There is something deeply repulsive about japanese media that I find hard to articulate. A lot of western stuff might piss me off, or just elicit total indifference due to how garbage it can be,
but even japanese media which I enjoy a great deal just bothers me in some way. There's a fakeness to a lot of it, any anime or game or film that is just totally ridiculous and honest about what it is I find enjoyable.
But the shit that takes itself seriously just reeks of dishonesty and artifice, even down to how the voice acting and animation is done in a lot of cases. It can try to be twee,
or sentimental, but theres a deep rooted lack of empathy that makes all the dialogue come across as canned,
like a really shallow imitation of what a "wholesome" interaction should be from the point of view of a robotic narcissist who tacitly assumes anything positive or nice means a mutual agreement to be dishonest
and coddle one another in a very regimented "etiquette" sort of way, that even when it tries to be spontaneous and impulsive, all the movements and sounds the characters make come across as forced and written
by a sociopath playing with a dollhouse, creating his utopian reality where nobody really challenges one another. I guess a way to put it would be that even in the worst western media,
a characters arc is usually about self honesty and their inner moral voice, the task of becoming a better person and learning. With a lot of japanese stuff its almost like they have no concept of that,
and a good world is not one where individuals become good, but where everyone gets what they want so nobody has to be cruel to get what they want, and being a good friend is more being polite than pushing someone to be better.
Its hard to explain what I mean. Its evident in the way they treat maturity and tragedy, almost always the brutality of the act is focused on to an excessive degree,
it feels like theyre all a bunch of rapists and serial killers who are having to constantly repress.