History Main / OccidentalOtaku

* ''Webcomic/{{Rain}}'' is fond of {{manga}} (and the author [[https://www.deviantart.com/jocelynsamara/art/TV-Tropes-Meme-259878935 knows]] that therefore this trope applies to her), and Gavin is into {{anime}}.

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'':
** Firo (an Italian-American teenager who has never left the States in the last [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld seventy-two years]]) shocks a Japanese tourist by conversing with him in almost disturbingly fluent Japanese. When asked, he claims that he learned it from reading raw manga (well, and Yagumo taught him some 19th century Japanese, but that's besides the point).
** Isaac and Miria also speak Japanese... in prohibition-era America. No explanation is ever given, but it's [[CloudCuckooLander Isaac and Miria]]. It should be noted that they later appeared in a {{cameo}} in the ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'' anime, implying that they apparently move to/visit Japan at some point... though this doesn't explain how they learned to speak Japanese in the first place.

* In ''Literature/TheCaseFilesOfJewelerRichard'', Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian is a British man with a vested interest in Japanese. He started learning the language around the age of five because he believed the difficulty would make it easier to later learn other languages (and given that he turned into an {{Omniglot}}, it seems to have worked). Along with his attachment to his Japanese tutor, this rapidly developed into even naming his childhood pet "Taro" and studying Japanese in university and graduate school. His dream has been to teach English to Japanese students, and he has a familiarity with Japanese culture and classical literature that dwarfs Seigi's, the actual Japanese protagonist of the series.

* ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'':
** Rias Gremory has a strong appreciation for Japanese culture, everything from the food to the spirituality, to the point where she sets up her base of operations there. Her first interaction with her future [[ChessMotifs Queen]] was to compliment native-born Akeno's black hair. What puts Rias in a class above is that she's Pure Devil - born in Hell - and still finds Japanese culture that fascinating.
** There's Susan, one of Issei's first customers. She is an avid fan of Samurai-era Japan, and always wears a samurai armor.

* In comedic ''LightNovel/InfiniteStratos'' spin-off manga, one of Laura's German subordinates has enthusiastically studied Japanese culture by way of games, anime, and manga, and regularly gives her advice on fitting in in Japan and pursuing Ichika.

* Pina Sformklan Estor from ''LightNovel/LadiesVersusButlers'', princess of a small Scandinavian country, is possibly among the most absurd. While she occasionally acts shy at first, she's quite willing to lecture people about how underappreciated anime is as a cultural medium, or how ridiculous she finds it that a Japanese school would place old European literature above modern manga. She's in fact in Japan partially for research, as her nation's main entertainment industry is imported anime. She's also a CosplayOtakuGirl who spends most evenings wandering the grounds dressed as a MagicalGirlWarrior with a hammer almost as big as she is.

** Despite not actually being very fond of Japan itself, Lord El-Melloi II from ''LightNovel/LordElMelloiIICaseFiles'' has a well known preoccupation with Japanese video games, [[spoiler:a quirk he adopted from his former Servant of [[LightNovel/FateZero the fourth Grail War, Alexander the Great]]]]. He was quite excited to learn that one of the students he was sponsoring was actually Japanese... until he discovered that she knew absolutely nothing about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara Akihabara]] or otaku culture. [[spoiler:Rin Tohsaka was never that good with tech anyway, let alone otaku culture]].

* Alice in ''Manga/CroiseeInAForeignLabyrinth'' is a 19th-century French version. Obviously, given the time period, ukiyo-e prints and kimonos take the place of anime and video games as focal points of interest. Like more modern examples of this trope, however, she's just as clueless as to the difference between her understanding of Japan and actual Japanese culture.

* InvertedTrope in ''Manga/The100GirlfriendsWhoReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyLoveYou'' - [[spoiler:Nadeshiko (or "Naddy", as she prefers)]] is a Japanese woman obsessed with America, due to her hatred of the YamatoNadeshiko life she was forced to live as a child.

* In ''WebOriginal/ShadowrunStorytime'', 2D needs a private spot during the Neo-Tokyo job so he can start hacking and settles on a maid cafe. To ensure nobody bothers him, he enters as the absolute ''worst'' incarnation of this trope: Wearing a kimono (with ''nothing'' underneath), with a waifu bodypillow in one arm, a bag of nasty hentai in the other, while speak-screaming in the most broken, weeabo Japanese he can manage. The employees stay as far away from him as possible while the rest of the team mourns the damage 2D has done to America's reputation.

