Talk:Otaku

How is it pronounced?

That ought to be added to the article, so I don't sound like an idiot when I read it out loud.  ;-) - Theaveng 17:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I concur. I still don't know the answer. I've heard people say O-ta-ku with emphasis on the O, and O-tak-u with emphasis on the middle syllable. Which is correct? ---- Theaveng (talk) 14:05, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure about stress, but because of the way syllables work in Japanese the first is correct as far as how the word is broken up (letters in Japanese almost all represent consonant-vowel pairs). There's a pronunciation in there now though. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 01:55, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

All of the syllables are said with the same stress. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 04:56, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Otaku in Japan

Just wondering how 'derisive' a term it is in japan. If i'm not wrong i believed the ex japanese prime minister (Aso?) paraphrased something along the lines that the latest culture of japan is one that is 'otaku'. And furthermore implicitly implied that he was a manga otaku... Dont have any citations atm but i thought it may be worth noting the larger acceptance of 'otaku' culture in japan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.237.8.41 (talk) 11:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is this Japanese show aired in HK where the culture minister(or someone along that line) used Cantonese to express that he is an Otaku. That episode is about a prize giving ceremony of the foreign language manga in which it happened to be two Hong Kong artist who got the first two position(and thus held in HK). Also, Japanese pop stars often appear in shows that are otaku based, a lot of pop stars even openly said they are otaku and are very active in anime casting. The main problem is that those are pasted shows and their own blog entry that are extremely hard to track back to source. MythSearcher^talk 08:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

How society perceives otaku is currently a very hot topic in Japan. You should be fully aware of the relation between otaku and anti-otaku that is almost a media-war. If you take one side, the article will inevitably become one-sided. 18:00 24 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.69.203 (talk)

Relation to AS?

I don't necessarily disagree with the linking in related subjects to Asperger's Syndrome, but I'm not sure there is any hard support for that correlation. It seems right, but it should be cited before adding. user:john.ohno —Preceding comment was added at 15:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The whole section was a mess. I kept the most relevent wikilinks and removed the rest. The presents of many of the wikilinks appear to be pushing a POV that connected otaku with mental illness. --Farix (Talk) 20:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Proper Lexicon Missing

I can't help but notice that the actual Japanese alphabet spelling of otaku is glaringly absent and symbolised as '???' - is there no one that can correct this? It seems a fairly important detail for an encylopedic entry rather than so much of the cultural analysis (though woot for Gibson)! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.104.173.69 (talk) 14:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Otaku (おたく or オタク) - right in the opening. Are you having trouble seeing Japanese characters? You might need some Help:Japanese. Biccat (talk) 20:57, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Correct Japanese Spellings

We provide the spellings for Japanese of Otaku as "おたく or オタク" - is this correct? An online translation says the first means 'home' and the other 'mania'. Mania makes sense but i just wanted to check this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.38.32.3 (talk) 15:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The traditional word (お宅, おたく) means home, while the newer slang (おたく、オタク) means "mania" ("mania" being another Japanese word with a slightly different connotation than in English as explained in the article). —Tokek (talk) 22:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

"Wota"

From the article on Japanese Wikipedia, the spelling variants are おたく (otaku), オタク (otaku), ヲタク (wotaku) オタ (ota), and ヲタ (wota). The last one ヲタ (wota), doesn't have any difference in meaning from the other spelling variants. However on English Wikipedia, wota is treated as a subcategory and wota redirects to ota-gei (otaku that specialises in geinoujin), but I think this is based on a misunderstanding. —Tokek (talk) 22:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

MOE

Can someone please make a refer-to page useing Moe & than write a bit explaining the difference & similarities of Moe & Otaku? Or even give Moe it's own page?

egirl630 on Veoh says: "moe- A Japanese slang term (ironically, first employed by otaku) used to refer to the fetish for or sexual attraction to idealized people, usually a fictional perfect young girl. Since then, moé has come to be used as a general term for a hobby, mania or fetish (non-sexual or otherwise). This is contrasted with otaku, which would be taking the specific hobby, mania or fetish."

It also seems to refur for favorite types of pairing fetishes, & the more tabboo they are, the more desireable they are. Student-teacher, bodyguard-bocchama, twin brothers, human-mazoku, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Me thnks what you're trying to say is there is a correlation between these two terms. I say there isn't, and is a case wherein "correlation equal causation".

