What began as a niche interest in anime, manga, and sushi has hardened into a full-blown obsession for young Americans, especially Gen Z. Netflix reported in 2025 that anime viewership has tripled over five years, mirroring a travel boom that has made Japan one of the most coveted stamps in a Gen Z passport.

For many first‑time visitors, Tokyo is a must‑see, less as a historic capital than as an ideal place portrayed in the online videos and shows they grew up streaming. In short, Japan for Gen Z isn’t just a cool country to visit, it’s a way of life and a romantic escape, something like the France or Italy of the 21st century.

Soft power and a curated Japan

The roots of this fixation go back decades, as Japan slowly shifted from an economic juggernaut to a cultural superpower exporting everything from Tamagotchi toys to Pokémon to Naruto. Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye called this kind of influence “soft power”—a quiet seduction built not on military might but on ideas, aesthetics, and entertainment. This comes as even Nye says President Donald Trump is leading a notable decline in America’s soft power.

Anthropologist Merry White described a “Japan, not Japan” effect to the Deseret News, where once-exotic imports become so ubiquitous that they’re no longer labeled Japanese at all—think ramen, sushi, or Uniqlo hoodies. She pointed out that Japan has seeped deeply into Western daily life, even before a passport stamp.

A mirror as much as a destination

Japan’s rise as Gen Z’s dream destination also reflects shifting ideas of status. Blogger Noah Smith, a noted Japanophile, has argued that where “anything French” once defined high-class in America, “anything Japanese” now occupies that space, from Michelin‑starred omakase counters to minimalist home goods. Tokyo has held the title of the city with the most Michelin‑starred restaurants worldwide for over 15 years, reinforcing its image as a global capital of taste and refinement.

Yet the most telling symbol of this new romance may not be a luxury meal, but a convenience‑store egg salad sandwich or a Lawson onigiri, which young travelers rave about for being cheap and predictably good. In elevating these small, orderly pleasures, Gen Z is not just romanticizing Japan—it is registering a quiet protest against an American public life they experience as frayed, rude, and exhausting, and imagining, 6,700 miles away, how things might function differently.

Longing for order in an anxious America

Gen Z’s hunger for Japan is no longer just about pop culture; it is increasingly about social order. In interviews, young travelers describe a country that feels like “the future”—a place with high‑speed trains, spotless subway platforms, and convenience stores that are cleaner than some American restaurants.

Tokyo, one of the densest cities on earth, is widely seen as remarkably clean despite having almost no public trash cans, a small detail that astonishes many U.S. visitors. White argued this reflects an internalized sense of responsibility, not a fear of punishment: People carry their trash home because that’s what everyone does. It’s in marked contrast to an American culture where politeness feels optional, and public spaces can become battlegrounds.

The Japan romantics may be overlooking some clear drawbacks, however, including the 30 years of economic struggles that followed the bursting of a truly epic bubble in the 1990s. Fortune has interviewed Albert Edwards, the Société Générale strategist famous for an “Ice Age” theory in which the rest of the world is fated to see its financial bubbles burst and fall into an era of stagflation and massive debt loads that no amount of growth can tackle. (Edwards has moderated his Ice Age thesis in recent years.) Also, Acadian Asset Management’s Owen Lamont recently told Fortune that while the dotcom bubble was plenty gnarly, it only had a Shiller CAPE ratio of 40, versus Japan’s 90 handle in the late ’80s, meaning that bubble was roughly double America’s.

Furthermore, Gen Z’s fascination with Japan, primarily as a longing for civility in contrast to a chaotic, rude America, oversimplifies the realities of the country they’re undeniably flocking to visit. It risks turning Japan into a moral foil for the United States rather than engaging with more grounded motives such as pop‑culture influence, food, affordability, and the basic desire to see somewhere new.

Sensory seeking

The appeal may not be about Japan’s morals so much as the allure of its pop culture and mind-blowing food. Travel research consistently shows that Gen Z and millennials are heavily influenced by media, not necessarily moral philosophy. American Express notes that most Gen Z and millennial respondents said a TV show, a movie, or social media content inspired them to visit a destination—a phenomenon dubbed “set‑jetting.” Anime, J‑pop, games, fashion, and Instagrammable streets make Japan feel familiar and visually distinctive, a powerful draw in itself.

Food is another major driver: Surveys show nearly half of Gen Z and millennial travelers have planned an entire trip around a specific restaurant or food festival, and Japan’s reputation for high‑quality convenience‑store food, ramen, sushi, and Michelin‑level dining fits that appetite perfectly.

Safety is undeniably part of the draw, too. Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection ranks Japan the ninth-safest country overall, and No. 1 in safety from crime and on public transportation, reinforcing its image as a place where a late-night train ride or a solo walk feels routine, not risky. For a generation raised on viral clips of air‑rage fights and customer‑service meltdowns, the quiet order of a Japanese train car—no loud phone calls, no overflowing trash—reads almost like aspirational fiction.

Young Americans, often skeptical of institutions at home, seem surprisingly comfortable with Japan’s dense web of social expectations, from bowing to sorting trash into multiple categories. Rather than seeing these norms as oppressive, many interpret them as a shared agreement that makes crowded life bearable—and that, they say, is exactly what feels missing in the United States.

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.