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' has Beast Boy, a non-Japanese manga addict, and Control Freak, an offbeat villain who's more of a [[Franchise/StarTrek Trekkie]], but still tried to convert himself into a TV signal so he could become a character in his favorite anime one time... and briefly succeeded, until Beast Boy defeated him with his superior knowledge of TV trivia. Incidentally, in the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansTroubleInTokyo'' movie, it was shown that Beast Boy can't read Japanese, and doesn't even know what Otaku means.

* WesternAnimation/PeterPotamus is depicted as one of these in ''WesternAnimation/{{Jellystone}}''; he obsessively collects figures, has a body pillow of a catgirl, and imitates Naruto during a wrestling event. He's desperate for friends and when Top Cat and his gang end up crashing at his house, he annoys them by wanting to watch [=OVAs=] and other such activities with them.
* ''WesternAnimation/RosiesRules'': Crystal might be an anime fan if [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crystal_notebook.png this]] FreezeFrameBonus in "Rosie's Seashell Museum" is anything to go by. In her notebook, she drew what appears to be a purple-haired Anime/SailorMoon.

* Anthony from ''Manga/DokiDokiSchoolHours''.

* [[NationsAsPeople France and Canada]] of ''Anime/HetaliaAxisPowers''.

* Frank from ''Manga/NodameCantabile''.

* Snake from ''Literature/TheCyberDragonsTrilogy'' by Creator/CTPhipps is a surprisingly serious version of it, being a Mexican gangster who has adopted all the trappings of a Japanese samurai while teaching his students martial arts as well as cybernetically augmenting them. This includes a BlueAndOrangeMorality code of ethics that it takes Kei years to shake out of her head.

* Bert Cooper on ''Series/MadMen'' is a japanophile, which features in one episode when SCDP meets with Honda. He also makes people take off their shoes in his office.
* Claire in ''Series/{{Dramaworld}}'' is an American who is a huge [[KoreanSeries Korean drama]] fangirl (although her fandom is Korean rather than Japanese, the trope still fits)

** Hilariously inverted and then further inverted ''again'' by Osakabehime in the same game. By default, she's a Japanese {{youkai}} who is a shut-in that likes to spout Engrish phrases. When she debuted in the global version, her quirk is translated into speaking in a bizarre weebspeak, mangling Japanese and English phrases at the same time, resulting in cringy phrases like "Gomenasorry", "Chotto a minute", "Yametekudastop", etc...
* According to the supplemental material for ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'', Sakuya Le Bel has a fascination with ninja and samurai. Since he [[ButNotTooForeign usually identifies more with the French side of his family]], it comes off as this.
* ''VisualNovel/GoGoNippon'' is a visual novel made in Japan specifically for the foreign market, and its main character (unnamed and featureless, since it's a stand-in for the player himself) is an otaku coming from an unnamed, but definitely Western, country.
* [[ForeignExchangeStudent Sonia Nevermind]] in ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'' is a princess from the European MicroMonarchy of [[Music/{{Nirvana}} Novoselic]] and a big fan of Japanese TV dramas and anime.

* Piro from ''Webcomic/{{Megatokyo}}'', who learned Japanese from anime and video games (and therefore, given what he watches, sounds like a teenage girl).

* Eri-chan in ''Webcomic/StrangeCandy''.
* Bob Floy in ''Webcomic/FlyingSuitReiko''. It's mentioned in the author's notes that him being an otaku was specifically so it'd make sense for him to know Japanese.
* Despite providing the popular Alternate Name for this trope, [[http://pbfcomics.com/71/ "weeaboo"]] as shown in ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship'' seems to be some kind of humiliating ritual hazing. The name comes from Website/FourChan wordfiltering "wapanese"[[note]]"White + Japanese" as in white people who try to act Japanese[[/note]] to "weeaboo", and it spread from there.

