What's worse, the sexual imagery, or the fact that the entire concept of catgirls is to infantilize and fetishize Japanese culture?

What bothers me the most about the whole concept is that it fetishizes Japanese girls. Of course, most of the defenders will say "it's anime, of course it's fetishized" but what really bothers me is that it uses the entire outward appearance of Japanese girls but then makes them act like cats, which strips away any semblance of an Asian appearance of the character, making them into literally a Western fetish. What's worse is that the same people who like the Western take on catgirls will say that the Japanese made it first and that it's better than any Western take, which is like saying that blackface is better because the black people invented it and it's a more authentic take on the black appearance.