He is the fastest man in the United States — and soon, perhaps, the world. Yet American sprinter Noah Lyles made waves this week for dropping something positively Japanese.
Lyles delighted millions of fans — and may have baffled older athletics viewers — when he flashed a "Yu-Gi-Oh!" trading card to the cameras ahead of his heats at the U.S. Olympic track-and-field finals recently, doing it again in his next race. The moment, which quickly went viral on social media, was part of an anime-influenced bet with a fellow U.S. athlete, who promised to reference a trope from "Naruto" during her own trial.
If you do not know your "Yu-Gi-Oh!" from your "YuYu Hakusho," that’s OK. (The former began as a manga in 1996 before expanding into anime and a wildly successful trading card game; the latter is one of the many manga series Netflix is bringing to life.) The important takeaway from this moment is to recognize how deeply Japanese soft power penetrates modern culture — and what opportunities that presents.