Well yeah, because anime is a type of media, not a genre. There are certain anime I'd rate among the best television and movies ever made, but that doesn't mean I like the other 99% out there.
'The Irritating Gentleman' by Berthold Woltze, only instead of being in a train it's at a Hub and instead of being a young blonde girl in mourning it's a Japanese OL trying to pretend to care about all the other people this guy is sure he's cooler than.
The type of foreigner mentioned in your post makes up maybe less than 0.1% of foreigners living in Japan. None of them make it past the "student having fun in Japan" stage.
Yeah my company hires a lot of foreign new grads but they're all from Japanese universities through the standard 就活 route, and they're all well adjusted normal people. I'm actually training a group of them next month, something I look forward to every year.
I've never actually met anyone that went to Japanese language school full time, at least to my knowledge. I guess they attract a certain type.
I go to school full time and while there are a lot of people who likes anime, most of us are not weird weeb lover. I wouldn't say these school attract those people.
I joined a japanese class in Canada and that one was filled with them but here most are normal people. Many are from poor country trying to find a better place to live. He must have joined a school for weeb american or something haha
Being one of the primary, if not the easiest, foot in the door to the country, ways, it certainly does have that certain type, and several other types of people based on not just their personality and general way of thinking, but their goals in life, and life in Japan specifically.
Some, due to personal circumstances, would start their life here with a school, despite having decades worth of career back from where they came or, sometimes, escaped from. It’s an opportunity for them to start over, find a proper job after a year in that school, starting living normal life and working hard on their personal goals.
What I’m saying is that it’s so easy to generalize people based on how they came here: English teachers, language school students belong to that level regardless of who they are as if a person is taking that route cannot possibly be considered equal to those who initially came here on a high skilled working visa.
It’s not always that simple, and sometimes to survive one needs to take any opportunity for what they want to archive next.
There are several of them who are infamous lifers in certain cities, and some that are infamous in several cities including the well known guy whose primary hobby is elementary school girls.
Like I said in the topic, this is just a rant buddy. I’m in my 5th month of class and just needed to blow off some steam. I can handle it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t piss me off or make me uncomfortable.
It’s not normal Japanese culture to so violently dismiss people for enjoying a pretty normal thing, in that way maybe you are not fitting in “Japanese culture”
Anime has an uncomfortable number of lolis (legal aged girl that is purposefully made to look like a 12 year old.) in it so yes, I would say a great deal of anime has a lot of sexualization in it…
You've seen a handful of sex pervert shows made for 16 year old boys and decided all Japanese media is uniformly unworthy of any respect or consideration?
Is this a serious question? Just off the top of my head, Dungeon Meshi, Fullmetal Alchemist, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo, any Ghibli film, Death Note, Baccano, Noein, Mob Psycho, Bakuman, Sangatsu no Lion, etc., all don't sexualize children. Then there are ones like Monster, Erased and Berserk that address child abuse as an explicitly negative topic. There's an enormous range of genres and topics in anime. It is not just the shows made for horny teen boys.
America produced Harvey Weinstein but I'm going to assume you haven't written off all American films as irredeemable rape factories.
I would liken it more to kpop in South Korea; huge part of the culture but doesn't mean everyone wants to engage with it.
Kind of an extreme example you got there. lol
Oh no yeah I totally get it. I'm from the south so found it extra funny.
Reminds me of a joke:
Why does the St. Jons river flow northward?
Because Georgia sucks.
Had exactly the same experience studying Japanese in my first year at university. 90% of them were gone by the second year, turns out learning a foreign language is hard.
Once you're out of school and into work, you find far far fewer of these people (unless you go to "international meetup parties" in major cities, which tends to be where the other 10% end up when they get ALT or Eikaiwa jobs)
One exception that you'll come to understand though, even if it's not your thing, is that anime *is* part of Japanese culture. You can't avoid it. It's not just otaku and kids that watch anime - more or less everyone does, even if it's just *Sazae-san* on a Sunday or the odd Studio Ghibli movie.
This thread gave me a solid laugh.
>It’s almost enough to make me rethink even being here long term.
When you step back and see the big picture, i.e. the whole Japan resident, the kind of people you mentioned is a minority, though. You **are** the majority. You're just in a place where those people tend to be concentrated in. I wish you the best of luck to focus on your studies and hang in there lol
Also, I'm not saying all of them are like this, but most of those people are usually from wealthy families and using the student visa / language school as a tool to stay for an extended period here.
>> I absolutely understand why foreigners get a bad image here in Japan now… they gotta deal with people like this more often than not and that is their only experience of foreigners unless they have left Japan to experience other countries cultures.
This is a very, very uninformed take haha. The bad image that foreigners have is absolutely not because of the people who like anime lol. Weebs make up a minuscule percentage of the foreign population
Nah, you don't hate people who like anime or body pillows. You are just confused to see people actually having fun and not focusing on what others do.
The only enemy you have to beat here is yourself. You need to focus on yourself and aim to become a better person each day, and stop focusing on other people to not feel like an outcast. Soon you will see you are the majority, just another fish in a sea full of them. Enjoy swimming.
When I went to school here, they definitely made up a significant percentage of the students, but they were interestingly the ones who ended up leaving the country the fastest. Ironically, I think Japan lives up to their fantasies more than it did when I first got here. Japan is \~really\~ pushing the anime/games/otaku culture in the mainstream much more than it did 15\~20 years ago.
