Our great grandparents might have had a hard time imagining it, but we Americans are now influenced by Japanese culture in nearly as many ways as other countries are impacted by U.S. culture. Japanese cartoons, toys, and video games fill the imagination of American children and teens; Japanese automobiles fill our city streets. Japanese beds have even entered the intimate confines of our boudoirs.

Futons first started to become popular in the United States during the early 1970s, when interest in Eastern philosophy and culture was growing rapidly. The obsessive interest in Japanese anime was just beginning to take hold among comic book and science fiction fans. On the other hand, Asian martial artists such as Japan’s Sonny Chiba, were starting to make real inroads into the American psyche and Toyotas and Datsuns (now Nissans) were becoming ever more commonplace on U.S. streets. Japanese philosophies, particularly Zen Buddhism, began to be increasingly influential, even as the samurai and Yakuza films of filmmaker Akira Kurosawa became far more popular in America than the works of equally respected foreign filmmakers based in Sweden and France.

So it was that inexpensive and versatile futons began to be popular with students and bohemians in need of cheap furniture. As the idea of the traditional Japanese beds doubling as cushions on couches and chairs took hold in the 1980s, the place of the convertible sofa in American dorm rooms and apartments became enshrined even as some of us struggled with their proper care and upkeep. Such common Japanese rituals as beating a futon frame with a stick called a tataki were not always easy for Americans to emulate.

Of course, the futon as it exists in the West today is a different creature and usually far easier to care for. In fact, Japanese-invented futons are now often used in conjunction with traditional Western bedding on bunk beds. It’s not really a case of strange bedfellows at all.