Japan is the greatest, Japan is the most polite, Japan has the best art, Japan is the most beautiful, etc. Why not move there? It seems like fun! Well, maybe you should stop and think about whether or not this is actually as good of an idea as it sounds. This video seeks to answer those questions.
This video is NOT a critique of Japanese culture. It is a series of reasons why,from a western perspective,those from the west should not’move to Japan”without heeding much warning Anything describe as “weird”or “strange are from my perspective and do not represent objective reality,nor does it mean that dislike Japan for possessing such things.
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[Music] the Japanese archipelago while in America we have the boring and stinky Metropolis known as Place have you ever tried visiting place Japan ever seen this boring site what about in Japan while this shouldn’t be the only thing convincing you to move to this beautiful country how about the wonderful work culture everyone here is treated fairly and everyone especially foreigners even had a company say that employees need to pay them when they Mis work are given plenty of work opportunities to some of the world’s
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fastest growing and technologically advanced companies or maybe you want to move here for the culture which is fair and equal it treats everyone regardless of race or sex with respect and okay fine I’ll stop glaze in Japan I’m sure you all heard enough of that Japan for those living in negative a billion has basically become a global cultural Powerhouse second only to really the United States and maybe Europe what you are saying bro Europe is a continent bro we are different countries bro typical
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America either way most of this cultural significance is both a result of the aftersocks created by the Japanese economic Miracle throughout the 70s and ’ 80s as well as anime becoming wildly popular abroad within the past decade or so this cultural Mega status has made the idea of Japan become more and more romanticized as time has gone on I mean you’ve probably seen it if you go to your average high school 133 years ago and say hey has anyone seen SE the new episode of Stein yeah you probably end up like that
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guy nowadays if you say something like yo anyone see that new episode of One Piece At least one person of every ethnic and racial background on Earth will materialize into the room you’re in and swarm you to engage in a lively debate about what just happened on their favorite cartoon last night at least in America the differences has had on American culture and thus by proxy the rest of the world has catapulted Japan into a new cultural Renaissance in a sense what’s funny is that historically
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speaking this isn’t the first time this has happened you have an influence on Portuguese and Spanish art in the late 17th and early 18th centuries due to things learned from Europe’s first contact with Japan and the Japanese May movement in the late 19th century spurred on by an increasingly open Japan starting in 1858 for whatever reason Japan and its culture have captivated the world multiple times throughout history however things are different now rather than a passing interest in Japan
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or a more reserved oh yeah they’re pretty cool attitude that the rest of the world has towards him we’ve seen an ever increasing idealization of what can just be seen as another part of the world out of many I know not all of you venerate Japan as some kind of Utopia but a lot of people nowadays definitely have this idealized view of Japan in some form or another whether that be the belief of a superior nature culture art media fashion Etc I’ve gotten pretty tired of the ridiculous amount of hype surrounding
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Japan which is often propped up by unrealistic expectations and for better for worse anime you might be thinking on what Authority can I have commentary on Japan it sound like I’ve been there [Music] yeah I’ve been there and it was by far the most interesting trip I’ve ever been on I’ll weave my experiences in and out of the video as needed but I want to focus on a bigger picture Viewpoint of the country before I dive deeper the question I’m seeking to answer broadly speaking is this is Japan really all
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that amazing or is it just another part of the world that has its own goods and bads like anywhere else on Earth you can probably guess what my answer is to that question but let’s actually take a deeper more objective dive into both the good and bad things about Japan on a ized basis without further Ado welcome ladies and gentle bacas to [Music] Japan now to begin is Japan a bad country no not even close sorry contrarian Edge Lords I’m not going to be bashing the country as a whole for
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just having some issues as an American we all know how big of a double standard that would be I’m not getting to prove that I genuinely do believe Japan has some really amazing things about it let’s talk about some of them largely from personal experience just to get it out of the way yes I do think Japanese animation as of now is just better than Western animation this isn’t because of some immutable characteristic or coolness factor and I do have some objective reasons behind this for starters Western animation for
