Much is often made of the differences between popular music in the East and in the West, either praising the former for its inventive takes on Western styles, or deriding it for making cheap imitations. The truth, however, is that music travels so easily between nations and continents these days, and that music fans are so voracious and omnivorous in their tastes, that a lot of the cultural generalizations that used to be the staple of journalists covering overseas music scenes have started to dissolve.
The way that bands from as diverse locations as New York, Georgia and Seattle could become so easily linked together in a scene like "chillwave" or "glo-fi" flies in the face of the more geographically specific way music scenes have traditionally developed. If a scene like this could emerge from spots scattered all across the United States, why not Japan too?
One band who could make an claim to kinship with the likes of Washed Out and Toro y Moi is Kyoto-based Hotel Mexico.