Otaku is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga and video games. Female otaku are occasionally referred to as fujoshi.
It was used in the 1980s as a second person singular pronoun among hobbyist photographers. As it gained familiarity, the word was soon used by others to refer to hobbyist photographers. Since the photographers were seen as socially unskillful, reclusive, and obsessed with their hobby, otaku picked up those negative connotations and eventually was used to refer to any reclusive, obsessive hobbyist.
A common stereotype is the young male otaku who lives at home without a job, has few social contacts outside of his otaku friends, and may even be bordering on a dangerous stalker. Besides anime otaku (who sometimes enjoy many days of exessive anime watching with no rest) and manga otaku, Japanese culture has many other varieties, such as pasocon otaku (personal computer geeks), geimu otaku (playing video games) and otaku that are extreme fans of idols heavily promoted singing girls. Otaku has stronger negative connotations in Japanese than it does in English, although it can be used either positively or negatively in either language.
Many fans of anime in America use the word otaku to describe themselves, and are unaware of the negative meanings of the word. Because of this, many Japanese peope are understandably confused when someone describes themselves as an otaku, or is proud to be known as an otaku. Many Americans who don't watch anime are unaward of the differences between anime and American cartoons. While Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry are about sensless violence and humor, anime can tell emotionally moving and phsycologically thrilling stories about romance, comedy, mystery, fantsy, science fiction, horror, or adventure. This is understadable, since the most well-known anie outside of Japan are mostly child-oriented, like Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, or Naruto. Most otaku prefer the origional Japanese subtitled versions of anime, since many anime, such as Yugioh or Pokemon, are heavily censored, either beause of adult-material, or many are censored beause the creators try to erase any Japanese references, which irritates many.
Are you an Anime Otaku?
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What kind of Otaku are you?
take the test to find out: http://www.theotaku.com/quizzes/view/256/what_kind_of_otaku_are_you%3F
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Anime and Manga Quizzes: http://www.theotaku.com/quizzes
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