anime

it's not that that perspective doesn't exist elsewhere (like in the james bond movie where he does yellowface) but it's such a common thread in anime and games spaces specifically because 4chan weebs talked to reactionary 2chan otaku and took what they said as gospel. like, i see a lot of leftists acting like this is just true and talking about how shitty a place japan is and how all anime is reactionary and misogynistic and homophobic. and that's not to say those things are entirely untrue, there is a lot of conservatism in japan and anime is often those things, but there are a lot of people working to make things better and acting like it's completely homogenous is just racist regardless of the angle you take it

also it's very funny because i remember when i was super young and just getting into anime and anime was seen as way more progressive than american stuff, because in the 80s and 90s the big stuff we were getting was stuff like sailor moon or dirty pair or ranma 1/2 where gender and sexuality weren't as rigid as the american stuff at the time? even a lot of the early adult swim stuff was seen as super progressive, like the major being queer in stand alone complex. but the 4chan narrative filtered into the mainstream anime spaces over time and just became completely accepted among even a lot of people who think it's bad that japan is homogenous conservatives