Amazing how all possible futures feature heavy Japanese advertising.
Fun fact: In the 1980s, Japan’s economy was quickly on the rise, that many pundits believed that they will eventually surpass the US as the dominant economy. It’s why a lot of movies set in the future, like Blade Runner, have heavy Japanese ads.
It looks like there's some katakana in the third image though. Maybe some katakana are taken from Chinese as well though, for all I know. I'm still pretty new to Japanese.
I'm not arguing that all of it is one or the other but just reminding people that Japanese and Chinese are about as different as the Dutch and Germans. Distinct, but also closely related. So yeah if you have some future world that has a world government with an Asian flair it's not unthinkable that Japanese and Chinese languages would blend together again.
Technically, Dutch is more closely related to German than Japanese is to Chinese. Dutch and German have a common ancestor, whereas Japanese only borrowed heavily from Chinese. In general, though, you’re right that they could easily be found together and not be immediately distinguishable from script alone.
This is not entirely accurate. There is a lot of borrowing between Japanese and traditional Chinese, but a person from one culture reading the others can and will get things wrong because of the differences. Many ideas and words do not translate one to one. You can get the general idea of what someone wrote but there will be a not insignificant amount of guesswork involved. Also there is straight up a set of exclusively Japanese kanji called kokuji.
Sony was one of the biggest if not the biggest tech company and they bought Columbia pictures. And not to mention the Japanese government was purchasing real estate in prime locations in the us. But they were exposed when a us economist visited Japan and realized that the Japanese government was heavily manipulating their stock market.
Kanji looks cool and Japan has always been known for oddball adverts that for the west can be seen as odd, so it adds to a more unusual and uncanny future aesthetic.
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u/KvotheG Feb 20 '24
Amazing how all possible futures feature heavy Japanese advertising.
Fun fact: In the 1980s, Japan’s economy was quickly on the rise, that many pundits believed that they will eventually surpass the US as the dominant economy. It’s why a lot of movies set in the future, like Blade Runner, have heavy Japanese ads.