Sometimes on the internets good things happen when you least expect it.
Just when I went and declared the anime blogosphere dead as a community, the ‘Otaku’ Elimination Game appears. While you can debate on whether or not this can be called anything community-related, it’s nice to see things liven up a bit ever since the Great Dramas of Anime Blog Awards.
I’m sort of on the clock here (installing Windows 7 and whatnot) so I’m not gonna to go into too much detail since you can just click on that link up there and check the site itself. It’s rather straightforward really: They make a list of anime blogs and other sites that publish stuff related to Japanese visual culture, and then proceed to attempt to flame the shit out of them. What seems to be mainly their point of interest is whether or not the author(s) of a specific site deserve to call themselves otaku and claim to cover a whole spectrum of things related to Japan. Also, you better watch your back if you’ve been inspired by Danny Choo…
Personally I find the term otaku to be rather difficult to accurately define as basically it just means a person with an obsession in certain fields of interest (psst, that’s a nicer way of calling you a nerd). Most commonly (at least outside Japan) this is used to refer to people with a highly notable interest in Japanese animation, manga, games and so forth. But what exactly makes you applicable to be an otaku isn’t all that easy to define. Is there a certain magical figurines-per-week-ratio that one must exceed? I could go on with this to the point of nausea but a whole lot of people have already typed at least gigabyte or two worth of text on the subject. Personally I have no answer to what the sufficiently exact definition of otaku is. Of course, the guys at Otaku Elimination Game apparently do and hopefully they will let us into their sekrit soon enough. In any case, I do agree with them that this term deserves to be used with care unless the case is pretty damn obvious. As for now, the OEG guys will provide us with this description of themselves, so anyone pursuing an answer to the problem of defining otaku may use it as a guideline:
We are the authority on otaku (Not ‘otaku’), that’s why we can make this blog and criticise others. Collectively between the group who run this place (6 contributors and a few others hanging in the sidelines) we’ve attended every single comiket since the late 80s and the majority of wonfes’ since ‘96. We have one member who currently works in Akiba and two who have worked there at different times. And not for any big sellout companies either.
Naturally I commented on OEG site as soon as I discovered it, mainly in hopes that I’d get on their list as well. Why? Because I like criticism and it’s a rare find among mere comments that people post on my site. Not that I mind, but most comments tend to either be agreements or restatements of what I have expressed in the post itself or futile arguments like “it’s just your opinion“. Finns appreciate direct criticism and I’m no exception. I suppose I’m a masochist or something but I just can’t help liking it. Besides it’s not like I dislike whoring my site whenever possible.
Whenever someone criticizes my blog.
Of course, I doubt my chances of ending up in there. Although it may be the case with some of my older posts, I have done my very best to refrain from referring to myself as an otaku on this site. Surely enough I have done that on IRC but mainly for the sake of convenience since it’s far less bothersome to type in than the alternatives. I can honestly say that I do not consider myself as an otaku. I do not own figurines and I probably will never buy even one. I do not have dakimamuras, I do not read Japanese light noves or play h-games nor VNs in general. My knowledge in Japanese language is next to nonexistent aside from kana and my interest in the country, its people or culture does not run much deeper than anime and manga. Most of the time I listen to western trance, drum n’ bass, classic rock and jazz. The only j-songs in my library are some anime themes and character songs if they’ve proven to exceptionally good. Huh, I get carried away and this happens; I ruin the last of my chances to be evaluated on OEG as a pretentious poser. Dear old me.
Also, in real life I do not talk with people about anime nor could anyone ever tell that I’m into it. I do not generally hang out with other anime enthusiasts and as you can see from above, my workspace isn’t all that otaku-ish either. And it would be much less so if it wasn’t certain that few other people will ever set their foot into this single-room apartment. There you have it. I may be an even more pathetic form of life than an otaku, in fact fundamentally speaking I’m not all that different from all the narutards waging endless dick-waving wars on ANN forums about their favorite jutsu, but at least I’m completely honest about it. The total sum of money that I have invested in anime, manga and related goods might be around 800 euros; maybe 10th of what I’ve spent on airsoft, another passion of mine. Oh and by the way, I didn’t buy that Ergo Proxy wallscroll, I got it free off a friend whose wife told him to throw all the silly Chinese cartoon goods out of the house. Just for the record.
Do I like anime? Do I consider myself as an enthusiast? Yes, ain’t no doubt about it. But am I an otaku? By most standards, no. In any event, OEG is a fun read whether you agree with the authors or not. Personally I have mixed feelings, mainly due to the futility of getting stuck with complaining about excessive use of otaku as a term. Just so you know, the word sauna is loaned from Finnish to almost every other language (including Japanese) and I could rant about how stupid foreigners misuse it since most foreign saunas are definitely nothing like what we have around here (come on, you can’t even throw water on the stove and whack people with dried birch branches? Max +60C temperature? Shit’s for fags). But then again I do understand there are people who needlessly brag to be otaku when using terms such as anime-enthusiast would be more proper. OEG has to do a few things: First, give more exact explanation on their definition of the term. Second, quit trying to be anonymous badasses. For all we know, you might be a bunch of bored f/a/gs or tards from AnimeSuki taking a break from fighting over which of the shittiest series in the season is the best and complaining how ANN only does bought reviews and bloggers are elitist fags or blatant trolls. More credibility, more potential to cause delicious dramas.