** Averted in that the school is actually quite a successful business venture, and that he eventually marries the secretary there, and moves on.
* Rufioh Nitram from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' once lived in the forest with a group of "[[Film/{{Hook}} Lost Weaboos]]" that he led. Note, that as a space alien, the anime they watched and manga they read was actually from "[[AliensOfLondon East Beforus]]", and the tribe actually counted East Beforan Damara Megido as a member and Rufioh's girlfriend. [[ClingyJealousGirl Poor Rufioh]].
* ''Webcomic/YumeHime'''s Laurie, who creates the titular alter-ego after becoming obsessed with MagicalGirl anime as a little girl.

* Marigold of ''Webcomic/QuestionableContent''.
* Both Ash and the “Fort Shadaloo” group from ''Webcomic/BlasterNation''
* ''Webcomic/DearChildren'' gives us Gabe Hernandez, an Hispanic ShrinkingViolet high school student and major anime fan from the Central Valley of California who moves to [[TownWithADarkSecret Hearthbrook]] in [[LovecraftCountry Essex County, Massachussetts]], and promptly finds himself living a CosmicHorror story.

* Harold from ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama''.

* Panda in ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears''. Loves anime, has a huge manga collection and has a body pillow called "Miki-chan" which sometimes is treated as a CompanionCube. He's also a fairly good artist, but draws everything in manga style.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
** Otacon is a huge fan of the mecha genre is one of the main reasons he wanted to work in robotics. His nickname comes from a popular anime convention.
** There's also Para-Medic, who loves everything about Japan, especially cinema. In the mid-1960s, no less. In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' it's revealed she even has a Japanese assistant, whose mitochondrial DNA she used to [[spoiler:create Snake and his brothers]].
** Played with by Revolver Ocelot, a Soviet ([[spoiler:born technically French]]) agent who obsesses over American culture. He dresses like a cowboy, uses revolvers and named himself after an American wild cat. [[spoiler:It may not surprise you to learn at the end of the third game that he's actually loyal to the US government, and his mother was American.]]
* [[AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents The Silvermans]] from ''VideoGame/Persona2'' are obsessed with traditional Japanese culture, much to their daughter Lisa's chagrin.
* The vaguely effeminate French exchange student Andre Laurent Jean Geraux (AKA, Bebe) from ''VideoGame/Persona3''.
* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'': Travis Touchdown is the very embodiment of this trope, down to his pink MagicalGirl t-shirt and beam katana. That's right, he has a ''working LaserBlade'' that he won off an online auction. He uses it to kill stuff.
** He started killing stuff, in fact, so that he would [[BloodKnight have something to do with his new working beam katana]]. ([[spoiler:Turns out it's actually a bit more [[MindScrew complicated]].]])
* Mr. Sunnyside from ''VideoGame/SakuraWars: [[VideoGame/SakuraWarsSoLongMyLove So Long My Love]]'' is obsessed with Japanese culture to the point of building a massive Japanese style mansion in the middle of Central Park in New York City!
** Gemini Sunrise is a big fan of Japan, as well: she's particularly taken with stories of samurai, going so far as to train under a Japanese swordsman in America and wield a [[KatanasAreJustBetter katana]] in combat.
* The translator of ''VideoGame/BraveSoul'' ended up being included in the DevelopersRoom, as an obese blond, jogging in the lobby and mumbling about 'Oppai'.

* Sodom, from the ''VideoGame/FinalFight'' and ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' games. He seems fascinated by samurai in particular. He wears a samurai helmet and mask with football pads and blue jeans. His win quotes largely consist of badly pronounced Japanese, he wrote the character for "Death" incorrectly on his shirt (though his calligraphy is very good), and his weapons are katanas and jittes (weapons used by police in the Edo period). His World Warrior Encyclopedia entry notes that he believes certain Japanese "unlucky words" inflict spiritual damage on an opponent, causing him to incorporate these words into the names of his moves (such as Jigoku[[note]]Hell[[/note]] Scrape and [[https://jisho.org/search/butsumetsu Butsumetsu]] Buster).
* ''VideoGame/FatalFury'''s primary villain, crime boss Geese Howard, is a variation on this. While not depicted as interested in Anime or Manga, Geese's office on the top floor of his tower is covered in Japanese artifacts, and he himself wears a traditional akido fighter's uniform in most of his appearances. And considering [[TheDon who he is]], no-one's going to call him out on it.

