Japan is a nation of children who were led astray by their military, re-educated under the benevolence of the United States, and rose to become America's important ally. It became a nation of salaried men and office ladies gaining, for a few brief years, through international trade what it had failed to gain by military might before descending into a lost decade of economic woe and social chaos.

That, in broad strokes, is the U.S. media's narrative of postwar Japan. The Japanese media's account of the U.S. in the past half-century, meanwhile, goes something like this:

The United States was a nation of military and economic might that became Japan's major trading partner after the war and chief source of cultural influence. After the Vietnam War, though, America became full of lazy workers who got jealous that Japanese made better consumer electronics products. Then, the U.S. developed the Internet and a high-tech bubble economy which has collapsed. Meanwhile, U.S. troops are still in Okinawa, although they rape women and commit too many crimes.