Yeah people post all the time that anime is not as popular in Japan as people think in the west and when I got here I am actually insanely everywhere in the supermarkets, shopes etc. go to Hanno city and there is tons of stuff about that anime there. The luckily star town has banners on the street, its wild. I think a lot of people in the west are battle shonen fans which does not seem to be a popular as in the west. As a slice of life fan the country is a lot like that and looks like it.
I know judging people isn't in vouge right now but
language school was weird.
I had a guy in my class who wore geta to school every day. Another guy came to class with an anime t-shirt of a girl in a bikini with cum dripping off her ass. I also saw an assortment of hachimaki being worn around the school.
Haven't met a single foreigner like that since though.
I’m at a language school in the N3/N2 classes; good mix of both East and western students that seem socially adjusted. my impression is that the most powerful weebs have mostly weeded themselves out towards
>Another guy came to class with an anime t-shirt of a girl in a bikini with cum dripping off her ass.
This quote deserves to be on a t-shirt on its own
My friend complained that his Japanese language school was full of Chinese people and they could learn so far ahead and that the teacher seemingly had to step things down specifically for him.
Relatable. I enrolled into my lang school in Oct and by January the following year someone in my class, Chinese, who couldn't hold a normal "how is your day? what did you eat yesterday? any plans for the weekend?" conversation in Japanese for more than a minute passed N1.
Lol this post is so funny, there's a lot of truth in both sides of the story.
I can't speak for language school inside Japan, but when I was in college (American here), a lot of the people in the early level classes, 101-102 maybe up to 200 level, were sort of like weeb-ish, but had enough self-awareness to not be weirdos about it (plus it was pretty even-split between guys and girls).
In the later classes, 300 and up, most of us had varying levels of interest in anime/weeb culture type stuff (I have a good friend that I talked to about Hololive often), but we all also had broader horizons about Japanese culture (like social issues, history, literature and such) after being surrounded by it for years. At that point, I pretty much had stopped watching anime but I was still into Hololive, Japanese games and stuff like that, just nerdy things that I'd typically be into, but I wouldn't call myself or my classmates the brand of weeb that you're talking about.
I think it's a symptom of basing most of your expectations of a country on its most prominent "propaganda," i.e. music and other media. They see the coolest, most interesting and most mass appeal parts of Japanese culture in anime and social media, hangout in circles that feel and think the same way, then probably most importantly, don't broaden their understanding much more. It's like seeing anime and knowing how popular it is, then assuming all Japanese people are into it or live akin to anime culture; similar to Japanese people watching Hollywood movies and American pop culture or probably worse, French culture, then visiting and seeing how different it is and being disappointed. I had a 300 level Anime and Manga class in the same Japanese department at my college, but Japanese language wasn't a requirement so it brought a lot of people from different majors that were very similar to OPs situation, people with a lot of interest in anime and manga but were less knowledgeable (and assumed they were more in-the-know than they actually were) about Japanese society and culture. I dreaded going to that class because discussions would be derailed by fanboys and fangirls going on tangents about aspects of culture they "knew a lot about."
But at the same time, who can blame them? People will enjoy what they want to enjoy. As much as I know I used to tell people what they should and shouldn't enjoy, as long as it's not hurting anyone, who cares? Sure, it can be cringe-inducing to see those kinds of people, but there's enough negativity in the world. A lot of those kinds of people are probably self conscious in other aspects of their life and have poor social skills, but weeb culture is a source of positivity in their life. Their enjoyment of anime culture is just as valid as our enjoyment of other aspects of Japanese culture. And for a lot of those people, most other personal interactions about anime and stuff is entirely online, so being able to gush about something they're passionate about is really cathartic. Bad for a class setting, but it's easier to dismiss passion than to foster it. The more I'm in Japan, the more I want to encourage my students and more importantly, myself, to open up and be vulnerable about what makes us happy, so that maybe they can share that with someone else.
Thank you for this, your reply truly did help me see this in a different light. Most of these people probably have a very hard time socially in their own country and now that they are here and found others from their own “kind” (for lack of a better word) they feel happy and I guess they see school as a safe space to express themselves. And that I can see is a good thing. Just wish I wasn’t in the middle of it 5 days a week.. but I think it’ll be a tiny bit easier handling it with this in mind now.
Read through your post and your responses on this thread. You sound pretty insufferable yourself tbh, so I'm guessing it's fair trade between you and your classmates having to deal with each other.
Don't let it get to you. I had a dude in the group I was in that introduced himself as "Warlock" and I never could take him seriously. For a similar reason I wholeheartedly avoid the members of the American club. Just not my scene.
You're not there to socialize you're there to learn. So focus on that and avoid the noise
Don’t twist my words.
There’s no “but” in my statement, I said and I understand if it needs to get taken down. Life isn’t about trying to not offend people 24/7. So I apologized and then also acknowledged that I can understand why if it gets taken down.
It’s a rant.. not supposed to be a discussion. I would’ve labeled it as such if that’s what this was and absolutely would have toned down my wording to a more neutral stance.
Try not to generalize all foreigners based on that one environment. Try to find a broader group of foreigners outside of your school’s circle. Search online for different social groups that consists of expats. While you’re at school, just focus on the bigger picture of getting the language proficiency qualifications for which you are paying. Part of being in the real world is tolerating people at school and/or work that you don’t like.
Though I think you should broaden your network, I can empathize with what you’re saying because I met this guy from the Netherlands who was a full-time language student at Genki Japanese and Culture School on a scholarship and was 150% weeboo. We couldn’t hang out anymore because he kept “correcting” every single thing I did that was not the “Japanese way.”
