To give credit where I think it's due, I first heard the phrase spoken by Julie Davis, the brilliant editor of the late, lamented Animerica magazine. It was perfect, so I've stolen the phrase and use it whenever I can.

(Please note that below, I am using "he" as a generic pronoun since the gender-neutral pronoun "per" flopped heavily during the early stages of the feminist movement. Gender neutral language is a pain in generic descriptions such as the one below. I want it established that this is in no way discrimination. I firmly believe that women can be just as stupid as men sometimes.)

A guy goes to Japan, and perhaps lives there for a while. While living there, he discovers something that is popular in Japan but hasn't quite made it in the West yet. The person does some research, learns a little about the discovery, and decides that this might be a good experiment -- a potentially profitable investment -- to make when he gets back to his home country. And since he's done some research, he has decided that he knows everything about the discovery.

When he comes back to the west, he realizes, to his surprise, that other companies have made the discovery before him. But going over their products, he sees details that they've missed. He will do this product RIGHT! He knows what's right because he did that research! Prior performance be damned, he KNOWS what makes the product tick because the way HE'LL do it is how they did it in Japan.

He is the FIRST GAIJIN IN JAPAN!!! He's been there! He knows all!

That's the type of guy who thinks that because he's been over there, he is gifted with perfect knowledge that is greater than the combined knowledge of those around him. This kind of arrogance is reminiscent of The Greatest Translator in the World phase of translating, but it usually happens to entrepreneurs.

Do you remember when TokyoPop first came out as Mixx Entertainment with their MixxZine? They used print fonts rather than the more conventional hand-printing-style fonts because Japan used print fonts. They also had a policy that all of the sound effects should be real words since most onomatopoeia in Japan are used quite frequently in Japanese conversation. That led to sound effects like BLOOOOW for when the wind blew. (Something that caused me no end of amusement while reading manga in the mid-to-late 90s.)

They basically ignored 80 years of U.S. comics history because they thought that changing the font and changing some of the sound effects would make a difference. What they didn't take into account is the thing that makes a difference in manga is the story. Given an equal choice, people would rather have a nice, accurately translated, well proof-read, and competently lettered manga, but really, there is no choice. Only one version of a best-selling manga will ever come out in the U.S., and if it's a good enough story, people will read it no matter how well or poorly it's done. Sailor Moon sold great with sound effects like BLOOOW, and would have sold great no matter how the sound effects were translated.

But those types of ideas are typical for the First Gaijin in Japan syndrome. Basically taking superficial, cosmetic differences, and thinking that they are the cause of the success or failure of a product. The arrogance comes from personal pride in the discovery. The syndrome doesn't stop at manga, it will happen in any of the Japanese originated fields such as flower arranging, martial arts, tea ceremony, Buddhism or Shintoism, etc. Somebody will come back to their home country feeling that they have special knowledge, never realizing that their knowledge hasn't ever really been a secret in the first place.