Having often been told by the Japanese that he would "never understand" their culture because he was not one of them, American cartoonist Tim Ernst decided to embrace this notion and deploy it creatively.

Ernst relocated permanently from California to Akita Prefecture in 1981, following an earlier stint as an English teacher in Yamagata Prefecture, where he met his wife of 34 years.

It was during his time in Yamagata that he came up with the idea for a comic strip focusing on the daily struggles of a Western everyman with the local culture. Ernst says much of the inspiration came from his own real-life encounters with the Japanese and their customs.