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the longest time has been dominated by a top- down system in this way Independent Artists or production teams pitch shows the networks who have boards that decide to Greenlight them or toss their pitch Bibles in the trash the show in America and much of the western world does not see the light of day unless an executive gives it the goahead in Japan however the system is largely bottom up for an anime to be created in the first place it needs to be based on an art successful property created by an
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individual or small team of artists from the manga space while these are often published by large companies with the notable exception of stuff like one punch a property needs to be successful due to the work put in by an individual which greatly increases its chances of getting a full animated rendition this system while not immune to the predatory practices and abuse by Publishers that we’ll talk about later it does result in a better more fleshed out show as opposed to Western networks which
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constantly try to create the next SpongeBob or something and focus on Comedy and pre-existing franchises to make a quick guaranteed Buck yes Japan is indeed a beautiful place while it’s not the only beautiful place on Earth there are certainly few countries which are as consistently beautiful as Japan in my opinion riding on the shinkansen and watching large Open Fields go by with mountains in the distance or taking a $12 roundtrip bicular to the top of some Mountain to see the best views my
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eyes have ever laid themselves upon or literally taking a local train to the airport on my way out Japan genuinely is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever visited and that’s saying something after I’ve climbed mountains in the alvs hiked through Grand Tetons and marbled at St Peter’s Basilica however I’m not going to pretend that Japan is pretty everywhere just like the us just like Europe just like anywhere else it has its more boring and D places don’t believe me Let’s do an experiment to try
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for yourself go to Japan on Google Maps then drag the street view marker to basically anywhere north of the Tokyo Metro there’s a pretty solid chance you’re going to land somewhere that isn’t ugly but isn’t the most beautiful place you’ve ever laid eyes on or let’s just take the opposite approach drop it literally anywhere pretend you don’t see Japanese text maybe at a Walmart and a mobile gas sign and oh there we go we’ve just invented rural Montana all that aside though Japan is definitely a
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culture that values and appreciates natural beauty so you get more spots like this compared to this yes the people here are very polite the only rudess I ever encountered here was from some like middle-aged North English dude who I caught the glance of a couple times at a guoa restaurant only for him to walk by me and say you’re a [ __ ] de kid multiple times before his friend came and apologized for him because he was very drunk apparently which I’ve never heard of any British person ever
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being drunk in my life before if you could believe it every person I encountered would always try their best to be friendly inviting and always greet me or whoever I was with with a smile and the Western born Japan glazers racing to the coms to tell me how I was probably oblivious to the fact that they are shy and won’t really tell people off first of all that’s not true I’ve seen it happen and second of all I make sure to be as polite and gracious as possible when it comes to interacting with
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different cultures I’m not running around Shinjuku with my shirt off spouting expletives at locals like what might happen in the wild city of New York or Trenton New Jersey or something however as I mentioned earlier a major drawback with this politeness is that yeah Japanese people are quite shy I’ll go more into this later but it’s just a caveat to everything I’ve said so far yes as a musician myself Japanese music is really secondary only to American music and beats it in some respects and
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its ability to weave different styles and Customs together to create some really cool and unique Fusion music classical rock Fusion an inherently unique style of jazz and Funk Vocaloid basically most modern genres of music you hear today are either descended from American or Japanese forms of music or at the very least are echoes of earlier styles from those countries but really quickly we have to do tuuk troop roll unusual Chief guy Finn yellow Prim Ty tvcat mask Jeff 2 soone Soldier Andy Maggie Gordon
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alongside znn Khloe beavers agent 2187 spec Norway NEP c fox tibc cork M Duke always cone Maria mik Henderson and Game Boy patreon as well as pink FL fanatic Zod mow Panda Deen dragy alova blueberry VY pickle hasslock Planet wild sunny and zro enlist in the two buck troop by using the link in the description now that I’ve wored off the people thinking I want to unfairly bash the country for just having some issues let’s dive into the real meat of the video why you wouldn’t want to move to
