The third and final installment of Matt Alt’s interview with popular author, academic, and super-fan Patrick W. Galbraith on the key controversies in otaku culture and his new book, Otaku Spaces.

Otaku Spaces Chin Music Press (2012) Buy on Amazon

In Part One and Part Two of our interview with Patrick W. Galbraith, author of Otaku Spaces, we talked about how the otaku fit into “Cool Japan” and 21st century society, the pitfalls of “otakology,” and the fact that lolicon is not a new aberration but has always been part of the subculture. This time we go deeper into that final point — why is there more social anxiety about otaku obsessed with little girls than ones obsessed with robots? And while we’re at it, why do anime companies push their fans to buy so much stuff?

OTAKU SPACES © 2012 by Patrick W. Galbraith and Androniki Christodoulou. Photographs reproduced by permission of the publisher, Chin Music Press

I get that modern day otaku have the same passion as before, but this argument avoids the issue that obsessing over robots and manga fits better with general consumerism in Japan than the moe otaku’s use of money and time on a pursuit that links more directly to their sexual needs. Isn’t this the root of the discrimination?

If I am understanding correctly, you think that interest in robots and technology is more normal?

It’s less about normalcy and more about attainability. A fascination with robots and spaceships is a fascination with things that we can’t have because they don’t exist. Moe involves a fascination with the lives and happenings of girls and young women, who, last time I checked, are real.

Robots and spaceships don’t exist? I think what you mean to say is that there are robots and spaceships that only exist in manga and anime. The fiction in science fiction. OK, the same way, robot maids, magical girls, angels, cat girls, and so on exist only in manga and anime. They are no more attainable than super robots, and exist only as fiction. I’m prepared to go even further. I don’t think that girls and young women exist in the same form in reality and fiction. We cannot forget that these are fictional characters, drawn and animated. No one is confused about the fictionality of bishōjo characters. They are attracted to fiction as such. We have to date had far too many misunderstandings about otaku because we assume that what they desire in the so-called two-dimensional world is the same what they want in actual reality, or the three-dimensional world. There is not a one-to-one relation between these things, so we need to understand the complexity of engagement with images on their own terms.

Let me get back to your point about attainability. In a country like Japan, where there are government slogans such as “living together with robots” (robotto tono kyōsei), technology is extremely close to everyday life. That is why I thought you meant that desire for robots is more normal than desire for bishōjo characters, which often have no basis in reality. At the same time, with robots, there is a gap between what people dream of and what’s available. This might inspire work in engineering or robotics to make the dream a reality, or consume enthusiastically to feel closer to the dream, to feed it. I have met some people who seem to support a theory that this is productive of actual engagements in the world. Ishizaki-san, who I interviewed for Otaku Spaces, is totally into robots and ended up working as a mechanical designer. But, then again, Ishizaki-san is also an avid player of bishōjo games! It isn’t easy to separate interests and oppose them.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think that bishōjo media fulfills the “sexual needs,” immediate or otherwise, of fans. Pornography does that, and we should not confuse the two. I’m not sure that we can categorize it as bishōjo or moe anime, but in any case Haruhi Suzumiya is not pornography. It is a complex, character-driven story. Yes, she is cute, but let’s not stop the analysis at the level of the surface image. I thought that was the problem with moe fans! “They aren’t deep enough.” As critics, I hope that we don’t become that which we criticize.

Anyway, Haruhi is not a porn star — not even a human being. She is a drawing, a fictional character. A desire for Haruhi is not the same as wanking to a skin magazine, in that there is no body, no “money shot,” no climax, no sex — only the continuous movement of desire. Rather than fulfilling sexual needs, bishōjo media accelerates and intensifies desire for something other, something that does not exist. Bishōjo fans are romantics, perhaps even more devoted to their ideals than fans of giant robots. Unlike someone how can try to build a robot or mobile suit in physical, material reality, bishōjo fans can’t ever realize the ideal or dream. And I suspect that most don’t want to. Remember Honda and the two-dimensional character/wife, which can act as an alternative to human relationships.

