There are two types of “Japan know-it-all” foreigners I keep encountering. One believes they understand Japanese culture well enough to correct others on how to behave. The other believes they understand Japan’s history well enough to interrupt any praise with reminders of its wartime past. At first, these two seem completely different. In reality, they come from the same place: a desire to define Japan in simple, absolute terms. I would like to introduce these two complexes that have come to be more prominent in recent years.
The former is a foreigner who quickly takes on the role of cultural authority. They arrive, pick up bits of information about etiquette and history, and then begin explaining Japan to other foreigners, sometimes, even to people who are actually from here.
I saw this firsthand on Christmas Eve 2024. My sister came to visit me from England. Unlike me, she was born in Japan. While walking past a local shrine I pass almost every day, we stopped by a pond where fish food was being sold for 100 yen by a nearby restaurant. She paid, took a packet, and began feeding the fish. Out of nowhere, an American man approached us and said, “You shouldn’t do that here. The Japanese don’t like it.”
My sister, clearly annoyed, replied: “I am Japanese. I was born here in this city, and I bought this food right there,” pointing to the restaurant. The man walked away without another word. What stuck out to me was his confidence. He had decided what “Japanese people” think and felt entitled to enforce it. This kind of behaviour often comes from a desire to be respectful, but it can have the opposite effect. It reduces Japan to a fixed set of rules and assumes a level of understanding that may not reflect reality. Much of this confidence seems to come from surface-level knowledge, such as short-form videos on TikTok, travel guides, or lists of “things not to do in Japan.” These sources aren’t always wrong, but they present culture as a fixed set of rules rather than something flexible and situational.
This is one version of the “know-it-all”: the cultural gatekeeper. Someone who treats Japan as a checklist of dos and don’ts, and positions themselves as someone qualified to correct others. In many cases, this behaviour feels performative. It’s less about helping others and more about demonstrating that they themselves understand Japan. That they are the “respectful” or “well-informed” foreigner in contrast to others.
The other version of the “know-it-all” appears more often online. On social media posts about Japan, whether it’s someone sharing their favourite places, talking about how kind people are, or even just enjoying anime, it’s increasingly common to see comments that abruptly bring up Japanese war crimes from the 20th century.
These comments are often framed as corrections. A reminder that Japan is not just food, aesthetics, and politeness, but also a country with a violent imperial past. And that part is true. Japan’s wartime actions, including atrocities committed across Asia, should not be ignored or erased.
But the way these points are introduced often feels less like education and more like interruption. A video about someone’s travel experience becomes a place to question their awareness or intelligence, as if appreciating modern Japan requires immediate moral qualification.
In many cases, this reaction comes from a real concern. Japan’s wartime history has had a past of being downplayed or presented selectively in education and public discourse. Japan’s wartime past is often treated differently from how Germany confronts its own history. From what I have personally observed, this difference is noticeable. Because of this, some people feel the need to make sure that history is not forgotten.
However, this approach creates its own kind of oversimplification. It assumes that Japanese people are unaware of their own history, or that modern Japan can be reduced to the actions of a government from 80 years ago. Neither of these assumptions holds up. From my experience, some young people in Japan are unfamiliar with certain historical events. have met many young people who have little awareness of the significance of “Nanjing” in Japan’s history with China. But many others are aware, critical, and openly opposed to those past actions. Like any country, Japan is not a single perspective, but a society made up of individuals with different levels of knowledge and different views.
At the same time, this complexity is also reflected at an institutional level. Multiple Japanese prime ministers have expressed regret over wartime atrocities, most notably in the Murayama Statement, as well as in statements from Democratic Party leaders in the following decades.
I’ve even seen comments claiming that “Japan has rebranded itself”, suggesting the country presents a polished, almost magical image while quietly brushing its wartime past aside. While there is a real conversation to be had about how history is remembered, this line of thinking often goes too far. It ends up implying that modern industries, whether tourism, anime, or entertainment, are somehow part of that “rebranding,” as if they cannot exist without suspicion. But cultural and creative industries should be able to thrive on their own merits. That is a far more constructive direction than reducing a country entirely to its past violence.
What’s interesting is how these two types of “know-it-alls” often exist in reaction to each other. On one side, there are people who romanticise Japan and treat it as uniquely polite and even perfect. On the other, there are those who push back against that image by emphasising Japan’s darkest historical moments at every opportunity. Both approaches flatten reality. If we are going to engage with history seriously, rightfully so, then consistency matters. Many countries have histories of violence, imperialism, and injustice. Yet these histories are not typically brought into every unrelated conversation about them, or under innocent videos showcasing London or New York for example. Doing so would often feel out of place.
That doesn’t mean those histories should be ignored. It means they should be discussed with context and intention, not used as a reflexive response. Modern Japan is shaped by its past, but it is not defined solely by it. It is also shaped by the people living here today, and their actions, values, and everyday lives.
Reducing Japan to either a perfect image or a historical warning does a disservice to both.
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