I saw this in a store the other day:
I'm seeing a lot of this type of merchandise lately and I have mixed feelings on it because:
1. Yay for Japanese things to be considered cute and cool.
2. Things looking slightly off (for example, on the bottom of this plate, it says "sweet" and the upper left, it says "sour." Not quite sure what the hell kind of meal that would be. Then there is that whole Rising Sun military flag situation.)
3. But not so off that they make me angry.
My daughter loves these kinds of things. She goes right to it and wants them because she relates to all things Japanese (or seemingly Japanese). It's tricky. I don't want to be that mom that is so cranky and nothing but fact based, but at the same time, it is important to me that she knows when these things are not quite accurate. So when we look at such items, I will tell her that they did a really good job with it but this word is a little wrong, or some such things.
On the big picture, however, my kid is connecting to it and feels proud that she knows something about that culture so that is all good.
