Friends Don't Let Friends Do Japan:
An Exploration into Japan Addiction

There is a very thin line out there. The line is not unlike the line in war which divides the real men from those who have become mindless killing monsters. It is an easy line to cross, and sometimes is more blurred then we like to think. I say this because I know some of these men, those who have almost crossed the line from Japan-related enthusiasm to full-on Japan addiction. But there are some symptoms of Japanophilia which are much more serious than others, and even the most innocuous recreational use of japanese entertainment like a simple anime DVD can serve as a gateway drug, leading the user into a downward spiral of tentacle hentai, cosplay, and prepubescent j-pop.

This article is here to explore and inform about the scourge of Japan addiction, including the causes, the symptoms, and the long-term results. It is a dark and seedy world, filled with words like kawaii and people who wear expensive cartoon character suits and write fan fiction about their very own giant robots. It is not a place for the faint of heart.

One of the more important things to learn is what a Japan addiction is not. It's not simply liking anime, imported games, or even learning the language. True Japan addiction is evidenced by a rejection of nearly all forms of entertainment that do not come from Japan, as well as a voracious appetite for any and all things Japanese with seemingly no distinction between good and bad. Once you are an addict, anything that is "good" is from Japan, and anything that is "bad" is from elsewhere. If you find yourself watching a movie and can't come up with any reason to say you enjoyed it other than that it came from the land of the rising sun, you could very well have a problem. This actually happened to me, initially. I rented every damn VHS anime tape I saw at the video store, had anime desktop wallpaper, and watched Dragon Ball Z without realizing that it was crap. I was lucky enough to realize my taste in Japanese cartoons was terrible, and never moved on to that crucial first step towards full-on addiction, attempting to learn the language.

Once a person starts consuming as much Japanese media as possible, they often become interested in the culture, and more importantly the language. By understanding the language, a whole new world of never-seen-in-America movies, cartoons, and video games becomes available, and actually learning Japanese becomes a very attractive prospect. This is likely because those who become interested in Japan are inherently counterculturalist, and they want to be able to be knoweldgeable in things which do not even exist in the states. What good is an encyclopedic knowledge of Inuyasha if any other punk kid can watch it any night of the week on Adult Swim?

Attempts to learn take many forms, the most healthy of which is to take language classes and stick with them. When a potential addict does this, they realize that those superficial things which initially attract a person to Japan are mostly empty cultural icons, and they learn to distinguish quality from dreck. I have a number of friends who have done this and not a single one of them has become a hardcore Japan addict. The addict thinks that anime is cartoons for adults, and allows them to indulge their childhood and not be viewed as childish at the same time. When a person actually learns about Japan, they come to realize that anime actually is for Japanese kids, not akward american teenagers.

Unfortunately, many who take classes to learn the language end up failing, especially those who take it becuase they want to watch imported cartoons and play imported video games. This has been confirmed by those I know who take Japanese, as they have noted freshman language classes are always chock-full of Japan addicts, most of whom are gone by the end of the semester. This is probably because they are dumb, and just can't hack it. However, this can in many cases make an addiction worse still. It's so hard to quit heroin because junkies tend to hang out with other junkies and don't want to lose their friends. A similar phenomenon seems to occur among Japanese language failures. Japan nerds hang out with Japan nerds. However, knowing even one semester's worth of the language turns a person into the Alpha Japan Nerd, who gains respect from the others and thus is conditioned to continue spouting his or her knoweldge for a positive response. It's Pavlov's dog in action.

The final route to attempting language knoweldge is the absolute worst way to turn from recreational Japan user to full-on Japan addict. It's the equivalent of going straight from marijuana to PCP. Some people will attempt to learn Japanese soley by importing a whole crapload of Japanese entertainment media and watching it until it clicks. This is putting a loaded gun to your head. First, this legitimizes a person's lack of taste in eastern media. "I don't care if it's good, I'm just trying to learn Japanese". Second, doing this makes a person's only source of entertainment imports, because why waste time with, say, american trash TV when it won't teach what's important? Third, it's impossible to do without support. For help, the addict will go to anime message boards on the internet, where they will make contact with other addicts and form a community of bad taste.

While there are many routes a poor dork can take to becoming a Japan addict, what is more disturbing still is what happens once they are there. To many of you reading this, the behavior of an extreme addict may seem so far outside the norm as to be impossible, but alas it is not.

Obviously, there is a clear route to how a person becomes a Japan addict, but what sort of person is most succeptible? Surprisingly, there are both male and female addicts, and people of all races, but usually white or asian. It may be difficult to imagine an asian, especially Japanese, Japan addict, but in many cases the definition still holds. A Japanese man can consume only uniquely Japanese cartoons and videogames and still have little regard for their quality. What is most important is the rejection of any other form of entertainment. At risk Japanophiles are also nearly always socially akward and rejected by those who they consider to be more popular. They usually just don't "fit in". Males will usually be either overweight or underweight, and females will usually be unattractive or overweight and unattractive. Addiction usualy begins in middle school, right around the time a social life begins to become important. My guess is that because these kids are rejected by their peers at such a formative time, they reject, in return, their peers and the culture of those peers entirely.

And oh what a culture they begin to form. Japan addicts to tend to be drawn to one another, as any group of people with similar interests would. Unfortunately for many of them, they may live in a one-horse crap town, and be unable to. Even the most social addict may only find one or two friends with similar interests. This causes them to seek out others through the only method they have available: The internet. Once there, initial addict behavior can only become worse, because the individual is exposed to much worse cases than themselves, and the worst cases are the ones held in highest regard by the rest of the community. Mannerisms and and ideas are spread like the plague, and may manifest only in private situations, or, unfortunately, in public.

