The answer to why geeks love Japan is probably going to vary by geek. Japanese culture is broad and full of deep practice. It offers many obsessive exports, any one of which could fully consume someone with the geek mindset, from ikebana and origami to J-RPGs and painting Gundam figurines. It only takes one of those hooks to grab a Westerner and steer his/her interest toward the rest of Japan. Anime is just one possibility on a long list.
It's worth keeping in mind that Japan was ascendant during the formative years of many of the geeks here. We all rode to school in Japanese cars, played games on Japanese consoles, took pictures with Japanese cameras, studied Japanese in school so we could be future masters of the universe, and so on. Many geeks on the academic fast-track got a lot of exposure to Japan from a young age, and it still holds our interest.
Japan is a modern country with a modern economy, so I'd bet you'll find a lot of folks on these tech forums who've lived and/or worked there. I worked over there myself.
Finally, interest in Japan is not limited to Westerners. Some of my best friends when I lived in Tokyo were from places like Ghana, Bangladesh, Brazil, etc. Everyone is intrigued by that weird country, not just white people.
Many are going to say something like "Japan is a hyper-modern country set against ancient traditions, which is so neat" or "Japan is historically X so Y happened after Z and therefore we've been interested since year NNNN". That's all fine and probably indirectly, abstractly correct. But I don't think it captures the more visceral and immediate reasons that so many geeks personally take interest.
The answer to why geeks love Japan is probably going to vary by geek. Japanese culture is broad and full of deep practice. It offers many obsessive exports, any one of which could fully consume someone with the geek mindset, from ikebana and origami to J-RPGs and painting Gundam figurines. It only takes one of those hooks to grab a Westerner and steer his/her interest toward the rest of Japan. Anime is just one possibility on a long list.
It's worth keeping in mind that Japan was ascendant during the formative years of many of the geeks here. We all rode to school in Japanese cars, played games on Japanese consoles, took pictures with Japanese cameras, studied Japanese in school so we could be future masters of the universe, and so on. Many geeks on the academic fast-track got a lot of exposure to Japan from a young age, and it still holds our interest.
Japan is a modern country with a modern economy, so I'd bet you'll find a lot of folks on these tech forums who've lived and/or worked there. I worked over there myself.
Finally, interest in Japan is not limited to Westerners. Some of my best friends when I lived in Tokyo were from places like Ghana, Bangladesh, Brazil, etc. Everyone is intrigued by that weird country, not just white people.
Many are going to say something like "Japan is a hyper-modern country set against ancient traditions, which is so neat" or "Japan is historically X so Y happened after Z and therefore we've been interested since year NNNN". That's all fine and probably indirectly, abstractly correct. But I don't think it captures the more visceral and immediate reasons that so many geeks personally take interest.