Do The Japanese View Americans As Cowboys Or Elvis Presley?

Cowboys I think. At least in anime, Americans tend to be depicted as literal cowboys all the time. Not to mention half the time when American is visually represented in anime it's with Arizona (the west). This country being the hotpot of cultures that it is really doesn't have much of a culture of it's own. The great American cowboy and the wild west is the only thing that really sets us apart from other counties, culturally speaking. (Just don't tell anyone that 'cowboys' were actually stolen from Mexico's culture) Even in the current season of pretty cure which introduced American pretty cure, two of them were made to look like cowboys and the other a native American. http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140326092917/p__/protagonist/images/b/b7/Bomber_Girls_Pretty_Cure.jpg

I guess its just the way they see our culture, kinda like how we squint our eyes and make racist noises to make fun of them but less offensive.

Most of my Japanese friends just see me as another person. In fact, most Japanese people I interacted with in Japan treated me just like anyone else. No one really generalized me much, although some of my friends do see Americans as "cool". Of course, it depends on the person.

purefault is pretty much correct on this one. Most Japanese people never come up to me and expect me to be a cowboy. Most treat me like another person. Although, I did have an interaction with a guy who came up to me and yelled out fuck and, OMG. It was quite amusing.

You know there's actually a bunch of videos on youtube that involve this exact topic. It's pretty interesting seeing what they think about the US in general.

I've seen that video, and frankly that's just a really racist caricature played for laughs. It's the anime equivalent of old American cartoons depicting Japanese as squinty-eyed, buck-toothed yellow people in straw hats. The difference is that in this country we traded in our sense of humor for a stick firmly planted up our collective arse, while Japan isn't afraid to show anything on TV. Truthfully I don't think Japanese people see us as very strange. Maybe a little more self-centered and ill-mannered compared to them, but I seriously doubt anyone believes we are all Elvis-obsessed cowboys.

Not really, the majority born in the last 40 years don't really have any negative or preconceived notions about people from the US. What they have preconceived notions on are otaku, and that's because of the denotation of otaku.