Otaku
 |
Overweight, unkempt, bespectacled and fantasizing about an anime heroine--an otaku stereotype. |
Otaku is a variety of
geek or
fanboy/
fangirl obsessed with
anime and
manga.
In
Japanese the term
otaku has negative connotations, in
English the term is slightly more flexible; some fans believe it has positive connotations, while other fans believe it has negative connotations, especially on Internet forums.
Japanophile is a word sometimes used to describe an
otaku.
Wapanese is a derogatory term that is sometimes used, while others feel many cultures have their own equivalents.
Currently the term
otaku is often used as self-description by anime fans with a minute and detailed knowledge. They use it to rally or mock those who have recently begun to watch anime or read manga, and encourage or deride questions on shows and Japanese culture in general.
The word
otaku is derived from an honorific term for another's house or family (お宅,
otaku) that is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun (roughly equivalent to
usted in Spanish or the singular
vous in French). Another story goes that it was derived from Maurice de la Rie, an old Japanese Leipo. The modern slang form, which is distinguished from the older usage by being written only in
hiragana (おたく) or
katakana (オタク), appeared in the
1980s; it appears to have been coined by the humorist and essayist Akio Nakamori (中森明夫,
Nakamori Akio) in the
1983 series "An Investigation of Otaku" (おたくの"究,
otaku no kenkyū), who observed that this form of address was unusually common among geeks and
nerds. It entered general use in
Japan around
1989, and may have been popularized by Nakamori's publication in that year of "The Age of M" (Mの時代,
M no jidai), which applied the term to the (then) recently caught
serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, who turned out to be a loner obsessed with
pornographic anime and manga (which is often called
hentai in the Western hemisphere) and who lived out his
rape fantasies on living young girls, attaching a huge taboo to a formerly innocuous term.
In modern Japanese slang, an
otaku refers to an overly obsessive fan of any one particular theme, topic, or hobby. Perhaps the most common uses are
anime otaku (one who sometimes enjoys many days of excessive anime watching with no rest) and
manga otaku (a fan of Japanese graphic novels). The term otaku used by itself just means "fanatic". Japanese culture has many other varieties, such as
pāsokon otaku (personal computer geeks),
g"mu otaku (playing
video games), and
otaku that are extreme fans of
idols, heavily promoted singing girls. Sometimes the term would be used for some hobbies of mechanical or technological area such as
tetsudō otaku (
metrophiles) or
gunji otaku (military geeks), too. While these are the most common uses of
otaku, the word can be applied to anything (music otaku, martial arts otaku, cooking otaku, etc). The word
maniakku or
mania (from English "maniac") is sometimes used to indicate someone whose interest is strong, but not obsessive or unhealthy:
anime maniakku,
g"mu mania, etc.
Amongst Japan's otaku themselves, some use the term to describe themselves and their friends semi-humorously, accepting their position as obsessive fans, and some even use the term proudly, attempting to reclaim it from its negative connotations. In general colloquial usage however, most Japanese consider it undesirable to be described as "otaku".
Although sterotypically male, there are also many female Otaku. A small alleyway of Tokyo's Higashi Ikebukuro district is known as "Otome Road." Otome Road's
otome (female otaku or geekettes) are a cross-section of Japanese womanhood, with ages ranging from teenage junior high school girls to housewives in their late 40s. A feature of the area is that there are so many bookstores devoted to comics and books filled with stories about homosexual men, in a genre called
Boys' Love or BL.
Dōjinshi, manga produced by amateur fans, dominate the shelves along Otome Road, with a significant chunk of the comics' stories about more famous cartoons that imitate, parody or develop on characters who are usually household names in Japan.
|
The Akihabara neighborhood of Tokyo is a popular gathering place for otaku. |
An interesting, modern look into the
otaku culture has surfaced with an allegedly true story surfacing on the famous internet bulletin board 2ch.net: "
Train Man", a love story about a geek and a beautiful woman who meet on the train. The story has enjoyed a compilation in novel form, several
comic book adaptions, a movie film released on June 2005 and a television series which aired on
Fuji TV from June to September 2005. The drama has become another hot topic in Japan, and the novel, film and television series give a closer look into the
otaku culture. In Japan its popularity and positive portayal of the main character have helped to slightly reduce negative steroptypes about otaku, and increase the acceptability of some otaku hobbies.
A subset of otaku are the
Akiba-kei, men who spend a lot of time in
Akihabara in
Tokyo and who are mainly obsessive about anime, idols and games.
Sometimes the term is used to describe something pertaining to the subculture that surrounds anime, idols and games in Japan. This subculture places an emphasis on certain services (see
fanservice) and has its own system for judgment of anime,
dating simulations ("dating sim") and/or
role-playing games and some manga (often
dōjinshi) based upon the level of fanservice in the work. Another popular criterion—how ideal the female
protagonist of the show is—is often characterized by a level of stylized cuteness and child-like behavior (see
moé). In addition, this subculture places great emphasis on knowledge of individual key animators and directors and of minute details within works. The international subculture is influenced by the Japanese one, but differs in many areas often based upon region. (See also:
Superflat,
Hiroki Azuma.)
