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Japanese government pamphlets teaching Japanese why westerners want to marry Japanese

Kajune

後輩
7 Jun 2014
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Japanese government's pamphlets teaching Japanese citizens that the reason westerners want to marry with Japanese and then abusing them is because of Anime.

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You see more about the pamphlets on debito.org ? Blog Archive ? 2014 MOFA pamphlet explaining Hague Treaty on Child Abductions to J citizens (full text with synopsis, including child-beating NJ father on cover & victimized J mothers throughout) UPDATE: With link to MOFA pdf and officia
 
It's not nearly as horrible if you read it in English rather than with Debito's explanation.

http://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000034153.pdf

A few problematic points, personally I didn't like the point where a Japanese person might not want to use foreign courts because of cultural differences. But not nearly as many grievances as Debito has. Which is normal, since his career as a writer is built on grievances against the country he chose to move to.
 
I actually have no issue with the pamphlets because I agree with it, I know that the Japanese government who make it are making it after first hearing the victims [ Japanese ] story who return to Japan and not just with random guess. I myself also see the same thing, almost all westerners on the internet I see who said they want to marry with Japanese or with Asians are Anime fans themselves.
 
I actually have no issue with the pamphlets because I agree with it, I know that the Japanese government who make it are making it after first hearing the victims [ Japanese ] story who return to Japan and not just with random guess. I myself also see the same thing, almost all westerners on the internet I see who said they want to marry with Japanese or with Asians are Anime fans themselves.

No, that's just plain wrong. Far more wrong than anything Debito is saying.

I really hope your Indonesian flag doesn't mean you are in any way connected to ProudAsian. He also spouted off nonsense about people wanting Asian women because of anime.
 
No, that's just plain wrong. Far more wrong than anything Debito is saying.

I really hope your Indonesian flag doesn't mean you are in any way connected to ProudAsian. He also spouted off nonsense about people wanting Asian women because of anime.

So are you saying the Japanese government who make that pamphlets are spreading nonsense to Japanese citizens?
 
No, I'm saying the idea that almost all Westerners who want to marry Asians are anime fans is nonsense.
 
I'm sure the Japanese government who make those pamphlets about the Anime issue are not making it after hearing only just 1 victim story so no it is not nonsense to believe that most westerners who want to marry with Japanese is because of Anime.
 
Sorry, but it is. I'm done with this discussion.

When seeing the pamphlets made by the Japanese government, it seems the reason for most westerners who want to marry with Japanese is because they want to make their Anime dream come true. I'm sure the Japanese government who make that pamphlets are making it after hearing the victims [ Japanese ] story who return to Japan and not just making it with random guess. I also encounter the same thing, almost all of the westerners I see online who said they want to marry with Japanese or with other Asians are Anime fans themselves.

The reasons those westerners have are logical but are not right, logical because Anime characters are not based on westerners so the only way for those westerners to make their Anime dream come true is by marrying with those who look like the Anime characters they love, while not right because marriage should only be between 2 peoples who love each other as who they are and not because of other reasons such as expecting their couple to turn into sex-able Anime character each night or each minutes whenever they want them [ in case they are sex maniacs ]. Unlike the reason for other Asians who marry with Japanese that are just the same reason for wanting to marry with other Asians from the same country which is because of love, that is because Japanese look the same as other Asians so those Asians don't need Japanese to make their Anime dream come true [ in case if they are Anime fans ].

Maybe this is new to you because you haven't been to many Anime forums before.
 
The only "anime geek" character in there is the Japanese dad with the French wife. The image shown upthread is in no way linked to liking anime. There's no mention of anime as the "reason" for marriage - as far as I can see there's no mention of anything to do with reasons for international marriage at all. So the title of this thread and the content of the first post is completely incorrect and appears to be deliberate flamebait.

It's weird in the first place to assume the primary reason for a marriage was that somebody really desperately wanted to marry a Japanese person, as opposed to just happening to meet someone while living in Japan.

In summary, you are assuming that these two categories are the same:
A) People who say on the internet they want a Japanese wife because of anime.
B) People who are married to a Japanese woman.

When in fact category (B) contains a wide mix of people, many of whom probably never had any intention of marrying and settling down in Japan long term. Meanwhile, most of category (A) are unlikely to even set foot in Japan, and also are probably mostly too young to legally get married anyway.
 
Of all the Western men I knew in Japan who were married to Japanese women, I don't remember a single one having any interest in anime. If anything, they were tired of the ubiquity of it. I was probably unique in having seen most of Hayao Miyazaki's movies, which I did simply because I thought it was important for my cultural knowledge to know the work of Japan's eminent cartoonist.
 
When I got married, I don't think anyone in the West had ever even heard of anime (or manga) yet. I know I certainly hadn't.
 
The only "anime geek" character in there is the Japanese dad with the French wife. The image shown upthread is in no way linked to liking anime. There's no mention of anime as the "reason" for marriage - as far as I can see there's no mention of anything to do with reasons for international marriage at all. So the title of this thread and the content of the first post is completely incorrect and appears to be deliberate flamebait.

It's weird in the first place to assume the primary reason for a marriage was that somebody really desperately wanted to marry a Japanese person, as opposed to just happening to meet someone while living in Japan.

In summary, you are assuming that these two categories are the same:
A) People who say on the internet they want a Japanese wife because of anime.
B) People who are married to a Japanese woman.

