Learning Japanese, Once About Resumes, Is Now About Cool describes the “new” Japanese-language student (not so new in So Cal, by the way, where animé obsession goes back more than a decade):
When Yuki Sasaki began working in the Japanese-language program at the University of Georgia in 1995, most students were international business majors interested in studying things like polite Japanese expressions and the ins and outs of Japanese business-card exchange.Nine years later, Ms. Sasaki says her students are a different sort. They ask for help in translating Japanese pop-song lyrics and talk excitedly about the Japanese cartoon character Card Captor Sakura. And they blurt out colloquial Japanese expressions, like baka! (stupid), that they have learned from comics.
‘It’s amazing how you can see the changes happening right before your eyes,’ Ms. Sasaki says. Japanese pop culture, she says, ‘is their passion.’