Why do nerds love East Asia so much?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's not a new phenomenon.

It predates Pokemon.

It predates Nintendo video games.

It predates anime's popularity in the US.

When Frank Miller said "you know, Wolverine (and Daredevil) are good, but what would make them great are ninjas," he was reacting a pre-existing pro-East Asia (especially pro-Japanese pop culture) mindset.

The Samurai first was written up as a D&D class in 1976, meaning it predates all of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

So how did this start? Was it Godzilla?

 

[Davies]

Nope. And this is the even earlier version.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Nope. And this is the even earlier version.

I know I can never get nerds to stop talking about their vases.

 

[MGibster]

So how did this start? Was it Godzilla?

It started before that. During the 1890s, Kano Jigoro, traveled to the United States an Europe teaching Judo. By 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt was practicing judo while in the White House. And then there's Sherlock Holmes who was a practicioner of Bartitsu, a martial arts developed from jujistsu, savate, fencing, boxing, and a few others I'm sure. And a lot of western militaries eventually started teaching their own versions of these martial arts to their soldiers. Of course Kano Jigoro's visit to the United States wasn't in a vacuum, there was a lot of cultural exchange going on between Japan and the west at the time, thank you Admiral Perry, and martial arts just happened to be included. Let's not forget about China. Certainly Americans noted the Chinse immigrants in the 1820s and 30s had their own style of boxing and wrestling, and kung-fu exhibitions started around the same time judo began to grip Americans.

I'm not a young man, so of course I'm a survivor of the Great Martial Arts Crazy of the 1970s and 80s. An era where the coolest kids had Chinese throwing stars and Todd, the 9th grader who smoked, had some nunchaku he was just waiting to bust out to take care of some fools if necessary. I think this craze was precipitated by the influx of motion pictures from both Japan and Hong Kong, China. Both countries had fairly robust film industries following the Second World War and were able to find audiences here in the United States. And let's face it, some of these movies were really cool. Have you ever seen The Five Deadly Venoms? It's awesome! Japan in particular had many cartoons that were easy to translate for American audiences. In the 1960s Japanese like Speed Racer, Astroboy, and Gigantor were fairly popular.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say we like East Asia because they're the ones that sent us all those movies, cartoons, and comics.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Have you ever seen The Five Deadly Venoms?

I just want to remark that this is a wonderful movie. To me it is no mystery why this stuff is interesting to people: it is amazing to watch. For me, my interest in this stuff started with Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and my own interest in martial arts and action movies (if you were into things like Commando in the 80s you were likely also into the ninja craze, Chuck Norris movies, etc). Hong Kong action movies to me at least, were way more intense and interesting than most american action movies I saw growing up. But what I liked when I started watching things like the Venom Mob movies was the grace of the performances. What I liked about stuff like Dragon Inn or One Armed Swordsman was the direction and the way the violent action was captured on film. I think where it intersects with nerdom is many of these genres have elements that are found in stuff like fantasy and do their own kind of world building (even when it is set in history there is often an underworld created).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think you're missing that I'm not talking about "people," I'm talking about "nerds." Because the truth is that nerds are more likely to be into all of this stuff, especially before anime was widely available on cable television in the 1990s, than the general population is.

It's also a phenomenon that's hardly unique to this thread, of course. Hardcore anime fans often seem unaware that everyone else isn't a hardcore anime fans and will randomly drop in names of various subgenres into general conversations here and elsewhere in nerdspace, with the expectation that everyone will know what "isekai" is, instead of saying "a story about a hero from Earth going to another world."

So what's going on? Why are nerds more into Japan and East Asia than everyone else? I'm not sure I buy that it's about Teddy Roosevelt and vases.

 

[MGibster]

So what's going on? Why are nerds more into Japan and East Asia than everyone else? I'm not sure I buy that it's about Teddy Roosevelt and vases.

Eh, the Teddy Roosevelt thing was just putting the cultural exchange into context. Basically a lot of what China and Japan sent over to the United States was science fiction and/or fantasy. Movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are a type of fantasy movie. Most of the anime I watched as a kid including Voltron, Speed Racer, Robotech, Bubblegum Crises, and others I can't remember were all science fiction. These genres are the bread and butter of nerd culture. The reason it was East Asia and not say, India, is because China and Japan had a robust film, television, and comic book industry that was able to export to the United States.

 

[Parmandur]

I think you're missing that I'm not talking about "people," I'm talking about "nerds." Because the truth is that nerds are more likely to be into all of this stuff, especially before anime was widely available on cable television in the 1990s, than the general population is.

It's also a phenomenon that's hardly unique to this thread, of course. Hardcore anime fans often seem unaware that everyone else isn't a hardcore anime fans and will randomly drop in names of various subgenres into general conversations here and elsewhere in nerdspace, with the expectation that everyone will know what "isekai" is, instead of saying "a story about a hero from Earth going to another world."

So what's going on? Why are nerds more into Japan and East Asia than everyone else? I'm not sure I buy that it's about Teddy Roosevelt and vases.

Japanese Otaku are more likely than the general population of Japan to be into European or American art. See the works of Myazaki and all the deep cut literary references.

 

[bloodtide]

Well....nerds is not really the right group. I'd say more the Geek Counter Culture as a whole.

You have a group of young people in roughly 1960 that, like all such groups, want to like "something different" then what their parents like.

Then you have East Asia full of magic, dragons, ninjas, samurai, martial arts and exotic weapons....and more. What's not to like.

So the youth grabbed on to it. Also, all the way up to about 2000.......it was very much a Geek Secret. And like all groups, Geeks love to have secrets. Unless you were a fan....and really, really, really put in a HUGE effort to watch Asia Media, it was unknown to you. Starting in the 70's a lot of East Asian Media was brought over to the USA....for kids. It's a long list. And...well, you need to remember the time.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1984. If you were a geek kid or teen or young adult....well there was NOT that much Geek Media(action/adventure/sicfi/fantasy/horror) for you to watch. Not that you could watch and access every day. There was the occasional movie, but after they left the theater they simply just vanished. Even when VCRs did start to come out not much was for Geeks. The "Geek Single Shelf" at Video Mart had like Star Wars, Alien and Planet of the Apes. TV was worse, the occasional Geek show was on maybe a couple years....and then just vanished. Maybe....MAYBE your local UHF channel got a couple copies and MAYBE played them at a time you could watch them....maybe.

It was the time of the Geek Void. And a couple clever people came along to fill this void, while making money. Japan alone was making all sorts of Geek Content starting in the 70's. And the thought was....well, lets bring it too America. And they did. G-Force, Star Blazers, Gundam, Voltron, Robotech and more. Geek Shows to fill the Geek Void. Martial arts, robots, ninjas, outer space, action, adventure and all. And even more then that....a LOT of the shows were very different then the stale American Media. And only a couple years after that came Cyberpunk and Anime. And Power Rangers and Pokemon....

 

[TerraDave]

Kurosawa films. Arcade video games. Shogun book/TV series. Domo arigato mr roboto. General smartness.

But now the least nerdy are filling tiktok (east asian) with kpop (east asian). How do the nerds distinguish themselves?