Why do Japanese have an infatuation with olden English culture?
>>50884439we don't.
>>50884439Why do some westerners have an infatuation with olden Japanese culture? Because it's novel and unique to them.
>>50884491But why English culture specifically? It's an odd choice.
>>50884537I wouldn't say it's English culture specifically. They have an equally great, if not greater, fascination with France as well as Germany+Austria. As someone who has a fascination with the 19th century, I think it has a lot to do with how different the world looked back then. Everything, despite how dirty and smelly it may have actually been if you were there at the time, looked more beautiful back then. Especially in Japan's case, the aesthetic of the time looked particularly unique because they didn't really have any of that until the Meiji era and even then it was just an imitation of what they had in Europe, without any of the history attached to it. A European might be able to just go to their city center and walk among what remains of the era, but a Japanese person can't do that, so all they can really do is fantasize, so much so that seeing the real thing can sometimes disappoint them when it doesn't live up to the grand image that they had in their head. I'm sure you've heard of those cases of Japanese people going to Paris and getting depressed when it wasn't the Belle Epoque beauty that they always pictured it as.
>>50884537Japan is basically the UK of Asia, it's impossible for them to not be infatuated with their closest equivalent who remains culturally alien and fascinating.
>>508844392 superior civilizations, Japanese and European
>>50885293No combination more iconic than island nations and imperialism (compliment).