Okay, sure. But if you take it to the logical extreme, doesn’t this essentially put relationships with a fellow human being on the same level of fantasy as, say, piloting a giant robot? I think that’s what rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

I see what you’re saying, but there’s no need to take things to the extreme. Manga and anime already offer us enough such scenarios! So, for the sake of argument, let me be more specific. I think that a series like Chobits, which depicts a romantic relationship between a boy and his computer, anthropomorphized as a bishōjo, is every bit as fanciful as piloting a giant robot. You could say that Chobits is at its core just about young love (boy meets girl) or is a parody of intimacy with technology, meaning that it is about “real life,” but that is really reductive. If we equate a robot girl or a bishōjo with an actual girl we are doing both a disservice. They are not the same, and we should not treat them as such. What rubs people the wrong way is not respecting the distinction.

I agree with you that the root of some of the discrimination against so-called moe otaku is likely the fact that their pursuit of pleasure in the two-dimensional world is “unproductive,” though it fuels consumption of media and material. Perhaps it is not “productive” for Japan and its future to have moe otaku around, as they disrupt the social reproduction of the nation/family. But saying that the mainstream, majority, or politically powerful in Japan are anxious about moe otaku is not the same as explaining why other fans have a problem with them. That’s a tough one, and we all have to think long and hard on it.

I’d like to pick at the idea of normativity a little more. Who is to say that it is more appropriate to dream of super robots than fighting girls? To dream of martial artists than magical girls? It seems that we may be drawn to violence a little too much. When we talk about a director such as Oshii Mamoru, for example, why do we always end up praising Ghost in the Shell and trivializing Urusei Yatsura?

I think it’s about relevance. For whatever it’s worth, I think Beautiful Dreamer is a great film, but Ghost in the Shell just felt more relevant to our times.

Beautiful Dreamer is a great film! For me, on a meta level, it draws attention to the endless loop and inescapablity of the “school festival” or pleasure space that is anime. Haruhi also did this during the brilliant “endless eight” arc. But more than his films, I was thinking about Oshii Mamoru’s work on the Urusei Yatsura TV series, which was a big hit with otaku.

On the surface, Urusei Yatsura is a bawdy comedy, but for those who care to watch the whole series carefully, the real appeal is the complexity, conflicts, and emotional depth of Lum in her tumultuous relationship with Ataru. More than the tiger skin bikini, I suspect that it was the appeal of Lum as a character that attracted fans and held their attention over the course of months, years and decades. That Oshii was able to adapt Takahashi Rumiko’s manga and reach so many people on an emotional level with the Urusei Yatsura TV series is every bit as much of an achievement as the realism and philosophical posturing of the Ghost in the Shell films. Preferences for film over TV in critical and academic circles aside, the valuation of Ghost in the Shell over Urusei Yatsura inside and outside the otaku community is telling, and speaks to the divisions between sci-fi and bishōjo fans I mentioned earlier.

We also seem to demand conflict in our stories. Consider the fact that the world of Magical Princess Minky Momo is one without enemies or bad people. The entire story is nothing more than a girl helping people find their dreams. What’s wrong with that? Think about when the protagonist of the film version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind saves her world from the “god-warrior” instead of, say, piloting it to defeat the enemy. I find this incredibly satisfying, if a little ham-fisted with the religious iconography.

So why insist on putting kids in the cockpit of war machines? Minmay sings for peace, though her song is perverted and used as a weapon, so why are we supposed to be more interested in dogfights and war than love and peace? By focusing only on the machines and confrontations in space, we seem to be missing so much of the internal struggles of the characters and the melodrama — it’s a soap opera, really — of their interpersonal relationships on the ground.

I will confess to fast-forwarding through Minmay’s concerts and Hikaru’s dithering over girlfriends to get to the battle scenes.

