The question we've all asked ourselves. Is Anime (along with the internet) glorifying Japan?

So I've been thinking about this quite a lot recently. When i was at a particular age i had this dumb idea that going to Japan would be the best experience ever and that it would magically make everything better, but no, that's not how things work. I think that Japan is romanticized just like how we like to romanticize pirates and knights and stuff, even though we fully know that if we would meet one in real life, it would surely not be a good experience.

Listen, i like anime, just like all of you do, but i just can't help but to think when i see scene after scene after scene with stunning landscapes and i can't stand how the internet makes it look like a freaking heaven with perfect culture and society and all that crap. I understand why people are interested in anime and stuff, but for them to look at it like it's the best thing that will ever happen to earth and that every other country in the world is useless sickens me.

Every place on earth has it's own problems. Why would Japan be totally rid of them? It makes no sense.

So if you're still reading, why is Japan so immensely glorified to no end?

It is probably glorified as much as anywhere and anything else in fiction, in my eyes.

American fiction takes place mostly in America and makes things look dazzling, even if there is more a trend towards dystopias than utopias, and UK fiction does about the same the thing.

From there, we just imagine how great such a world is, and, in the case of Japan being glorified, anime mostly takes place in Japan and presents it as something desirable, when it is not.

It is probably glorified as much as anywhere and anything else in fiction, in my eyes.

 

American fiction takes place mostly in America and makes things look dazzling, even if there is more a trend towards dystopias than utopias, and UK fiction does about the same the thing.

 

From there, we just imagine how great such a world is, and, in the case of Japan being glorified, anime mostly takes place in Japan and presents it as something desirable, when it is not.

I'm gonna have to agree with brycec there. I don't think anime glorifies Japan any more than Hollywood glorifies LA. All you have to ask yourself to prove that is this: Name a Harry Potter fan that DIDN'T wish they could go to Hogwarts. When you're immersed in a world, fictional or not, you tend to long for it to be your own reality. Anime isn't unique in that respect. Heck when I started reading the Iron Druid series, I found myself wanting to visit the Rula Bula pub in Tempe, AZ. Just because it appears a few times in the books (and it helps that it's a real place.)

Thanks, you two. I was really confused there for a while. Now that i think about it, i think a lot ofthease gloryfications are just annoying stereotypes that you can find pretty much anywhere.

It would be boring if they didn't glorify those things. Plus, I think the idea, Japan is perfect, is usually created by people living outside the country and Japanese would laugh so hard if they knew those imaginations.

When foreigners look at another country's fictional media such as movies, games and anime in this case , they're going to be seeing the unrealistic portrayals of that country.

This also happens in japan, they often have unrealistic perceptions of the west because of movies. Some of them unrealistic perceptions include:

British men are all hot

Foreign women have bigger tits than Japanese women and so on.

Even south aisan men, particularly from india think that western women are beautiful thanks to western moives.

Anyway, it's normal for people to glorify japan, as anime (some) portray japan as some sort of anime wonderland.

But they probably didn't know anime isn't mainstream in japan, I mean Disney is far more popular than anime in japan.