So...what is an otaku exactly?

An interesting question imposed by some of the visitors to this blog, and I gotta admit that I can only give you the answer based on my own perspective and experience. I can quote wikipedia or dictionary.org, but that would defeat the purpose of this blog and thus further reading is only recommended should you still feel confused and wanted to clarify my nonsensical babbling.

"A drill is a man's romance" - T.T.G.L.

So said an anime, and supported by parody by another anime. This is the first clue of how the otaku works and thinks. This subspecies of the humans clings on firmly to his own beliefs and does so with a passion that scares/creeps out/intimidate/bore his peers who do not unfortunately share his vision on what makes the world seem alright, God is in his heaven as he indulges in his personal agenda of self-gratification with a vengeance!

So why the need for another term? Degenerating words like geek and nerd already exist that may somewhat define this genre, but I like to point out that since I'm addicted to a *japanese* subculture it would be appropriate to use their original lingo. The reason for this is simple: I ~hate~ being grouped together with people with different ticks even though our passion for the obsession is equal drop by drop.

The anime otaku is a strange creature indeed. His life revolves around inanimate data, artificially created by other people for tv broadcasts, This can be likened to 'The Matrix", only that he realizes it very well himself but still wishes he can remained trapped in this spiral of addiction towards the 2-D realm. There seems to be no escape, once you get hooked to anime, only the pursuit of more, better, longer, more explosive, more girls, more animation to get over the excuse of sleeping in the next day.

"You don't just become an otaku just because you wanted to. You just wake up one day and you realize you're one before you know it." -Genshiken

Personally, I am most apprehensive when my friends recommend new anime for me to watch. This has nothing to do with the fact that I do not trust their judgement being less anime-informed than your truly *ahem*...but I am afraid to lose myself in awe of another killer series that threatens to devour the remainder of my already short free time since my uni days are zapping all my resources to the unending workload hence limiting my pleasure to freely enjoy episode after episode without a single care in the world. Ah, the good old days ! How far away they seem now, even if I'm sure that it happened not-too-long ago

Well, with regard to that, I see it fit to end my explanation here. Next time: The pursuit of moe!