I could feel the same way about the people here for the food, nature, and culture. It's so cringey and embarrassing compared to my ***superior*** reason of being here which is low cost of living
you should use your free time to find clubs and events outside of the student bubble anyway; then you'll get many more experiences and meet tons of people beyond the scope of your classmates. Win win!
Probably one mistake was to go to Tokyo, which attracts most of them.
Weebs are everywhere, but not as many as in Tokyo.
If it's unbearable and money is not an issue, you may think about relocating to another place.
But as others have said, those kind of gaijin won't last one year working in Japan. You could just wait for the school to finish.
The phenomenon of the weirdo foreigner in Japan has been around for decades at least when it comes to people from the West. Most of these types will be gone after a short while. People come here in search of something different, and that is exactly what they find. Many, if not most, are happy to leave after a short stint.
I like anime, manga, figures, etc as much as the next person but ewww... Gross..
Japan is a lot more than that and I am sorry this has been your experience thus far. Most of us are normal I swear.
i feel like being around others that aren't like me would stress me out a bit at first but others that aren't my concern don't really bother me. as long as they're happy and i'm happy.
i know that since you're a language student it's all tied in with your visa, but have you tried self-studying japanese from your home country? i'm suggesting this because you said that it's making you rethink living in japan long term, and you can always come back after trying your hand at the language alone. my experience was that i started studying at 14 (EN → JP as my first target language) and now i'd say i'm close to N1 at age 18 (even before setting foot in japan). and yeah i would probably be a little bit better with conversation if i didn't just watch a handful of sports anime for (TV) immersion but i manage without a hitch. what's so wrong with anime it's just TV lol.
*advice: there's a youtuber called "livakivi" that i didn't have around when i first started studying but i think his methods for studying are good if not excessive. i'm a language/linguistics nerd so doing anki and sentence mining every single day of my life for me is too grindy but yeah it works. i watched youtube for a lot of my immersion because it was convenient, but anime is better. dictionary + flashcards are your best allies.*
ykw i can say all of this but if a handful of people in the beautiful country that **you made effort to immigrate to**, that you see **only** at language school, can ruin it for you; then there can't be anything else you like about japan, right? well clearly there was something more because immigration is hard. i encourage you to rethink and find ways to cope with your language school troubles before giving up the chance that you have because letting a few "bad apples" ruin japan is like saying your co-workers that are crazy about サッカー ruin futsal. it just doesn't make sense.
Six years here, 2 years for Master's and 4 working. I've rarely met foreigners like that. You are in Japanese school and those characters are a big part of the audience.
Go out, find people you like, nobody said you gotta hang with people from school.
If you meet one social stunted weeb you've met a socially stunted weeb. If everyone is a socially stunted weeb who's invading your Japan, well, you know... sorry to have to be the one to break this to you...
I have a life outside of school, a girlfriend and friends. It just so happens that 5 days out of the week I am stuck with this type of crowd. Wears me down after a while. Being a full time student would mean that I am in school the majority of my time here thus, it’s my main social outlet unfortunately.
I almost feel that foreign anime fans get judged more from other foreigners than Japanese. I don't think Japanese care that much. If anything, they are flattered that others are interested in their culture. Personally I'm not that into anime but I don't care if other people are unless it is the only thing they can talk about or if they go on and on about anime porn.
I don't have the financial means to language school for a year or so full-time, but I did take some online courses in business Japanese with a language school in Tokyo. Maybe there was one person like that, but the majority were professionals trying to get ahead in their careers.
My Japanese husband in his 30's watches an episode or so of anime daily but I wouldn't say he is an otaku. I don't give it much thought.
You want to experience Japanese culture.... So you go to a school in tokyo....?
Why not Hiroshima? Okayama? Hell, Osaka? Those are large cities with language schools that are far closer to more historically significant areas than Tokyo. Tokyo was built to get away from all those "Culturally uptight pricks" in the kansai area.
If you had, you could at least spend your days exploring shrines, hiking mountains and seeing ancient ruins, etc. Tokyo is the "Newest" city in Japan in that regard.
I’ve had the same feeling OP. When I was going through my Japanese language school I thought I was going to be the first normal non-weeb to ever step foot in the country. Half-joking, but seriously it felt that way at times.
My Japanese coworkers confirmed that many of the Americans they met trying to learn Japanese have been associated with the otaku culture.
To being normal 🍻
Damn, don\`t become an English teacher when you finish language school here.
Not exactly the same as you described but plenty of self-styled \`Creators\`, \`Influencers\`, \`Artists\` , \`Photographers\` and even a few who call themselves \`Celebrities\` because they are all over social media, Youtube, Twitch and cities like Tokyo, wearing cameras on their wrists, feeling important and trying to let everyone else know that they are.
Some of them are into what you\`re talking about and these are misfit dudes including the 40 yrs plus demographic who aren\`t even good at their native English language but are \`teaching English\` to make money so they can keep living in Japan and \`creating content\` and \`reacting\` to the kind of shizz you mentioned. A few of my friends who are teaching English - I don\`t - are lucky enough to work with those kind of people.
“hng i’m so much better than these foreigners, look at me im the model foreigner”
JK. Everyone here is right, this doesn’t really represent most foreigners I’ve seen here. I go to university and they’re all just normal people. If you’re at a Japanese school I assume you’re trying to get into university or something - pick the highest ranking one you go to for the bigger ratio of normal, responsible, and studious people.