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Japan despite all the things I just [Music] mentioned if you want to live anywhere on Earth unless it’s in some magical commune inside an anarchos socialist head you got to get your broke ass off the couch and go make some money but how exactly would you do this around the world Well for now let’s just ignore the whole yeah you can’t just work for us when you’re on a tourist visa sir stick that people love telling me and America Let’s uh let’s find okay here’s little
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Joshua all right he’s 17 years old and ready to start working let’s uh let’s give him a job at Chipotle I guess you get like five people that come up to the line all like Hey man can I get a chicken burrito but please remove the seasoning and tortilla and had a few sprinkles of Hawaiian volcanic Sut glass on top and and maybe a squirt of horseshoe crab blood on top you just make it and put up with whatever you get paid 15 bucks an hour which isn’t great but if you split a place some of your
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friends and you have little side hustle or passion project going for you you can definitely sustain yourself for now you can also just up and quit if your boss is annoying you you’re tired of the job or if you want to move on to somewhere else we can even extrapolate this to higher education let’s say you’re a computer science major who after wrestling a music Major for the last bet at the homeless shelter finally are able to extract enough energy from a nearby power line to both charge your laptop
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and pass an interview from some billion dooll Mega Corporation who just opened their first CS position since the pre-cambrian you’re probably not paid as much you like but a lot of larger companies offer good benefits bonuses high performance and a hopefully suitable work culture that can help Propel you to the next level of your career whether that be through promotions or applying learn experience at a new company now let’s relocate little Joshua to the nation of Japan with a brand new working Visa where can
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you end up well you got about three options the first one and one of the more common ones for younger people is being an English teacher people seem to think this one’s easy to get but let’s just see if that’s really the case the requirements are pretty reasonable are you Foo in Japanese if not good luck you might be able to land a position as an assistant teacher or as a teacher in an international school if you fill the requirement somewhat good luck being picked out of potentially hundreds of
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applicants to Any Given job even if you fill all the perfect requirements good luck making a living wage enjoying a less stressful life on top of learning to integrate yourself with local culture and adjusting to a radically different lifestyle according to this poster where they say who from the West can live on $1,300 take home each month even if rent is only 400 bucks you’d be living on 900 bucks a month literally Japanese McDonald’s employees make around 1,200 bucks per month take home as a train
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qualified English teacher in Japan you’re making less than if you had worked at a McDonald’s in America and Japan and that’s after going through the massive Japanese bureaucracy to both be allowed to work there paying to get over there and getting set up in the first place paying for daily transportation and everything in between but as I said earlier being an English teacher is a job that despite the low pay for high qualifications can at least be understood for being in this position
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it’s a lower demand High Supply industry that is shrinking by the year on top of you know needing the proper qualifications to have the job okay let’s pivot away from that to more traditional Industries congratulations little Joshua you’ve been promoted I have yeah I want to give you your very own diploma oh gee thanks now you can work at a higher skill company if you’re choosing but Choose Wisely because Japan is a wide variety of work environments from chill to anyways good luck all right it’s been about 3 months
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let’s check in on little job oh hey there buddy what’s up I haven’t got more than four hours of sleep in weeks almost every night I go out drinking with my boss until we puke most nights I miss the last confident Metro so I can’t even go home that’s why I’m here yeah if you’re a salary man in Japan get ready to live the lives that 19-year-old unionized Starbucks bers think they do your bosses treat you as Expendable you live in work quote 40 hours a week but you’re often secretly
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required to work more while what this poster said isn’t going to be what everyone experiences on a general note is unfortunately a common thing in Japan quote my wife Japanese Works a minimum of 14 hours a day 30 hours overtime a week if she tries to get help to reduce her hours the response is that she is inefficient at her work and needs to work faster 14 hours a day that leaves you a maximum of 2 hours of free time if you want to get 8 hours of sleep in Japan it’s entirely expected for you to
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go out drinking with your boss very frequently does this seem like a dumb idea yeah it does to us living in Guild cultures at least expecting that from somebody in America and making them feel like [ __ ] the next morning just for the sake of a drinking challenge would make many of us regardless of status probably feel pretty guilty but in Japan a lot of times it’s an expectation if you don’t go out that night to drink with your boss that you don’t even like good luck having any future job prospects within