And that’s fine. But what I’m getting it is that some fans might be more interested in the concerts and human conflicts, and that’s fine, too. For those who say that representative works of anime today have “no story,” think of Miyazaki Hayao’s My Neighbor Totoro. Acclaimed as the “best last film of the Shōwa era” by Kinema Junpō magazine — and it has no story to speak of. Or at least no “grand narrative.” The director says that he would have been satisfied to depict nothing more than the excitement of a typhoon — nothing more than a child’s emotional response to a meteorological phenomenon. Imagine what kind of a film that would have been! Instead, he ended up focusing on what Thomas LaMarre calls “girl energies.” By minimizing the boy’s role in his stories, Miyazaki imagines “a series of minor adventures without grand design or teleology.” Are small adventures involving girls exploring the world and struggling emotionally somehow less valuable than grand adventures of boys saving the world or struggling against enemies? Totoro is moving in its depictions of small things — the joy of discovery, the power of imagination, the pang of loneliness. You become attuned to the characters and their moods. In this sense it is something like moe anime. Nothing happens. In this sense it is something like “atmosphere anime” (kūki-kei anime). And that is not to diminish it.

Why do we prefer robots destroying things? As LaMarre points out, it seems that male characters experience technology as a problem to be solved, something to be mastered or optimized. This leads to fetishism of technology and ultimate destruction. Female characters experience technology as a condition to be understood. This leads to salvation. Rather than fighting with and against technology, living with technology seems much more productive to me.

One of my favorite anime is Mahoromatic, which juxtaposes the everyday life of a robot maid with scenes of horrific violence from her past as a military weapon. I don’t think I’m alone in wishing she didn’t have to fight and finding myself shedding a tear as she is brutally beaten by her enemies. I wish that those quiet days in her idealized home didn’t have to end, which is why the anime works so well.

I won’t deny having a techno-fetishistic streak myself, but I question whether a fascination with giant robots equates into a fascination with destruction per se. It’s more about strength, protection, and becoming a hero.

Right. I don’t mean to imply that all giant robots or mecha shows are necessarily about war and destruction. It just seems that all too often technology is mastered and optimized to deal with problems, which results in violent conflict. LaMarre is suggesting that Miyazaki Hayao realized this in the early 1980s, which accounts for his shift to female leads as a way to imagine some other type of narrative and resolution. Maybe bishōjo media is rife with the “girl energies” that LaMarre speaks of, which is one reason to consider seriously its alternatives.

Another criticism of otaku culture has been that the companies are now just making money by forcing fans to buy lots and lots of products instead of focusing on making high quality series.

We hear a lot about this, don’t we? Especially since the figure boom in the late 1990s. But maybe we need some historical perspective. Marc Steinberg’s new book Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan is a really good place to start.

Steinberg takes us back to 1963, when Tezuka Osamu’s Astro Boy first aired on Japanese television. This was the first weekly 30-minute animated TV show in Japan. It established the super-limited animation style that we recognize as “anime,” which is distinct from Disney, Toei, and Ghibli’s full animation. (Miyazaki Hayao, by the way, hates it when people call his stuff anime, and he blames Tezuka for the degradation of the moving image in Japan.) Tezuka’s curse, as people call it, was underselling his anime to make it attractive to broadcasters — who did not think anime in this form would be profitable, if even possible — and to pre-emptively undercut his competitors. Tezuka could do this because he was already a successful manga artist.

Steinberg estimates that Tezuka sold each episode of Astro Boy in Japan for ¥750,000, even though the actual cost of production of each was ¥2,500,000. This is why, from the beginning, the anime model that Tezuka established in Japan was dependent on licensing — both to foreign markets and for merchandising. Astro Boy became a hit, and was possible to produce, because of the national craze for Astro Boy stickers given away with Meiji Seika candies.

Sponsors and merchandising are crucial in anime. As you yourself have noted, Matt, robot shows in the 1970s were dependent on toy sponsors and, dare I say, sales. Yes, Mobile Suit Gundam changed the paradigm of robot narratives, but it only succeeded in shifting toy sales from children to adults. Today, with fewer children in Japan and less money to be made from foreign licensing due to digital piracy, anime depends on merchandise targeting adults.

