But they don't really understand the japanese and most of them never bother to even learn the language. As for me, I think I watched five animes in my entire life.
I'm not a pretentious Japan lover, I just feel intuitively that certain types of people/mentality is more common there. Most people would take it as severe waponese but...
Ever since I was a kid, I've intuitively felt like bowing instead of shaking hands.
I don't like putting things in my mouth which others have used even if they are cleaned, so one-use chopsticks are perfect.
I think it's great with having the toilet and shower in different rooms.
I can recognize myself in some japanese people because even if it's subtle, there are also similarities between swedish and japanese mentality. More introverted people compared to the rest of the world. It's probably the ONLY cultures aside from Finland which are collectively introverted. All other hundreds of nations on earth are mostly extroverted. Sweden and Japan are breeding grounds for crazy and moody "art" people like Ingmar Bergman. Some japanese identify with germanic culture because of this. See it as more "familiar" than chinese etc. I feel the same thing, Japan feels more familiar to me than the US or most of Europe even though it's in many ways so different culturally. The mentality is similar. The rate of intermarriages between swedish and japanese also suggests something is up. They find each other exotic but also "familiar" in a strange way. Sweden has 8 million real swedish citizens, maybe less than that. A small country, but everywhere you go here there are japanese people married with Swedes and even more couples living in Japan. If Sweden had 200 million citizens it would make more sense but seeing almost every small city has at least a few japanese immigrants is a bit weird. Some japanese actually feel like "asian germans" while some swedish people can identify very easily with japanese mentality and psychology.
A typical american "waponese" is like any fatty fingered western pig. Disproportionately large, rough, loud, disturbing and they think that japanese people are like manga cartoon people with ADHD who communicate through turning their face into smileys IRL. There are of course americanized swedes, loud and rowdy pigs and stereotypical sex tourists like in any western country.
However, the most german of countries is Austria, not Sweden. I have the pedantic neurosis, artistic and fascist preferences of an austrian but the introverted, cold and shy traits of the swedish. This combined with a high intelligence just makes me a certain type of person who can identify easily with certain japanese mentality because it is similar. There are a lot of "crazy" people in Japan who pretend to be normal on the outside.
