Like many people in North America having an obsession with all things Japanese, it works the opposite way for people in Japan.

and yet i find that most Japanese have a fear/dislike of us "gaijin"

1.) WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU

2.) Care to elaborate? But from a base historical stand point the obsession with Disney comes mostly from post WW2 Japan. After battle fatigue from years of war and bombings of their cities a number the citizens spent most of their time, when not rebuilding their country, pursuing leisure activities. Enterprising GIs who saw this set up numerous businesses in Japan based on this. Notably Sega got thier start this way importing old midway nickel games into the country and running coin ops. outdoor movie theaters were also quite popular.

Anyways disney factors in because one of the most popular imports were American comics, mostly the comedy Disney comics. The disney style is actually considered to be the main influence in the look of manga and anime.

1.) twigby. cool your jets, honey.. its me. hoyden.

2.) interesting. i did not know this. it seems i have received a legitimate answer to my ponderings!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SO IT IS AND NOW I FEEL LIKE AN ASS

hahahaha... no dont worry. it's cool ...hahah... i've been gone a long time. ;)

Ah hah! I was trying to figure out who you are. It didn't help that I have adblock on my computer at work and couldn't see your profile pic. :)

ive never that the japanese have a strange fascination with mayonaise, cream of corn soup, hot dogs and bad spaghetti. can anyone explain those?

@Jay Def hehe... yup, here i am! :)

Bad Spaghetti is just asian palletes. Asian noodles are usually cooked to death to be soft and mushy, so they also prefer pasta to be the same and not "al dente." My mother use to cook spaghetti like this and it's fucking DIGUSTING. They also hate the slight sourness of real tomato sauce and aren't really fans of basil or black pepper, sort of staples of tomato sauce i guess, so yeah, asian spaghetti is usually gross mushy red masses of sweetened pasta sauce or not even pasta sauce at all! I've had spaghetti with curry before (surpsingly better than you'd think)

@the way i get by hmm.... well all the spaghetti ive had hasnt been mushy so much as just the color red.. without any actual sauce. so its kinda dry... and youre right about the tomatoes.. i know they definitely dont like those here... but they love pizza! this country is so crazy!

Well, you don't travel to Japan for the Spaghetti.

that's true.