Line #23 Main/Americasia


1	[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daten_city_flag.png]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:The Sun Spangled Banner.]]
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4	A setting in which the dominant culture is a fusion of American and Asian influences, resulting in an entire city (or world) that resembles a Chinatown writ large. Glass and steel skyscrapers with flared pagoda roofs, [[ForeignCussWord Chinese curses dropped into English speech]], {{McNinja}}s working for TheMafia, that kind of thing.
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6	This typically involves American culture blended with either Chinese culture, Japanese culture, or a [[InterchangeableAsianCultures vague]] FarEast jumble. It can result from [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld China,]] [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japan,]] or [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld America]] taking over the world, or it can be a mashup FantasyCounterpartCulture. Unlike many CultureChopSuey settings like AncientGrome or {{Spexico}}, Americasia usually isn't the result of sloppiness or indifference, but a deliberate artistic choice.
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8	Americasian settings were very common in [[The80s '80s]] {{Cyberpunk}}, back when many thought that [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japan was going to take over the world.]] They've been making a comeback in recent years with the increasing popularity of Japanese and Korean culture in the West, along with the recent economic mindset that [[ChinaTakesOverTheWorld China will take over the world]]. This trope is pretty specific to American culture rather than just any Western culture, in part because the United States is the closest Western country outside of Oceania to UsefulNotes/TheFarEast thanks to Alaska and has a large and rapidly growing Asian minority concentrated around the country's most culturally influential areas-- UsefulNotes/{{California}}, UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, and UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC. A major factor was the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965 Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965]], which replaced years of discriminatory country-of-origin quotas in favour of a skills and family reunification based system.
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10	This is a very new trope, dating only about to the 1960s at the earliest; prior to that, Asian cultures were viewed as impossibly alien by most Americans (the various Chinatowns and Japanese cars becoming available on the West Coast as early as the 1950s notwithstanding). However, the opposite wasn't necessarily true in Japan and some parts of China, where Western culture caught on quite successfully - if not quite successfully enough to alter the aesthetic makeup of Asian cities.
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12	Non-American examples of this aesthetic are also becoming more common due to factors like many Asian, especially East Asian, cities rapidly growing in economic development, along the way mixing influences both from the developed West (including naturally the U.S. itself) with their existing, traditional Asian cultures. This is especially the case where English is also a dominant local language; see the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}, for example, whose modern urban centres owed much of their recent planning, design and aesthetics to American norms especially in the last century (helped in no small part by direct U.S. colonialism)[[note]]not to mention the even earlier [[LatinLand Spanish-colonial]] cultural borrowings[[/note]], but which even more recently have seen an explosion of East Asian cultural borrowings too, with Chinese, Japanese and Korean brands now dominating the urban landscape, and where not a few billboards, logos and public signs are already in East Asian scripts despite the vast majority being used to the Roman alphabet. UsefulNotes/{{Singapore}}, one other highly English-proficient Southeast Asian country - albeit British-colonised rather than American - also stands as almost a succinct RealLife case of this trope, with prominent English-language, Latin-alphabet signage coexisting with signs in Chinese languages and scripts, and much of its modern infrastructure and urban planning based in part on Western norms, especially earlier on in its independent history.
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14	Subtrope to CultureChopSuey and CreatorsCultureCarryover. Please limit examples to settings where this is the dominant culture, not just an [[FriendlyLocalChinatown ethnic enclave]] or any random instance of American and Asian cultures mingling.
15	----
16	!Examples
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18	[[foldercontrol]]
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20	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
21	* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'', similar to the ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' example mentioned below, presents a future where spacefaring humans have brought both western and eastern traditions with them, throughout the solar system, creating an odd fused culture on the colonized moons and planets.
22	* Small scale example in ''Anime/MacrossFrontier''. City Frontier (the large inhabited dome section) is split into two different areas, one modeled after [[UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco San Francisco]] and the other after Tokyo's [[UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}} Shibuya ward]].
23	* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' has a non-American example. Konohagakure/The Hidden Leaf Village was based on Creator/MasashiKishimoto's hometown, which was a Japanese town next to an American military base. This results in a ninja village that's Japanese (culturally and technically) but has adopted some American combat attitudes like never leaving a man behind.
24	* The comedy series ''Anime/PantyAndStockingWithGarterbelt'' takes place in Daten City, which the narration describes as existing between Heaven and Hell. Much of the setting could be described as {{Eagleland}}, but there are many Asian cultural clues as well: notably, the Demon sisters bow in apology to their boss, who nonetheless flushes them down two women's floor urinals. The fact that the Angel sisters operate from an AnimeCatholicism church further muddies the waters. Pictured above is its flag, which is a combination of the Japanese and USA flags.
