[Tintin Storm]

Japanese culture is unique, rich and amazing in many respects. On the one hand- extraordinary politeness, on the other hand - courage and readiness for self-sacrifice. Rare diligence is combined with a heightened sense of honor and deep devotion to the emperor, suzerain, teacher or head of a company. Finally, the amazing ability to borrow and assimilate, adopt and develop the achievements of other peoples, cultures, while preserving its own, national, peculiar, Japanese individuality.
The effectiveness of the impact of Japanese culture is due to its inherent borrowing mechanism - a universal principle, the essence of which is that the increment of foreign cultural values is based on existing cultural traditions, but in no case replaces them. However, it should be borne in mind that the evolution of Japanese civilization intersects with the evolution of Western civilization, which seeks to limit the development of Japanese culture by imposing its values.
The defeat in the Second World War became a national tragedy for the Japanese people, which led to devastating consequences. After Japan came under total American influence, and the American pseudo-democratic values were imposed on the Japanese, the destruction of the original Japanese culture began.
Skillfully taking advantage of such features of the Japanese character as unquestioning obedience to the leaders, the Americans were able to become a model for imitation for the Japanese people. And now it is possible to speak rather conditionally of Japan as an independent state. All the nation's vital decisions are taken by the elite of the society with a look at the big host, i.e. USA. The US military forces still occupy a significant part of the country's territory.
The moral disintegration of the Japanese ethnos took place in the West European ethnic space and the moral diseases of the West are also characteristic of the Japanese. Without an attractive spiritual orientation, Japanese society has turned into a society consisting of consumers.
For many years, "Americanization" was perceived by many Japanese as a symbol of spiritual dependence, which will eventually lead to the denial by the Japanese people of their own culture and the loss of their national identity.
"Americanization" really spread not only in breadth, but also deep into the consciousness, leading to a change in the norms of behavior and consumption, established perceptions and orientations. However, fears of zealots of Japanese traditions and cultural specifics did not come true. Having absorbed many elements of the spiritual and cultural life of the West, Japanese culture retained its brightest identity and yet lost none of its fundamental features.

[Atlantis]

This is an amazing propagandist drivel that's reeking of race, ethnicity and authoritarianism. Even Putin's troll factory wouldn't produce such nonsense.

Japan was a backward country for centuries which failed to develop because it was jealously guarded by its corrupt elite. When the floodgates to the outside world were opened in the Meiji Restoration, the country's elite successfully engineered a Westernization to the point that it was able to beat one of Europe's biggest empires in the Russia-Japanese war only a couple of decades later.

While its association with the US has served it well during the post-war period, today, Japan is on its way into insignificance due to the rise of Korea and China externally and due to ossification internally. Tied to the US by its security treaty, Japan's ultra-nationalism prevents it from entering alliances with it's natural geographic and cultural neighbors in the Far East.

As somebody who has close ties to Japan and the Japanese I feel very sad about the way the country is going.

[ThirdTerm]

The effectiveness of the impact of Japanese culture is due to its inherent borrowing mechanism - a universal principle, the essence of which is that the increment of foreign cultural values is based on existing cultural traditions, but in no case replaces them. However, it should be borne in mind that the evolution of Japanese civilization intersects with the evolution of Western civilization, which seeks to limit the development of Japanese culture by imposing its values.

Japan was a Western country by the time it colonized Taiwan and Korea, which incorporated Anglo-Saxon culture into its own. Tokyo Station, which is designated as an important cultural property of Japan, was successfully preserved and restored to its original state recently. The original brick Tokyo Station (Marunouchi Building) was opened in 1914 and Tokyo closely resembled London in the pre-war era before every building was destroyed by the war. We know now that Cheddar Man, the first British caveman, was half Japanese, which explains why Japan and Britain have so much in common. Mesolithic Europeans had the rare Y-haplogroup C1a2-V20, which is part of 'Japanese' C1.

[Crantag]

This is an amazing propagandist drivel that's reeking of race, ethnicity and authoritarianism. Even Putin's troll factory wouldn't produce such nonsense.

Japan was a backward country for centuries which failed to develop because it was jealously guarded by its corrupt elite. When the floodgates to the outside world were opened in the Meiji Restoration, the country's elite successfully engineered a Westernization to the point that it was able to beat one of Europe's biggest empires in the Russia-Japanese war only a couple of decades later.

While its association with the US has served it well during the post-war period, today, Japan is on its way into insignificance due to the rise of Korea and China externally and due to ossification internally. Tied to the US by its security treaty, Japan's ultra-nationalism prevents it from entering alliances with it's natural geographic and cultural neighbors in the Far East.

As somebody who has close ties to Japan and the Japanese I feel very sad about the way the country is going.

I'll just add, while I find this all accurate, the significance of the Russo-Japanese War is often overstated in my view.

It was significant as part of a larger pattern, which included the prior Sino-Japanese War and subsequent subjugation of Korea; the Russo-Japanese War was probably most successful though as a PR victory for Japan on the international scene.

Russia was plagued by serious supply chain inefficiencies at the time. The Manchurian railroad had only just been completed, and operating at over capacity was unable to keep pace with the Russian military's demands. The Russian commanders were also arrogant in their approach, to go along with Japan's geographical advantages.

The Japanese also suffered more casualties in the war. The point is just that the result was never inevitable.

[Atlantis]

I'll just add, while I find this all accurate, the significance of the Russo-Japanese War is often overstated in my view.

It was significant as part of a larger pattern, which included the prior Sino-Japanese War and subsequent subjugation of Korea; the Russo-Japanese War was probably most successful though as a PR victory for Japan on the international scene.

Russia was plagued by serious supply chain inefficiencies at the time. The Manchurian railroad had only just been completed, and operating at over capacity was unable to keep pace with the Russian military's demands. The Russian commanders were also arrogant in their approach, to go along with Japan's geographical advantages.

The Japanese also suffered more casualties in the war. The point is just that the result was never inevitable.

I don’t know much about the actual battle, but I think the Russo-Japanese war has historical significance in that it showed that a non-Western country was able to modernize within a short period to the point of being able to stand up to the colonial powers in the Asian theater.

In 1860, a small Franco-British expeditionary force marched all the way to Beijing to capture the capital of the Chinese empire and ransack the Summer Palace as a punitive measure. At the time, the superiority of Western firepower was such that even the biggest empire in the East just crumbled without a fight.

In the 1868 Meiji Restoration, Japan’s leadership decided to transform the country from a closed and backward feudal regime, in which Samurais fought with swords, into a modern industrial state.

Within less than four decades, the Japanese had succeeded in modernizing almost every aspect of everyday life from dress code, hairstyle to architecture, introduced Western science, technology, law, education, industrial production and modernized their navy to the point that Japan was able to beat one of Europe’s biggest empires. Japan succeeded in a few years what the Chinese only started 500 years after the Jesuits first offered them Western science and technology on a golden platter in the 16th century. And the logistic problems of Russia at the time certainly weren’t as great as those of the Franco-British expeditionary force that ransacked the Summer Palace a few years earlier.

The victory gave Japan the confidence for expanding into China and for matching European expansionism in Asia.

In Russia, the humiliation of the Russo-Japanese war was the beginning of the end for the Tsars and pivoted Russian expansionism from Asia to Europe, which led to WWI.