The Japanese government estimated in a 2005 report that the market for licensed merchandise based on fictional characters is 10 times that of anime itself. But, in reality, this too is becoming less profitable for Japanese animators. Kubo Masakazu surveyed the anime scene for the 2005 government report, and notes that there were 72 weekly anime TV series in April, with 37.5 percent being new while only three series crossed the two-year threshold, which is in some ways crucial to success. A one season (13-episode) anime makes it very difficult for companies to release merchandise, because they might find themselves overstocked with unknown and unpopular character goods. It takes time to gauge the market and produce things. The high volume and fast turnover of series also limits the appeal of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, because series are quickly forgotten amid a torrent of new material.

Kubo calls the shortening length of anime series and fast turnover a “death spiral.” He waxes nostalgic about Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, but we do see similar long-run hits like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece. The problem is the other 70 series that are on air. Can we really blame the producers of those series for targeting Japanese who actually do purchase merchandise and physical media? Maybe this is a death spiral of a different kind, as things become more insular — otaku targeting otaku in an accelerated and intense circuit that confuses and alienates mainstream and foreign audiences.

Yet if there is no money to be made from other markets anyway then we really don’t have a leg to stand on for criticism. So maybe digital piracy is yet another death spiral — foreign fans loving anime too much to wait for a localization and too up-to-speed thanks to the Internet to care about buying old series, circling the anime studios they love faster and faster and draining the life from them.

It sounds funny, but perhaps this is the perfect time to encourage otaku consumption! Of course you can be an otaku without consuming anything, which seems to be the source of many problems for the industry today. This is also another reason why Okada Toshio is fed up with fans today, who do not seem to be invested enough in the industry and the community to take responsibility for it. If you don’t pay for anime, it disappears. How much do you want it?

Maybe the trend toward digital consumption of disposable series and characters is one reason why it was so refreshing for me to meet the people I interviewed for Otaku Spaces. They were just so into their fandoms and devoted so much time and energy to them! If there is a criticism to be made, it is that they loved certain characters, series and media too much, buying into their fantasies to a fault, but that’s not a criticism that I want to make. I think that they are awesome! Their hobbies seemed to be a huge part of their lives, colonizing their inner spaces and personal spaces, and spilling out into public spaces.

This is another point that Steinberg makes, but he draws our attention to the mono komi, or “thing communication” that occurs in the anime media mix. Manga, anime, stickers, and toys all gave Astro Boy different movements and made him an intimate part of kids’ lives. “Thing communication” refers to the ways that people communicate with and through commodities, which is to say person-thing and person-thing-person communication, but — and this is Steinberg’s point — also thing-thing communication. These things were in dialogue with one another, creating a space of Astro Boy, each image and object acting as a tiny opening into that world. The fans of Astro Boy shared that world with the character and with one another. They actively “stickered” their physical surroundings to provide openings and to expand that world. That kind of intimacy with the character, series and between people just seems like what being a fan is all about. There are multiple overlapping and resonating worlds of consumption open to otaku these days. It is in hopes of inspiring readers to explore these other worlds that I wrote Otaku Spaces.

In case you missed them: Part One and Part Two of the interview.

Matt Alt interviews popular author, academic, and super-fan Patrick W. Galbraith on the key controversies in otaku culture and his new book, Otaku Spaces.

Otaku Spaces Chin Music Press (2012) Buy on Amazon

Most academics write for other academics and keep their knowledge within academic institutions. Thankfully, Patrick W. Galbraith has never subscribed to those unwritten rules, contributing quite prolifically to the popular literature on his subject of choice — Japanese otaku culture — while finishing his PhD at the University of Tokyo and now working on another Doctorate at Duke University. His 2009 The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan worked to formally organize the key terms and key ideas inside the famed Japanese “nerd” subculture. Now his new book Otaku Spaces from Chin Music Press deepens and personalizes that knowledge through interviews with and photographs of a wide range of passionate collectors.

We talked with Galbraith over email to learn more about working on the book and to settle a few key debates within the otaku community — including whether 21st century “moe otaku” are continuous or a break from the original 1980s subculture originators.