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27	[[folder:Fan Works]]
28	* ''Fanfic/EverythingChangesMilkywayScribbles'' treats Kanto's culture as being a mix of Japan and the US. Some things are American, like the names, but they also have a Japanese viewpoint on bullying.
29	* Implied in ''Fanfic/KimiNoNaIowa'' due to its BroadStrokes compliance to ''Anime/YourName'' despite the different setting. No one seems to find anything weird about an Italian restaurant with frontage to a busy New York City street having a Japanese culture or the Shirokaze being able to build a new full-sized shrine in [=2010s=] New York City, regardless of earlier acknowledgement that Shinto is fringe outside Japan.
30	* Appears in ''Fanfic/ThePowerOfFriendshipAndThisGunIFound'', with Domino City set in Nihonifornia. Other notable cities include Los Osaka and San Fransokyo.
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33	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
34	* San Fransokyo in ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'' is, as the name suggests, UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco plus UsefulNotes/{{Tokyo}}. According to [[AllThereInTheManual supplementary material]], this was the result of the city being rebuilt primarily by Japanese immigrants in the wake of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_San_Francisco_earthquake 1906 San Francisco Earthquake]].
35	* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse'' introduces Earth-50101 (Pavitr's home dimension) and Mumbattan, a rare Indian variation of this trope which combines the culture of UsefulNotes/{{Mumbai}} with the size and sprawl of [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Manhattan]]. Being a fusion of two cities notorious for constant street congestion, Mumbattan traffic is always ''horrendous.''
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38	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
39	* ''Film/BatmanForever'' has Gotham City looking vaguely like Tokyo (whereas in the [[Film/Batman1989 previous]] [[Film/BatmanReturns films]], it had looked either like New York City circa 1940 or a "grim" Eastern European city).
40	* UsefulNotes/LosAngeles in ''Film/BladeRunner'' is slathered in a thick layer of JapanTakesOverTheWorld.
41	* ''Film/DemolitionMan'' has San Angeles, which has people wearing kimonos, a computer dominant society, and Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut) being the dominant food franchise.
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44	[[folder:Literature]]
45	* ''Literature/Babel17'' by Creator/SamuelRDelany mentions an actual future "Americasia", in a cold war with Pan Africa.
46	* ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' (and by extension ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000''): The capital city of the incompletely Tau-colonized planet of Gravalax gets this look, which makes Imperial onlookers uneasy: The human buildings are old, angular and festooned with utilitarian plumbing and ornementation, whereas [[AlienGeometries Tau buildings are much smoother, rounder and high tech]]. Tau loyalists also learn the Tau language and sometimes use it. (Perhaps by coincidence, the Tau word for human [''gue'la''] sounds like the Cantonese word for foreigner [''gwailo''].)
47	* ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'' features an AlternateHistory where the Axis powers won UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The United States is divided up and the west coast is part of UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan. The two cultures are blending together as the former Americans are adjusting to having Japanese rulers. Also, the "Pacific" metaculture is absorbing concepts from China (notably the pervasive references to I Ching) and other subjugated countries.
48	* ''Literature/SprawlTrilogy'': Due to the technological and cultural influence of [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japan]], Japanese influence is thick in the Sprawl, an urban zone taking up most of America's East Coast. Ninjas, yakuza, and other aspects of Japanese culture are common, and the New Yen is a standard form of currency.
49	* Italian writer Stefano Benni's ''Terra!'' makes several mentions of the Aramerorussian Empire (Arab Middle East + America + Russia). The book was written between the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, with the Cold War but also the oil crisis in mind.
50	* Aliette de Bodard's "Xuya" setting is an alternate history where the Ming Chinese went fully colonialist and invaded North America from the west, before teaming up with the Aztecs to kick the Spanish out of South America. The result is that by the twentieth century North America is divided between an independent Chinese-culture superpower called Xuya, a surviving and fully developed Mexica Empire, and a relatively small and poor English-culture United States of America in New England and Atlantic Canada.
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53	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
54	* [[TheFederation The Alliance]] in ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' was formed by the United States and China, and influences from both cultures are evident in the universe. The cast is devoid of Asians,[[note]]At least, people who look visibly Asian. While Simon and River Tam are played by the white actors Creator/SeanMaher and Creator/SummerGlau and aren't portrayed as anything other than white, the last name "Tam" (more commonly romanized as "Tan", especially outside of Hong Kong and Macau) is of Chinese origin, indicating some degree of Chinese descent.[[/note]] but Mandarin is spoken by everyone and Chinese writing is common.
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57	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
58	* Large parts of the American West Coast look like this in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' thanks to [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld Japan having taken over the world]]. It's particularly obvious in San Francisco, which has been a de-facto enclave of the Japanese Empire for decades. Predictably, its inhabitants (and those of the surrounding California Free State) adopt many Japanese customs and mix them with the existing culture.
