'''Japanofil''' eller ''Nippofil'' (av japanska ''Nippon'', "Japan") kallas den som hyser stark beundran eller kärlek för Japan och/eller delar av japansk kultur, men själv inte är därifrån. Beroende på kontexten kan detta uppfattas positivt, neutralt eller negativt. Ett engelskt slanguttryck för japanofiler är ''wapanese'', en portmanteau av ''white'' och ''japanese'', jämförbar med ''wigger''. Ett populärt slanguttryck för ''wapanese'' är ''Weeaboo'' .

Under slutet av 1700-talet och början av 1800-talet blev japansk flora och konst populärt i Europa, mycket genom Carl Peter Thunberg och Philipp Franz von Siebold. Detta var före Meijirestaurationen 1868, då Japan öppnade sin handel alltmer.

I framför allt USA rådde en våg under 1980-talet, ofta med referenser till japansk kampsport och stridskonst som karate och ninjutsu, och filmer och serier som ''Karate Kid'' och ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' behandlade ämnena och blev populära. Många studenter i USA tog lektioner i japanska i hopp om att få göra affärer med Japan.

right|thumb|[[Lafcadio Hearn, aka Koizumi Yakumo, a notable scholar and author well known for his strong interest in Japanese culture and books on Japan.]]

'''Japanophilia''' is an interest in, or love of, Japan and all things Japanese.  (Its opposite is Japanophobia.)  One who has such an interest or love is a '''Japanophile'''.<ref></ref>  Various cultures and peoples have gone through various periods of Japanophilia, for various reasons, throughout history.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Carl Peter Thunberg and Philipp Franz von Siebold, who stayed in the Dutch outpost of Dejima, helped introduce Japanese flora, artworks, and other objects to Europe.  Some consider them to be among the earliest Japanophiles.<ref></ref><ref></ref>  (This was before the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when Japan became more open to foreign trade.)

Charles E. Tuttle Company in their foreword to most of his books.<ref></ref>

In the first decade of the 20th century, British writers were lauding Japan.  In 1904, for example, Beatrice Webb wrote that Japan was a "rising star of human self-control and enlightenment", praising the "innovating collectivism" of the Japanese, and the "uncanny" purposefulness and open-mindedness of its "enlightened professional elite".  H. G. Wells similarly named the élite of his ''A Modern Utopia'' "samurai".  In part this was a result of British industrial decline, with Japan and Germany rising at the same time.  Germany was seen as a threat close to hand, but Japan was seen as an ally.  The British sought efficiency as the solution, and after the publication of Alfred Stead's 1906 book ''Great Japan: A Study of National Efficiency'', pundits in Britain looked to Japan for lessons. This interest ended with World War I.<ref></ref>