rock Bottom through rose-tinted glasses
Instead for me, because I recall very little from my childhood in China, the similarities in Japan feels... oddly welcoming and familiar? Not in a literal sense, but the culture Japan developed practically feels like a remix of my own original culture to me. Their overall stricter rules, mindsets, and way of life also doesn't seem so unappealing to me because I've already been used to that typical Asian way of life back in China. With the current day China being taken over by a communist government and most of its culture being far more obscured and censored though, Japan to me feels like a living embodiment and remix of the closest thing I can find to a long-lost home I feel I belong to
Of course, that's not to say I'm eager to move over and properly live there firever even if I could get past the language barriers and financial costs of doing so. I'd love to visit for a while for my own reasons beyond simple interest, but it is interesting to me that my own experience and intrigue in the country doesn't completely come from a "it's a culture so different to ours! Wow!" fascinating that many of us can get from an alien yet beautiful environment we find ourselves in (why else does some well-written world building appeal to us?), and instead feels like the very culture I can recall in my childhood: only that it's not Chinese, but Japanese; so similar, yet so different at once. It's an odd but comforting feeling
Gotta show some respect to the Cool Japan Initiative. Also something something Japan’s focus on soft power post-WWII
Because Japan is a utopia with no problems whatsoever, duh...
ahhh, irony i see
I've always thought it would be neat, but then I remember I hate leaving home so leaving the the country is probably a no.
Fair lol
Going to Japan for a family trip this year was an amazing experience. We visited Tokyo, Kyoto and Mishima, where we watched a concert a jazz pianist - Jacob Koller (check him out :D). As someone, who is currently studying jazz piano in Europe, and knowing that jazz is extremely popular in Japan, I would love to go there again after I finish my studies here and just go play in some bars or at jam sessions and meet new people. Who knows what connections one can make! :)
That's awesome, I hope you get to visit again soon! I'll check out Jacob Koller's stuff
Japan is ery appealing when the US is becoming the UK
I'm still waiting for that Vaporeon explanation
Because it's cool (like your vids)
Japan be good because yes
Japan is cool
love this channel
Having been to London for a week, I can confirm, it blows.
Lmao
My guess is that considering the fact we’re so used to American culture, we’re naturally attached to different cultures and how they operate
By the way Happy Belated New Year
For sure the difference plays a huge role, happy belated New Year!
Great stuff as always
I like Tekken, Clannad, and Dragon Ball Z. thus I'm obligated to be fond of Japan 😅
The three GOATs
My great grandfather who fought the Japanese in WW2 so that his familiy won't speak Japanese looking down at me spending my free time watching Japanese cartoons and admiring Japanese culture
That vpn switcheroo got me bad man 😂😂
wait, animebrit is british?
Thats cringe.
Also, Funny how his reasons are similar to mine, Though i learned Japanese for a far petty-er reason than school.
but in the end, it made me appreciate the culture, and discover my favorite language
hell yeah dude, it's a very cool language
Interesting.
1 minute gang
I hadn’t even plugged the video on Twitter yet lol that was fast
You can't say the actual reason or people will get mad :^)
Food
Real
It’s unfortunate that most American people will not let you explore Japanese cultures
I liked Nintendo and did a presentation of Shigeru Miyamoto in the 5th grade and did my research and found out the forests near Shigeru's home were the inspiration for the Legend of Zelda series and it kept rolling from there. I started watching the Pokémon anime in middle school and my anime watching only increased from there. In high school I found a love for MLB partly because I wanted to learn about players like Ichiro and Masahiro Tanaka and how Japanese baseball works. And my interest to watch NPB increase my desire to learn Japanese and that's where I am today. I have no real desire to move to Japan but I would like to live in Japan even if for a few years. I guess I'm more entranced with the landscape of Japan rather than the culture. And anime like yuru camp made me want to visit certain areas in Japan like Yamanashi prefecture.
I hear you. They do a great job sucking you in with their media lol
Yes, Asian Kung-fu generation🤟🤟🤟.I absolutely love this band. Thanks to Bocchi the Rock! I have discovered them.
Can you please advice some more J-Rock/punk bands, please?
Well, if we talk about Japan (as well as any other country). Here, in Russia, we folks just simply (and sometimes blindly) followed the western culture - that is some kind of sad. Of course, there's nothing wrong in terms of culture (except some things as лгбт, as for me) and I myself really like music, memes, even language (I include USA to the west too, even if "the west" usualy means Europe throughout our minds in general.).
But then the Internet came to our life suddenly, so lot's of people (mostly young) have heard about the East - China (I think, it's way less popular) "South Korea and Japan. As for me learning all this animation culture and especually music was kinda... refreshing. I still hear a lot of things from west (like, in AKG songs), but it sounds so unique, and that's great. So, thanks to Internet, I can watch your great videos, share my opinion, as well as try understand Japam (or any other country). That's great! It also means, that I can learn language way easier.
Of course, I will not forget about Mother Russia) I think, that russian language is the most beautiful in the world, as well as literature and, especially, poets (tbh idk how it is called, we call it стихи or стихотворения). I also love to study history, and Russuan history is very intresting for me. But I can't say this about music - all our music sounds cheap for me, I don't listen to it at all. Well, I guess, you can't be the best in everything - every country has its pluses and minuses, and there's nothing wrong if u take something good from other countries/cultures. I also decided for myself, that there's no better place for me to live than Russia, so I'd like to visit other countries, but only as a tourist.
Well, wish you to study other cultures (that's intresting!) and good luck!
The anime fan in me is saying check out The Pillows and Flow lol
@@TotaraumOK, thanks! I also listened to KANA-BOON, and these guys are great) more J-rock is coming on the way!
Here are some jrock bands/artists i discovered after discovering Asian Kungfu Generation if that helps. Galileo Galilei, Hitsujibungaku, Alexandros, Yorushika, inabakumori, bump of chicken, toe. Also the lead singer/songwriter of Akfg has some solo stuff. A good starting point for his stuff is Endless Summer, Vegetable, and Nothing but love.
the peggies and culenasm are also pretty good.
@@Die-Coughman thank you! I will listen their music. I have also found, that babymetal and man with a mission are pretty good.