American YouTube manga girl making waves in Japan

Magibon is an American You Tube idol taking her obsession with Japan to the extreme. The Florida-born 22-year old who used to be a supermarket cashier now spends a bulk of her time making YouTube videos of herself staring blankly into the camera, babbling elementary Japanese, and striking cutesy poses. Her popularity in Japan catapulted when Japanese online publication JCast wrote an article about her in January of this year. In April, a Japanese broadcasting company called Gyao invited her to be a guest on one of their shows. Here's one of her famous stare-down videos. What do you think? Cute? (by Emily Co)

Comments

[Mister Cow Pnoy]

This has to be one of the more creepy posts I've ever seen on here. She looks to be about 10 years younger than given, and I can only imagine how easily her voice will destroy my eardrums.

[rikas]

She's sick.. so sick! :(

[onetwotrey]

Discovered this youtube talent when reading up for the youtube livetokyo event (which sadly didn't have as high production value as the SF version :\), and was amazed at videos getting millions of views. Staring at the webcam? Eating pizza, drinking soda? Seriously?

[bzzh]

I found this more disturbing than cute. Poor thing obviously has very little self identity. Sad.

[Jeff]

I think I heard about her back in January when she first had that article written about her. She's just weird. She's what some call a "weeabo".

It probably sounds a little strange to be throwing that word around in an English-language blog about Japan, but I think there's a difference between a normal, healthy interest in another culture and a slightly creepy obsession with it... though obviously, the line is somewhat subjective.

She crosses it, IMO.

[MeaningOfLife]

I can't wait until this fad blows over in Japan.

[vagrant]

It looks like she's just some girl that likes to post videos of herself. Not knowing her, I cannot comment about her lifestyle. Although someone posted that she eats pizza and drinks soda. Not sure how weird that is, even if she does it on camera.

Anyways, live and let live is my favorite pastime.

[haruspex]

This is rather old news... she's already disappearing from the public eye on YouTube, Japan will follow soon.

[Dragonfang18]

So all you have to do is look in a camera all cutesy like that and you can get famous?!?!
I wish Hollywood is that easy.

[Astroboy888]

This girl is an good "real life caricature" of a typical female Manga character. (if there is such a thing) What I've learned is that judging from a western (American) eyes, her popularity makes no sense. But if you are able to think like a Japanese, I can see how she would be so popular. And yes, you can pretty much look cute and build a career as a idol in Japan. (and other parts in Asia for that matter).

[etherspirt]

She does not look like she is 22 years old.

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