Status Updates From Tokyo Sucker-Punch by Isaac...

So far so good, haven't found any new problematic bull shit so far. Billy Chaka is as absurd as his encounters' are enthralling; and just as I remember! Classic pulp noir with a turn of the century weeaboo twist.

"One personal tragedy in a tragically impersonal world wasn't going to derail a stock market, crash a corporation, or affect a sports teams's shot at the title."

A perceptive and poignant observation on subjective grief.

"Things could be better," Hiro said while studied the ground. From the many years I'd spent carefully observing Japanese body language and colloquial euphemisms, this could mean only one thing. Hiro Bhutan's wife had kicked him out of their bed."

Billy Chaka's gaijin ass get's it lol

The quintessential white lack of self-awarenesss, American style: "Perhaps it was a little rude, but you can get away with being rude if you're American. It's expected. In fact, sometimes it's deemed impolite for an American not to treat his Japanese host with the proper degree of disrespect."

Nowhere in the world is this a thing. There is no culture on earth that wants to be disrespected. This behavior is never ok.

White savior complex makes its debut!

"He felt eternally indebted to me because I had saved his brother from from a probable prison term by writing a brilliant–if wordy by Japanese standards–plea to the state to drop the charges when the guy got mixed up with in an exercise video pirating ring. [...] He got a full pardon and often used my defense of his character as a letter of introduction."

Right out the jump, first sentence, fetishizing Japanese women.

"I'm hardwired for Geisha."

Editor's Note:
As for Japan, perhaps Oscar Wilde said it best: "In fact the whole of japan is pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people."

Yikes! WTF? Ah yes, the age-old adage of using a literary quote to come across more learned and worldly than you are while regrettably insulting your subject and disclosing, that in fact, you are a dilettante.

Re-reading to analyze how problematic it is. Read this when it first came out, and while I rolled my eyes HARD at this white man who viewed himself more Japanese than the Japanese, I still enjoyed the story. Glad that language has finally labelled Japanese cultural appropriators, weebs. In 2000, there was no such term and I chalked it up to "white people white peopling". White people love to play ethnic-pretend.