#subjectivity

I mean...

Japanese folklore is "incredibly rich" to us outsiders. I'm sure European aesthetics, to someone who isn't European, must seem "incredibly rich" too.

Just like D&D aesthetics seem incredibly bland to someone who grew up with it, everywhere already, it's possible that Japanese folklore can seem incredibly commonplace to someone who grew up with it.

I know one of the appeals of anime to me, as an American, is that is offers me something unlike what I am oversaturated with in American media. It offers me alternatives to themes of hyper individualism. it offers me alternatives to American beauty standards. It offers me different mindsets and value systems, not dependent on the overly human-centric mentalities of Christianity.

But at the same time as my fatigue with hyper individualism, hyper individualism can be refreshing to people who grew up in cultures that are ultra focused on valuing groups. I may be tired of American beauty standards being hyper-sexualized, but someone from cultures whose fashions I don't interpret as sexual, can find their own culture's beauty standards, hyper-sexual, in the exact same aspects that I interpret as "non-provocative". I may be tired of the overly human-centric mentalities of Christianity, but for someone who grew up in cultures where humans were decentered too much, such a human-centric mentality could be rebellious, empowering, and validating.

But of course, just like there are people tired of being immersed solely in their own media cultures, as I am, there are ALSO people more interested in their own cultures. Concurrently, there are some parts of American culture that I am fascinated with, ALONGSIDE my own interest in other cultures. Just like I'm sure there are Japanese people who are not tired of being "over saturated" with their own cultural folklore. They even become professional academics or just fans of their own culture's folklore. For example, I've seen Japanese academics who study yokai, interviewed on NHK World's Japanology series. He wasn't some non-Japanese person, fascinated by Japanese folklore, solely because it was not their native culture. But the expert they interviewed was a Japanese academic, happily studying his own culture's folklore. Not to mention several Japanese YouTubers who make videos spreading knowledge about their own culture, because clearly, they are fans of their own culture themselves, and not tired of it, simply by being immersed in it. People can be tired of their own culture, fans of their own culture, and even both simultaneously, in many different aspects.

I think the problem with OP's meme is that it sounds a little like exoticization. As someone who has experienced exoticization myself, because of my ethnicity, it is a little invalidating, when people say that the reasons you are "good" or "special" are PURELY because of your contrast to the surrounding norm. To me, who is my own norm, such "compliments" didn't sound like they were about me. That "compliment" sounded kind of like they were saying that whatever is good about me, doesn't come from me, and who I am specifically, but from who I am contrasted against. It forces whatever makes me valid, seem dependent on putting others down as "commonplace". And it's not really seeing me. It's more like using me as a generalization or token, in order to indirectly criticize everything else as "commonplace" or "boring". It feels a little invalidating, as a person, to be honest.

I think what OP should be expressing, is how THEY are tired of D&D, European-inspired aesthetics. And that's valid. I'm American; I understand how our media culture has been saturated by D&D and Lord Of The Rings aesthetics. Whenever people talk about the "fantasy genre" or "medieval fantasy" or "sword and sorcery", our common conception is of the European-inspired D&D or LOTR settings. I only recently learned about African-inspired "sword and sorcery", a genre nicknamed "sword and soul", from a recent episode of Imaginary Worlds Podcast. (https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/father-of-sword-and-soul) Americans are over-saturated with that European-inspired, D&D aesthetic.

The problem with OP's meme comes from demeaning the "D&D aesthetic" and implying it as "an objective bad for everyone". It totally ignores the people who love that aesthetic, as well as its own inherent merits. It's not all bland slop that just blends together in its own homogeneity. Many D&D-inspired series can (and in the cases of the above examples within this meme) and DO have unique and even significant things to say, despite or because of their D&D-inspired settings. In fact, it could be possible in some cases, that because D&D is such well-trodden ground, that it could allow some authors to shift their focus onto other things, other themes, other worldbuilding details, etc. It's commonplace quality could be sometimes what allows for other elements to stand out and shine more than they would have, if we were distracted by brand new worldbuilding/settings.

The complete perspective granted by such an awareness encompasses all possible subjectivities of all possible entities. It is from this paradoxical position that all that appears permanent is also impermanent and all that appears separate and distinct is also a continuous part of the whole. It is from here that it is possible to see all particulars and thus also to be completely free of them. This is the freedom of emptiness, which is also liberation from attachment.