OTAKU SPACES © 2012 by Patrick W. Galbraith and Androniki Christodoulou. Photographs reproduced by permission of the publisher, Chin Music Press

For your new book Otaku Spaces, you decided to interview actual otaku rather than just comment on them. Do you feel like there is any actual value in this? I was struck by how few of them were able to articulate why they did what they did. I sensed the passion, but it almost came across as a sort of fetishism.

I never expected the people introduced in the book to be able to explain why they’re so into something. It’s always unfair to ask fans to be reflexive in self-absent situations or when they lose themselves in the object of affection. This is the fan setup, which is usually played for laughs. Affective attachments never really translate well into rational thought and logical explanations.

Nonetheless, I think that there are multiple reasons why we should interview otaku — mostly as an act of intervention. The discourse on otaku has been almost entirely framed by the mass media in Japan, which deals in easily recognizable stereotypes. We oscillate between “good” and “bad” otaku — bad being serial killer Miyazaki Tsutomu and good being 2ch folk hero Densha Otoko. Both of these are media constructs. There’s the otaku panic versus the otaku boom, the irredeemable male pervert versus the redeemable consuming male. These images serve the interests of people other than otaku. And it’s so schizophrenic! One moment, everyone is a little bit otaku, and the next otaku are the most aberrant and horrifying outsiders. Media personality Nakagawa Shōko is allowed to be a “otadol” (otaku idol) on a variety show, which is followed by a retrospective on Miyazaki Tsutomu, the “otaku killer.” This is the situation as I found it while working on the book in Tokyo in 2008.

So it occurred to me that otaku are far too often talked about instead of talked to, and when they are talked about, it is usually in naïve behavioral and psychological terms. They are either the assumed context for textual readings of manga and anime or are themselves read like an open book.

I thought, what if there was a book that instead put otaku in dialogue with themselves and others? I felt that the best way to intervene in the otaku discourse was to focus on individuals. Not just to take a photo of someone’s room and talk over it, but allow individuals to present themselves and their spaces as they pleased. To let them take control of the narrative in long interviews and take control of the space in portraits. To have them in their element and let them interact with the objects and the camera as they saw fit.

Thanks to this format, I hope that Otaku Spaces challenges stereotypes about otaku — in at least four ways. First, these individuals are allowed to talk in the interviews directly about the otaku discourse and place themselves within and against it. Second, in the portraits, the stereotypes become too obvious to ignore. These individuals are aware of what people are saying about otaku both inside and outside Japan — hugging pillows as a “social phenomenon,” for example — and they played with and performed stereotypes. They were able to overturn things by laughing at expectations and those who buy into them.

Third, the more you get to know the people in the book, the less you see them as weird “others” who are unknowable and unapproachable. Though it may seem cliche, I am convinced that most stereotypes are based on misunderstandings, which develop through distance and become compound. I think it comes through in the interviews just how kind the people I met were, how generous they were with their time and space, how open and articulate they were about their hobbies and desires. You sense passion, yes, but I hope also shared humanity. Putting aside value judgements, those of us living in societies in the advanced stages of consumer capitalism find ourselves in similar otaku spaces. Maybe these people aren’t into the same things that you are, but once you get to know them, I hope that it will be harder to criticize and dismiss them based on received notions of “otaku.”

This leads me to my fourth and final point: We don’t know what the term “otaku” really means. The term is used generally and trivially on the one hand, but is used in very specific and meaningful ways on the other. Because we have only had models such as Miyazaki Tsutomu and Densha Otoko — and maybe also “elite” fans and “public” otaku such as former Gainax head Okada Toshio — there have been few opportunities to reflect on what otaku means to us. We just see otaku and think, that person is or is not like me — end of story. In Otaku Spaces, we meet 20 individuals who either identify as otaku or were introduced as otaku by others. Men and women of different ages with different hobbies and interests, all collected together into the same space of “otaku.” What makes one person an otaku and not another? How much of the judgment is theirs, yours and mine?

The interviews are a great way to complicate the otaku image. Someone told me that one of the interviewees, Ōno-san, is not an otaku because he collects calculators. Ōno-san is a sci-fi aficionado who would likely be categorized as a first or second generation otaku, which is to say the same generation as Okada Toshio. But someone didn’t see that in him and questioned his inclusion in the book. The question for me, then, is who counts as an otaku, when and why?

