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alt title(s): WJT; Weird Japanese Thing

"If you find the Japanese offensive, then you'll find this game offensively Japanese."
Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, on Zack & Wiki

"Dear Japan, Please Stop. Love, America."

A Widget (WJT) is marketed as a Weird Japanese Thing, relatively offbeat compared to what is considered mainstream or popular at the time. This has of course become more inclusive with the more mainstream presence of anime recently, but usually exploits the culture difference for interest.

Often consist of the especially random brand of Gag Series. They can be tricky to localize, and this is done with either lots of care or not much care at all. The latter to preserve the oddness, naturally.

They can consist of small, short releases to test the waters of the audience, although they tend to have a guaranteed viewing among otaku (equivalent to a cult classic).

Somewhat difficult to define, but must have some meaning, considering that saying a series or game is "very Japanese" paints a similar picture in people's minds.

Japan has a culture outsiders may find pretty strange. In ancient times, Japan was a tribal culture. After making contact with China, they became an "eastern" culture, adopting a lot of Chinese cultural baggage but changing it to suit themselves while keeping older beliefs such as animism. The same thing happened during the 19th century, when Japan became an industrialized "western" culture. These three layers of culture interact in fascinating and unusual ways. Japanese cultural differences are both the reason this trope exists and the reason it's not more popular. Simply put, Japanese culture can be refreshing to an outsider, but too much may cause a feeling of overload.

Perhaps it should be noted that until about 1996 (with the advent of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball to American pop culture, if you don't go back to Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Robotech, Voltron and more from the previous decades), most anime was still out of the American mainstream — and therefore every anime of the time could be considered a Widget Series to some extent. Also, a weird series doesn't have to be Japanese to qualify as a Widget: some European and American series, like the ones from the examples below, are weird enough to compare with their Japanese brethren.

Exemplified by the Katamari Damacy video game series. Such games have also a noticeably larger presence on handheld systems than their console brethren.

Not to be confused with the animated series about an alien named Widget. Nor with the economic term (which is shorthand for an unknown unit of production. Product X, but economic slang)

Spinoff terms you'll likely see in this page include WTF (A Weird Thing from France), WHAT (A Weird Humorous American Thing), Wabbit (Weird British Thing), Wicket (Weird Canadian Thing), STANZA (Strange Thing from Australia/New Zealand/Australasia), and WIT (Weird Icelandic Thing).


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 

    Film 

    Live Action TV 

    New Media 

    Video Games 

    Tabletop Games 

    Western Animation 

    Other