There are neither similarities nor differences.

Explain why, so that we may discuss on this in further detail. The user egirl630 on Veoh is not a reliable source of info, btw. --Animeronin (talk) 11:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Moe is a term used for describing things, Otaku is used for describing people. They are totally different terms, and your English needs to be improved before you try to understand Japanese loan terms. Moe is mostly used by otaku to describe things that are favourable.(It would be very unlikely to meet a non otaku that understands what moe means in Japan, quite a lot of story in Japan uses that as a plot device for conversations between otaku and their friends that are not otaku.) MythSearcher^talk 11:45, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Negative views of "otaku"?

I'm pretty sure it would be appropriate for wikipedia to have some sort of controversy or negative views section on the otaku article. I think encyclopedia dramatica (Despite being satirical the opinions on that site are still based on those of *channers) could be reference enough. --Ogremagi (talk) 12:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

where is criticism?

Well? 199.117.69.8 (talk) 18:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

They haven't done anything considered super negative. So, there is no criticism about them. Besides, there isn't much of an article for the cartoon fans. Besides, they don't go lunging at people to be just like them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.168.67.38 (talk) 22:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

How about the stabbing in Akihabara? And several other crimes commited by otaku. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.117.69.8 (talk) 18:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

What stabbings are you talking about? --66.168.67.38 (talk) 20:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC) Never mind, Found it. Doesn't mention rabid Otakus, sorry to say. It mentions a guy who killed some Otakus, but, it didn't state that he was one.

Tsutomu Miyazaki. (Momus (talk) 18:13, 1 November 2009 (UTC))

Missing subject in beginning sentence of introductory paragraph

In this essay he observed that this and most notably, animationist like Haruhiko Mikimoto and Shōji Kawamori.[3] (He observed WHAT???)-72.186.159.68 (talk) 06:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Otaku and Wapanese aren't the same

Otaku are people who love manga and anime. I thought wapanese were people who love Japan. It isn't the same. The should be a different article for that term.Ariana-hime (talk) 14:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Weeaboo

Weeaboo isn't a portmantu of anything. It's from an old word filter on 4chan. 173.9.5.45 (talk) 19:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

• I cleaned up that sentence to make it clearer. 72.70.18.242 (talk) 11:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Huh?

What does this sentence mean? "Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family (お宅, otaku) that is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun."It is at the beginning of the etymology section. Can someone who understands what it means rewrite it in a clearer fashion.

Michalchik (talk) 07:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

pop culture list

Can we limit it to main story line only? Say, the NGE entry is only a minor charater being an otaku(furthermore, without source) seems to be only making the list becoming hard to read and not notable. MythSearcher^talk 10:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Broken English!!

The main character Morisaki Kouta who is an otaku living in the residense of Higansou apartmen. When suddenly a 9 year-old girl approches him and claimed to be his daughter.

Sound weird? Yes. Copyvio? Maybe.

TheListUpdater (talk) 23:30, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Shadowrun

Replying to the comment in the revert, if "there's no need for a section on the usage in one game" because "the word is used similarly (albeit in an extreme way)," then there also is no need for an English/international section separated out from a Japanese section. Exactly the same argument applies. As to the cultural importance of this one game, check out my comments on Shadowrun's influence above.

Would this section flow better were I to emphasise differences rather than similarities? I rather thought that the concept of *literally* preferring to live in the Matrix rather than the real world defined the essential difference, but a different approach may be preferred. - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.27.247 (talk) 02:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be fine to have a section like that in the Shadowrun article, but not in this article. Shadowrun does not have enough of a global influence for mention in this article. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 02:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. While the importance of relevance is understood for any Wikipedia article as a whole, I am unaware of any Wikipedia policy which demands global influence for every subsection, only that each subsection have relevance to the topic. The Shadowrun usage of otaku certainly meets that criterion. - Tenebris

Try WP:Trivia. If your logic works, then thousands of relevant series would be included into this article. MythSearcher^talk 07:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Does not apply here. This is not a tangential pop culture mention in one medium or another, but core to the understanding of what otaku is. I understand that the nature of otaku is to focus on the value of one to the exclusion of all else, but here the otaku-focus is being applied to exclude an influence of close to equal influence, for all the reasons I have already given in this talk thread. Before you dismiss as trivia, you might answer the arguments given to that effect in the other section above. - Tenebris