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the company or getting the respect of your employer on top of this because a constant well organized output of work is constantly required L you bring shame upon yourself things better not change at the company and you better not bring any concerns up to your boss and the thing is if you don’t suck up to your boss or authority figure in some way you’re going to get absolutely shafted and go no nowhere very quickly this is all pretty bad but to be completely fair not 100% of Japan is this way not every
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company’s going to treat you like garbage ignoring the fact that you’re a foreigner you’re not always going to be working 45 hours of overtime a month on top of this much of the world also sees unfair practices such as this so you might be asking how does Japan uniquely stand out in this category among developed countries yeah we have yet to talk about the Wonders that are known as what’s a black company you might ask well imagine the worst case scenario of a job I just mentioned and make it even
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worse how exactly well we have a wonderful Source here from this utterly fascinating Instagram account called literally salary man Tokyo he details his day-to-day life working for one of these companies in this video our hero describes an utterly horrific work culture often times black companies Target young workers or foreigners like our little Joshua because they genuinely just haven’t heard about black companies or the work environment they’ll work you to death giving you meaningless tasks
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and threats if you don’t complete them on time bosses don’t want to help you nor do they care about you in the first place and just expect you to sit down and shut up you just work all day tirelessly L you summon the Rage of your boss ought to make it home in the bum ass middle of the night to get like 7 hours of sleep if you’re lucky well gee that sounds kind of bad I’d quit right away if I were them huh yeah right let’s say that you’ve had enough and you’re sick of being treated like glorified
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property let’s stick to the man and tell him that I quit yeah we’re going to sue the [ __ ] out of you what yep if you leave we’re just going to have to sue you down to every last atom of concrete and the foundation of your house yeah you heard that right your own company that treats you horribly almost like they didn’t wants you to be there will make sure that you’re walking away from them pretty much empty-handed and even if you can avoid this fate they’re probably going
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to sabotage your future job prospects by emailing future employers and trying to Blackmail you again since Japan is largely a shame based culture many of these companies will out of fear of bringing shame upon their company and customers not hire you on top of that even if you get past that stage they might make you right in a apology letter to guilt trip you they’re playing to both shame and guilt culture here which is truly Sinister and America we’d probably just say yeah [ __ ] you I’m not
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doing that and we’d probably be fine on top of that word would get out about this company doing this kind of [ __ ] and they either be put out of business or at the very least see both internal and external pressures from investors customers and the government to at least partially change their ways despite how rough we got it over here at least Western Society has a strong enough influence on companies and organizations to universally shun practices like this unlike turning a blind eye to it like
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what happens in Japan just to be real this is not saying the West is Superior or anything like that it’s just quirks of our culture and that Japan is a very trust society which is kind of the opposite from the US all right let’s just leave all traditional work behind let’s say you’re an artist and that you want to work for an Anime Studio where draw for a limit well I hope you enjoy having every last drop of creativity and your enjoyment of your work sucked out of You by big Publishers attempting to
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work young and inexperience people to death with little pay young people often from lower income countries such as Bangladesh India Indonesia Malaysia Etc even have work outsourced to them simply because they will work harder for less money big studios will use their beloved lineup of shows and create a sort of of wow effect to create an idealized vision of what being a part of a team that creates an anime is really like if you remember about a year ago the studio behind the anime Jiu-Jitsu Kaizen mappa
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was under a lot of fire for working their animators so hard for such little pay that they could barely keep themselves afloat and had to make a choice between seeing their families or keeping their jobs long story short in 2023 it came out that mappa had forced its employees to sign a non-disclosure agreement related to the working conditions of the company it’s basically forcing them to stay silent against their will a common tactic they use is outsourcing the drawing of inbetween basically like references between which
