It's fair to say the culture is younger, but they have a very complete Shinto deity mythos that's just as lavish and nuanced as the Greek gods.
The isolation provided by being an hard to reach island has, in my opinion, made their culture quite differentiated and useful to contrast my own culture with.
For example, I learned from the Japanese that children are much more capable than my own culture thinks they are. So I don't coddle them as much as my peers do.
>The isolation provided by being an hard to reach island has, in my opinion, made their culture quite differentiated and useful to contrast my own culture with.
Not really. Vast portions of pre-modern Japanese culture was borrowed from China. From fashion and art to language, philosophy and religion. Even the "very complete Shinto deity mythos" is not what you claim:
>Even among experts, there are no settled theories on what Shinto is or how far it should be included, and there are no settled theories on where the history of Shinto begins[0]
And true Shintoism has been dead for centuries.
>I learned from the Japanese that children are much more capable than my own culture thinks they are.
It's actualy the opposite. Modern childhood innocence, to the extent that it is a new development*, is a western export that has it's roots in romanticism. It isn't really unique to Japan to not have it to the same extent.
People like Japan because of anime, which does have it's roots in Japanese art, although it has become somewhat overstated and in any event was borrowed from Chinese.
What it is in my opinion is that Japan was the first of the east asian countries to become rich. So people who like east asian culture "found" Japan first, then came up with all this Japanese exceptionalism. Which is really shockingly ignorant being that China was the culture for almost an entire millennium. Chinese silk, jade, tea, and what else, fine china were found in all royal palaces around the world. You can even see it's effect on fashion in some 16-17th century english art.
None of this is to say thag Japan doesn't have a unique culture, but it is heavily overstated in the last two decades. It was also used to explain Japan's economic rise in 1980. Now that Taiwan and Korea have done the same that element has been conveniently forgotten.
*That is, to the extent that it didn't already exist before. High childhood mortality prevented the concept childhood innocence as it exists and is manifested today (such as coddling).
Foreigners have exotified Japan well before anime, I think your point about exceptionalism stands though and points to what I think is the real reason for it's popularity; To explain modern day infatuation, if I were to be a little shallow, I would say Japan is just the east-asian country that's most accessible to the west, since it's cultural shifts somewhat met the west in the middle after WWII.
It's still an exotic location and culture to a westerner, but it's safe and easy to engage with, and it's acceptable to enjoy it. It has no political tensions, it has no religious tensions (for travelers), it has a very agreeable set of social rules, and it's extremely safe to visit even if you go off the beaten path. It's like East-Asia Easy Mode for travelers.
The isolation provided by being an hard to reach island has, in my opinion, made their culture quite differentiated and useful to contrast my own culture with.
For example, I learned from the Japanese that children are much more capable than my own culture thinks they are. So I don't coddle them as much as my peers do.