See also depictions of vaguely European historical trappings in anime, especially as in Miyazaki’s works, a variety of shojo manga and anime since the 70s, and many isekai settings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Djo_manga

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isekai

“Representations of Europe in Japanese Anime: An Overview of Case Studies and Theoretical Frameworks”. Mutual Images Journal, no. 8, June 2020, pp. 47-84, https://doi.org/10.32926/2020.8.ara.europ .

An especially interesting quote from the above:

> According to Frederik Schodt, Jaqueline Berndt, and Deborah Shamoon, the European settings, depicted in the 1970s shōjo series took the role of a remote idealised elsewhere with a strong exotic appeal, radically different from Japanese society and reality, where the recurrent conventions of the shōjo narratives were developed. Some of these themes, like the deconstruction of the feminine subject and the development of transgressive romantic stories (which contain incests, infidelities, idyllic and allusive sexual scenes or homosexual relationships), were hard to conceive in the Japanese society of that moment, which enabled the European setting with a range of creative possibilities due to the depiction of foreign cultures (Schodt, 2012 [1983]: 88-93; Berndt, 1996: 93-4, Shamoon, 2007, 2008). Such a use and depiction of Europe fits with what Pellitteri has coined as the “mimecultural” scenario of anime, a mode of representation present in those anime series that adopt contents, settings, and other visual elements from different cultural backgrounds to develop their original narratives and plots (2010: 396). [italics added for emphasis]

The concept of “mimecultral” aspects of anime and manga is not new to me, but that phrasing itself is, and it reminds me of Dawkins’ conception of memes.