When in fact category (B) contains a wide mix of people, many of whom probably never had any intention of marrying and settling down in Japan long term. Meanwhile, most of category (A) are unlikely to even set foot in Japan, and also are probably mostly too young to legally get married anyway.
Thank you for pointing this out, nekojita... I read through the comic and article and didn't see any indication about NJ men having otaku fetishes, so I was wondering where those assertions were coming from. Kajune, you're patently wrong here; not only are you misinterpreting the comic, you're misinterpreting debito's interpretation of it. There is definitely something to discuss here, but it seems that you missed the point entirely; perhaps you weren't reading carefully?

That being said, the tone of the comic is quite skewed and I have to agree with debito that it misrepresents the real-world scenarios and statistics behind international custody battles. Perhaps it was easier for the artists to depict all foreigners as "western," but their attempt to show "diversity" is pretty sad. Maybe a comic pamphlet is the wrong medium to use to communicate with Japanese adults (which is clearly the comic's target audience) on this issue. In either case, I would like to see depictions of scenarios inspired by actual events (including the ones that don't necessarily favor the Japanese parent), and how the Hague treaty was/would be applied in those situations. I'd also like to see an infographic depicting real data about international marriages in Japan, custody disputes, and parental abductions to/from Japan. This sort of saccharine treatment isn't appropriate for the topic, in my opinion.
 
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Kajune,
You just can't back up your claim. None of the English teachers I have met in the 15 years of being here has expressed the slightest desire in anime, and that's a huge number. Certainly, none of the ones married to Japanese have anime interests.

Moreover, it's a group of people that represent probably the largest percentage of workers who have come here.

You're simply wrong and unable to prove your point.
 
I couldn't care less about anime, and neither does my wife. Anyone obsessed with anime probably shouldn't be getting married at all.
 
No, I'm saying the idea that almost all Westerners who want to marry Asians are anime fans is nonsense.

I agreed.

However Anime is probably the biggest expression of the Japanese culture in the World today.

To say true my first interest about Japan was the Zen and the Minimalism (architecture, design) and curiouslly these two concepts have some relationships.

Nahadef: Are you Japanese?

Edit: about the pamphlets my opinion is: what.....? I know there are a lot of xenophobia in Japan but... this is nonsense.
 
I agreed.

However Anime is probably the biggest expression of the Japanese culture in the World today.

To say true my first interest about Japan was the Zen and the Minimalism (architecture, design) and curiouslly these two concepts have some relationships.

Nahadef: Are you Japanese?
I'm not Japanese at all. I just live here.

For the record, my first interests in Japan were Zen and ukiyo-e. The last time I voluntarily watched anime was about 20 years ago, and was a passing interest at best.
 
I'm not Japanese at all. I just live here.

For the record, my first interests in Japan were Zen and ukiyo-e. The last time I voluntarily watched anime was about 20 years ago, and was a passing interest at best.

Ok, I don't know if there are Japanese people in this forum.

I like some animes because some of them have an extraordinary quality. For example Miyazaki, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion...

Do you feel xenophobia in Japan?

I will go to visit Japan for the first time in November.
 
There are a few Japanese here, but English language forums aren't so big for natives at all.

Xenophobia isn't a big deal, but it is hard to make deep lasting relationships with natives, outside of partners. Japanese are not confrontational at all, so where you might see a racist Westerner drunkenly yell at a minority, I've see it exactly once in a decade. A guy in Okinawa asked me why I didn't go home, and I asked him if he knew where I was from in Japanese. I told him he was being racist, told him I paid taxes, told him I had a wife and child, and that his attitude was unacceptable. He got really uncomfortable, apologised and said he would never do such a thing again. That was about five years back.
 
I don't know about the deep friendship thing. I'm headed up to Yokohama soon and the toughest goodbyes are with my Japanese friends. They're also the ones who have expressed an interest in visiting me up there. A mutual Japanese friend of mine and another American is visiting her (the American) in Europe where she moved. I think that's a pretty strong commitment to friendship.

Of course these friends are our Japanese professional counterparts, and and we've had lots of professional fellowship and done favors for one another. This may be why we've been able to develop relationships. I've only been here for a year, so it's not like it took that long.
 
It depends on the person, and of course the experiences you share. Anecdotally, I see many more foreigners making long friendships with other foreigners, rather than natives. Sometimes it's a matter of language.

I did have a few good friends in Okinawa, through art and djing, but we aren't in touch much now. Still, when I compare them to my friends from Canada, who it's so easy to sit down with and feel like just a day had passed. I saw one friend for the first time in 17 years last time I was back, and the conversation didn't miss a beat. I have a hard time imagining that with anyone from Japan except ex-girlfriends.
Everyone has their own experiences though.
 
No, I can see where you're coming from, definitely the people I grew up with are easier to connect with, though that may be due to shared experiences. I can chat with American workmates easily since we're culturally expecting similar communication cadences, though I don't consider myself all that close to them.

I don't know, is friendship just easy conversation? Toshi wants to help me pack and move my stuff. Our conversations, unless about our professions aren't all that deep, but then the chatter with American friends isn't either. Our conversations about our professions tend toward depth and intensity, though language constantly gets in the way.

Of course I've always been a strange duck when it comes to small talk and conversations lacking substance, and get bored with them quickly.
 
Japanese government pamphlets teaching Japanese why westerners want to marry Japanese

I have no freaking idea what that statement has to do with the pamphlet I just looked at.

Did I miss something? Or is this just another case of me remembering how I got from A to B again despite people, especially the press, banking on me forgetting?
 
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