Talk:Re: Chapter 125/@comment-10733658-20170524055618/@comment-10733658-20170524091558

Oh, sorry.

Nishi is the word for the western direction.

Gaijin is the term for a non-Japanese person. (The kanji literally mean "outside" and "person").

In Japan, Western is synonymous with Foreign and Outsider. It's not a direction or geography, but everything that is not Japanese (or East Asian).

The concept comes from their country being "Nippon", the Sunrise Kingdom/Land of the Rising Sun. So everything else is the West, because THEY (in ancient myth) are closest to the eastern sunrise.

It's not literal, it's based on various ideas of Japanese identity.