And besides, the American-Japanese cultural link as we are discussing it only really took off in the 90's or so. There were parts of it before then, which is why Japan is one of the only places on Earth where people watch and play baseball, but it was pretty limited. I do find it very interesting from an anthropological standpoint, since we've gotten to the point where we have examples of what is undeniably anime, except it has been produced entirely in the US (and probably will eventually be imported to Japan, FULL CIRCLE MINDFUCK).
Oh no, no, no....try going back 10-15 years before that. Robotech, dude. ROBOTECH. Star Blazers. Voltron. Anime was becoming hot shit in the US during the late 70's and 80's. Not to mention the ninja and samurai crazes in the same time period.
I think the rise of otakuism in the US in the 80's probably had a lot to do with the fact that the Japanese economy was kicking ass and taking names. There was a time when people in the country were legitimately worried that the Japanese were going to buy all our companies, replace us with robots and then keep us around as pets or some shit.
Now you're seeing something of the same thing with China. People sense a rise in their power, so they're keenly interested in Chinese culture to figure out what they're doing right.
Not incidentally, that's a large part of the Japanese obsession with American culture. After utterly defeating them (still the ONLY foreign power to do so), they became fascinated with American culture, thinking it must hold the secret to our power. Apparently the lesson they drew was that American superiority was powered by Betty Boop eyes and neon.
I wonder if the Japanese have a weeaboo equivalent phrase for someone that's super into America.
I think so, but I can't remember it. I know both Japanese and Chinese will use "egg" (
tamago and
jidan, respectively) as a slang term for a Caucasian who's bigtime into Asian things (the metaphor being "white on the outside, yellow on the inside"). (One of my nicknames with some Chinese friends is "lao dan", or "old egg" xD)
IIRC, Filipinos will use the term "banana" for the opposite (someone who's 'yellow on the outside, white on the inside'), but that's a somewhat more derogatory usage. Not familiar with a similar usage in Japanese or Chinese.