#Anime otaku in japanese tv
The formerly innocuous word took on a taboo tone for many Japanese and was banned on one TV network.ĭespite this negative image in Japan, “otaku” soon entered the English vocabulary. In 1983 the essayist and humorist Nakamori Akio came across fans at doujinshi (amateur manga) markets calling one another “otaku.” Shocked by their numbers, behavior, and appearance, he penned an unflattering article titled “Otaku Research.” Then in 1989 four little girls were murdered by a man the media labeled the “Otaku Murderer,” because he was found to have a massive collection of VHS tapes, including anime. However, otaku themselves tend to stress that they imitated other fans who used the word, not their parents. The etymology of the word is complex, but the explanation preferred by cultural commentators is that because young nerds stayed home a lot, they were unable to manage social interactions and referred to one another indirectly as “otaku,” the way their mothers did with each other. Since the 1980s it’s been used, much like the term “geek” in the US, to refer to people who are really into anime, manga, video games and technology. Originates from a polite second-person pronoun meaning “your home” in Japanese, allowing the speaker to refer to the listener indirectly.