Come to think of it, I thought the word “otaku” is applied to any kind of topics, as long as the person is “obsessed” to a certain extent in whatever topics they are interested in.
Some examples includes gunji (military), pasokon (computer), gemu (games) otakus and all the other likes. There are, of course, trains and idols and stuffs like that, as I don’t recall the word otaku as an anime/manga exclusive. I could be wrong on that part though!
[Nova] That’s how I have understood it as well. Of course in this case we’re talking about anime/manga/game otaku. This is exactly one of the things I’d like to see OEG people to elaborate, because right now it’s hard to really take them seriously when they’re not providing exact standards by which they judge things.
@Netto:
In Japan Otaku can mean anything but for the rest of the world its associated with anime only the rest are just fanatics ;P
Hey Nova, loved your posts on Index! Having said that, I might understand where these guys are coming from. I know tons of popular anime bloggers that have secured themselves a position of authority among certain readers, at least in the blogosphere. The problem here is that a lot of these guys claim to be otaku, but in actuality they merely opened up an anime blog, got popular on memes and web 2.0, and that’s that (the perfect example here would be Impz). They had no previous involvment with the industry, they haven’t been around for that long, yet people turn to them for answers, as if they have something valuable to offer to the community. Well, they don’t, at best they are just a shoutbox.
That being said, I think the guy(s) behind OE pretty much fail as bloggers, they have no credibility and no writing skills to make the experience that interesting. All that’s interesting about OE is that they are denying others their fandom. No otaku wants to be told that they fail at it, it can be a very personal thing. Not to whine too much about it, but that’s the reason why it’s been given so much attention.
Very much true Miha. OEG has chosen a topic with a lot of potential impact and initial shock value but lacks the credibility and skills to have enough momentum behind its arguments. Basically this seems to be a case of Japanese “true” anime nerds complaining about the use of otaku as a loanword in foreign languages. And like I stated in my post, as a Finn I might as well flame the Japs for using “sauna” in their language referring to something that no self-respecting Finn would ever consider as one. And yet such argument would be utterly futile, especially if the only thing I’d focus on would be its usage rather than expressing constructive criticism on the local saunas instead.
I’m interested to see whether OEG can really be more than just bitching about “correct” terminology. And I agree with you on their writing skills, even though I represent somewhat similar provocative style. Their arguments are strong but lack substance when you take a peek between the lines. And their apparently genuine surprise over the influx of positive feedback and voluntary self-nominations clearly points out that they don’t have all that much social sense or experience as far as the English anime blogging culture is concerned. But hey, it’s not every day shit like this happens. I’d have to be an idiot to ignore it.
I’m surprised by how many people are recoiling at the possibility that someone might actually critisize their writing. I totally agree with you on the fact that blogging hopelessly lacks any proper form of critism beyond disagreeing with your own views (WHUT, you don’t like Mazinger Z!?! You suck rawr rawr etc.)
Granted, the OEG probably isn’t the best way to go about this but hey, they started the shitstorm and people are paying attention. We won’t know the true result of this until they start posting more flaming..err, I mean reviews
BTW, wasn’t the Anime Blog Awards a complete failure? I only joined the blogsphere in it’s aftermath but didn’t it totally fail in it’s objective? It was made to encourage views for well-written anime blogs that had little attention but only ended up being a place where the big boys could pat each other on the back.
The OEG might be unearthing more about the anime blogosphere than even they originally intended. There’s one word that strikes me as interesting that seems to continually crop up in discussion about OEG. It’s not a word like “hate” or “trolling” or such since these words pop up every time someone comes along to rattle cages and upset the established order (OMG OEG is The Joker), so we can quietly dismiss these. The word that I find interesting is “masochist”. Might this say something about the types of people that blogging attracts? Hmmm….
(Someone will inevitably come along and say “sif you didn’t realize bloggers are masochists”, but we’ve never seen a collective admission on this scale before. What surprises me is it took just one little push… one little threat of guaranteed criticism for bloggers to en masse exclaim “beat me with your insult whip like the bitch I am, baby”. It reminds me of that SZS episode where people lined up to get taunted by Arai-sensei)
Scamp, ABA was sort of a mixed bag. It did have its own category for new blogs and stuff but you’re right, it was mainly a field day for big blogs. That said, it’s not like smaller blogs didn’t get any attention from it and that’s always positive. They were going to introduce a whole bunch of improvements to the formula in this year’s ABA but sadly it was canceled – what I heard from Mellow and Impz was that the project was too time-intensive to manage considering that it didn’t really benefit the organizers themselves in any way.
Sorrow-kun, it’ simply because most of the time anime blogs are like DA-tartlets or webcomics – growing in an environment where any serious criticism is almost nonexistent. In the anime blogosphere you rarely come seriously under fire and that leads to people either becoming fearful of any criticism at all or starving for it. And I say most of us in the ‘sphere belong in that latter group.
That campaign appears to be more of nitpicking on what the term otaku really means in the Japanese social scene or wherever it may be that they consider being called an otaku critical.
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