This is the debate that Otaku Spaces opens up in its pages.

I was particularly interested by the inclusion of the “underground” collector Mr. Watanabe in the book, a man who collects memorabilia from serial killers, racist organizations like the KKK, and religious cults. He doesn’t exactly fit my stereotype of an otaku. What led you to include him alongside cosplayers, doll collectors, and Gundam kit builders?

Maybe he doesn’t fit your stereotype of an otaku, but to some people he is the stereotype. The person who introduced us to Watanabe-san told me that he was the epitome of the “scary” type of otaku. As a loner who collected “junk” that no one else understands, he fit the classic image of an otaku, which was likely shaped by the “Miyazaki Incident” (the highly publicized arrest of Miyazaki Tsutomu and debate about the state of Japanese society and youth). Certain parts of Watanabe-san’s multi-room collection did visually resemble the famous police photo of Miyazaki Tsutomu’s room.

Note that in the interview Watanabe-san denies being an otaku, which he associates with consuming popular manga and anime. He says that such things are too “normal” for him, and he got bored with them as a kid.

Do you think that an American guy who collects racist paraphernalia can also be considered a harmless otaku?

First of all, whether or not a person, otaku or otherwise, is or isn’t harmless has to do with individual personality and circumstances. Let’s not jump straight to generalizations or provocative juxtapositions. Second, I am not really concerned with deciding whether or not someone is or isn’t an “otaku.” This is not about determining authenticity or providing more accurate definitions. I feel that Watanabe-san belongs in the book because he was introduced to us as an otaku. He does not recognize himself as such, and perhaps neither do we, but Watanabe-san is nonetheless located in a time and place where he can be identified as an otaku. That is to say in Tokyo in the late 2000s. This indicates a subtext and context to otaku that we would be remiss to ignore. Given the whole “Cool Japan” and “otaku boom” thing in the 2000s, Watanabe-san perhaps represents a return of the repressed, a sort of unwelcome and inconvenient “otaku” of the past appearing in the present.

Otaku experts such as Okada Toshio describe otaku as perpetual outsiders, but is that really the case anymore? We live in a era when Japanese leaders consider video games and anime to be top export properties.

I deeply respect Okada Toshio, but I have to disagree with his “otaku are dead” stance. What if instead of as outsiders we looked at otaku as insiders, at least of a fashion? Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute PhD Lawrence Eng has argued that otaku are “reluctant insiders,” or those who are part of the majority, mainstream, or middle class but feel alienated by their very inclusion in that larger group. They thus engage in unanticipated consumption and appropriation of media and technology to actively become a minority, or to find a place on the margins. Eng is talking most specifically about otaku in the United States, who, in the early days of the nascent anime fandom, consumed across geographical, generational, and gender/genre boundaries.

I can see that in my own experience, growing up obsessed with anime in the pre-Internet era of the 1980s. My friends and I were so off the radar that we weren’t even a subculture.

I love Eng’s conceptualization, too. And I think that we can also apply it to Japan, especially when talking about men consuming media and material perceived to be for or targeting kids and young girls. If we look at the original articles on otaku written by Nakamori Akio — translated into English and published on this very website (translation here) — we see that those men were called otaku in the early 1980s. Here we have a discourse of infantilizing and feminizing not only because of a alignment of consumer demographics (adult men with children and girls), but also because of the perceived “failure” of otaku to become adult men. In a similar way, fujoshi, or “rotten girls,” consume media and material meant for young boys, appropriating established male characters and transgressively imagining sexual encounters among them. Isn’t the label a reflection of a perceived “failure” to be in (re)productive relationships with men? That is what AERA journalist Sugiura Yumiko argues, anyway. These are stereotypes, but they point us to a logic that operates behind the otaku label. It has to do with the choice of objects in relation to the person, the ways that the objects are engaged with in private, and how these attachments communicate or are performed with and for others in public.

