Cultural (In)Sensitivity. (文化的感受性［がない］。)

(... so that title didn't work out as well as I thought it would. Is that ironic, or just me being stupid?)

Ok, to preface: I'm pretty sure that this winds up happening 99% of the time, to all foreign cultures and languages represented in American media (or really any media that attempts some sort of foreign representation, regardless of what their idea of foreign is... not that there's a right idea, or even a good idea, really), but as I am most familiar with the culture and language of Japan, that's where it gets noticed on this particular blog, thank you.

Ahem.

So.

You decide that the characters in your show (cartoon, sitcom, radio play, whatever) are going to Japan for some reason or other. Maybe there's a giant, evil squid roaming the waters of Lake Biwa, or someone has a relative in the vicinity of Hokkaido. Great. Dandy. Have at it, Japan is nice. Everyone should visit.

... but.

But.

When you cannot do even the bare minimum of research required to make your little jaunt to Japan seem plausible?

A small part of my soul dies.

Yes. Dies.

So you have Japanese natives wandering around. Great!

... why do they speak with accents roughly equivalent to those found within first year Japanese courses in Wisconsin? You'd think they would have a grasp on the phonological nature of their own language, not to mention the ability to construct sentences at a level even slightly above that of basic Genki I exercise material.

Please note that this is not a shot at my favorite language textbook series.

You'd at least think they could manage to pronounce Tokyo properly. Seeing as how they live there and everything (in most cases). It's two syllables people, not three. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that all of your characters are actually from some remote island of the coast Akita where they can't manage the monosyllabic "kyo" syllable because of their centuries-long separation from the mainland.

... although that would be pretty awesome.

And a quick note, because people really shouldn't do this anywhere, let alone Japan: don't touch strangers. People do not touch in Japan like you may have seen done in good ol' America. Hugging is not big. Kissing? Oh god why.

If you stop and kiss a random Japanese boy on the streets of Akihabara, he will not happily respond when you ask for directions immediately after. Mind, I have never tried this, but based on first hand experience, when you're obviously a foreigner and you just cut off some dude's escape route with unwanted physical contact, he will most likely:

                 (a) freeze and not speak until you're very far away
                 (b) gibber for a moment before fleeing at top speed, or
                 (c) spontaneously combust.

You might get away with it if there was alcohol involved, but that's still pushing it a bit.

I admit, I saw this on an episode of Teen Titans my sister was watching, and super hero shows do tend to get a bit more slack. I even think the girl doing it was an alien, thus her cultural insensitivity may have been handwaved easily enough.

The show's, however... Sigh.

I may have been missing the point here, but unfortunately the above-mentioned scene also gets into sexual assault taken for funsies, which is a particular issue in Japan (grope-and-run, anyone?), and in general a problem that gets me up in arms. So, yea. Edo does not approve of your teenage silliness.

... BACK ON TOPIC.

Yes, of course I know that most viewers don't realize what's going on when Japanese culture is being bastardized (or even bowdlerized... but that's another rant)  for their entertainment, because most don't spend their academic career studying it. That's ok. What's not ok is that the creators, researchers and directors of these various shows/movies/whatevers seem to think that it's ok to feed stereotypical, insensitive, and occasionally downright insulting representations of foreign cultures to Americans day in and day out.

The year is 2011, and we can't even mange a bit of international understanding? Really?

If it's so much trouble to do your research, have your damn super heroes fight a giant robot in Michigan, all right?

I was originally going to add a bit more to this rant, referring to the English translation of a Boys' Love manga no less, but I need to do a bit of research first so I don't wind up looking like a hypocritical buffoon.

.... But Edo! I hear you cry. You do that every day. Har har.

Not so witty if I say it first, is it mister comedian?

This is Edo, signing off with a healthy dose of righteous anger in her heart.