Japanophilia

Japanophilia refers to the appreciation and love of Japanese culture, people or history. In Japanese, the term for Japanophile is "shinnichi" (親日^?), with "親" "shin" (しん^?) equivalent to the English prefix 'pro-', and "日" "nichi" (にち^?), meaning "Japanese" (as in the word for Japan "Nihon" (日本^?)). The term was first used as early as the 18th century, switching in scope over time.

The term "Japanophile" traces back to the late 18th and early 19th centuries before Japan became more open to foreign trade. Carl Peter Thunberg and Philipp Franz von Siebold helped introduce Japanese flora, artworks, and other objects to Europe which spiked interest.Lafcadio Hearn, an Irish-Greek author who made his home in Japan in the 19th century, was described as "a confirmed Japanophile" by Charles E. Tuttle Company in their forewords to several of his books.

In the first decade of the 20th century, several British writers lauded Japan. In 1904, for example, Beatrice Webb wrote that Japan was a "rising star of human self-control and enlightenment", praising the "innovating collectivism" of the Japanese, and the "uncanny" purposefulness and open-mindedness of its "enlightened professional elite." H. G. Wells similarly named the élite of his A Modern Utopia "samurai". In part this was a result of the decline of British industrial primacy, with Japan and Germany rising comparatively. Germany was seen as a threat close to hand, but Japan was seen as a potential ally. The British sought efficiency as the solution to issues of productivity, and after the publication of Alfred Stead's 1906 book Great Japan: A Study of National Efficiency, pundits in Britain looked to Japan for lessons. This interest however, ended with World War I.

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