When these relations with objects are perceived to be “inappropriate” in part or in full, the person is usually labeled an otaku. Meiji University’s Morikawa Ka’ichirō was right when he said that otaku are on a “vector towards dame (no good).” But, as Okada Toshio replied to him, otaku don’t necessarily choose things because they are “bad,” but rather the things that they choose are identified as “bad” by others.

This is really starting to sound like fetishism now.

Well, let’s try a sociological approach before we get into psychoanalysis. National University of Singapore’s Kam Thiam Huat conducted interviews with Japanese university students who did not consider themselves otaku (i.e., considered themselves “normal”). He asked for their impressions of otaku, which were rather negative, and tried to zero in on the “common sense” (jōshiki) that otaku were perceived to be lacking. To put this another way, Kam is interested in the logic behind otaku labeling, and from his interviews identifies four major discourses: detachment from reality, inability to communicate, failed gender and minor interests. For Kam’s informants, otaku are those who indulge in consumption and play that detaches them from “reality,” or roles and responsibilities at home, school, and work. Otaku are unable or unwilling to relate to others as a result of indulgences in certain consumption and play activities. Among the people Kam interviewed, otaku were identified as men, specifically men who do not meet the social standards of masculinity or consume and play in ways that are inappropriate for men or appropriate only for women. (I suggest that we open this up from men to a general question of gender roles and expectations, which then allows us to discuss female otaku and fujoshi.) Finally, otaku were described as people who do not follow mainstream patterns of consumption and play. They consume what is unpopular or unknown.

Like a good sociologist, Kam codifies a set of “rules” that govern the “common sense” of consumption and play in contemporary Japan, and acknowledges that they only represent the thinking of a group of university students in Japan in the mid-2000s. But it is interesting that in the midst of the otaku boom when otaku were supposed to be “cool,” they were not for these non-otaku university students. Even if we don’t want to label otaku, we can see the truth of Kam’s “rules,” or the logic of the labeling, in Japan and elsewhere, even today. If we take only one thing away from Kam’s very interesting study, let it be that for many in Japan otaku are those who consume or play in uncommon ways. They take their engagements beyond the limits of common sense, acceptability or normativity, to what is considered the extreme or excessive.

In order to get a grip on the logic of the otaku label, and how it relates to specific people and practices, let’s take your example of video games. Yes, electronic entertainment is a massive, global market that implicates almost everyone from a young age. Playing Super Mario Bros. isn’t in and of itself “otaku” behavior. But what about someone who continues to play? Who has played it so many times that he or she can clear it blindfolded, posts time trials online, or has played every game and can talk endlessly about them? This reflects a different level of engagement and such a person might identify or be identified as an otaku. It’s a matter of intensity and duration. And pride.

What about someone who handicaps him or her self — who plays “masochistically,” as scholar Kijima Yoshimasa puts it — to get more value out of the game? For example, beating a game with one quarter or without continuing. Or mastering a crappy, glitchy game like Sega’s Fist of the North Star, sharing the experience with others and becoming a champion at Tokyo Ranking Fighters in Nakano? Even though this falls into the broad category of gaming, we recognize otaku behavior, right?

Can you expand on what you mean by “masochistic?”

It is Kijima’s term. He means that people handicap themselves when playing a game, which requires that they play more often and purposefully to develop skills. This amounts to playing so long and hard that it becomes work, or even torture. I think that some of us can recall an experience where playing a game becomes agonizing, but at the same time pleasurable. In Kijima’s example of Fist of the North Star, the glitches represent patterns to memorize through a process of trial and error. It’s about finding pleasure in unusual ways, and taking the play activity underground. Casual players see Fist of the North Star, think that its just see a crappy game, and move on.

To get back to how Kam’s insights about otaku labeling might apply to gaming, think about someone who gets so into an RPG — better yet, an MMORPG — that they hole up in their room and miss school or work. Such a person has lost control, allowing the game to take over and impact his or her life, which is something that he or she laughs about with friends. A new Final Fantasy game? Oh, there goes my social life! Again there is a masochism to this self-parody. Many people seem to consider devoted players like this to be otaku. What about someone playing a bishōjo game? Most people would say that such a person is an otaku, more so if he is so into Fujisaki Shiori (Tokimeki Memorial) or Anegasaki Nene (LovePlus) that he had an intimate gathering of friends to marry the fictional character.

