Why do Japanese have an infatuation with olden English culture?
>>51162539World Masterpiece Theatre, a huge ambitious anime franchise of the 70s and 80s that was intended to make anime go worldwide by adapting various nations' classics. They adapted stories from all over Europe (and I mean ALL over Europe, there are at least TWO from Finland alone off the top of my head, Moomin and a less popular one called Katri) and the Anglophone world. It didn't succeed as ambitiously as they hoped because the US never took after these shows in a big way, but they were hugely popular in Europe and Japan itself.WMT was so influential that one of their anime, Rascal The Raccoon, based off an American story of a redneck kid having a domesticated raccoon as a pet, resulted in a literal ecological crisis in Japan of Japanese people importing American raccoons and realizing they're not giant cuddly tanukis and are fat fucks who eat trash and small animals. One of their biggest anime, the 1974 Heidi which both Miyazaki and Takahata worked on, has its legacy with Switzerland being one of the largest Japanese tourist destinations in EuropePic related is Princess Sara, one of the British stories they adapted
>>51162539It's a unique and exotic time and aesthetic to them, not unlike what Japanese cultural motifs are to westerners. They, along with other western nations, also helped shape Japan into what it became post Edo period so they've left a cultural footprint of their own there too.
>>51162539Japanese are behind the times.They did not know about modern British culture like Chavs (or their evolved form, Roadmen) or Immigrant-based culture.Same as their knowledge of Russian culture ends at USSR aesthetics and didn't go further like gopniks culture and the slav doomer aesthetic
>>51162912They remember every foreign power at their aesthetic peak, and I think that's nice for them.
>>51162539england was japan's japan for a time
>>51162539They don't.
>>51162539It's a majestuous flag
>>51162539>Why do Japanese have an infatuation with olden English culture?Pardon?
>>51162912They are going to be sad to hear what happened to Kurt Cobain once they get into their Nirvana phase.
>>51179510true
They find the idea of the social classes 階級社会 really fascinating, they obsess over it when talking about Harry Potter. They're really fascinated by Ron's family being high status but broke, Hermione being low status technically, etc. They're both island nations. Also they compare the stereotype of English people being mean/hostile indirectly through polite language and etiquette very similar to their Kyoto stereotypes. Also, A.C. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allen Poe are extremly influential on their fiction, especially filtered through Edogawa Ranpo, that's why they love mystery stuff so much.
>>51162554Oh, so that's where the series anne of the green babble I watched came from
occidentalismbasically western fetishism
>>51162539The Japanese are more fascinated by German, French, Italian, Chinese and Russian culture. They only draw on British culture as a resource because it’s part of popular culture, since popular culture is shaped by the cultural influence of empires, and the British Empire has influenced the world through its invasions across half the globe. It’s also because the U.S. has the world’s largest media machine and has spread many aspects of Anglo culture throughout the world, including Japan.
>>51188483I would suggest that what is really being said in things like Alice in Wonderland reflects post-war Japan. Alice marks the point where childhood is effectively discovered as we understand it today and shows how it was fetishised (and probably more than that as well, the police would be quite interested in his habit of photographing little girls whenever he got the chance). No much prior to this children were regarded as small and somewhat annoying mini-adults, chimney sweeps, factory workers, prostitutes etc.Similarly, children weren't really children in Japan until after the war. Then childhood becomes extremely fetishised. Its very hard to avoid the Aliceification of youth in Japan. >>51188483The translator of Alice had to resort of Shogo metaphors to try to explain it. Interestingly the Japanese Alice is generally more agreeable, the translator couldn't help himself. The English Alice is frequently indolent (she does things because she is bored), the Japanese Alice is oddly conscientious (she "staving off sleepiness"). You can see they are the same thing potentially but they aren't.
>>51188483It also seems to me that the thing about the class system is that its extremely hard to understand (Americans always get it completely wrong). Japan has a sufficiently complex society that while they may not understand it, they understand that it is a complicated and sometimes subtle thing and that in itself is oddly alluring.
>>51162539It looks cool.
>>51162539because england was at one point the cultural capital of the world, and japan is a cultural homogenized country, and england WAS too before you know that one tribe ruined it all