The most that could be included is something along the lines of "In the roleplaying game Shadowrun, "otaku" is a character class." Anything beyond that (from the section you tried to include) would be original research. You can include the information in the Shadowrun article if you can find a way to do it that isn't original research, but there is no valid reason for including it here which doesn't run afoul of WP:TRIVIA. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd be willing to bet that most otaku don't even know what Shadowrun is, so I doubt it's "core to understanding what otaku is". The article no more needs a secion on the Shadowrun class than samurai needs one on street sams. — Gwalla | Talk 21:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Police profiling

It appears that in Japan, profiling based on an individuals' appearance by police is prevalent in areas such as Akihabara, where people who appear to be "Otaku" are singled out and searched for weapons.

• The hunt for the otaku is on!

I may be able to provide more sources if needed. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:59, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Now if it would only appear in a reliable source... ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Suggested link and comments on writing style

I'd like to suggest the following link for inclusion in the reference section:

• The origin and meaning of "Otaku"

I had added it to the article but another editor was not happy with the web page author adding a link to his own article. Fair enough, but I think this is a useful link, so I am adding it to the talk page for your review. If you consider it useful, please consider adding it to the links.

Also, I'd like to point out that the article's writing style seems very disjointed. It looks as if some people have added sentences into the article, especially the top part of the article, without considering the flow of logic of the writing, so the first two paragraphs of the article don't actually make sense. Continuing down the page, the writing style in the "In Japan" section is so disjointed that it almost seems nonsensical. --Sljfaq2 (talk) 08:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

For example, from the first paragraph, the two sentences in bold here seem completely disjointed from the paragraph, and the net effect is that the first paragraph makes no sense at all:

As an honorific second-person pronoun Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family (お宅, otaku) that is also used as a honorific second-person pronoun. The modern slang form, which is distinguished from the older usage by being written only in hiragana (おたく) or katakana (オタク or, less frequently, ヲタク), or rarely in rōmaji, appeared in the 1980s. In the anime Macross, first aired in 1982, the term was used by Lynn Minmay as an honorific term.[3][4] It appears to have been coined by the humorist and essayist Akio Nakamori in his 1983 series An Investigation of "Otaku" (『おたく』の研究 "Otaku" no Kenkyū?), printed in the lolicon magazine Manga Burikko. Animators like Haruhiko Mikimoto and Shōji Kawamori used the term among themselves as an honorific second-person pronoun since the late 1970s.[4]

--Sljfaq2 (talk) 09:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The only problem I see is that it would be linking to a discussion on a newsgroup. Anyone can participate there, and newsgroups are never considered reliable at all. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:43, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the so called net effect, it is probably a matter of logical thinking method here.

As an honorific second-person pronoun Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family (お宅, otaku) that is also used as a honorific second-person pronoun. The modern slang form, which is distinguished from the older usage by being written only in hiragana (おたく) or katakana (オタク or, less frequently, ヲタク), or rarely in rōmaji, appeared in the 1980s. In the anime Macross, first aired in 1982, the term was used by Lynn Minmay as an honorific term.[3][4] It appears to have been coined by the humorist and essayist Akio Nakamori in his 1983 series An Investigation of "Otaku" (『おたく』の研究 "Otaku" no Kenkyū?), printed in the lolicon magazine Manga Burikko. Animators like Haruhiko Mikimoto and Shōji Kawamori used the term among themselves as an honorific second-person pronoun since the late . .[4]

The second bolded sentence shares the same source as the Akio and the sentence above it, also bolded is the first media appearance of the word. Everything above that is only an intro to the word rendered in Japanese. I don't see disjointments here. You can try to make it into two paragraphs so the second paragraph starts with the Macross quote, this may help. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 01:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Writing something in a style which requires "logical thinking", as if it was a puzzle, doesn't seem a good idea to me. --Sljfaq2 (talk) 02:02, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I am saying it is how you look at it, it is not a puzzle, you only need to try to use other ways to read it. You seems to tend to think that every sentence has to have something to do with the previous sentence, this is not always the case. This paragraph is giving facts, not analysis, each sentence presents a fact, and the Macross mention till the end is pretty much only a re-sentenced version from the source. I don't see why it is hard to understand or disjointed like you suggested. You can try to improve it by keeping the facts and sources, feel free to do so, but I don't think I can offer any more than what have been written(and I wrote it, so probably I can understand my own logic anyway) —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 15:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