* Valentine, from ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'', is, according to [[WordOfGod Alex Ahad]], a weeaboo.
* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/ShadowWarrior2013''. Lo Wang is Japanese and obsessed with American music, comic books, films and TV.
* Lionel Jones, a.k.a. Benjamin, from ''VideoGame/TrueCrimeNewYorkCity'' is this in spades with his zen garden, samurai armor, and katana.
-->'''Marcus Reed:''' ''[wielding an AK-47]'' I ain't gonna get into no samurai shit with you, man. I want answers.\\
'''Lionel Jones:''' ''[slices off the barrel of the AK-47]'' There's steel, and then there's my Shinto sword. Cuts through bone like butter.

* Implied with Moira from ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}''. Her third-person run animation has her holding her arms behind her a la ''Anime/{{Naruto}}'', and her several of her sprays are references to scenes from a variety of anime.
** But wait, there's more! Moira's ultimate, [[HealingShiv Coalescence]], look similar to a [[Franchise/DragonBall Kamehameha]], points like [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Jotaro]], plots like [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Gendo]], styles her hair like [[Anime/HunterXHunter Hisoka]], and seem to have regenerated her arm like [[Anime/{{Akira}} Tetsuo]].
* Tegiri Kalbur of ''VideoGame/{{Hiveswap}}'' is a parody of this trope, with frequent mention of alien Japanese (err, sorry, ''Eastern Alternian'') culture.

* Ashley Taylor, a character exclusive to the English server of ''[[VideoGame/MagiaRecordPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaSideStory Magia Record]]'', is a Californian living in the Japanese city the game is set in. She's a diehard J-fashion and anime fan that taught herself Japanese and is obsessed enough to actually became a magical girl in exchange for being able to go to Japan. Even when speaking English, she fawningly throws the word "kawaii," which she considers very SeriousBusiness, around constantly.

* Panda in ''WesternAnimation/WeBareBears''. Loves anime, has a huge manga collection and has a body pillow called "Nikki-chan" which sometimes is treated as a CompanionCube. He's also a fairly good artist, but draws everything in manga style.

* In ''LightNovel/TheCaseFilesOfJewelerRichard'', Richard Ranasinghe de Vulpian is a British man with a vested interest in Japanese. He started learning the language around the age of five because he believed the difficulty would make it easier to later learn other langauges (and given that he turned into an {{Omniglot}}, it seems to have worked). Along with his attachment to his Japanese tutor, this rapidly developed into even naming his childhood pet "Taro" and studying Japanese in university and graduate school. His dream has been to teach English to Japanese students, and he has a familiarity with Japanese culture and classical literature that dwarfs Seigi's, the actual Japanese protagonist of the series.

* Patricia Martin from ''Anime/LuckyStar'': Introduced working alongside Konata at the CosplayCafe wearing full [[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya Mikuru]] regalia. Her whole purpose comes down to being a way for the creators to (gently) parody Western fans. Heck, her knowledge of the Japanese language and culture is derived solely from fansubbed anime and manga. Not to mention she's also a requisite YaoiFangirl. In universe, Konata and Hiyori hit it off with her pretty quickly, and her more Occidental Otaku moments mostly get written off to her being a foreign BunnyEarsLawyer.

In the west, the term refers almost exclusively to anime fans, but some otaku are into other aspects of Japanese culture instead, and early examples of this trope were obsessed with traditional Japanese dress and food, especially if the work took place right after Japan opened itself to the world.

Often derisively called a "weeaboo" online, or "weeb" for short, which originated on Website/FourChan when [[FunWithAutocensors "Wapanese" was telephone-gamed into a nonsense word originally from]] ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship''. This has become an AppropriatedAppellation to the point where calling oneself an otaku is falling out of fashion, and anime fans now jokingly (or at least self-depricatingly) refer to themselves as weebs more often than not.

* Anna from ''Literature/{{Mouse}}'' has filled her bedroom with anime figurines, posters for Japanese bands, light novels, anime [=DVDs=], stuffed anime creatures, and a bedside lamp shaped like a Japanese lantern. Unlike most examples, Anna actually does have Japanese ancestry, but in her efforts to reclaim her heritage she went way overboard, at least in the opinion of her brother Kai, who thinks she should have just read a book about Japan or something.

* The English-language imageboard Website/FourChan was originally designed for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime, as the site was modelled on Japanese imageboards. Despite its later increase in popularity, much of its content still features otaku, anime and other Japanese cultural influences.