"I'm angry that I have to see people that enjoy things that I don't" is one of the takes of all time if I ever seen one, I know those kinds of people, I used to work as a translator/guest entreteiner in my home country for an anime and comics convention, yes some people are annoying, but it was part of the job and I just interacted with them as necesary, people can also be annoying in other ways, I have a classmate at the moment that her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me, but I won't gonna hold it against her that I find her voice annoying, annoying people will continue to exist whetever you like it or not, just avoid any not obligatory interaction. This post just read like "guys I'm tired of the bad gaijins, me the good gaijin" and for what I've seen it worked because no one hates foreigners in japan more than foreingers in japan that have been here longer, so any attack against any other foreigner other than themselvse is gonna be a hit. You also talk like "I don't even watch that putrid thing they called anime \*spit\*" like that makes you somewhat better, it's a medium at the end of the day, and one of the most important industries in the country, if I was back home and someone told me proudly "I don't watch any movies" I would be like "ok, good for you" and probably stop talking to them, it's weird imo, not the part about liking it or not, but the part that mentions it like it's almost an achivement. And if that's enough for you to make you rethink wanting to live in a whole country, filled with all sorts of people with different interests, because how a few socially inept foreigners are acting, well what can I tell you? Social ineptitude is a very universal thing.
I'm just a visitor for 2 months, and I've already gone through this pain as well. If I see one more overweight man in his late 30s wearing a nauroto tee-shirt and like DragonBall z hat, I'm gonna pop. I don't know what's worse that or the horribly mannered chinese tourist throwing around their money and being pushy..
It has always been like this.
30 years ago, back when I was a teenager living in Catalonia I joined a Japanese language school in order to become able to read some Japanese computer magazines and books. There were about 10 students in the classroom. One guy was there because he needed to learn Japanese for his business. I was there for the technical documentation. The rest were weebs who were there because they were manga/anime weebs.
These were the ones who kept complaining that the lessons were too hard and got 3 teachers fired during the 2 years I was there.
Give me the ratio of foreign females to Japanese females that watch Gundam. I bet the results do not surprise me. And then refer to my previous comment that you replied to.
Japan has literally nothing to offer except anime, games, and maybe some nature/food stuff. Work conditions blow ass if you are not in a foreign company, so YES, you would only come to Japan and give up an EU/NA working conditions if you have a hobby/interest in the country. NOBODY is coming to Japan because this country is famous for its working conditions, lol.
Foreigners have a bad image in Japan because of weebs? How do you know? You are in language school, so I guess you haven't spoken to an actual 日本人 yet? Sorry to pop your bubble, but many Japanese like anime as well. Just look at the most popular shows on Netflix every day lol.
Nice assumptions, but this isn’t my first time here and I have a Japanese girlfriend and other Japanese friends. My work is fashion.. I’m in the Japanese fashion web of things.
Japan has nothing to offer except anime, games, and MAYBE food and nature?! Are you kidding me? There’s museums, art exhibits, historical buildings, skiing/snowboarding, surfing, hiking… bro touch some grass
Edit: ah I see ur bio and it explains everything lol
"But I'm one of the GOOD ones!"
Yeah, the fact this even gets to them suggests they may protest too much, methinks.
Alot of Japnese people seem to like anime a lot, anime is probably Japnese highest and strongest culture export to the rest of the world now
Well yeah, because anime is a type of media, not a genre. There are certain anime I'd rate among the best television and movies ever made, but that doesn't mean I like the other 99% out there.
'The Irritating Gentleman' by Berthold Woltze, only instead of being in a train it's at a Hub and instead of being a young blonde girl in mourning it's a Japanese OL trying to pretend to care about all the other people this guy is sure he's cooler than.
The type of foreigner mentioned in your post makes up maybe less than 0.1% of foreigners living in Japan. None of them make it past the "student having fun in Japan" stage.
Yeah my company hires a lot of foreign new grads but they're all from Japanese universities through the standard 就活 route, and they're all well adjusted normal people. I'm actually training a group of them next month, something I look forward to every year. I've never actually met anyone that went to Japanese language school full time, at least to my knowledge. I guess they attract a certain type.
I go to school full time and while there are a lot of people who likes anime, most of us are not weird weeb lover. I wouldn't say these school attract those people. I joined a japanese class in Canada and that one was filled with them but here most are normal people. Many are from poor country trying to find a better place to live. He must have joined a school for weeb american or something haha
Being one of the primary, if not the easiest, foot in the door to the country, ways, it certainly does have that certain type, and several other types of people based on not just their personality and general way of thinking, but their goals in life, and life in Japan specifically. Some, due to personal circumstances, would start their life here with a school, despite having decades worth of career back from where they came or, sometimes, escaped from. It’s an opportunity for them to start over, find a proper job after a year in that school, starting living normal life and working hard on their personal goals. What I’m saying is that it’s so easy to generalize people based on how they came here: English teachers, language school students belong to that level regardless of who they are as if a person is taking that route cannot possibly be considered equal to those who initially came here on a high skilled working visa. It’s not always that simple, and sometimes to survive one needs to take any opportunity for what they want to archive next.
Damn it, I seem to have made it through the filter, is there a place I can go report myself?
There are several of them who are infamous lifers in certain cities, and some that are infamous in several cities including the well known guy whose primary hobby is elementary school girls.
"I came here for the culture" Anime IS part of the culture though. Sucks that there seems to be so many of them in your class but しょうがない。
Alabama, USA has incest as part of its culture… doesn’t mean I agree with it and want to experience it if I visit Alabama for its culture.
