I want to comment on this as another Japanese person because Japanese culture is an odd bird when it comes to the matter of cultural appropriation https://twitter.com/mosspond_/status/1330169167161544705

When talking about cultural appropriation we usually do so in the context of a western culture appropriating a nother colonised culture. Essentially it's the larger act of expressing, even profiting off of someone else's culture, while prohibiting them from expressing themselves

Japan is a weird case because it's a historically imperialist nation with a lot of very deserved animosity from its Asian neighbours. The westernisation of Japan in the pre- and post-war periods makes it complicated to discuss Japan as either a "colonised" or "colonising" nation

I don't really want to make any decisive claims that Japan is a "colonised" nation, especially since it's the talking point for a lot of Japanese nationalists and historical revisionists (the "Nanjing incident") who follow in the footsteps of white ethnonationalists in the west.

That being said, I also find it difficult to really say that westerners are off the hook, and that a lot of the appropriation of Japanese culture, especially when it comes to typography does upset me to a degree.

I would say that it's a little less specifically that Japanese culture is being used at all, and more that it often tends to feel very cheap and thoughtless when I see another refsheet with katakana underneath the English headers?

Like, seeing some more transliterated Japanese on an English refsheet directed at an audience who are largely unable to read Japanese isn't morally Wrong in my books, but it does make me roll my eyes really hard.

There are a lot of artists, many of them furry, I have seen around whose entire Aesthetic is basically "put Japanese characters on it" and call it a day.

Like, you know that weird decoration English (飾り英語) you see on packaging or that time Ariana Grande got "barbecue grill" tatooed on her hand? Yeah, it's like that.

It just feels really cheap and tacky and thoughtless.

That being said, it does start to also intersect with the way I navigate online spaces as an individual who has to constantly prove to others of my Japanese/POC identity. I get more flak than I'd care to talk about from Westerners who are disappointed by how "un-Japanese" I am.

I lot of the work I do does tap into my understanding of my own cultural heritage, but I have to admit I do often feel very sidelined because what I put out as a Japanese artist is not aligned with what Westerners expect of poppy, highly consumable "Japanese aesthetic".

The angle we (as Japanese artists in the West) want to approach is less "stop appropriating Japanese culture" and more "when was the last time you confronted your own relationship with 'exotic' foreign cultures?"

because this is much bigger than just thoughtlessly using kanji.

Are you really interested in (Japanese) culture and what makes it interesting? Or are you using it as a shorthand for making your work "stand out" in an English market? How close is your mindset to treating Japan/Asia at large as a magical exotic and oriental Disneyland?

If you want to be more specific about typography, did you know that Japanese typography is largely viewed as part of "CJK", Chinese-Japanese-Korean?

Have you put much thought into Korean or Chinese typography? Or are they /too/ foreign for you?

Do you regard Korea as its own nation with its own culture and people and very real struggles it has had in the past and present? Or are you largely treating Korea as "Japan-lite"?

Is the same design interest in Japan also equally levelled at Chinese cultures? Is your understanding of China skin-deep when it comes to cheap electronics and knockoff package design? If it is, how can you be sure your understanding of Japan is more than superficial?

I could go on and talk about the microcosm of ethnic minorities when it comes to Asia, southeast Asia/pacific cultures in all this, or the roots in European orientalism and Japonisme, or how the westernisation of Japan was largely a necessity made by America's foreign policy

or talk about how the 1980s cyberpunk "Japanese" aesthetic was largely predicated on yellow peril and Westerners' fears that Japan would displace European/Western culture in the global arena, which itself has long roots to 19/20th century immigration acts and internment

Like with any discussion on cultural appropriation, it's a complex topic. In the case of Japanese culture, sure, go for it. Watch anime. Learn your kanji. Play Japanese video games. Make art about how much you love ramen. I don't really care, tbh.

But with any topic of cultural appropriation, just put some thought into it, yeah? I'm not going to stop you if you think CJK looks pretty, because it is, but I would personally like to see more thought and self-reflection from my Western peers.

Appropriating Japanese culture is, I'd argue, less harmful than, say, appropriating American-Native or Black or Latin or South Asian culture, but we're troubled by how the same patterns in appropriation are extant, and indicative of an uncritical eye at large.

Finding cultures that are not of your own as interesting is not at all a bad thing inherently, but the kind of thoughtless exoticisation of decoration Japanese is exactly the sort of thing that led us to needing these kinds of conversations in the West in the first place.

Oh, and a "kitsune" is just the Japanese word for "fox". Just say "fox", for god's sake.