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an animation will move and pay those artists of and newer and experienced ones per still they draw might be thinking oh yeah it’s probably you know pretty quick to draw these and they might get paid like 10 bucks a drawing yeah how about averaging around $1 to2 per completed drawing that can take anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour to complete essentially most animators in the industry can expect to make about the same as a US minimum wage worker in 1997 in an economy with a fre weaken volatile currency even if you’re a
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higher paid individual the amount of time you’ll have to work will be absolutely so crushing expect up to 11-hour days with this previously mentioned low pay even disregarding the ridiculous hours you can’t even compare it to similarly low paying jobs elsewhere because often people can work second jobs many of my teachers growing up would also do bartending on the side or run a separate business because they had mostly free weekends and time over breaks to make money this isn’t even
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possible with an 11-hour workday schedule okay okay fine let’s say you learn the perfect job are treated well and genuinely enjoy your life well good luck seeing any meaningful growth in the industry you work in and the economy you live in Japan since the ’90s has been struggling to grow economically they basically tried everything under the sun negative interest rates enticing foreign workers government programs to help stimulate the economy Etc almost none of this has worked it’s gotten to the point
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that Germany an economy that 20 years ago had a third of Japan’s GDP has recently just surpassed it and while this is a problem that is less tangible than say the aforementioned black company thing its effects are society and on the macro scale the yen is volatile and weak against a dollar and Euro as an example when I went in July $1 ended up getting to a wild 160 Yen by the time September came around it had fallen to 140 Yen per dollar aka the Yen became more valuable now as of December it has risen back to almost 150 Yen to
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the dollar nearly breaking 160 again in mid November so if your plan is to make some money and leave good luck keeping the value of your work in place while it might sound good that the fluctuations can go up and down and you know maybe you could time the volatility affects both the economy of Japan and your ability to find suitable work while I’m not going to pretend I can give you a dissertation on the macroeconomic effects of currency and stability just know that it’s not really a good thing
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and just a quick aside if you like this type of content want to see more of it on this channel just let me know by subscribing leaving your thoughts in the comments I’d love to start a discussion about my findings and opinions all right fine the work sucks the economy isn’t great but let’s just ignore that what if little Joshua wants to be a content creator like those cool people he seen over on YouTube bitting work for himself and not to put up with all the [ __ ] of the black companies and the job
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market in general well the problems don’t really end there to succeed in any new culture you got to to the shock many of my fellow Americans integrate with said new culture with that comes learning a new language understanding local customs and being privy to their expectations and oh boy while Japanese culture might seem cool on the outside on the inside it’s really a hidden Leviathan ready to devour those who are not prepared to adapt quickly and appropriately to his requirements and off-putting aspects
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[Music] gee I know the job market over here is bad but I’ll find a way just like my favorite anime character it’s Sumi raro from Ulta ult raro everyone will learn to love me and I’ll learn to love and appreciate them too then one day I’ll find true love from an extremely skinny and pasty white woman with blue hair big eyes and massive T let’s be honest here Japan has a bit of an image problem and I don’t mean a do disrespect kind of image problem p p i mean one of unrealistically high expectations
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whether that be due to an incorrect perception of Japanese culture because of anime a belief in a purely honorable and polite Nation or some Twisted hypersexual interpretation of its lifestyle as much as I understand most don’t fully believe in any of these three ideas you’d be hard pressed to find people in the quote Japan is amazing crowd who don’t fall victim to one of these misconceptions in this part of the video I’m going to weave my own experiences alongside the thoughts and
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experiences of others to make sure you’re getting the most well-rounded view of it all for now let’s start in a more generalized place and work our way inwards xenophobia is something many of us have heard from Japan if you’re new to the English language aren’t totally sure what that means you’re probably not American um but what that basically means is the fear of people from other countries again while I must stress this is not a universal statement for Japan many foreigners often due to race or