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61	[[folder:Video Games]]
62	* The English localization of ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' takes place in Los Angeles instead of Japan. This worked out fine in the first game, but the franchise seems to get more and more obviously Japanese with each sequel (some suspect that the developers are deliberately trolling the localization team), resulting in one of the biggest cases of ThinlyVeiledDubCountryChange for the setting, to the point where fans have dubbed the setting 'Japanifornia'. The localization team seems to have taken a hint from this nickname and claim that in the ''Ace Attorney'' world, California never passed any anti-immigration laws, thus Japanese culture became much more prominent there than in real life. Since ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney'' heavily relies on depicting the culture clash of Meiji-era Japanese characters in Victorian England, the localization opted not to change the setting or names.
63	* The ''VideoGame/AceCombat'' series downplays this trope and combines it with FantasyCounterpartCulture. The Osean Federation is one of Strangereal's major superpowers and features prominently in many of the games. They are, for all intents and purposes, the United States of America, but with a decided use of the Japanese Self Defense Forces and their military rank system.
64	* In ''VideoGame/AfterTheEndAPostApocalypticAmerica'', Californian culture has absorbed a considerable amount of East Asian influence, from the prevalence of kimonos and ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanfu Hanfu]]'' clothing styles to a very syncretic mystical religion based on the wisdom of revered gurus to a political structure with a [[AuthorityInNameOnly figurehead Emperor]] reigning (but not ''ruling'') over a collection of powerful and power-hungry warlords. Even the Nazerenes and Imamites -- as California's Christians and Muslims call themselves, respectively -- use Confucian-inspired bureaucratic governments unless [[TheFundamentalist their more extreme sects]] gain power.
65	* Noctis City of ''VideoGame/AnnoMutationem'' is a giant mishmash of primarily Japanese and Korean influences, what with idols (live and virtual), pachinko machines, glowing neon signs in all Western and Eastern languages both, [[LaserSword laser ninja swords]] readily available at your local weapon store, and the sleek, angular, futuristic cars Japan is famous for. The most commonly spoken and used language is still English, however, and like many gigantic urban metropolises, it is also home to a variety of other cultures and ethnicities who've carved out their own niches.
66	* ''VideoGame/AzurLane'' Zigzags this. In the Anime, the Azur Lane Base quickly becomes this after the Sakura Empire Base is devastated and Crimson Axis rejoins Azur Lane. In the game it is a much slower process, predicated largely on the number of Sakura Empire and Dragon Empry shipgirls the player acquires as well as the dorm decorations. Further, the spring season distinctly features pink cherry blossoms on the academy grounds which largely resembles a US Navy base.
67	* Ostensibly the goal of Japan in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'' as part of the wider goal of JapanTakesOverTheWorld. This is best demonstrated in the Los Angeles level where there are several side-missions to destroy representations of American culture. Television studios captured in the same level are also explicitly mentioned to broadcast pro-Japanese propaganda to Americans.
68	* The CityWithNoName in ''VideoGame/MirrorsEdge'' looks like a merger of New York and Hong Kong. The majority of in-game texts (like signs and billboards) are dual-language, English and Chinese, and the main protagonist, Faith, is of both white and East Asian descent.
69	* Midgar City in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', in keeping with its general cyberpunk-ish theme, combines a lot of western and eastern influences in the design of its structures and inhabitants.
70	* A TravelMontage map in ''VideoGame/{{Jazzpunk}}'' shows that everything north of Mexico has become the "United Prefectures of Japanada". Yen is the standard currency (a robot hooker you encounter claims to still accept dollars, but that might just be local slang for whatever denomination is closest in value to the US/Canadian dollar at that point), and there's a flag on the wall in a shop consisting of a blue circle covered in white stars with red rays coming off of it.
71	* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
72	** In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' and its [[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 sequel games]], despite the Unova region being based on UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity and eastern UsefulNotes/NewJersey in the United States, it has quite a few Japanese influences including but not limited to:
73	*** The Abundant Shrine dedicated to Landorus, who is based heavily on the Shinto god of rice and fertility Inari.
74	*** The Preschooler class wears Japanese preschool uniforms.
75	*** Village Bridge having an enka singer.
76	*** The Clerk class being based on Japanese [[{{Salaryman}} salarymen]] and [[OfficeLady office ladies]], and the latter being outright called that in the Japanese versions.
77	*** The Skyarrow Bridge and Entralink taking influences from the Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Imperial Palace respectively.
78	*** The Oshawott Line being based around samurai.
79	*** Sawk and Throh originate in this region, and are based on karate and judo practitioners respectively.
80	** The Alola region from ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' is based on Hawaii and several towns in Alola are heavily Japanese. In-series this is due to Alola being settled by people from Kanto and Johto, two Japanese-inspired regions. This is even more justified as Hawaii has the highest Japanese Immigrant population of any state in the U.S. The largest city, Honolulu, can look very much like a modern Japanese city, especially when considering the high prices of real-estate in both regions.
