I guess I just don't get the allure. Never have.
Pretty much "ditto". I'm fascinated by the Japanese language and culture, which was why I ended up studying abroad there for a year. Although I did run into a lot of cute girls (and I did notice there seemed to be a higher proportion of attractive girls there than here), I couldn't understand why a couple of my friends were going nuts over it. Most of the girls they dated seemed to be either shallow, self-centered, or just emotionally immature, and I got that impression from a good chunk of the girls I met. Although, funnily enough, I now have a Chinese girlfriend, and--as her parents don't speak English that well--I decided I may as well learn Mandarin since it can only help in the long run.
As to the original point of this article: I'm vehemently against it in principle, but we can't really tell another country what to do. Personally, I think this stems from Japan's obsession on youth: there's a cultural stigma that a woman who's not married by 25 has 'expired'; anime and manga often depict youthful qualities (the facial features, for example, of most anime characters are reminiscent of children no matter their age; the optimism/cynicism/'cool!' qualities); and oftentimes characters will be given an age far exceeding their characteristics (look at Ichigo from Bleach, for example, or the characters from the game Blue Dragon). That's just my .02, though; it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
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