[paganel]

> I would say Japan's second only to the UK in terms of visible cultural exports here.

That's really interesting, I haven't been to the States until now so that is really news to me. To be honest I had thought that the Japanese "mania" (if I may call it so) had run its course back in the '80s (the "Karate Kid" movies, Akira as an underground (?) cultural phenomenon, the Nakatomi Corporation), with an important continuation in the '90s through the anime mania, maybe also in the 2000s, when many people (re-)discovered Miyazaki and Takahata. Also the JDM car scene that was made famous by the first F&F movies. Anyway, I thought all that was in the past, for example a Mk4 Toyota Supra sold for a record auction price recently [1], I thought there's no way that culture is still part of the mainstream, joining it has become too expensive.

I certainly do notice the fascination Japan as a country still holds among many in the tech-crowd scene like is the case for many HN-ers in here, but I thought that was a local and contained phenomenon.

[1] https://www.thesupercarblog.com/toyota-supra-a80-mark-4-rm-s...

[dustintrex]

In the 1980s, Japan was painted as a threat. "Economic Pearl Harbor", Japanese developers snapping up US real estate, Crichton's "Rising Sun", etc.

Then the Japanese bubble economy burst and new bogeymen (terrorists, China, etc) took center stage, and now the popular image of Japan is blue-haired anime girls squealing "kawaii!".