Valeree Jonsson comments

Sorry for coming to this discussion so late- I just discovered the article moments ago.

im not sure what Cool Japan is currently up to, but at the time of this article’s being written, it was very toxic. Much of the United States’ exposure to Cool Japan was through Facebook and the NHK World app/webcasts, and both were very unpleasant and deliberately repressive of the actual cool Japanese content we really wanted. Cool Japan carried out a few in depth questionnaires in connection with J-Melo (tepid music export show on NHK World), and it became offensively evident that they were trying to squelch Japanese Visual Kei, Rock, fashion subcultures, and a lot more- the real cool Japan. The questionnaires would not allow us to say that we liked any bands beyond the milquetoast pop that they approved of. I have no doubt they deleted my unacceptable feedback.

So what had Cool Japan really been up to to that point? Dishonest government propaganda campaigns.