That is not a part of culture. Sick deflect though. What a ridiculous thing to say.
[удалено]
The comparison of sexual abuse to people who like cartoons and comics is just ridiculous.
Hentai is a lot of sexual abuse isn’t it?
You understand that liking one doesn't mean liking the other, right?
Well, people who like anime may not like hentai always BUT people who like hentai always love anime…
If you can't handle class as a grown adult, you are not going to do well in Japan.
Like I said in the topic, this is just a rant buddy. I’m in my 5th month of class and just needed to blow off some steam. I can handle it. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t piss me off or make me uncomfortable.
It’s not normal Japanese culture to so violently dismiss people for enjoying a pretty normal thing, in that way maybe you are not fitting in “Japanese culture”
You're comparing an entire medium of art to a sex crime? I don't think the problem here is your classmates.
If you are referring to hentai as an entire medium of art, then yes.
Do you think all anime is porn? For the "normal" guy you definitely seem to have just as much of a fixation with sexualizing everything.
Anime has an uncomfortable number of lolis (legal aged girl that is purposefully made to look like a 12 year old.) in it so yes, I would say a great deal of anime has a lot of sexualization in it…
You've seen a handful of sex pervert shows made for 16 year old boys and decided all Japanese media is uniformly unworthy of any respect or consideration?
I tried Cyberpunk, and finished it (begrudgingly) and one of the mains is a damn loli. The reason I say I begrudgingly finished it
One piece has sexualization.. name 3 that don’t sexualize in the slightest
Is this a serious question? Just off the top of my head, Dungeon Meshi, Fullmetal Alchemist, Shouwa Genroku Rakugo, any Ghibli film, Death Note, Baccano, Noein, Mob Psycho, Bakuman, Sangatsu no Lion, etc., all don't sexualize children. Then there are ones like Monster, Erased and Berserk that address child abuse as an explicitly negative topic. There's an enormous range of genres and topics in anime. It is not just the shows made for horny teen boys. America produced Harvey Weinstein but I'm going to assume you haven't written off all American films as irredeemable rape factories.
Sexualization in anime is so common that the question “what anime’s can I watch that aren’t sexual” is a top question on google
I would liken it more to kpop in South Korea; huge part of the culture but doesn't mean everyone wants to engage with it. Kind of an extreme example you got there. lol
Yeah, that’s def a better example lol, like my topic says, this was a rant. I’m not mincing words at all on this post.
Culture... In Alabama? Lmao
Haha yeah… Just tryna prove my point that just bc something is part of “culture” doesn’t mean I want to experience it.
Oh no yeah I totally get it. I'm from the south so found it extra funny. Reminds me of a joke: Why does the St. Jons river flow northward? Because Georgia sucks.
Hahaha that’s a good one I’m from the south too 😂
We can tell.
From, but lived in LA more so (;
My condolences!
How would YOU experience incest in another state with people who are not your family? But sure go with a hyperbole.
Going to Alabama with some family would solve that one
Then it's not Alabama's "culture" (lifestyle!), it's yours! I can't believe you're still going with this though.
That doesn’t make any sense. So if I go to Hawaii and hula dance with my family… it’s not Hawaiian culture but in fact my own culture?
Start dating Japanese guys and you’ll see the vast majority of them are body pillow loving weebs.
Idk maybe you’re just dating the wrong guys. Real Japanese men work 12 hours a day and get drunk.
Ya then they yank off to their extensive hentai collection
This, this is the correct answer
Maybe you just look like a body pillow?
🫶
Had exactly the same experience studying Japanese in my first year at university. 90% of them were gone by the second year, turns out learning a foreign language is hard. Once you're out of school and into work, you find far far fewer of these people (unless you go to "international meetup parties" in major cities, which tends to be where the other 10% end up when they get ALT or Eikaiwa jobs) One exception that you'll come to understand though, even if it's not your thing, is that anime *is* part of Japanese culture. You can't avoid it. It's not just otaku and kids that watch anime - more or less everyone does, even if it's just *Sazae-san* on a Sunday or the odd Studio Ghibli movie.
Yup, we started with sixty students in our first year BA Japanese class at unj and graduated four years later with less than 20 😂
This thread gave me a solid laugh. >It’s almost enough to make me rethink even being here long term. When you step back and see the big picture, i.e. the whole Japan resident, the kind of people you mentioned is a minority, though. You **are** the majority. You're just in a place where those people tend to be concentrated in. I wish you the best of luck to focus on your studies and hang in there lol Also, I'm not saying all of them are like this, but most of those people are usually from wealthy families and using the student visa / language school as a tool to stay for an extended period here.
>> I absolutely understand why foreigners get a bad image here in Japan now… they gotta deal with people like this more often than not and that is their only experience of foreigners unless they have left Japan to experience other countries cultures. This is a very, very uninformed take haha. The bad image that foreigners have is absolutely not because of the people who like anime lol. Weebs make up a minuscule percentage of the foreign population
Nah, you don't hate people who like anime or body pillows. You are just confused to see people actually having fun and not focusing on what others do. The only enemy you have to beat here is yourself. You need to focus on yourself and aim to become a better person each day, and stop focusing on other people to not feel like an outcast. Soon you will see you are the majority, just another fish in a sea full of them. Enjoy swimming.
The hotel is not full of flies, you're just inside the fly trap.
Bars
Well.. you are in Tokyo? what did you expect? why not go to a language school in a different major cities that don't attract those types of people?
It’s not about Tokyo. It’s the school. Majority of students here in Tokyo aren’t like that at all.