** The Ninja Kids consume exclusively Japanese media.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

** This is, oddly, [[ShownTheirWork probably more accurate]] than most depictions in anime; while a lot of more obscure stuff (such as ''Excel Saga'' itself, ironically enough) would probably get you strange looks, ''nearly everybody in America'' is familiar with {{Franchise/Pokemon}}, ''Manga/DragonBall'' and ''Manga/SailorMoon.''

* [[NationsAsPeople France and Canada]] of ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers''.

* ''Podcast/FindUsAlive'' has Dr. Klein, who keeps an "extensive anime collection" with at least a few seasons of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' and ''Anime/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', among others.

* This goes back [[OlderThanTheyThink a lot further than you might expect.]] In the late 19th century, artists, particularly French and British artists, loved to emulate Japanese woodblock styles. In many ways, the Japonism of the 19th century helped inspire the modernism of the 20th century.

* In a way (though not nearly as pronounced as Weaboo-ism), this happened ''in reverse'' in Japan with regards to the Portuguese. After two traders landed by accident on the island of Tanegashima in the mid-1540's, a minor fascination with Portugal (and later, other European nations such as the Netherlands and England, prior to the closure of Japan by the Shogunate) developed. While a lot of modern loanwords in Japanese are derived from English, plenty of more ingrained terms in the language are derived from Portuguese, and a good handful of traditionally Japanese foods (ironically the ones that are so praised by modern Weeaboos!) are decidedly Western in origin, having hailed from the Iberian peninsula, only with almost 500 years of changes made to them.

The PhenotypeStereotype-afflicted Westerner with stereotypical {{Otaku}} interests usually centering around anime. Usually--but not always--made fun of in both western and Japanese media, but in different ways. Western portrayals tend to be more straightforward parodies, but Eastern ones, more dualistic: In Japanese media, their obsession is the reason for their AnimeAccentAbsence (they learned the language from anime) and why they came to Japan and are interacting with natives in the first place. So they'll at least be portrayed as more knowledgeable than the average American, just cringey.

Often derisively called a "weeaboo" online, or "weeb" for short, which originated on Website/FourChan when [[FunWithAutocensors "Wapanese" was telephone-gamed into a nonsense word originally from ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship]]. This has become an AppropriatedAppellation to the point where calling oneself an otaku is falling out of fashion, and anime fans now jokingly (or at least self-depricatingly) refer to themselves as weebs more often than not.

The PhenotypeStereotype-afflicted Westerner with stereotypical {{Otaku}} interests usually centering around anime. When male, often a... {{hentai}} enjoyer. When female, frequently a YaoiFangirl.

Usually made fun of in both western and Japanese media, but in different ways. Western portrayals tend to be more straightforward parodies, but Eastern ones, more dualistic: In Japanese media, their obsession is the reason for their AnimeAccentAbsence (they learned the language from anime) and why they came to Japan and are interacting with natives in the first place. So they'll at least be portrayed as more knowledgeable than the average American character.

The PhenotypeStereotype-afflicted Westerner with beyond stereotypical {{Otaku}} interests sometimes seen in Anime. Their interests provide an excuse for their AnimeAccentAbsence (they learned Japanese from anime) and gives them a reason for interacting with native otaku. Non Anime/Manga fan versions are extremely rare in the modern age, but some Otakus otherwise are just way into Japanese culture, and early examples of this trope were obsessed with traditional Japanese dress and food, especially if the work takes place right after Japan opened itself to the world.

Often derisively called a "weeaboo" online, or "weeb" for short, which originated on Website/FourChan when [[FunWithAutocensors "Wapanese" was wordfiltered into the nonsense word]] from ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship''. When female, frequently overlaps with YaoiFangirl and when male, frequently overlaps with YuriFan. A sub-trope of ForeignCultureFetish. However, in recent times, calling oneself an otaku is falling out of fashion, and often seen just as bad, or even worse than weeb. In fact, several anime fans now self-depricatingly and jokingly refer to themselves as "filthy weebs" more often than not.

* Dr. Krieger from ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' often shows signs of this, including having a collection of [[AllAnimeIsNaughtyTentacles hentai envolving tentacles]] and a sentient holographic anime girl (who he created himself) as his girlfriend.