From their point of view, everything that comes from Japan is far cooler, better and more intense than their Western counterparts.
They listen to J-pop because they regard it as ‘superior’ than Western bubblegum pop, ignoring of course that only losers listen to this kind of music in the first place.
The male fans are also completely obsessed with Asian girls and think white girls aren’t good enough for them. This obsession is reinforced by the fact the only Japanese girls they have ever laid eyes upon were idols, models and TV personalities. They also all happen to have some freaky eye disorder in that they can never seem to be able to take a good look at the Japanese “beauties” whenever the camera happens to pan into the studio audience. I like to call this “Ignoreyemous.” I also believe that nihonphiles prefer Asian girls because they tend to be smaller and less intimidating than the typical American girl and thus less likely to beat the crap out of them whenever they are asked to dress in a bunny-suit and re-enact their favorite scene from “Puri Puri Bunny! Go!”
Unlike the gaijin these guys and gals just WISH they lived in Japan, they regard it as a magical country inhabited by magical people. Actually, scratch that, they wish they WERE Japanese and hold a firm belief that every Japanese person watches anime, reads manga, plays RPGs and listen to Utada Hikaru instead of just the dorks like in the West.
To become the gaijin archetype is the nihonphile’s biggest dream and they dedicate years to studying so hard so that one day they can move to Japan and experience something called “culture shock.”
Characteristics: Take Japanese as their major, just so they can understand the Hello Morning skits and Tsunku’s “deep” lyrics.
Fun Fact: The Japanese are masters of improving other people’s ideas. The most original Japanese ideas can be found in this book.
THE ELITIST
The elitist can be like any of the archtypes listed above, it’s true they are still a huge Japan-loving geek, but the pivotal difference is that they are also a huge snob. Unlike the nihonphile he/she doesn’t listen to Jpop because its from Japan, but because no one listen to it in their home country, plunging them into a artificial underground scene consisting of themselves and one other person that lives on the other side of the country. They also take sordid pleasure of saying “I only listen to Japanese music” and then proceed to name groups and bands knowing the person they are talking to will have no idea who they are. Of course if they would, the elitist would be laughed at.
The elitist also knows everything about his/her favorite groups and is able to create huge flammable discussions filled with elaborated posts about a group of 12-year old girls wearing pink wigs and penguin suits singing about pizza.
They also like to act like Western music snobs and claim they liked Asian-Kung Fu generation before they went commercial. Of course that’s just an elitist excuse and they know it, the way promotion company’s work, surprise, the groups actually want to become commercial! If they were as much of an elitest as they say they were, they would have to resort to listening solely to street corner musicians who sell their CDs for blowjob.
Characteristics: Thinks the b-side and album tracks are much better than single main tracks and judge songs based on the composer. Also think everything being released lately is crap and “everything used to be better 5 years ago”, which of course is the same thing fans were saying 5 years ago.
Fun Fact: Utada Hikaru’s English album Exodus only sold 30 thousand copies in the US compare to the 1 million in Japan. This was a big relief to the elitists as it kept Jpop from going main stream in their own country and thus their dirty little secret was kept safe.
Part 1: Anime Fanboys/Fangirls and The Pervert
Part 2: The Virgin and the VKer
Part 3: The Gaijin, The Nihonphile, and The Elitist
Part 4: The Puppy, The Nostalgic Fan, The AZN, and the Conclusion