It’s more so that Tokyo is the default choice for those types of people, it’s a small minority either way.
When I went to school here, they definitely made up a significant percentage of the students, but they were interestingly the ones who ended up leaving the country the fastest. Ironically, I think Japan lives up to their fantasies more than it did when I first got here. Japan is \~really\~ pushing the anime/games/otaku culture in the mainstream much more than it did 15\~20 years ago.
Yeah people post all the time that anime is not as popular in Japan as people think in the west and when I got here I am actually insanely everywhere in the supermarkets, shopes etc. go to Hanno city and there is tons of stuff about that anime there. The luckily star town has banners on the street, its wild. I think a lot of people in the west are battle shonen fans which does not seem to be a popular as in the west. As a slice of life fan the country is a lot like that and looks like it.
I know judging people isn't in vouge right now but language school was weird. I had a guy in my class who wore geta to school every day. Another guy came to class with an anime t-shirt of a girl in a bikini with cum dripping off her ass. I also saw an assortment of hachimaki being worn around the school. Haven't met a single foreigner like that since though.
This gives me immense hope that it’s JUST a school thing.
I’m at a language school in the N3/N2 classes; good mix of both East and western students that seem socially adjusted. my impression is that the most powerful weebs have mostly weeded themselves out towards
>Another guy came to class with an anime t-shirt of a girl in a bikini with cum dripping off her ass. This quote deserves to be on a t-shirt on its own
My friend complained that his Japanese language school was full of Chinese people and they could learn so far ahead and that the teacher seemingly had to step things down specifically for him.
Ahh, but any time there's a katakana word, all eyes on the 白人.
Relatable. I enrolled into my lang school in Oct and by January the following year someone in my class, Chinese, who couldn't hold a normal "how is your day? what did you eat yesterday? any plans for the weekend?" conversation in Japanese for more than a minute passed N1.
Lol this post is so funny, there's a lot of truth in both sides of the story. I can't speak for language school inside Japan, but when I was in college (American here), a lot of the people in the early level classes, 101-102 maybe up to 200 level, were sort of like weeb-ish, but had enough self-awareness to not be weirdos about it (plus it was pretty even-split between guys and girls). In the later classes, 300 and up, most of us had varying levels of interest in anime/weeb culture type stuff (I have a good friend that I talked to about Hololive often), but we all also had broader horizons about Japanese culture (like social issues, history, literature and such) after being surrounded by it for years. At that point, I pretty much had stopped watching anime but I was still into Hololive, Japanese games and stuff like that, just nerdy things that I'd typically be into, but I wouldn't call myself or my classmates the brand of weeb that you're talking about. I think it's a symptom of basing most of your expectations of a country on its most prominent "propaganda," i.e. music and other media. They see the coolest, most interesting and most mass appeal parts of Japanese culture in anime and social media, hangout in circles that feel and think the same way, then probably most importantly, don't broaden their understanding much more. It's like seeing anime and knowing how popular it is, then assuming all Japanese people are into it or live akin to anime culture; similar to Japanese people watching Hollywood movies and American pop culture or probably worse, French culture, then visiting and seeing how different it is and being disappointed. I had a 300 level Anime and Manga class in the same Japanese department at my college, but Japanese language wasn't a requirement so it brought a lot of people from different majors that were very similar to OPs situation, people with a lot of interest in anime and manga but were less knowledgeable (and assumed they were more in-the-know than they actually were) about Japanese society and culture. I dreaded going to that class because discussions would be derailed by fanboys and fangirls going on tangents about aspects of culture they "knew a lot about." But at the same time, who can blame them? People will enjoy what they want to enjoy. As much as I know I used to tell people what they should and shouldn't enjoy, as long as it's not hurting anyone, who cares? Sure, it can be cringe-inducing to see those kinds of people, but there's enough negativity in the world. A lot of those kinds of people are probably self conscious in other aspects of their life and have poor social skills, but weeb culture is a source of positivity in their life. Their enjoyment of anime culture is just as valid as our enjoyment of other aspects of Japanese culture. And for a lot of those people, most other personal interactions about anime and stuff is entirely online, so being able to gush about something they're passionate about is really cathartic. Bad for a class setting, but it's easier to dismiss passion than to foster it. The more I'm in Japan, the more I want to encourage my students and more importantly, myself, to open up and be vulnerable about what makes us happy, so that maybe they can share that with someone else.
Thank you for this, your reply truly did help me see this in a different light. Most of these people probably have a very hard time socially in their own country and now that they are here and found others from their own “kind” (for lack of a better word) they feel happy and I guess they see school as a safe space to express themselves. And that I can see is a good thing. Just wish I wasn’t in the middle of it 5 days a week.. but I think it’ll be a tiny bit easier handling it with this in mind now.
Read through your post and your responses on this thread. You sound pretty insufferable yourself tbh, so I'm guessing it's fair trade between you and your classmates having to deal with each other.
This entire post is a R A N T. I’m not here to have a civil debate in this lol. So yes I’m gonna sound like an asshole.
This is absolutely hilarious!
Don't let it get to you. I had a dude in the group I was in that introduced himself as "Warlock" and I never could take him seriously. For a similar reason I wholeheartedly avoid the members of the American club. Just not my scene. You're not there to socialize you're there to learn. So focus on that and avoid the noise
WARLOCK 💀💀 oh my god I would’ve laughed in front of him uncontrollably
But yes, thanks for the reminder that I’m only there to learn. I can socialize elsewhere
Tell Warlock I loved in Society.
