Question Mulitpe Choice: Are you an Otaku ? If so, what kind of an Otaku are you?

Are you an Otaku ? If so, what kind of Otaku are you ?

  • Otaku Original: heavily & exclusively into manga/anime

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    15

lexico

Chukchi Salmon
Messages
618
Reaction score
77
Points
0
Location
Sunny South Korea
Ethnic group
Paleo-Asian
Multiple Choice Poll: Choose as many as describe your character.

This was an eye opener for me, although it had appeared earlier in an Anime/Manga thread. There seem to be many varieties of life styles or mind sets that can be classified as Otaku-ish. Are you an Otaku, and if so, exactly what kind of otaku are you ?

1. Otaku Incarnate: I shun social life. I extremely & positively identify with my inner world.
2. The Otaku Original: heavily & exclusively into manga/anime
3. The Otaku Soft-Core: heavily, but not exclusively into manga/anime
4. An Otaku Japan-Centered: evenly distributed interest, but all Japanese
5. An Otaku Asia-Centered: evenly distributed around several Asian cultures
6. An Otaku Escapist: evenly distributed around anything not my country.
7. An Otaku Cosmopolitan: indiscriminately distributed around the world
8. An Otaku Nationalistic: more oriented towards my own culture. (non-Japanese)
9. I am Otaku, but not by these standards. (Please post how you differ.)
10. I am not addicted or skewed at all; I lead a perfectly normal, tasteless life.

OneLang.com definition of What is Otaku ?
In modern Japanese slang, therefore, an otaku is an obsessive fan of any one particular theme, topic, or hobby.
Perhaps the most common uses are anime otaku (who sometimes enjoys many days of excessive anime watching with no rest) and manga otaku (a fan of Japanese comic books).

Japanese culture has many other varieties, such as pasokon otaku (personal computer geeks), gēmu otaku (playing video games), and otaku that are extreme fans of idols, heavily promoted singing girls.
While these are the most common uses of otaku, the word can be applied to literally anything. Thus, one could have music otaku, martial arts otaku, cooking otaku, train otaku (metrophiles) et cetera.
Earlier discussions on being Otaku:
1. Scared I am Otaku
2. Otaku: Proud of it

The full text, The Japan Times(The Zeit Geist), April 6, 2004 Otaku Proud of It by Tony McNicol:
Around 60 percent of the shop's customers are 25- to 35-year-old men. Many are the kind of people, as Nakayasu puts it, who "try to cut out living, clothing and food costs (and) devote the maximum energy, time and money to their hobbies." "As a result, their life doesn't look that rich, but actually they have a huge collection of stuff that normal people wouldn't understand."

Not that most otaku had any particular desire to be understood by society, believes Azuma Hiroyuki, a social critic and writer on otaku culture. "Otaku is widely regarded as a kind of detachment from politics, from social activity. It's very different from real Japanese politics and society."

"This kind of detachment was more and more supported by youth from the 70s. I think it was because of their failure to engage in politics in the late 60s." In other parts of the world, post-1960s disillusionment turned young people toward politicized movements like punk. In Japan, many young people retreated far into a dream-world of sickly cute and violent sexually-explicit manga and anime.
 
Last edited:
I don't think the word "otaku" is very appropriate for being deeply interested in anything not pop-culture related, but to go with your definition I answered I was "cosmopolitan otaku and not by the standards mentioned". I somehow try to cut cost on clothing (less clothes, but quite expensive ones), accommodation, food (but care about quality too), and unnecessary stuff, but also on PC (bought a cheap one, who needs a fast CPU for the internet ?). Let's say I consider carefully the prices and look for the good deals. I use the saved money mainly for travelling. I don't think it really qualifies as otaku though, because the word literally means "house", so "someone who stays at home all the time", which is in contradiction with travelling. I spend a lot of time on the PC but go out everyday (weekend included) for my job, going to the gym, going for a stroll, sightseeing, etc. So not really otaku either.
 
Intersting thread lexico. I'd have to say that having intersts and hobbies and you own personal and private shpere is a good thing, but i feel that going this overboard is bad. Having a virtual and made up life instead of a real one is wasting the gift that we have been given. True anime and manga and other interest, if followed constructevily can add to one's character and what not, but having a collection of a zillion volumes of manga and anime dvds and the soundtracks as well and stayed cloged up at home watching and re-watching and re-reading these arts i feel is not an optimal existance. I myself like several animes and manga and I have re-seen them at times but I also mantain a fairly strong reality based existance, and only turn to my private shpere when times require it.
 
I'm a game otaku, FF in particular. I border on hardcore with it, but am mildly otaku elsewhere, also, mainly anime (general), amv (FF8 ones specifically), and (non-Japanese) certain fantasy authors. Actually, the authors that I'm really crazy about are probably equal to FF in most areas, now that I think about it. (David Eddings and Anne Bishop in particular.)
 
I am by definition a game otaku. I am a definite hardcore gamer, and only concern myself with that. I'm a softcore anime/manga otaku, and that is my second biggest concern. I'm also a definite otaku of knowledge. Nothing gets me more excited than learning new things that interest me.

Doc:(:(:(:(:(:(:(
 
I'm a Japan-Centered otaku, though I could probably be considered more an Asian-Centered Otaku, or even an Escapist Otaku. I hate the US ^^;. Gaaaaah. Nyao.
I suppose I went with Japan-Centered because it was the first thing I saw that applied to me. It's hard to choose just one.
 
izayoi said:
I'm a Japan-Centered otaku, though I could probably be considered more an Asian-Centered Otaku, or even an Escapist Otaku. I hate the US ^^;. Gaaaaah. Nyao.
I suppose I went with Japan-Centered because it was the first thing I saw that applied to me. It's hard to choose just one.

You just don't like living in Missouri do you? Take a number and get in line. I've already been in line since last Novemeber to take a shot at Matt Blunt.

Doc:ramen::happy:
 
Nice thread, to start with.

im 2otaku's first of all right now im Japan ( like most of us here) im a japan otaku because i need to learn about japan, for my future wife, but also because i love the culture, history, etc

second im choose cosmopolitan, i love learning about new country's read the news about all country's every morning, i feel like a world citizen, not like a dutch.. ( when i say this to some people in my country, there not looking happy to me, and think bad about me...) .. maybe because my country is so small... ( well small, havnt been everywhere yet...)
 

This thread has been viewed 11836 times.

Back
Top