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This article is from the Manga
Glossary, by Steve Pearl starbuck@cybercomm.net with numerous
contributions by others.
30 Manga: otaku ^[$@%%?%/^[(B
"Fanatic". Slang word for hard-core fans of anything, roughly equating to
"geek", "nerd", "fanboy", or "freak". Thus, a manga otaku is someone whose
life revolves around manga to an extreme degree. (In Japan, this would
probably entail reading or buying well in excess of 2000 pages/week;
outside Japan, probably about half that.) The word usually has neutral
connotations within fan culture, but in other contexts, it can carry very
negative connotations. In Japanese, the word "mania" means much the same
as "otaku", but has less extreme connotations.
Literally, "o-taku" ^[$@$*$?$/^[(J is formal speech for "your house",
which is also a polite, somewhat distant, second-person way of saying
"you". The word came to be applied to those fans or hobbyists who rarely
got out and mingled with the rest of society.
(It is interesting to note that the English "fanatic" derives from the
Latin "fanum", or temple/house - "fanaticus" being a devoted worshipper.)
It has been speculated that the slang usage of "otaku" was coined by
Shinda Mane ^[$@?7ED??;R^[(B, a manga artist active in the early '80s. The
term was popularised by freelance writer Nakamori Akio in an article for
the June 1983 issue of Manga Burikko. The otaku entered public
consciousness in 1989 with the arrest of serial killer Miyazaki Tsutomu, a
dedicated anime/manga otaku.
See also:
o Anime Otaku: Japanese Animation Fans Outside Japan - a thoughtful
assessment of Western anime otakus.
<gopher://uclink.berkeley.edu:52673/00/issue13/anime>
o [...] Alienated Japanese Zombie Computer Nerds - from Wired
magazine, a detailed but sobering account of otaku culture.
<http://www.ncb.gov.sg/wired/1.1/otaku.html>
o Are You An Otaku? - a highly romanticised view, from Viz's Trish
Ledoux. <http://www.internex.net/axcess/Issue6/contents.html>
o Otakus were discussed in Mediamatic Magazine vol.5, #3.
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