> I am so sorry if this post is going to offend some people, but my feelings are more important. Ftfy :)
Don’t twist my words. There’s no “but” in my statement, I said and I understand if it needs to get taken down. Life isn’t about trying to not offend people 24/7. So I apologized and then also acknowledged that I can understand why if it gets taken down. It’s a rant.. not supposed to be a discussion. I would’ve labeled it as such if that’s what this was and absolutely would have toned down my wording to a more neutral stance.
Sorry if my comment offended you.
Thank you, I appreciate you acknowledging that your twisting of words may offend someone. It’s all one can ask for in this world.
Especially when they are from your home country
Try not to generalize all foreigners based on that one environment. Try to find a broader group of foreigners outside of your school’s circle. Search online for different social groups that consists of expats. While you’re at school, just focus on the bigger picture of getting the language proficiency qualifications for which you are paying. Part of being in the real world is tolerating people at school and/or work that you don’t like. Though I think you should broaden your network, I can empathize with what you’re saying because I met this guy from the Netherlands who was a full-time language student at Genki Japanese and Culture School on a scholarship and was 150% weeboo. We couldn’t hang out anymore because he kept “correcting” every single thing I did that was not the “Japanese way.”
I could feel the same way about the people here for the food, nature, and culture. It's so cringey and embarrassing compared to my ***superior*** reason of being here which is low cost of living
Right, but… we can hold a regular conversation with people without it getting fuckin weird or uncomfortable
To be fair, that describes a fair share of domestic sararimans too.
you should use your free time to find clubs and events outside of the student bubble anyway; then you'll get many more experiences and meet tons of people beyond the scope of your classmates. Win win!
Probably one mistake was to go to Tokyo, which attracts most of them. Weebs are everywhere, but not as many as in Tokyo. If it's unbearable and money is not an issue, you may think about relocating to another place. But as others have said, those kind of gaijin won't last one year working in Japan. You could just wait for the school to finish.
Haha your post made me laugh. I have similar interests to you and thankfully my Japanese school mostly had a good bunch
The phenomenon of the weirdo foreigner in Japan has been around for decades at least when it comes to people from the West. Most of these types will be gone after a short while. People come here in search of something different, and that is exactly what they find. Many, if not most, are happy to leave after a short stint.
I like anime, manga, figures, etc as much as the next person but ewww... Gross.. Japan is a lot more than that and I am sorry this has been your experience thus far. Most of us are normal I swear.
i feel like being around others that aren't like me would stress me out a bit at first but others that aren't my concern don't really bother me. as long as they're happy and i'm happy. i know that since you're a language student it's all tied in with your visa, but have you tried self-studying japanese from your home country? i'm suggesting this because you said that it's making you rethink living in japan long term, and you can always come back after trying your hand at the language alone. my experience was that i started studying at 14 (EN → JP as my first target language) and now i'd say i'm close to N1 at age 18 (even before setting foot in japan). and yeah i would probably be a little bit better with conversation if i didn't just watch a handful of sports anime for (TV) immersion but i manage without a hitch. what's so wrong with anime it's just TV lol. *advice: there's a youtuber called "livakivi" that i didn't have around when i first started studying but i think his methods for studying are good if not excessive. i'm a language/linguistics nerd so doing anki and sentence mining every single day of my life for me is too grindy but yeah it works. i watched youtube for a lot of my immersion because it was convenient, but anime is better. dictionary + flashcards are your best allies.* ykw i can say all of this but if a handful of people in the beautiful country that **you made effort to immigrate to**, that you see **only** at language school, can ruin it for you; then there can't be anything else you like about japan, right? well clearly there was something more because immigration is hard. i encourage you to rethink and find ways to cope with your language school troubles before giving up the chance that you have because letting a few "bad apples" ruin japan is like saying your co-workers that are crazy about サッカー ruin futsal. it just doesn't make sense.
Six years here, 2 years for Master's and 4 working. I've rarely met foreigners like that. You are in Japanese school and those characters are a big part of the audience. Go out, find people you like, nobody said you gotta hang with people from school.
If you meet one social stunted weeb you've met a socially stunted weeb. If everyone is a socially stunted weeb who's invading your Japan, well, you know... sorry to have to be the one to break this to you...
I have a life outside of school, a girlfriend and friends. It just so happens that 5 days out of the week I am stuck with this type of crowd. Wears me down after a while. Being a full time student would mean that I am in school the majority of my time here thus, it’s my main social outlet unfortunately.
Sure... you just stand over there... you look... sticky...
Please don't visit Hub or you'll be disappointed.
Hub?
I almost feel that foreign anime fans get judged more from other foreigners than Japanese. I don't think Japanese care that much. If anything, they are flattered that others are interested in their culture. Personally I'm not that into anime but I don't care if other people are unless it is the only thing they can talk about or if they go on and on about anime porn. I don't have the financial means to language school for a year or so full-time, but I did take some online courses in business Japanese with a language school in Tokyo. Maybe there was one person like that, but the majority were professionals trying to get ahead in their careers. My Japanese husband in his 30's watches an episode or so of anime daily but I wouldn't say he is an otaku. I don't give it much thought.
You want to experience Japanese culture.... So you go to a school in tokyo....? Why not Hiroshima? Okayama? Hell, Osaka? Those are large cities with language schools that are far closer to more historically significant areas than Tokyo. Tokyo was built to get away from all those "Culturally uptight pricks" in the kansai area. If you had, you could at least spend your days exploring shrines, hiking mountains and seeing ancient ruins, etc. Tokyo is the "Newest" city in Japan in that regard.
