I interned at Sony in Tokyo one summer. I was hugely surprised that nobody had heard of all the animes and cultural icons that I thought were household names — Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, etc etc.
There’s a huge bias in the US towards taking niche cultural phenomena in Japan and putting them on a pedestal.
There’s a huge bias in the US towards taking niche cultural phenomena in Japan and putting them on a pedestal.