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ethnicity are discriminated upon in Japan this obviously happens in other countries too but the main reason I’m talking about it here is because Japan is again often idealizing as and tends to attempt avoiding this image while the problem is often overblown a bit there are lots of subtle things that may or may not affect your ability to live here comfortably I will say personally I didn’t experience any noticeable discrimination but I’m also a tall skinny white guy so there’s that an
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anecdote from one of my friends I like to tell is this his dad who’s Puerto Rican which if you didn’t know is an island territory of the United States that’s mostly inhabited by Hispanic people went to Japan on a business trip sometime before Co just to note his dad specifically is definitely not a white person after arriving at this he decided to get into the pool once he got in every single Japanese person got up and left there’s instances of stuff like this on public transport people getting
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up and moving seats Etc it’s not overly common but it’s also more noticeable than in America or Europe for most places like I said every country has issues like that but I want to help bring some people back down to earth about how Japan may be represented in television or otherwise I mean you’ve probably seen it most anime you watch have people of like every skin color and race and gender and genuinely an impressive amount of diversity which can potentially mislead people into how some
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areas of Japan May treat foreigners now onto a problem that’s mostly unique to Japan over sexualization and sex crime if you’re a woman or in some cases a man who dresses feminine this part’s for you do you notice how in literally every anime except ones made by a woman Full Metal Alchemist being a fantastic example largely speaking all of the women have this extremely over sexualized vibe to their clothes mannerisms and general demeanor what about the amount of anime and manga that
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features some aloof Los or somehow stumbling into some magical world or perfect school where a bunch of high school girls are just absolutely Gob smacked by him and constantly want to get in his pants what about the permeation of Lolly culture into the media and in other places where they really shouldn’t be like with massage parlor and escorts well we’ll get into the specifics later but for now let’s preface the current situation with some actual events that have showcased how out of control this has gotten in Japan
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I guess a good place to start would be the adult escorts I others often spotted and often had come up to us while walking around in Tokyo and Osaka this obviously is not unlike many other places that you can travel to but the difference here is the clothing in general aesthetic the organizations running these establishments and managing these escorts put on for tourists and locals alike many of them are dressed in childlike clothing or made outfits and have tons of makeup on to further accentuate what are known as
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neonatal features often involving the appearance of larger eyes alongside a smaller nose and mouth similarly they talk in high-pitched voices like a young school girl wood in most of Japanese media on top of this I’ve even heard of establishments that specifically roleplay High School style scenarios for customers if they pay a certain fee often revolving around a classroom setting or a public transport setting this is really unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been to or heard of and it really
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prefaces this situation on how out of control it has gotten that’s not to mention other strange things like that used panty vening machine or billboard showing young anime women in bikinis or other forms of revealing clothing everywhere I promise you I’m not being approved it doesn’t offend me but it’s something off-putting to see in a public and well-traveled area rather than in the usual red light district or in a more Adult Center area the over sexualization and frequent pushing of
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childlike features in sexualized mediums has really created a lot of issues what might those be well let’s talk about some of them some of us know the fact that at least until recently the age of consent in Japan was an eye-watering 13 years old 13 this led to a notoriously sketchy legal framework that often let people who abuse kids off with minimal repercussions this all came to a head in 2023 when a 56-year-old Japanese politician thought it would be quote strange if he was arrested for having
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intercourse with a 14-year-old girl cuz I like high school girls that’s why saying this in America would have your head splattered against the brick wall by some people but for most of recent Japanese history this would have been seen as a problem by only a small but growing conion of everyday citizens the government however was silent on this issue for decades still basing their age of consent on a law from 117 years ago finally with these comments the Japanese Parliament voted to raise the age of
