While Japan has always had a reputation for taking ideas from the West and improving on them (sometimes beyond recognition), the reverse is often true, too, and Japan has long served as a well of inspiration for various creators from the West. I read a lot of science fiction books, and it often seems I can't pick one up that doesn't have Japanese themes in it somewhere, with the best example being William Gibson, who built his career by weaving ideas he got from Japan into his books. Star Wars is filled with Japanese cultural and visual elements culled from Japan's films and history, from Jedi Knights to the Force to the design of Darth Vader, whose helmet and "first name" come from famous warlord Date Masamune. (I remember my son once asking me why Obi Wan Kenobi was wearing a kimono and bowing like a Japanese person.) When the new iPad was announced, people here observed that the fancy magnetic "Smart Cover" looked exactly like the covers used to keep the bath water warm in between use.
It's funny how words are perceived by people in different ways. My wife asked me how to say the word meinichi in English, and I told her, "That's 'the anniversary of a person's death.'" She was shocked. "How can you use the word 'anniversary' for that? Anniversaries are happy times, not solemn occasions for family to remember loved ones." When words are borrowed from one language to another, their meanings change slightly to fit the needs of the new group, and in this case only the happy, celebratory meaning of "anniversary" was brought over. In the new anime Hanasaku Iroha, the main character is told she must go live with her grandmother, and she says, "To live in a Japanese inn, that's very dramatic!" However, this word doesn't mean the same thing to the Japanese as it does to you and me: doramachikku is closer in meaning to "just like a story in a TV drama." Words meaning different things isn't limited to English. I've heard that Chinese are often surprised at the Japanese use of the kanji matsuri, which means festival in Japan, but is used for funerals in China.
When new Japanese employees come to work at J-List it's an interesting learning experience for them. First of all, they're amazed at our customers, and the collective passion they have for Japan and its various forms of popular and traditional culture. Japanese know that there are fans of anime and manga around the world, but encountering customers who have more knowledge about a subject like Gundam mecha than 99.9% of Japanese fans amazes them. Another thing they're surprised at is that not all of our customers write perfect English in their emails, since we have customers from all over the world. Japanese have a strange compulsion against making errors when using English, and assume that everyone outside Japan uses the language perfectly. After a few weeks of replying to imperfect emails from customers in Europe or Asia who are themselves using English as a second language, they relax about their own language skills. I think that working at J-List is good for our Japanese employees for another reason: it helps them see their own country from the outside, through the eyes of foreigners who really love Japan, and that gives them a new way of thinking about their own country.