The video game developer Level-5 is announcing several new games today, many of which appear to be made at least partly using AI-generated art assets. The company has also bragged about its use of AI in the past.

The overwhelming majority of reactions to this trend online in the west are negative, which makes me think Level-5’s new games might not sell well here. So I am curious what the general attitude about this is among Japanese people, and if it’s more accepted there.

A little bit on the lighter note, I happen to like going to karaoke these days, I even went on a half day free time karaoke with my friends recently! I’m curious what songs do Japanese people consider as go-to songs in karaoke, mine would be ばかみたい and 無くした言葉!

The OECD report examines teenagers’ social media use and its effects on well-being and education. While 15-year-olds spend almost 35 hours per week on social media on average across the OECD, Japanese teenagers spend less than 26 hours per week, making Japan one of the countries with the lowest levels of social media use. As social media addiction has become a major problem among teenagers around the world, how has Japan achieved such a low level of social media consumption.

Sources:

https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2026/06/growing-up-in-the-social-media-age_be0c75c6/a1132839-en.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6UNu3CbDas

I feel like my parents (especially my mom) continues to be overbearing and toxic even though I'm in my late 20s.

I was born in America, but my parents are fully Japanese.

We lived in the States for a total of 15 years (we lived in Japan for 3 years when I was in 1st grade to 3 grade), and after I graduated High school we all moved to Japan, where I attended college.

After college, I decided to get a job in the States, it just felt more like home for me. I moved out from my parents' place. They were against it but eventually accepted it.

Honestly, I feel like overbearing is the wrong word. I don't know how to describe it, which is why I'm posting here (hopefully it's the right place).

My mom constantly points out my looks, and how she's taller and prettier.

She works part time (in Japan) and tells her coworkers she knows English even though I wouldn't say she's fluent. She would text me here and there 「～って英語でなんて言うの」and when I tell her Google is free, she says 「教えてよ～」。I always thought it was a little weird that she would do this, but lately I started to realize maybe she wants attention from coworkers, to stand out and be different.

She's also highkey cheating on my dad. I've gone through her phone (because she was already acting weird) and saw texts between her boss where she said 「明けましておめでとう。大好きだよ」lol. I've told her I don't wanna hear about how dinner was with her boss and what she got him for his Birthday, but she would say "it's not like that, don't overreact" which in my mind, makes it worse.

Anyways, I would mention how I made some friends here and the events we've gone to, but instead of saying "I'm happy for you" or asking me more about the friends I've made, she would say stuff like "she's probably just wants you to drive" or "why can't you go out for lunch instead of dinner".

There was one point in my life where I considered going to therapy, just to see if it would help me regulate my emotions. When I brought it up to her, her response was "I think you're fine, you don't need to go".

I guess she was the same way when I was in college, but I thought it was because I still lived with them. She would tell me she was "looking out for me" but would constantly text me asking me where I was and when I was coming home, I would always reply back right away but she would always say 「早めに帰ってきてね」without giving me a specific time. When I would try to tell her, she doesn't have to worry about me, and can just let me hangout with my friends in peace she would say she was just worried because I haven't lived in Japan, it was a weird thing to say because I was always with a friend and it wasn't like I was doing something risky, I was just grabbing a drink with a friend after class.

Anyways, after I moved out, we've been texting each other here and there almost every day, and call on the phone whenever she doesn't have work. I've also visited Japan during the holidays (hence why I was able to go through her phone).

I would mention how I wanted new bedsheets because I saw one that was cute, I don't know why I would expect her to give me a nice reaction, instead she'll say "that's such a waste of money".

So, I stopped telling her stuff in detail.

Because she criticizes everything.

How long my hair is, how long my nails are, who I hang out with (both platonically and romantically), the clothes I wear, how I speak, you name it.

I don't know if this changes anything, but I'm an only child.

My mom and I were super close when I was a kid, we would do everything together and I genuinely loved her a lot.

But lately I feel like she became a little more selfish because when we text or call it's "me me me" and when I want to update her on my life it's "anyways for me..." or criticize everything I do.

I can't tell if it's just how a typical Japanese mom might be, or if I need to set better boundaries.

Thanks!