"You seems to tend to think that every sentence has to have something to do with the previous sentence" - yes, that's a reasonable summary of what I think. Anyway I'm sorry if I offended you by criticizing your writing style. Wishing you the best. --Sljfaq2 (talk) 02:14, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't care if anyone criticize my writing, feel free to change it if you can, I know my writting can be hard to understand sometimes, however, I don't think every sentence should be related to the previous. Even commercial writings do not do that as a must. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 04:59, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll second your reference, reading the wikipedia article it does not capture the essense of the word. The reference may be disjointed but the information is correct. An Otaku is someone with next to no social skills who is unhealthily obsessed with their obsession (which is why okaku also means one's home, as in house bound). Simply put its like calling an idiot mentally retarded. Tea Man 20:09, 24/2/2012 —Preceding undated comment added 20:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC).

Needs a source

The line "In Japan there has been some negativity towards otaku and otaku culture, incidents including the Akihabara Massacre and the Osaka School Massacre, just a few of the crimes related to "otaku hatred" or "obsession" " need a verified source, I have looked at the articles on the two incidents mentioned, and neither of them had Otaku Hatred as any of the reasons for the crime, just because a crime takes place in an area known for a certain group, doesn't mean its against that group, in the first incident, it could have been very well only chosen for the high population of potential victims, and not what the victims were regarded as.~metalica11~06/07/2009 1:46 am est —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalica11 (talk • contribs) 05:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Needs a source (again)

I have to agree with the very first point made on this discussion page. There is still no source regarding a link between the Osaka School Massacre o the Akihabara Massacre and otaku. Nor does the English wikipedia page for the massacres mention it. Maybe someone who can read Japanese can verify a source for this somewhere? Otherwise I think the reference to these crimes needs to go. 24.201.152.243 (talk) 03:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

You can the remove the "needs source, as contains original research", as I have added contemporary references. Being Lazy - I've not tracked down the online articles, even though I'm sure the magazines will contain them - so not added hrefs. Will make the page neater, so: Someone with power, please do so, ta 109.154.144.90 (talk) 11:45, 31 March 2011 (UTC) ( as "Lazy" Saccade. Ie, not signed in)

How do I pronounce the word Otaku???

I asked this question all the way back in 2007 and still don't know. It would be nice to inform the readers in the article by providing an English pronunciation. ---- Theaveng (talk) 21:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

It is a Japanese word, so you would pronounce it as oh-tah-kooh basically. See this page on how to pronounce Japanese vowels if you're still confused.  mx3 (Sorafune) 話 22:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Do We Really Need Another Article For the World Nerd/Geek

Seriously, at least this isn't as bad as having different articles for seiyuu and voice actor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.187.104 (talk) 08:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

We don't have any articles for nerd or geek worlds. But if you're talking about the words, then yes, we do. Geek, nerd, and otaku are not the same thing.  mx3 (Sorafune) 話 16:02, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Etymology

"Yamanote dialect" removed.And a point of"in understandable English" is not possible to understand for me "What is understandable"(;´Д`)（´Д｀）（´Д｀；）･･･It thinks extremely fortunately if it mends appropriately. (by Machine translation[1])--大和屋敷 (talk) 16:19, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but your additions have not been in understandable English, which is why I removed them. If your English capability is so poor that you have to rely on machine translations like that above, I think you should consider editing on the Japanese Wikipedia project instead. --DAJF (talk) 00:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

あなたがただしい英語になおせばいいだけではないか。出典付の情報をむやみに削除するな。（Do you only have not to translate into correct English?Do not delete information with the source excessively. ）--大和屋敷 (talk) 00:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)I apologize for becoming the instruction tone. Please do not delete information with the source excessively even if it is described by the English word and the English grammar not interpreted easily for you. You can participate in the edit of Wikipedia by correcting it to an easy word and an easy English grammar. Thanks.--大和屋敷 (talk) 00:31, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted the addition as well. For one, I really couldn't tell what it was all about because the quality of the English was so poor. The external link was to a website that wouldn't pass the English Wikipedia's standards for a reliable source either. I'm also not sure what exactly the link is suppose to source. —Farix (t | c) 03:36, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Poor source?

