"Far, far away, across the sea, there is a fabled land that people speak of as a place of enchantment and wonder, of magical beings of myriad shapes and sizes. A place where one can make their wildest dreams come true.
And by that, we in America are of course referring to Japan. But Gensokyo is kinda like that."
The country of Japan, but portrayed stereotypically.
In Western works, it might serve as a parody of the anime fandom in general, or Western perceptions of Japan. In Japanese works, it might be a jab at Occidental Otaku who seem to actually believe in this, or lampshaded to emphasize that this particular work is more realistic than that. In some cases, it's used as little more than a Japan-flavored Fantasy Kitchen Sink, no commentary required.
The most common examples are:
- Apartments the size of shoeboxes;
- Everyone knowing martial arts;
- Pop culture being composed entirely of crazy surrealist works;
- All Japanese being polite and loving sake;note
- Extremely beautiful, model-bodied Moe Magical Girls in (sometimes stripperific) Sailor Fuku;
- Princely hunks getting touchy-feely with each other and their dreamy-eyed admirers;
- Kyodai Heroes, armies of Humongous Mecha, and Kaiju such as Notzilla engaging in epic wars;
- Superintelligent Gadgeteer Geniuses making fantastic electronics;
- Smaller robots and Toku heroes facing off against human-sized monsters, aliens and the occasional Kaiju as well;
- Tokyo, or a city that just happens to look exactly like Westerners imagine Tokyo looks like, full of futuristic trains, tuned cars, skyscrapers and bright lights, often being spectacularly blown up every now and then;
- Zaibatsu and their pitifully underpaid wage-slave Salarymen;
- Tentacle Monsters;
- And various others...
Due to the Lowest Common Denominator, it might also include other Japanese pop cultural references that are not really anime-specific, such as Ninjas, Kaiju, the Yakuza, or the Zaibatsu (particularly in early Cyberpunk literature).
This is a part of the Hollywood Atlas, like Eagleland, Eskimo Land, Yodel Land and the Land of Dragons.
Not be confused with the French magazine Animeland
Examples:
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Advertising
- Advertising for the Japanese-made Uni-ball ball-point pens in the US invokes this trope by using a Humongous Mecha to promote their gel ink.
Anime & Manga
- Arcade Gamer Fubuki portrays Japan as Animeland.
- Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou takes place in an oldschool Animeland version of Japan, though it fully embraces other aspects of Showa-era Japanese pop culture as well. This turns out to actually be a plot point, as that is Showa-era Japan they're living in.
- In Lucky Star, Occidental Otaku Patricia Martin has this worldview. Which the mangaka immediately lampshades as "the wrong idea on Japanese culture." Given that nearly half of the main cast happens to be some flavour of otaku, this may be a bit of Hypocritical Humor.
Films — Animation
- Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo is like this. It's definitely an Affectionate Parody, though, since the series is Animesque.
- Japan in Tokyo Mater, and as an extension, the Japan segment of Cars 2.
Films — Live-Action
- RoboGeisha: There is not a Japanese stereotype in existence that this movie does not portray. Yakuzas, Geishas, Ninjas, Samurai, Sailor Fuku, Kaiju, Tokusatsu... you name it.
- In The Toxic Avenger Part II, Toxie's alleged father is Japanese. And a Corrupt Corporate Executive. And a sumo wrestler.
Literature
- The section on Japan in America (The Book) plays this for laughs.
Live-Action TV
- In 30 Rock, Tracy believes he is giving a speech over a live feed to a Japanese award show. He thanks all his Japanese fans, especially Godzilla. The he laughs and says he's just kidding... he knows Godzilla doesn't care what humans do.
- In Lexx's last season, a giant plant person invades Japaneseland.
- Animeland and the fan culture surrounding it were the object of satire in the Saturday Night Live skit "J-pop America Fun Time Now!"
Roleplay
- No Matter What Happens I Still Won't Become An Anime Character is all about its main character living in Animeland, up to and including the protagonist's constantly crushed desire to be an Ordinary High-School Student.
Video Games
- In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the Empire of the Rising Sun faction's military units included psychic Magical Girls in Sailor Fuku, and Humongous Mecha, some of which transform, while one of their transformers is based on the iconic Zero Fighter. Their superweapon is a Psychic Explosion, and the engineer is a Salaryman, standing next to Samurai soldiers and Ninja, as well as longbow-wielding Miko in the expansion. About the only thing missing are naughty tentacles. Oddly enough, The Soviets did have a giant squid in the previous game. (You can bet you'll find some fan-art of it if you look hard enough.) The Emperor's video briefings help tick any other boxes in the Big Book of Japanese Clichés: his son wears a kind of samurai armour, he's seen practising sword forms, contemplating a bonsai tree, practising calligraphy, taking tea a lot, mentions a revival of Bushido, tells you to slice through the enemy "like the blade of a katana" and finally declares you "Supreme Shogun".
- Destroy All Humans! 2 parodies this. "Takoshima" is filled with salary men, schoolgirls and at one point a kaiju is running around.
- Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass features Megatropolis, an area that's one giant mish-mash of Japanese landmarks, tropes and stereotypes. Justified as it's a location in a dream, formed by Jimmy's exposure to Japan exclusively through entertainment shown to him by his Occidental Otaku uncle.
- Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan and its sequel, especially since it was designed with a manga feel. There are two levels featuring schoolgirls, two with Kaiju fighting against a Salaryman or a Humongous Mecha depending on the game, and other Hot-Blooded shenanigans. However, there are no tentacle creatures, and a ninja only appears in the American localization.
- School Hero is a beat-em-up made in Europe and gently spoofing anime tropes, like the Ordinary High-School Student randomly having super powers and beating up every clique in his school and outside it, from sportsmen to delinquents, from otakus to gals, who in turn have access to all kinds of super-science, magic and weapons. Though some stereotypes, like the mean girls and goths hanging out at the mall, are distinctly more American than Japanese.
- Warframe: The Tenno is taken from stereotypical anime depictions of Ninjas and Samurais. E.g. the way they sit, their swords, their motions, their name, their very designs... The anime influence is most shown in Styanax's trailer, which is a short anime.
Web Comics
- Apricot Cookie(s)! is treated as this, though it's just a little bit downplayed. The boys play children's card-games, every girl is a Magical Girl and you get your daily Kaiju attacks, one of which is explicitly called out as a tentacle monster. No ninjas yet (if at all), though.
- The four ninja siblings in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! exist largely as an excuse to play with anime tropes. Each of the four is an anime archetype: Shempu is a wild-haired shōnen guy, Moé is a cute moe girl, Lari is a bishounen (surrounded by a cloud of sparkles), and Kurlijōh is explicitly a Leiji Matsumoto-style gonk.
- MegaTokyo is a complicated example. The Tokyo Police apparently got so annoyed with their city constantly being destroyed by monsters that they started scheduling such events, so they were easier to handle. Kaiju are available for rent, and the commander of the Cataclysm Division rides around in a mech.
- Wow - You Live in Japan by Dave Gutteridge juxtaposes that stereotypical pop-culture-based image of Japan with the reality of Japan as a country like any other.
Web Videos
- Virtual vlogger Ami Yamato, a Japanese person living in the UK, has a video where she addresses people who get their perceptions of her home country purely from pop culture. "There are definitely no giant robots," she tells the viewers — while walking past a giant Gundam in the background.
- At the start of the Valentine's Day episode of Joueur du Grenier, we get a scene set in an "ordinary Japanese town". Which includes a tentacle monster assaulting a girl behind a tree, a Pokémon trainer ordering a potato to make a "puree" attack, Godzilla burning a building, Son Goku teleporting away, and a Japanese schoolgirl sitting under sakura trees and playing a Dating Sim.
Western Animation
- Cow and Chicken: In this Got Milk ad, Cow had to face a Godzilla parody as Supercow while the characters were visiting Japan.
- Dexter's Laboratory: The season two finale starts off here with Dexter accidentally awakening a Kaiju, while trying to one-up two mecha pilots his age (who both look like Go Nagai characters). The rest of the episode has him and his entire family fighting said Kaiju back home, with the help of a Combining Mecha, under the guidance of a Kid Samurai.
- Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi surprisingly subverted for a show meant to cash in on The Japanese Invasion. The show is mostly just a normal western Zany Cartoon that only has the occasional cultural reference to remind us they're supposed to be in Japan (Such as Meat-O-Vision depicting characters as sushi, or the fact that the characters like Anime and Manga.)
- In Kappa Mikey, everyone from Japan are portrayed as anime characters. In contrast, Mikey himself is portrayed in a stereotypical American art style as he's from America. In terms of how Japan itself is represented; it's rather shallow even by the standards of this trope. The main characters are actors for a superhero Show Within a Show, but from what's shown of it, it more resembles an American show than a Japanese one, and aside from some Japanese cultural references (such as his boss having a Yes-Man (Literally named "Yes Man") who dresses like a Salaryman, the Japanese characters using Japanese styled gags like Ocular Gushers or chibis, or the occasional episode plot using the setting, such as Mikey accidentally becoming a champion Sumotori and everyone in Japan wanting to fight him), most of the gags of the series would've work anywhere, as it's more a Mundane Fantastic World of Weirdness rather than a proper parody of Japan. Probably a result of Mid-Development Genre Shift (Early footage seems to suggest the show was originally meant for adult audiences), and the writers attempting to cash in on interest in Japanese media at the time despite a lack of knowledge about it, means a more accurate parody, even by this trope's standards, probably wasn't possible.
- Phineas and Ferb's special "Summer Belongs to You" has this little sequence. note
- The Simpsons episode "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo" has an announcement from the pilot as they're flying home:
Pilot: Uh, folks, we're experiencing some moderate Godzilla-related turbulence at this time, so I'm going to go ahead and ask you to put your seatbelts back on. When we get to 35,000 feet, he usually does let go, so from there on out, all we have to worry about is Mothra, and, uh, we do have reports he's tied up with Gamera and Rodan at the present time. Thank you very much.