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Did you find these obsessions to be more common than e.g. in the US or Europe? It seems we have a lot of people who are weirdly obsessive about their niche hobbies / interests as well...

From my few years of experience here in Tokyo, what I feel is that an obsession about something here (being an otaku) doesn't have a negative connotation in most cases, whereas in the US, being a "fanatic" is generally not usually a positive term.

No niche was too big or small for Japanese fanatics: French wine, MMA, video games, etc

All of those things have obsessive followers in every Western country too, so I’m not sure what point you are making?

I found the focus more intense. Hard to explain or quantify other than it seems they took their hobbies more seriously than Americans.

I think as westerners we view Japan as being a lot more homogeneous than it actually is.