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consent from 13 to 16 which is still quite low compared to many other countries they also also finally redefined what they called quote forced intercourse as now belonging under a general guise of non-consent basically until very recently there were numerous cases of non-consensual but nonviolent cases of this act occurring that were thrown out or significantly lessened in the severity if the victim was over the age of 13 and quote could not prove that the interaction was violent only if they were under 13 was the quote violence
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part ignored on top of this Japan is a huge issue with minor sex crimes such as battery assault or groping on public trans Port while officially Japan’s rate of non-c contential assault sorry I’m not trying to get demonetized is more than 37 times less than that of the US that’s because an estimated 95% of cases are not reported and for children as well as members of the LGBT community it’s likely a lot lower on top of this many school girls report that has happened to them at least once while on
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public transport I mean Jesus I remember one being on an escalator in Akihabara and seeing signs on the wall that said quote beware of upskirting but what might be the root of all this behavior and why is it continued to worsen over so many years well my friend that may come down to much of a media and especially anime that’s being produced in Japan as well as a overall culture of Silence that discourages people from speaking out against their abusers I can speak from experience Japan is a huge
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issue with everyday over sexualization especially of childlike features as I mentioned earlier I can give so many examples of instances where I saw escorts on the side of the street harassing friends of mine while dressed in little Maid skirts and wearing makeup that enhance their more childlike features other less lascivious examples involve what are known as quote Idols which are usually youngl looking adult women in largely revealing clothing that sing and dance for crowds of older men in a weird hybrid of anime in real life
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here’s a video I got in Osaka of this very thing happening randomly when I was walking down the street this place [ __ ] rules as I mentioned earlier if you’ve ever watched like an anime before you’ve seen how often high school kids young girls and even trans people are sexualized a great example is an anime like Dr Stone which I’m s really like but there are multiple instances of often female characters who are canonically 16 or younger having very extreme proportions and a large
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focus on said body parts often unnecessarily I don’t really need to list out more examples because I’m sure you can come up with your own on top of this Japan has a huge issue with virginity yeah really according to a study conducted in 2019 over a quarter of Japanese people under the age of 40 are virgins while this may seem like a bit out of left field bear with me here this issue is largely driven by an overworked nation of young people who have no time or ability to meet each other despite the government attempting
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to Spur development in this way they’ve so far failed it’s a crisis that also affects Nations like South Korea and even China to an extent what this means is that importantly a lot of people specifically men have less knowledge and experience surrounding courtship and romance which leads to the unfortunate reality that anime and NSFW anime again I’m trying to keep my monetization have led to unrealistic expectations for many anime such as steinsgate while absolutely a great anime have
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perpetuated scenarios like this a man who’s a giant loser that suddenly gets involved with like 40 attractive women that also finds the love of his life among them while I’m not saying this is impossible it is gradually progress to now in more modern anime we have what’s known as the genre of isekai isekai for the uninitiated is a genre that You’ probably heard parts of before someone in a usually shitty state of living one day dies or magically wakes up in some fantasy or video game world that they
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now have to explore and figure out while not all follow this exact formula it has become increasingly common what has developed out of this is an increasing amount of stories that involve forced labor yeah no and I don’t mean the horrors of real life examples of this I mean a male loser archetype being teleported into a video game world where he purchases women and doesn’t necessarily use them but it’s very much implied that’s the case while this concept in full is nowhere near Universal many shows incorporate creepy
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elements such as this in an attempt to either satisfy the Creator themselves by using a self-insert or to satisfy often male fans who have been gradually led into a normalization of this concept and to be fair shows that feature this are often criticized by parts that Japanese public and the anime Community but they’re still being made to this day which tells me that there’s definitely an audience for them the reason I talk about this is to point out its ramifications in other words how exactly
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does this affect everyday life in Japan well I have a couple anecdotes from my time in Japan that can hopefully help illustrate this during my last few days in Japan I was staying in Tokyo specifically a couple blocks away from Akihabara also known as electric Town while this place is genuinely pretty cool and has lots of good food and shops it’s other things that were a bit of a turnoff in terms of my enjoyment of the area Billboards and signs often featured young looking scany clad anim girl is
