YumeNinja posted an interesting read about how Japan has opened up tremendously in the last couple years to Koreans, thanks in part to the growing trend of Korean entertainment present in Japan.
http://kotaku.com/5820271/the-father-of-the-playstation-and-japans-secret-koreans
Kotaku has posted an article about Koreans in Japan slowly revealing that they are actually Koreans and the influence Korean entertainment has on Japan in current day.
http://kotaku.com/5718647/2010-the-year-korean-pop-burst-japan
Here's another article talking about KPOP in Japan.
I think the youth's racial mindset in Japan has improved tremendously but that can't speak for the entire country of 1st and 2nd generation Japanese people's mentality. Koreans are still minority and are treated as such. Its just the way that social stigma works.
But we've come a long way since the bitter rival days. 2nd and 3rd gen Japanese are more passive about the "minority" influence of Koreans and just accept them as any other human being. But in S.Korea, there's still a lot of negativity towards Japanese or Chinese people but you know, that's due to the mentality people have gained through history. It's always about history. Japanese entertainment is still banned from Korea unless the artists are affiliated with a respective Korean company but I think they've been more lenient over the recent years.
I say, in the next ten years or so, there is going to be so much influence of Korean entertainment in Japan, that Japanese people will really adhere to Korean cultures as second nature. But Korea is a different story.
Korean people, they never forget. "Bygones be bygones" is not a phrase that is known to them and again, it's just bitter history. But let's put it this way, if Girl's Generation, 2NE1, Big Bang, whoever is making it big in Japan right now, is changing the way people think about a race in their own country, that tells you that as generations proceed, people tend to care less about "history" and more about just appreciating what they like. And that's a lot of progress from just a few years ago.
These days, it's almost as if Koreans and Japanese having racial issues with one another makes them uncool. Sound familiar? African Americans have also gained a positive rep through music, i.e. R&B, Hip Hop, and other means of black entertainment. These days, youths keep their racism to themselves because more often times than not, other teens are "cool" with other races and if you're racist, you're probably seen as a tightwad. In other words, "it just ain't cool". Racism will always be lingering around no matter where it is apparent but at the least, it's no longer an issue of "hating" on a race. It's really about people learning to accept that the world is changing and the culture you know so well is slowly but surely, fusing with all colors of the spectrum.
