Basic Trope: A culture in a fantasy work closely resembles a real-life historical culture.
- Straight: The Bapanese are a dark-haired people noted for katana wielding warriors who obey a strict code of honor, wear kimonos and hakama, and pride themselves on their raw fish and rice dishes.
- Exaggerated: In addition, the Bapanese live on an archipelago to the east of the nations of Bina and Borea.
- Downplayed: The Bapanese obey a strict code of honor and wield katanas, but they're red-haired people.
- Justified: The story takes place in a science fiction setting where aliens attempted to create human worlds using secondhand information.
- Inverted:
- Despite having a Whole-Plot Reference to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, writers included a novel culture where that is basically their only resemblance and draw from many other cultures.
- "The Japanese" in a depiction are deliberately not matching anything about them including ignorant stereotypes.
- Subverted:
- The writer leads the audience on by expecting them to assume a Bapanese character to be extremely honor-bound, only to surprise them when he is sneaky and dishonest…
- Naga Buno commits seppuku — and it is treated as shameful. Bapanese turns out to be an even more Meaningful Name as despite the surface level resemblances, their society is British beneath the coat of paint.
- Double Subverted: …because he's from the dreaded clan of Binja assassins!
- Parodied: The cultures in the setting are counterparts to sub-cultures not often seen in fantasy like Disco enthusiasts, Orcish roller derby teams, and High Elven bronies.
- Someone actually from Japan comes to the Bapanese.
- Zig Zagged: Nagabuno is a Bapanese warrior. However, he doesn't behave like a typical Bamurai, but we later learn that he's an exception and not the norm.
- Averted: No cultures in a work are clear counterparts to real-life historical cultures or stereotypes thereof.
- Enforced:
- The executives decide that the Bapanese would be successful with their target demographic in Japan.
- The creators can't afford to create a culture too alien due to budgetary limitations. They decide to buy a few cheap kimonos and fake katanas off the internet to save money and decide to just run with it, creating the Bapanese.
- Lampshaded: "If NagaBuno is a Bamurai from Bapan, does that make the Tarial a Bassassin from Bitaly?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Beturn to Fantasy Counterpart Culture