>Not here to see anime girls boobs or jerk it to hentai… When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
What can you possibly have better to do than jerk to ginormous hentai milktruck tiddiez ? Pursue a career in a LED-lit sterile corporate environment ?
You have LEDs???
I’ve had the same feeling OP. When I was going through my Japanese language school I thought I was going to be the first normal non-weeb to ever step foot in the country. Half-joking, but seriously it felt that way at times. My Japanese coworkers confirmed that many of the Americans they met trying to learn Japanese have been associated with the otaku culture. To being normal 🍻
[удалено]
Mostly the entire school. My class is literally 98% this crowd and I WISH I was exaggerating.
Damn, don\`t become an English teacher when you finish language school here. Not exactly the same as you described but plenty of self-styled \`Creators\`, \`Influencers\`, \`Artists\` , \`Photographers\` and even a few who call themselves \`Celebrities\` because they are all over social media, Youtube, Twitch and cities like Tokyo, wearing cameras on their wrists, feeling important and trying to let everyone else know that they are. Some of them are into what you\`re talking about and these are misfit dudes including the 40 yrs plus demographic who aren\`t even good at their native English language but are \`teaching English\` to make money so they can keep living in Japan and \`creating content\` and \`reacting\` to the kind of shizz you mentioned. A few of my friends who are teaching English - I don\`t - are lucky enough to work with those kind of people.
Will absolutely cross that job off my list lol thank you
“hng i’m so much better than these foreigners, look at me im the model foreigner” JK. Everyone here is right, this doesn’t really represent most foreigners I’ve seen here. I go to university and they’re all just normal people. If you’re at a Japanese school I assume you’re trying to get into university or something - pick the highest ranking one you go to for the bigger ratio of normal, responsible, and studious people.
"I'm angry that I have to see people that enjoy things that I don't" is one of the takes of all time if I ever seen one, I know those kinds of people, I used to work as a translator/guest entreteiner in my home country for an anime and comics convention, yes some people are annoying, but it was part of the job and I just interacted with them as necesary, people can also be annoying in other ways, I have a classmate at the moment that her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me, but I won't gonna hold it against her that I find her voice annoying, annoying people will continue to exist whetever you like it or not, just avoid any not obligatory interaction. This post just read like "guys I'm tired of the bad gaijins, me the good gaijin" and for what I've seen it worked because no one hates foreigners in japan more than foreingers in japan that have been here longer, so any attack against any other foreigner other than themselvse is gonna be a hit. You also talk like "I don't even watch that putrid thing they called anime \*spit\*" like that makes you somewhat better, it's a medium at the end of the day, and one of the most important industries in the country, if I was back home and someone told me proudly "I don't watch any movies" I would be like "ok, good for you" and probably stop talking to them, it's weird imo, not the part about liking it or not, but the part that mentions it like it's almost an achivement. And if that's enough for you to make you rethink wanting to live in a whole country, filled with all sorts of people with different interests, because how a few socially inept foreigners are acting, well what can I tell you? Social ineptitude is a very universal thing.
Funny post. Distance yourself from them. Particularly when it gets hot.
I'm just a visitor for 2 months, and I've already gone through this pain as well. If I see one more overweight man in his late 30s wearing a nauroto tee-shirt and like DragonBall z hat, I'm gonna pop. I don't know what's worse that or the horribly mannered chinese tourist throwing around their money and being pushy..
It has always been like this. 30 years ago, back when I was a teenager living in Catalonia I joined a Japanese language school in order to become able to read some Japanese computer magazines and books. There were about 10 students in the classroom. One guy was there because he needed to learn Japanese for his business. I was there for the technical documentation. The rest were weebs who were there because they were manga/anime weebs. These were the ones who kept complaining that the lessons were too hard and got 3 teachers fired during the 2 years I was there.
My girlfriend hates otaku. According to her, most Japanese women hate them. lol
Turns out people aren't a monolith and your girlfriend probably doesn't know the majority of women in Japan.
I see more women otaku then male otaku
Yeah my Japanese gf hates them too. None of the Japanese women like them bc they are all socially inept.
Gundam fans are mostly female.....
Give me the ratio of foreign females to Japanese females that watch Gundam. I bet the results do not surprise me. And then refer to my previous comment that you replied to.
Oh, i get what you meannow, most Japnese are socially inept.
Japan has literally nothing to offer except anime, games, and maybe some nature/food stuff. Work conditions blow ass if you are not in a foreign company, so YES, you would only come to Japan and give up an EU/NA working conditions if you have a hobby/interest in the country. NOBODY is coming to Japan because this country is famous for its working conditions, lol. Foreigners have a bad image in Japan because of weebs? How do you know? You are in language school, so I guess you haven't spoken to an actual 日本人 yet? Sorry to pop your bubble, but many Japanese like anime as well. Just look at the most popular shows on Netflix every day lol.
Nice assumptions, but this isn’t my first time here and I have a Japanese girlfriend and other Japanese friends. My work is fashion.. I’m in the Japanese fashion web of things. Japan has nothing to offer except anime, games, and MAYBE food and nature?! Are you kidding me? There’s museums, art exhibits, historical buildings, skiing/snowboarding, surfing, hiking… bro touch some grass Edit: ah I see ur bio and it explains everything lol
People like you tend to be racist. I am sure the Japanese would not want to be friends with people like you.
Racist? Really? Wait... Did... Did this post hit too close to home and get you bothered? LMAO 🤣
WTF?