Since anime in Japan is not as widely accepted as manga, the otaku subculture has much influence over the mainstream anime industry in Japan. The area where otaku have the most influence in manga tends to be with dōjinshi. Manga published in the
United States are more influenced by their respective otaku subculture than they are in Japan. This is because most people who read manga have some ties to the subculture in the US, whereas in Japan manga reading is more widespread.
See also:
anorak.
The word is a
loanword from the
Japanese language, but in the English/international sense it is used to refer specifically to a fan of
anime and
manga, though it can sometimes refer to any "geek," in general. The term serves as a label not unlike the term
Trekkie or
fanboy. However, use of the label can be a source of contention among older or more moderate anime fans, particularly those who are aware of the negative connotations the term has within some subcultures. As in Japan, unpleasant stereotypes about otaku prevail in worldwide fan communities, and some anime fans express concern about the reputations these more extreme fans can earn their hobby (not unlike sentiments in the
comic book and
science-fiction fandoms). Non-Japanese otaku won't necessarily know Japanese, either, though there are some who do to one degree or another.
To indicate that one is talking about the Japanese definition rather than the English loanword, the spelling
wotaku (ヲタク) is sometimes used. On Japanese forums such as
2channel, however,
otaku (オタク) and
wotaku (ヲタク) are used interchangeably, depending on the mood and personal style of the poster.
Otaku is increasingly being used outside of Japan to refer to an individual who is obsessed with technology, a pre-occupation stereotypically assigned to Japanese teens in the early 1980s. For example, demanding U.S. technology consumers are sometimes referred to as American Otaku. This group first reached noticeable prominence in the widespread blogosphere critique of Apple and Microsoft in the aftermath of two disappointing product releases in February and March of 2006.
Noted cultural and fictional references to otaku culture, often seen as a light-hearted
pastiche, include:
*
Otaku no Video: A pair of films that follow a young college student as he is introduced into the world of the otaku by a high school friend and soon spends the next several years trying to become the greatest otaku, the Otaking. The work also serves as a semi-autobiographical account of the formation of
Gainax, and is inter-cut with several live-action mock interviews with several different types of otaku.
*
Comic Party: Originally a series of
dating sims which was then adapted into various anime and manga series,
Comic Party follows a rejected art student as he is enthusiastically thrust into the dōjinshi scene by a crazed otaku friend. He then creates several of his own dōjinshi works while interacting with other artists and dealing with his girlfriend who is at first less than enthusiastic about his new passion.
*
Genshiken: A manga later adapted into an anime series which follows a "catch-all" otaku college club and the various activities they become involved in. Much of the story is told from the perspective of two characters: a freshman who grows into his otaku identity; and the girlfriend of another member who disapproves the passions of her attractive, but clueless, otaku boyfriend.
*
Densha Otoko: Densha Otoko (電車", literally "Train Man") is the allegedly true story of a Japanese geek in his early 20s who saves a beautiful woman ("office lady"), Hermès, from a drunken groper on a train, and then chronicles his subsequent dates with the woman and requests for help on the Japanese mega-BBS
2channel (in the TV series referred to and remodelled into the semi-fictitious "Aladdin Channel").
*
Welcome to the NHK!: Originally a novel written by Tatsuhiko Takimoto and illustrated by
Yoshitoshi Abe, which was adapted in
manga form by Kenji Oiwa. The anime series is currently being aired in Japan.
*
Metal Gear: A reoccurring character in the
Metal Gear video game series is a man named
Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich. He is a lover of Japanese anime and entered into the field of engineering and techology because of it (namely because of the
mecha genre.) His nickname "Otacon" comes from the word "
Otakon" (short for "otaku convention"), which is a convention focusing on the art of anime and manga, East Asian culture, and its fandom. It has been held in
Baltimore,
Maryland ever since 1994.
Konami (the company which created the
Metal Gear series) was given permission by Otakorp, Inc. to use the name "Otacon" for any title of the series.
*
Tsutomu Miyazaki*
Comic Book Guy*
Freeters*
Hikikomori - sometimes called "extreme otaku"
*
Japanophile*
Megatokyo - online comic
*
NEET*
NEET in Wiktionary*
Parasite singles*
Geek chic*
Hiroki Azuma*
Figure moe zoku*
I'm alone, but not lonely - an article about the modern Japanese otaku
*
The Politics of Otaku*
Akihabara - English Otaku Community*
Amateur Manga Subculture and the Otaku Panic*
Episode 18 of Yamato Damacy - an episode of a Japan-related podcast about otaku.
*
Meet the Geek Elite,
Wired Magazine, July 2006
*
Large list of terms used in otaku lingo