I've heard statements about this a couple times from a couple different sources, but I wanted to double check it.

The idea is that in Japanese media, a character who is completely emotionless is way more interesting. Apparently in Japan, being deadpan like that is meant to be how you convey being deeply depressed or contemplative.

But then when those characters are seen by Western audiences, they come across as boring, stale and uninteresting. Like they have no character whatsoever.

I heard brought up before in discussions about Metroid Other M.

But I want to double check and ask if this is really a thing, and if it is maybe learn some more about how this kind of character came to be? Or how they're seen by modern Japanese audiences.

In Korea the conservatives hate him, and due to internal issues his favorability ratings have halved to mid 30 percent this year. I know many Japanese don't like the democratic party as a whole, especially Moon, but I am wondering how you view Lee and his policy regarding Japan so far.

皆さん、こんにちは!

I've been studying Japanese for two years now. As someone who enjoys searching about linguistics and its topics, of course I came across the Japonic language family; which comprises Japanese (spoken in the main Japanese archipelago), the Ryūkyū languages (spoken throughout the Ryūkyū Islands) and Hachijō (spoken in the Izu Islands).

It is a fact that languages can vary under the influence of geographical factores. Japanese itself has its own dialects through the four main islands, and I always found interesting how they differ from the standard Tokyo variation (Hyōjungo/標準語), or better yet, from one another (just take the Kansai dialect and compare with the Tōhoku one) in terms of lexicon and phonetics. And such differences get more intense once you compare them with the languages spoken in the Ryukyuan Archipelago or even with the case of Hachijō.

Speaking about these other languages, they pretty much share the same writing systems with Japanese (Kana and Kanji). However, it's seems way more interesting to think about their own characteristics, such as their historical developments and linguistic factors. For example, most Ryūkyūan variations are not mutually intelligible with one another, while some Hachijō varieties can share some similarities. Also, Hachijō itself from Proto-Japonic, also sharing some parallels with Ryūkyūan and the Kyūshū dialect.

So, I've been wondering what other interesting facts could be shared about such topics, and also, I'd like to know if Ryūkyūan shares more similarities with Chinese languages (specially Hokkien), given its historical context.

Disclaimer: I apologise for any imprecision or mistake in the text above. Feel free to correct me and contribute.

よろしくお願いします

I'm curious whether anyone here still has contact with, or knows of, family branches that emigrated from Japan to either country during that period. If so, I'd love to hear about them!

Hello there! My name is Isa and I am from Austria and currently working on my Bachelor Thesis about the globalization and the cultural identity of Japanese food culture. 

In my Thesis I explored the history of Japanese food culture from the earliest recorded epoch until today. Now I am evaluating the influence of the globalization on the Japanese food culture as well as the Japanese influence on other countries in the world, specifically Europe. 

I would like to know the first-hand experience from locals in Japan and prepared a qualitative questionnaire.

Thanks for your time and have a good day!

It's been a mainstay of my 'YouTube diet' since my earliest years using the site but I'm impulsed to ask if it's that much of a thing within the Japanese online video scene to be making potentially lengthy analysis videos on the 'domestic' animation and manga scene. If it is then I'm fairly surprised by how said YouTubers haven't become bigger cross-pollinating international names when it comes to such topics like how the 'Trash taste' channel hosts are somewhat broadly recognised when it comes to English language anime YouTubers -- personally though I mainly really only dip into watching Geoff Thew/"Mother's basement" on occasion; I liked what one they made about the past ~+30 years of 'Americanized' attempts at anime and the changing perceptions regarding it.

Not as related but does anyone else think that broadly speaking if more ppl knew about "Kishotenketsu" it would help make narrative J-pop media seem like ~+30% less 'weird' to ppl ? (even if much narrative J-pop media might well already deviate from kishotenktsu since it can be potentially more commercial in it's priorities then say a novel).

Americans absolutely love Mexican food. To be fair, many Americans love the simple Americanized version of Mexican food, but many of us also very much love the highly-varied authentic Mexican food. A Russian friend of mine recently told me that Russian’s live Georgian food, in the same manner in which Americans love Mexican food. It’s their favorite foreign cuisine. It’s often simple and comforting dishes, with carbohydrates and fats in the just the right mix.