81	* ''VideoGame/RedSteel2'' takes place in a mashup of TheWildWest and Feudal Japan. The unnamed hero is a SamuraiCowboy who fights against outlaws and ninjas.
82	* In ''VideoGame/RiverCityGirls'' and ''VideoGame/RiverCityGirls2'', the titular River City has Japanese style private schools where American cheerleaders and JapaneseDelinquents coexist. Burger joints serve their food out of izakaya-style restaurants, mixed martial arts dojos can be found in western suburbs with traditional and colonial-style housing, department stores resemble malls, Japanese and English text can be found everywhere, and the town even has an English name. Characters alternate between Japanese and American names, come in all colors and speak English with fashion being a similar mix. White, black, and other non-asian thugs sport a Japanese gangster wardrobe. Perhaps the best reflection of this is the game's character designer Rem, an American artist well known for her [[{{Animesque}} mangaesque]] comics.
83	* San Myshuno in the City Living EP for ''VideoGame/TheSims4'' is a combination of Tokyo and San Francisco, and the townies that live there either has a mix of western and asian names.
84	* Inkling culture in ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}''. The urban-industrial GraffitiTown setting of Inkopolis features elements of both Tokyo (the Shibuya-inspired Inkopolis Plaza) and New York City (the Times Square-inspired Inkopolis Square), with other cities like Splatsville following suit. Japanese influences are additionally evident in stuff like some symbolism and the traditional Japanese clothing shown by some characters (notably Marie through most of ''VideoGame/Splatoon2''), while American influence comes across through the TotallyRadical atmosphere inspired by late 90s/early 00s American pop culture (80s pop culture for ''Splatoon 2'''s ''[[DownloadableContent Octo Expansion]]'').
85	* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'': The setting is predominantly the DeepSouth InSpace (redneck construction workers, {{Space Trucker}}s and {{Southern Fried Private}}s), but in the gap between the first and second games, a huge fanbase built up in South Korea, leading to some Korean-language signs in the background (admittedly, this is only in the futuristic cities).
86	* ''VideoGame/StoryOfSeasons'' games are always set in a European- or American-inspired region with heavy Japanese influences. For example, the cast predominantly has western names (though some families have mixed names, such as Ran being Gray's sister), most of the cast is implied to be white (with most others being either {{Mukokuseki}} or un-ambiguously Asian), and their [[CrystalDragonJesus religion is a mismash of pagan and Christian beliefs]]. The wildlife is often Japanese and they celebrate both American holidays (such as Halloween) and Japanese ones (such as White Day).
87	* Springdale from ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' is this way in the English localization. In Japan, the series explictly takes place in Japan, with the English versions opting to set it in America. Thus, the characters have American names and use the dollar as their currency, yet there are also a lot of Japanese cultural influences, including the yo-kai themselves. This makes for an awkward setup in [[VideoGame/YokaiWatch3 the third game]], which has the main character's family move from Japan to the United States; the English localization had him move to the fictional country of BBQ, and changed him being unable to speak English to being unable to parse the local DeepSouth dialect.
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90	[[folder:Web Original]]
91	* Israeli web series ''The Shvetz Family'' gives a ''West'' Asian twist on this trope; while its setting is definitely Israeli (for example, a character mentions losing their son in the First Lebanon War), the aesthetics resemble those of an American {{Suburbia}}.
92	* ''WebVideo/AnimeCrimesDivision'': Neo Otaku City looks like a run-of-the-mill American city, except it's also peppered with Japanese cultural references.
93	* ''WebAnimation/SparkleOnRaven'' is a deliberate parody of how {{fanime}} often [[CreatorsCultureCarryover assume Japan is more like America than it really is]]. Raven and her friends seem to attend a Japanese-style high school with the requisite school uniforms and clubs, and several characters are seen wearing kimono, but the setting otherwise has very western styling, such as the characters visiting a real-life Floridian KitschyThemedRestaurant called Cooters, and the local currency being explicitly referred to as dollars. This even extends to the characters' names, with Ryan Sasuke and Albert Tensai having American first names and Japanese last names.
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96	[[folder:Western Animation]]
97	* Neo-Gotham in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''. Apparently the DCAU's idea of the future is a lot of neon signs with Japanese writing on them.
98	* The United Republic in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' is a slightly unusual example in that it features American influences (namely the RoaringTwenties) layered over an Asian-inspired setting rather than the other way around.
99	* Little Tokyo Townsville in the 1998 ''WesternAnimation/{{The Powerpuff Girls\|1998}}'' is essentially a district within Townsville with a strong Japanese influence and architecture. And despite the [[NonIndicativeName "Little" in their name, it's actually a very large city]].
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Context Main / Americasia