For some reason Japanese culture is quite popular among nerdy types (be it anime? games? sushi?). I was also fascinated by Japan, even tried to learn the language but got discouraged early on by having to learn 3 different "writing systems". The grammar was also not quite easy to grok (definitely not easy as the presented code-like example).

Now I am more fascinated by contemporary China than contemporary Japan. I see that Japanese culture is based on much more ancient and broad Chinese culture. I also see a pick up in interests to learn Mandarin among my friends/coworkers.

I watched a few Chinese movies and I have to say they bring a breath of fresh air. I think whenever we want it or not we will see more Chinese media in the future, simply because they are different from what a typical person is used too. That makes them more interesting at least in the beginning.