[QED]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Well, the very fact that they like it in their entertainment is fairly telling in and of itself, don't you think?

The fact that American TV show romances (if you can even call them that) are, to be frank, typically very very shallow compared to anime romances... I mean, like it or not, it really does say something about the two cultures, imo. Like Ricky said, the Japanese simply don't seem to have this same emphasis on instant gratification that has come to typify modern western culture.

And that's a huge difference, in my mind. It really is.

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here between a "big" difference and a "real" difference. I was never really trying to belittle any of the cultural differences here, but I was attempting to question whether they actually have any sociological value.

You're walking on very nebulous ground here.

Some would say that gender identity, for example, is entirely rooted in sociological factors; that they are cultural constructs with out any basis in actual genetics.

I don't agree with that, but a fair number of people do.

And so, when you raise questions like "is it just artificial cultural constructs, or is it something more inherent?" you get into very sticky sociological debates that there's not necessarily a definitive answer to.


I am inclined to believe that the considerable difference between how anime handles romances, and how the west currently handles romance, is rooted in more than mere cultural idiosyncrasies.

But, that's just my opinion.

I'm not sure whether the gender identity point is a good analogy here, since there you have a debate between two different disciplines (sociology and science), whereas here the debate is self-contained within the realm of sociology. This debate is *really* different from this type of nature v. nurture issue you're suggesting.

And of course there isn't a definitive answer to this (or this debate would have ended ages ago). Still, you'll have to elucidate a bit what these fundamental differences are (past cultural idiosyncracies). At the moment, I still find pretty it pretty compelling to believe that how the West and Japan treats the romance genre arises from a more trivial cultural source (especially given what I've learned of Japanese history).

Well, there's enough within the Japanese culture for us in the west to have a certain familiarity comfort level in watching it, yes. But those "hooks" don't cease to be a factors after "hooking" you in... they're a big reason, at least in my case, for why I keep watching.

My point is that without the familiarity you would stop watching - of course you still notice the differences 500 episodes in, but you wouldn't still be watching if the series did not resonate with you to begin with.

(3:40AM here, going to bed)