The dictionary site[2] makes this book[3] a radical. Is that good though it is also possible to delete the link and to introduce this book directly? --大和屋敷 (talk) 08:22, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing about the website that indicates that it is a reliable source. Anyone can throw up a website, but that doesn't make it reliable. And the second link you provided is giving a 404 error. Also, if you don't know English well enough to write coherently, then editing articles on the English Wikipedia may not be the thing for you. —Farix (t | c) 11:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Woops! 404（´Д｀）[4](It is a Japanese document.東京方言集)--大和屋敷 (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)Because it is atmosphere that the contribution block seems to be done, the after is good for you&you. --大和屋敷 (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Ore no Imouto

I think Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai should be included as well. There are also plenty of parodies of the treatment of otaku by the media, otaku and others. -69.237.109.158 (talk) 22:01, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

What would be the equivalent phrase or word in English?

Since the article says it has very negative connotations in Japanese, would "nut-job" or "wacko" be an equivalent word in English? In other words, saying to your friend, "He's some sort of bird-watching wacko" or "He's one of those 60-year old nut-jobs who still plays with those little green army soldiers, reenacting the Battle of the Bulge every evening". Does that convey the same sort of meaning that it does in Japanese? Jimindc (talk) 22:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Nerd/Geek would be pretty much the same. The negative connotation of the term is more towards the social culture in Japan, people hate to be called as a different group than others, since it took away their social status of belonging to the society. Any words you suggest in English will not carry the same effect since people are less concern of being different from the rest.(many are even happy to be different) Think of it as like being called as a Aspie, psycho, just because having a different hobby than others. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 01:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Hiragana/Katakana

おたく returned 6.58 million results and オタク 31.8 million. Also, when I did the first search, it even prompted if I was looking for the latter. Yes, I know the Hiragana one is correct and the latter is not, yet it is so wildly used that it is worth some mention. —Preceding signed comment added by MythSearcher^talk 07:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Single-sided Intro?

As of July 31, 2011, the intro section of the article has the following text: "Otaku (おたく / オタク) is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga, or video games."

Upon examining the entire article, it would indicate that the intro is taken from the "In English" section, which begins with: "The term is a loanword from the Japanese language. In English, it is usually used to refer to an obsessive fan of anime/manga and/or Japanese culture generally, and to a lesser extent Japanese video games."

One potential issue with this is that, since the intro section is meant to provide an overview of what a particular subject matter entails, the single-sentence intro appears to promote a narrowed, single-sided, and unbalanced interpretation of the word "otaku" by many circles around the world, while ignoring what the original meaning of the word is and how the modern slang usage of the word came about in Japan (note: referring to my edits to the article on August 1 and 2, 2011). For people who are unfamiliar with the term to begin with, the intro text has an undesirable effect to lead one to believe that:

• anime, manga, and video games are all "obsessive interests;"
• all otakus are "obsessive" individuals;
• or, it is okay if one goes out to an arcade to play video games on a random basis from time to time, but if he/she does the same at home, then holy moly, the person must be obsessed or the hobby must be an obsessive one!

Given how well-read Wikipedia is globally and how links to Wikipedia often come out at the top of search engine results, I am sure many would agree that articles on Wikipedia should always strive to maintain a neutral point of view and encompass multiple viewpoints including negativity and criticism. However, the existing intro text of "otaku" potentially breeds wide-scale misunderstanding and unnecessarily disparages a specific group of people. As such, it is my sincere hope that my contributions to the article will be kindly reviewed and reconsidered, otherwise unfortunate incidents such as revision 443452790 are bound to reoccur.

Oscar (talk) 12:08, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the intro adequately summarizes the content of the article as a whole. The etymology of the word (meaning "one's home" or "you" in Japanese") is properly explained in the "Etymology" section immediately following the introduction. I disagree that the article paints anime, manga, and video games of their fans as "obsessive", but it certainly (correctly) describes "otaku" as somewhat "obsessive" since that is part and parcel of the meaning. The editor above also seems to be confusing the original meaning of "one's home" as being related to activities done at home - which is not the case. "Otaku" activities are certainly not limited to home - as exemplified by railway otaku or cosplay otaku, amongst others. --DAJF (talk) 02:09, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

More stuff

• Bennett, Colette. "Otaku: Is it a dirty word?." CNN. September 12, 2011.

WhisperToMe (talk) 00:34, 13 September 2011 (UTC)