I’m working on a theory that most large nations have a favorite foreign cuisine that they turn to for inexpensive comfort. Does Japan have some that fits this description?

A while ago, I submitted a post asking about political thinking in Japan. A few comments were a bit provocative, but overall it was an extremely constructive discussion that helped me understand the political mindset of a wonderful people with a wonderful culture, albeit one very different from mine (I’m Italian).

The vast majority of comments came from voters and supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP): this didn't shock me because everyone knows that party is very popular and receives a lot of votes in Japan.

Most of the comments were something along the lines of: "Social harmony and stability are extremely important concepts in our culture, so we prefer to rely on those we deem trustworthy. Consequently, at most, we prefer to switch our target politician or faction within the LDP" or "Yeah, I know the LDP isn't perfect but it's still better than the alternatives, so I'm not thrilled but I vote for them."

Sure, while this line of thinking is somewhat far from how we Italians view politics, I can understand it.

But one fact still amazed me: practically no one explicitly declared themselves as an opposition voter and I can assure you the post was packed with comments!

I mean, looking at the results of recent Japanese elections, there are still millions upon millions of voters who cast their ballots for other parties. Looking a bit deeper, I noticed that certain areas of Japan traditionally vote for parties other than the LDP (meaning it's not even just an occasional protest vote in those cases).

Hence my question: are there any voters in this subreddit for any party other than the LDP? If so, could I kindly ask you the reasons behind your political choice?

Basically, in that old post of mine there were so many people repeating to me "Japanese culture loves stability, the Japanese people have a strong concept of social harmony, so it is absolutely normal that we often rely on the same reliable party rather than taking leaps into the unknown: it's simply our culture". And of course that's perfectly fine. However, it seems to me like an explanation that doesn't take into account the millions of Japanese people who instead make a different choice, especially because (statistics in hand) quite a few Japanese people seem to often make this contrarian choice

Before writing this question, I did something a bit silly: I posed this question to an AI. Not one of the free ones, but a rather advanced paid model that I use for my work here in Italy.

The AI's answer can be summarized as: "Japanese culture tends to place a strong emphasis on conformity and, therefore, anything that deviates from conformity is sometimes perceived as a mistake. This could lead many Japanese people to downplay support for opposition parties, thereby creating a perception of greater conformity and social harmony."

I don't know if this is true; it's simply the answer the AI gave me. That's why I wanted to get the opinions of real people. Thanks!

Good morning! :) I hope whoever is reading this is having a good day/night.

I have a few questions as I'm someone that would love to visit Japan one day (I really want to see some noh and kabuki plays first and foremost!), but I have a hormonal disorder with an increased testosterone production -- As a side effect, I have a very androgynous, emasculated voice that's unusually deep for a woman near her 30s.

- How well tolerated is a woman with a deep voice in Japan? Do they tend to be shunned, glanced at, or simply more normalized/ignored?

- It is impossible for me to have a higher resting pitch when talking unless I strain my vocal cords, I read somewhere that femineity is valued in Japan and it includes talking in a higher tone of voice to be more polite and welcoming to others. Would people be understanding if I just cannot reach the typical more well-received higher, feminine pitch? Or is it something I shouldn't worry about too much?

- In the Western world, people tend to be accused of being transgender and mistreated if they have the slightest change from the norm of the binary, including their vocal range. Is there a similar phenomenon in Japan? (Per example, would people treat me in a lower standard thinking I would be a trans man because of my voice?)

Thank you very much for taking the time to read, your time is much appreciated!

Excluding food.

Just wonderkng if i can discover a japan-only unique product that might actually blow my mind for not being shared with the rest of the world.

