Forum - View topic

Answerman - Do Japanese Fans Care What's Popular Overseas?

I think one series that bucked the trend was Yuri!!! on ICE. Since a lot of real life (foreign) skaters got really into it, Japanese people paid a bit more attention to overseas reactions to the series.

There is a Japanese site that translates foreigners' comment on things relevant to Japan. Name's "record of replies from ten thousand overseas countries", literally. It has a category that is about comments about anime and manga. So I think there are people in Japan who are aware of what foreigners are discussing.

I am a FFXIV player myself. Even in this moment I am crafting something in the game... Heard that FFXI even made WoW hard to penetrate Japanese market... Final Fantasy as a series is really aimed at international market. Most BGM in FFXIV that have lyrics are mostly in English. They even tried to invite a famous Chinese singer to perform the theme of FFVIII, if I recall correctly. The attempt failed though.
BtW ACT allows you see what's shrinking. So when the party fails a DPS check and is wiped, you know who is responsible.

While I don't know quite as much about the competitive scene as other video game franchises, top finishers at the Pokémon World Championships have traditionally come from a variety of countries. The only recent time that Japan swept the top 6 was 2015, the infamous "chalk" year, where they brought in mostly the same teams. Same goes for the card game (though without a year like 2015).

I'm finding that site way more amusing than I should. Then again, I do sometimes follow sites that keep records of comments from Japanese fans of western animation to see what they think of current trends. This is the flipside of that.

WoW was never released in Japan, actually. PC only is probably a big hurdle, as is Japan's unfamiliarity with the franchise.

Some games Japan doesn't even play competitively, like Smash Bros. Americans are obsessed with Melee to this day, but no one in Japan really plays it, at least competitively. It's treated as more of a party and casual game even by Sakurai himself. No idea on how big competitive Pokemon is in Japan, though.

-Stuart Smith

Yea I have seen Japanese bloggers writing comments on foreign animation/comic. There is also a site that introduces foreign comics to Japan .

Those pop up on 2ch and other sites from time to time. I once saw a thread where they tried to translate/explain /a/ memes and jargon

Stuart Smith wrote:

Those pop up on 2ch and other sites from time to time. I once saw a thread where they tried to translate/explain /a/ memes and jargon

Given the reputations the respective sites have, I have to wonder if even 2ch were asking "WTF is wrong with these people?" when discussing 4chan.

They did care in fact, I remember the few days during which the dub came out the Love Live board on 2ch was really excited over it talking about how nice the English dub sounds and how cute the English VAs sound, and ironically also talking about how Japanese VAs stale compared to them.

I'll edit this post when I can find the thread again.

EDIT: couldn't find the threads but found http://jin115.com/archives/52120913.html which shows a lot of how Japanese fans reacted to it. Other than the shitposts, here are some comments translated to English:

• "I have no idea how accurate it is but from a technical standpoint isn't the Western version much better?"

• "The English voices are so moe lol"

• "Japan's idol seiyuus suck compared to this"

• "If Moe culture reaches America like this what is the point of Japanese moe culture existing?"

• "Apparently Americans think Japanese people's tongues are really short and they speak as though they're shooting bullets off a machine gun which is why they don't like Japanese" <- kek'd so hard at this

• "Oh, the OP is in Japanese, it would've been more interesting if the OP was in English as well."

• "Japanese seiyuus are all about their face after all" <- talking about how "talentless" Japanese seiyuus are

• "Maki-chan isn't a pole here so try again." <- talking about how Pile's voice acting is really stale, which many Japanese fans think

Other than this and some shitposts here and there, it's all wows and this is awesomes.
They really do care.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

Does American entertainment media listen to opinions of other Countries (Ok, Hollywood are listening to the Chinese but looking at the results, that is not that good)?

.....Releasing movies like Transformers Age Of Extinction and making a substantial amount of money as a consequence is bad? Not sure what you're alluding to.

..

...

Paiprince wrote:

..

I'm a bit out of bound when it comes to 2ch and 4chan. Are those sites used by Japanese or English speaking men? Because the last time I've visited there, almost everything is in English or my memories failed me.

RANGIT wrote:

...

Are those posts that were collected are even legit to be begin with? Everyone can learn Japanese and get under disguise as one on the net, especially if they're Korean, Chinese or foreigners living in Japan. I find it hard to believe that the shit they've rant about is the same usual stuff that western fandom always spoke off, being just backward.

Yup, sometimes they do care. Maybe even a bit too much.
Especially when it's something they're really passionate about.
I remember this Reddit post asking "How does Japan feel/react to the Love Live English dub?"
And someone answered this.

Are those posts that were collected are even legit to be begin with? Everyone can learn Japanese and get under disguise as one on the net, especially if they're Korean, Chinese or foreigners living in Japan. I find it hard to believe that the shit they've rant about is the same usual stuff that western fandom always spoke off, being just backward.

Fun fact:
2chan in reality is American.
Created in the good old USA by a Japanese and since 2014 the administrator is an American in San Francisco.

Most of the Japanese users drop it and went to other sites.
Most people posting there are Americans and Japanese-Americans.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

Fun fact: 2chan in reality is American. Created in the good old USA by a Japanese and since 2014 the administrator is an American in San Francisco. Most of the Japanese users drop it and went to other sites. Most people posting there are Americans and Japanese-Americans.

Which other sites? (Also, since 2chan's people post anonymously, it can't be easily proven where they post from. But I highly doubt there can be that much activity, all of it in Japanese, with only a Japanese minority.)

I just ignore all other anime fans equally, regardless if they're Japanese or Western