Is this the same as a kid obsessing over, say, Pokemon?

That is considered to be normal, right? But what if an adult male told you that he was into Pokemon or he showed up at a Pokemon TCG tournament? What if he was up all night playing the interactive My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic game online? The uncomfortable proximity between children and adults, even when it reflects the trend of collapsing consumer demographics together (kids getting older sooner, adult children, gender ambiguity), might cause some to call such a man an otaku.

I am really just taking Kam’s findings and applying them to gaming. None of what I have said is absolutely or necessarily “true.” I just want to point out that we should not be too quick to dismiss otaku as an empty word when it does, in fact, seem to operate with a predictable logic. The word is significant to people who are into manga, anime, and games, and to people who observe them. The word is made significant, given meaning, in one’s life and in everyday interactions. Such a statement reflects my preference for an anthropological approach, as compared to a sociological one.

You discuss the “gaze” as being integral to being an otaku — that openly showing ones tastes and interests publicly so as to cement personal identity is key to the lifestyle. Certain people you interviewed seemed to promote their relationships with two-dimensional characters or dolls as a healthy thing, even going so far as to worry about “upsetting” their dolls by picking a favorite for you. How much of this is real, and how much of this is a posture?

In otaku culture, overstating one’s desires, connections, and experiences is a lot of times just for laughs, such as the “my wife” phenomenon among male otaku or the “impregnation by voice” phenomenon among female otaku who are obsessed with voice actors. It is a way to strike up and enliven conversation about one’s preferences and passions, which are affirmed by others.

Impregnation by voice?

It’s just something that female fans of voice actors, and sometimes singers, say. If they are made to go weak at the knees, swoon, or burst with moe at the sound of someone’s voice, they might express this by saying “my ears are pregnant” (mimi ga ninshin shita). It makes sense, I guess, as the sound pierces deep into their ears and leaves a bit of itself there to grow into a love child. That would be the character image burning itself into their brains.

Anyway, otaku become known as a certain type of otaku or one with a taste for certain things, images and characters, genres and narratives. This is about as deep as “identity” goes in otaku culture. Self here is performed with characters, media/material and others. There is a lot of subversive potential in “playing with one’s self,” as McGill professor Thomas LaMarre puts it, but I think that most otaku are just out to have some fun, talk about what they like, and make friends.

I guess what I’m getting at is, is it possible to be an otaku without having an audience? Publicizing it seems to be a big part of the experience, particularly for younger otaku.

I see what you mean. It does seems that otaku are becoming more public and performative in their interactions with favorite characters from manga, anime, and games. Cosplay, itasha cars, anime tattoos and shirts, a room filled with anime goods and so on are ways to express one’s interests, tastes and orientations, and to relate to an imagined self, others, and media/material.

We see performances of private connections to characters, which make those connections public. Intimacy is affirmed by others watching and the self who looks back on the performance. Often there is a component of mediation, recording, and transmission. Otaku are totally wired and seem to enjoy working through “layers” of connections. There are so many layers to anime, manga, and games. When someone says that he or she likes a character, they can be referring to the setting and narrative events that define the character, the character design, the character type, the voice (actor or actress), the creator, producer, studio, the medium in which the character exists, the world that allows the character to exist and is accessed through it, one’s own interactions with the character, the community surrounding it and interactions with it, the way one feels in relation to it, and so on.

This is why I love the Japanese term “layers” (reiyā), which started as an abbreviation of “cosplayer” (kosupureiyā). I like the way that it foregrounds the layers of fictionality involved in costume play. As Saitō Tamaki tells us, working through these layers, connections, and ambiguities is part of the pleasure for otaku. The expanding relationship with a character occurs across multiple media and material forms, across space and time and across bodies, one’s own and those of others.

Next time: Why 21st century little girl obsessed otaku should be seen as descendants of the robot war fans of the 1980s