Up until now, I've described Japan addiction simply as a condition where japanese culture and entertainment becomes superior to entertainment from anywhere else regardless of quality. This is true, but is not the most outrageous and contempt-worthy part of the problem. Bad taste is something anyone can have in any number of capacities, without it becoming problematic. For the addict, however, bad taste leads to a number of very unfortunate side effects ranging from innocuous and eccentric to downright bizarre and revolting.

One of the first places side-effect behavior can be noticed is in the area of speech. The addict adopts a number of linguistic oddities from the Japanese language, but adds them to their english vocabulary. One example is the use of kun for a male or chan for a female when referring to themselves. This Steve becomes Steve-Kun or Amy becomes Amy-Chan. Why do this? In Japan, these suffixes denote social status, so maybe in a similar way the Japanese addict uses them to denote their alignment with their favorite country, especially when flaunting this manner of speech around regular Americans. Use of Japanese vocabulary also may occur, especially the use of kawaii (cute) among girls. In addition, many addicts will use the word "otaku" to describe themselves, thinking it is an endearing term for "anime nerd", when in fact it is a very negative word, even in Japan. Perhaps the most outrageous example is the use of the syllable "ne" at the end of sentences, which roughly translates to "do you agree?" So if I were an asshole, I might say, "I think Gundam is pretty keen, ne?"

Aside from marking themselves as addicts through the inappropriate use of the Japanese language, they can also sometimes mark themselves with dress. This is not to say they go around wearing kimonos or anything like that, but their attire often consists of t-shirts with anime characters on them, and most definetly shirts with any sort of Japanese writing. If they happen to know what the writing says, they will hassle others wearing shirts with Japanese on them because those fools who don't appreciate the country their shirt comes from are probably too ignorant to know what it says. This actually happened to me. I was at a movie theater back home buying popcorn and wearing a shirt by Gama-Go (they have cool shirts). It had a strange monster on it, and said Gama-Go in small japanese characters. The portly girl at the concessions counter asked snidely "You know your shirt says Gama-Go, right?" I responded that yes I did, because that was the brand of the shirt. She then snapped, "Good, because I hate it when people who have japanese on their shirts don't know what it means". Exactly how the attitude of the Japan addict works. I understand Japan and you don't, and because Japan is perfect, I am better than you. The exact same goes for tattoos.

Eating habits will change much in the same way entertainment choices do. Japanese food suddenly becomes that much more delicious than anything coming from America, especially the frosting dipped cookie sticks known as Pocky. While delicious, it could be partially responsible for the often larger than life stature of many addicts. In addition, the victim may begin liking things that they never had before, like sushi or fermented bean paste, simply because the Japanese eat it. And they will begin eating everything with chopsticks because they seem to believe that the Japanese are just so much more advanced, and thus chopsticks are superior.

One of the worst parts of Japan addiction is that much like an addiction to crack, it will seriously drain your bank account. Addicts find themselves purchasing anything related to Japan, and because sellers of far-east swag know about the addict demographic, they can price gouge like crazy. Anime videos almost always run thirty bucks a pop, and can be produced in long in series of literally as many as twenty to forty DVDs. Online importers can charge outrageous prices for hello kitty shit, Inuyasha wallscrolls, and imported games because they know the addict will shell out top dollar for anything with a kanji on it. Imported food can get pretty pricey too, especially since the addict eats mostly junk food like instant ramen and candy.

Here's where it finally starts to get creepy and sexual. The next phase is a change in sexual desire. Because, as with any other category of stuff, Japan is always better, the addict begins to only be attracted to Japanese (or at least Asian) women, even unattractive ones. But that's not enough. They begin idealizing anime women, what with their giant breasts and wackily colored hair. It can even go further, and they may begin to get into Hentai, which is basically cartoon pornography. Often it is extremely uncool, involving rape, tentacle rape, and women-with-weiners-related rape. Why? Because it's anime, and sexual anime just usually happens to be creepy. There's ver little that's non-deviant in the world of imported porno cartoons. Eventually they may get into some sexual fetishes that are largely exclusive to (or more pervasive in) Japan, including schoolgirls, panties, and bukkake (don't ask if you don't already know). But sexual change isn't even the weirdest part. Eventually the victim begins to change their entire identity and psychology to fit their addiction to Japanese entertainment culture.

First comes a desire to move to Japan, but this is understandable, considering the addict believes the country to be some kind of shangri-la. Soon, every picture you see them in will have them flashing the peace sign, which Japanese people in photos tend to do. Next, they start incorporating themselves into their interest, by discussing which Final Fantasy character might like them best, or writing themselves into fan fiction about how they helped Goku vanquish evil, or maybe about how they porked Rinoa. More social addicts may then engage in "cosplay," or "spending hundreds of dollars to make a replica anime or video game character costume that won't fit you because you're too fat or too male". They then wear these costumes to anime conventions, which the country of Japan should declare a crime because it makes their fair islands look very bad. This, however, isn't quite the bottom of the barrel. The brain of the Japan addict actually stops working correctly. I have seen people on message boards, for instance, believe they are capable of becoming "Super Saiyans," like in Dragonball, or claiming they are working on and capable of building a giant robot. They may even believe they have a chance to get it on with a fictional character. They will at the very least fantasize about it. The Japan addiction has claimed their lives. They have nothing left, not even a functional brain.

So what is their fate? Perhaps they will migrate to Japan, in the hopes that people will understand and appreciate their tastes there. Inevitably, they won't. Or perhaps they will never be socially accepted and just stay with a group of Japan addict friends. Fortunately, all but the worst cases grow out of the whole thing by the time they're, say, thirty. However, they will never be the same. Do do your part, watch for the warning signs, and help stamp out Japan addiction.