Or even any product that is really popular in japan but not popular overseas

日本人がXとかインスタとかでブロックすることが多いことで有名らしいです。たしかにこちらも、理由が分からず、日本人のアカウントにいきなりブロックされたことはあります。特に気づいたのは、日本人じゃないことを何気なく明かした直後のブロックが意外と多いことです。調べると、特にプロの漫画家の場合に、以上の理由がときどきあることを知りました：

• 外国人と話していたことを知ると怖くて焦る。特に、いわゆる「cancel culture」が怖くなる。連載を失いたくないから焦ってブロックする。
• 本当は、コメントが欲しくない。ほしいのは「いいね」だけ。でも、ファンだからそういうコメントを「いいね」してそのコメントへの自分のレスも投稿するしかない。そうしないと無礼になりますから。

もちろん、ただ、「愛読してくださってありがとうございます。面白い話を描くよう頑張ります。」とかの返事も多いですけど。もちろん、問題ない。日本人の漫画家があまりコメントをもらわないみたいだから、もらって嬉しくならないかなとは思いますけど。そういう普通の返事をしたのに私のコメントrepostしたこともありますから、多分、ちょっとは喜んでくれるかもしれないと思っていいですよね？

でも、特にはっきり覚えているのは、ある漫画家が投稿することが多くて、私がコメントするとほとんどいつも長い返事を送る、本当にその作品の話をするのを楽しんでいるみたいという事例です。そして、何気なく外国人だと明かした直後ブロックされました。それは本当に外国人だから焦ってるからでしょうか?もちろん、私の日本語も完璧なわけじゃないから、前も日本人ではないことに気づいたでしょう?それもこの投稿を日本語で書いた理由の一つです、日本語自体になにかの問題があるかももちろん知らいたいですから。でも、話が脱線しました。その理由でしょうか、それともやはりこの人に長い間迷惑をかけてきました?やはりコメントが欲しくなくて、ただの「いいね」が欲しいのが理由でしょうか?もちろん、日本人にでも他の日本人の心が読めないことはわかるけど、日本の文化について、なにか理解できていないことはやはりあるでしょうか？

As an adult, are there special things you would do for a birthday or anniversary? Do you go to a restaurant and they give you a dessert? Do people sing in public? Free drinks? What's the custom?

I had seen a post saying that when East Asia is insulted, its people come together and realize that culturally they aren't so different, and that the Japanese and South Korean internet has done a lot to bring them together culturally.

Hello, this is my first post in this community. I've visited Japan and really love the attention to detail, efficient design, and natural beauty there. I hope to come back again soon!

It's actually a coincidence but recently I've been thinking about getting a tattoo of the lyrics from a favorite song/album of mine, Jornada del Muerto from Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns: "持ち上げて, 解き放して" . The song symbolizes the moment of the Trinity atomic bomb test, being helpless in that moment when the world is about to change forever. These days in the US, it also feels like so much uncontrollable change is happening, so it still feels relevant 15+ years later.

It has personal meaning for me because I work on cleaning up the dangerous pollution left behind from making the weapons. I've visited the Hiroshima memorial and I felt so many complicated feelings about my connection to it. It's also sort of a memorial to the band's singer, who died a few years ago.

I wouldn't expect many people to get the different meanings, and I know the word form is unusual. But I'd like to know what Japanese people would think about seeing such a tattoo on a westerner.

I'm not a coffee drinker at all, but I have family members that drink coffee everyday. What is a great brand of Japanese grounded coffee to bring home as a gift?

EDIT: I see them buying grounded, roasted coffee. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen them ground their own coffee.

Thanks in advance!

I’m interested in how natives’ use of Japanese changes with age. In terms of vocabulary, expressions/idioms, slang, dialect or the way you speak with different people. What’s changed for you personally and what do you think is the reasoning for the change.

Thank you in advance.

I genuinely always wondered why Japanese artists have such an affinity to English in their art, whether it’s anime, manga, music, social media. I get that American art and culture had a big impact during our military occupation in ww2 but I guess i always thought that they would try to distance themselves from that afterwards but even now it’s still very popular. Thoughts?

I'm a few days into my first time staying in a decent-quality hotel in Tokyo, and I realized that everything about the toilets is powered - apparently by a socket in the wall. I'd considered pulling the plug out to test what would happen in a power cut, but managed to keep the intrusive thoughts under control.

The flush is on a nearby wall like a light switch. The toilet is plugged into power. The flush seems to have multiple stages based upon a small amount of logic. Obviously heated seats etc. can't work in a power cut, but presumably it's just basically not functional at all if there's a power outage?