/feminism/ - Feminism

Well, I think it's important to consider that some Japanophiles (the technical term in existence for such people, prior to the last 30 years of increasing Japanese pop cultural influence on the West) are certainly racist, but I'd argue that's incidental. If they associate certain aspects of Japanese culture as being inherent to all people Japanese on a biological level – as though you could only "truly" appreciate sumo, sake, and sakuras if you had some Japanese descent in your blood – that would go just as well for other cultures, and so they would be racist not because of Japan. Their racism is just informing how they approach Japan.

But you're question is more about the fetishism of the culture, and I wouldn't like to use the term "racist" for that, since I think it needlessly broadens the term racism, until we get away from what I think we can objectively understand as being prejudice based on ethnic heritage. What I think you're concerned with is best referred to as cultural acculturation: the transformation in the minds and practices of a people following a cultural exchange. Now that's a neutral term for what I think is a process you feel is negative. You may see it more as cultural appropriation: the process by which a dominant culture absorbs a minority one, and which largely looks exploitative. I would argue that since weeaboos aren't interested in Japanese-immigrant minority cultures, but rather in the dominant native culture of Japan, they are in no position to exploit the culture on any grounds other than how the Japanese culture wishes to be exploited on the market place. Now that's different from how the Japanese people may feel about it. How are we going to know what the majority of shrine maidens in Osaka feel about their work being broadcasted by manga and anime in fantasy or slice of life genres by corporations for kids in California? Japanese people are not a monolith, and we have to consider that within Japan there are people who are exploiting the culture for their own ends, to be sold to other Japanese people, and weeaboos are just soaking it in as an after effect, since they aren't even the target demographic for these end products.

I think a stronger anti-consumerism analysis to be had here, rather than an anti-racism or anti-sexism analysis.

I think we should consider further that they may not be truly familiar with the more negative aspects of Japanese culture. Would you expect a Japanophile girl from Michigan to be aware of anti-Korean sentiment though her love of J-pop, neko ears, magical girls, and Hello Kitty? Would she imbibe it willingly if she was aware of the long history of anti-Korean bigotry in Japan? Furhter, if some weeaboos are aware of just how toxic Japanese culture can be at its worst, they may consciously reject those aspects of the culture. It's much easier to do that when you have no personal stake in family traditions, such as honoring a great grand father who died in Manchuria during WWII, and not wanting to acknowledge that he may have been a war criminal. Instead you can just idolize Bishido and acknowledge the Japanese military as something you see referenced in your favorite manga and anime, and leave it at that.

Still, I does bother me that there is a lot of sexism that crosses the divide. I see that much more than the xenophobia. However, I think there are times when it's much more obvious, and so much less threatening. In a manga and animated series adaptation for Death Note, I saw an American female character who moved to Japan and married a Japanese police investigator. Being a former member of the FBI, she asks if there is anything she can do to help the investigation. Her husband shuts her down and politely encourages her that her old career is over now, and instead her new place was in the home. Holy shit, how hilariously terrible. I guffawed openly, and I saw many reviews online mock it for it's poor reflection on Japanese culture. When sexism is THAT obvious, its' easier for even non-feminists to spot and reject it. (Incidentally, in that story arc the husband dies, and taking up the case in his memory, the wife comes nearest to solving the crime than anyone else, before she tragically fails to. I wonder if the author was trying to make a point.)