this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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Good ways to get in contact with a pen pal who lives Japan? (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Seeing so many people in the U.S. driven to either commit or condone violence both social and physical by their total disconnection from reality, as well as the heightened suppression and censorship of any and all dissenting voices, has me feeling like I'm growing an increasing disdain for humanity as a whole. So, I think it would be good for me to talk to someone who exists outside of the English-speaking world.

Obviously Japan is not the most detached country from the hegemony, and generally it has its own reactionary ideals as a state, but the reasons that I'm interested in speaking with someone from Japan are specifically that I've been gradually learning the basics of Japanese (I have hiragana and katakana memorized and I'm working on expanding vocabulary and figuring out sentence structure now, as well as slowly learning some Kanji), and that the average Japanese person is not consuming English-speaking media. I'm aware that Japan is beset by its own hyper-capitalist media hellscape, but it's still different, and that's what I need right now.

If you guys wanted to just reach out and talk casually to someone who lives in Japan, how would you go about it?

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[โ€“] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The most commonly used SNS for instant messaging in Japan is called Line, so I would download that for starters. I find Instagram usage is pretty high too, for sharing your standard travel snaps and slice of life content. If you don't already have any Japanese friends who you're messaging on those platforms then I would suggest an app like HelloTalk or iTalki (language exhange apps), list your Japanese level as basic (i think they allow you to say basic/intermediate/advanced) strike up a convo there and then move across to Line/Insta. The italki app is fine and all but it's artificial.

and that the average Japanese person is not consuming English-speaking media

Unfortunately this isn't my experience depending on age-bracket. There is a sizeable portion of Japanese people (I'm going 18-35 here cos that's the range for my friendship group) who do consume marvel/disney. Disney in particular with Disney World and Disney Sea being popular theme parks. Universal Studios in osaka too. Idrk what IPs are which but to say that western media is a cornerstone of pop culture. That being said there's a lot more domestic media they'll watch relatively speaking, and a decent amount of kdrama.

If there were a single series that you could watch that would have the broadest cut-through as a leaping off point, I would recommend Conan the detective, which has been an anime mainstay, demon Slayer too more recently.

Idk these are broad generalisations I'm typing up on my lunch break

[โ€“] Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Very helpful, thank you!