OTAKU and society

OTAKU used to be a group of people who was looked down upon by the whole society because they are indulging in unreality. The main stream of the society excludes OTAKU. OTAKU people were considered as a group of people who doesn't have active funtion and contribution to the society but useing up same amount of resource as everyone else.

The situation changed since a TV drama called Densha Otoko (電車男) on air in 2004. Densha Otoko can be translated as Train Men, actually it's produced as movie, television series, manga, novel, and other media products. They are all based on the purportedly true story of a 23-year-old OTAKU who intervened when a drunk man was harassing several women on a train. The OTAKU ultimately begins dating one of the women who is a noblest beauty.

Further information about Densha Otoko:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Densha_Otoko


The drama changed people's opinion on OTAKU. People start to put their prejudice away for a while, so they can see an OTAKU's life and mind. The drama brought shy and good-natured image of an OTAKU, people followed the view from the OTAKU's side to continue the story line so that they can get understand the character's feeling.

OTAKU is just a differentiation by hobby and behaviour, OTAKU is also a group of people who has dream. From another point of view, the reason for why OTAKU become negative is the discrimination from other group of people. The press from society make them feel spineless and useless, but in fact, they are creative . OATKU is the main power that is holding up and supporting the anime industry. Products of OTAKU culture such as COSPLAY and fanfic publication do bring a huge profit to the economy.

Extreme sometimes can be considered as pure, most of the OTAKU are idealist. They have to make themselves more face to the reality and improve skills for living. It will be a long term process which needs care and forgiveness from the whole society.

OTAKU culture - events

OTAKU has lots of events which can be considered as activities of their circles.
They hold culture festivals in BUDOKAN (a big hall centre in TOKYO) every year. They sell and buy fanfic manga, drama or original songs CDs in the hall. Different cycles own their own location in the hall. There is COSPLAY show taking place at the square outside the hall.

This is the link to the most famous and popular OTAKU discussion board in Japan:

http://www.2ch.net/

This is a site on which they are selling products from the 74th festival:

http://www.dannychoo.com/detail/mac/eng/image/6486/C74+Doujin.html


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There is a big event which takes place on the internet of Japan every year, it's called the cutest anime character competetion. People vote for the characters from the anime which come on air during a prescriptive period ( eg. Oct 2008 - Sep 2009). The competition takes 3 months from preliminary contest to final through a knockout system. The winner will be recognized as the cutest of the year.

The official site for most cutest 2008:

http://friend.45.kg/saimoe2008/

OTAKU culture - COSPLAY

Cosplay which is a short form of costume roleplaying. It can be considered as the most gorgeous product of OTAKU culture.
COSPLAY means People ware costume of anime characters and make up to make themselves look like the characters. They take photoes and photoshop them to make the whole image closer to the original characters.

It came of the feeling of becoming one's favourite character, now it's one of the most important activities of OTAKU culture. Big shows and events are held quite often, many famous COSERS (cosplaers) become popular like stars.

Specific definition of COSPLAY:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay

Gogle image result for COSPLAY:

http://images.google.co.nz/images?hl=en&q=cosplay&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=pkMGSoTnM5S6tgPVh6TlAQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

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Maid cafe is another kind of COSPLAY, the waitress are all waring costume of maid and treat customers like masters. It's a type of rolplaying between the aitress and the customers. Maid cafe is very popular by male OTAKU.

What's Maid Cafe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maid_cafe