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It’s a thing in Japan and it is very much to do with the German influence from WW2.
Is it really very much to do with the WW2 period? Would have thought it would be a Meiji thing imported by Prussians. Didn't get the impression the Axis powers did much cultural exchange TBH; by that point the Japanese had little need for much from Germany, except possibly an inline liquid cooled super-charged aviation engine.
Howard-
The influence would have begun in the Meiji period, absolutely, I'd love to understand how and when it seeped into the Japanese graphic / visual vernacular though. I always assumed it would have been in the 20th century (or late 19th maybe) and that the latin alphabet would have been barely visible in Japan much before that. I'm guessing there was a visual element to the various cultural programmes that were conducted to warm Japan up to the idea of collaborating with Germany post-WW1, I ought to actually get off my arse and research this.
I saw a bar in Tokyo that used katakana for its logo but written with blackletter pen strokes… pretty wild as typography goes.
Regal
Yeah, think I mentioned that before, a friend said to me “it looks a bit Reich-y”. It’s made me think of White Castle a few times.
I’ll write an essay of a reply one of these days about the Grand Seiko blackletter type, because I’m a nerd. It’s a thing in Japan and it is very much to do with the German influence from WW2. As is the “zaratsu” polishing (a transliteration of Salatz, I think, which was the German maker of the zinc disc polishing machines they acquired and started using on watch cases).
Basically, I reckon they were simply trying to make it look European and imply history or heritage with it. They were obsessed with beating the Swiss at the watchmaking game. Blackletter was the dominant lettering style in Germanic languages for hundreds of years.
Guess that turned into an essay.