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plastered everywhere often mentioning new shows or advertising products and while yes this is not a unique concept to Japan I promise I’ve been to Vegas I’ve never seen anything quite like this it’s genuinely a one-of-a-kind thing continuing the story I was looking for a hun Hunter figurine I wanted and a gift for somebody else so I want on Google Maps to try to find a store that sold it I wandered around with a friend until we stumbled across one specific store as we walked in it was noted that the store we
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needed to go to was on the third story so we got in the elevator noticed the third story was blocked off we figured we’ check out the Second Story just in case there was some glitch sure it was M typed or something when those elevator doors open we were immediately blindsided by naked anime women everywhere some even being underage where are we right now dude oh my [ __ ] God we should do sfe to say we didn’t really stay long this is not a onetime occurrence either we’ frequently wander into stores and
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start climbing stairs to see where we’d end up only to find ourselves in the back of the store with NSFW manga and other LW images plastered all over the wall even figurines and regular shops that had storefronts facing the street often featured hypersexualized feminine characters on full display for everyone to see again I’m not trying to be approved I’m a grownass adult this doesn’t really offend me it’s just how I know a lot of people might find this sort of thing weird and uncomfortable I
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know that akaba isn’t the sole representation of Japanese art and culture but it’s important to note that it’s a center of nerd culture in Japan and it’s a good representation of anime and a decent Chun of Japan’s art culture the further ramifications of the normalization of this kind of sexualization of childlike Concepts and a generally lacks attitude toward sexualization in the first place show themselves in the laughably like punishments child offenders get Japan as well as a hush hush culture involving
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offenses on people of all ages good examples of this include manga riter and artist no watsuki who after being caught possessing underage material was given a fine of $1,800 he was actually at the time currently writing a manga that had to be put on hiatus after his charges went public then after he got caught and paid the fine the manga resumed serialization like nothing ever happened even if someone got off with a light punishment for such a crime basically anywhere else there is no way in hell they’d ever see
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the L of day in that industry again similarly the writer tatsuya matsuki was arrested and charged with two counts of indecent act on a female Middle School student he was given a sentence of 1 and 1/2 years but it was instead suspended and he walked away a free man now to be fair his manga did not resume after this but it still details how offenders often receive very light punishments for their actions that’s on top of the earlier mentioned cultural issues with calling out this kind of behavior publicly so
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many cases like this probably go unreported or are thrown out privately in some way even if a punishment is given it’s often in terms of a case where a victim is awarded money for damages but not a criminal case where the perpetrator AC received jail time for their [Music] actions is Japan a really really fun place to visit for most people oh yeah 100% I had an absolutely fantastic time while visiting and I recommend it to basically anybody who’s fortunate enough to go and I guess in that sense I should
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extend a huge thank you to my patrons and everybody who watched my videos because the revenue I’ve acquired from running this channel actually helped pay for that trip so every single one of you are basically a patron for this video after hearing what you’ve heard today would you actually move there given the frequently abusive work culture low wages difficulties of social integration volatile economy and over sexualized media well I don’t believe Japan is the only nation with issues like this again
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let me make that very clear the main reason I made this video is to help break the myth of Japanese exceptionalism and bring some people back down to reality regarding the place now of course there are exceptions of this rule I’ve known of people who have moved to Japan and have been able to thrive just fine however I really believe those people are outliers as I’ve heard many more stories of people feeling lonely isolated and generally depressed after moving there especially coming from a hypersal society like
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America or even various parts of Europe I know this video is very different from my usual content but please let me know if you want more of this content by subscribing letting me know your thoughts in the comments do you believe I’m wrong in any of my opinions or you think I understanded some problems I’d love to hear yall’s thoughts but other than that thanks again for watching and I’ll catch you guys later [Music]