Forum - View topic"So you'd like to... Become an anime otaku" article@amazon
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Aberu
Posts: 9 Location: Camarillo, CA |
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So you'd like to... Become an anime otaku
Sheesh this is the stupidest guide. First off the general opinion of someone considered an otaku to anyone in touch with japanese culture is the stinking loser who does nothing but obsess over that one thing he is a fan of. It does not just mean fan, it means obsessed fanatic. Second he lists things that he thinks will make you an "otaku". I'm sorry, but I don't believe just knowing Bubblegum Crisis and Sailor Moon all the way through makes you an "otaku". And then he follows up with what books you should read. All of these books are sold at amazon.com surprisingly. Wow and so are the videos. This article is becoming less of a guide, and more of a advertisement for buying some anime stuff from amazon.com. Heck I don't blame them. The average anime fan doesnt go to amazon.com too often. All in all this was a very pointless guide/advertisement that I wasted my time on. |
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Emerje
 Posts: 7548 Location: Maine |
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Wow, what a joke. I guess on a shop site you'd expect them to try to get you to buy something, but to call it a "how-to" guide instead of a buyers guide is just an insult. Never once does the guy actually say WHY an Otaku should watch these films.
Right, we all know that anime didn't exist in japan until Suncoast made it mainstreem right?  While I never did it, I've got a few friends who would actually get anime back in the 70's - 80's through small underground distribution rings totaly raw and uncut way before fansubs existed and had to read out of fan translations with the most noteable person writing those being Trish Ledoux, founding editor of Animerica and translater of several anime such as Ranma 1/2 and Otaku no Video. Obviously I wouldn't expect everyone to do it, I certainly never did, but that just goes to show that TV wasn't the ONLY source of anime way back when. Besides, this guy is probably just kidding himself if he really thinks he knew that Voltron was an anime when he was a kid (I assume he's in his early 20's seeing as how he's a "scholar").
His list totally ignores anything that is running in Japan that hasn't been realeased over hear yet. It's almost like the guy doesn't know that anime exists in japan. I know that's not true, but this is just such a painfully bad read. I can understand Amazon using the list to help sell anime, but they're fooling people into a false sence of what it means to be an otaku. He could have also writen this list without using the titles of the DVDs as the titles of the shows. Rather than "Sailor Moon - The Movies Dream Boxed Set" he could have just writen "Sailor Moon". He could have aslo added anime that ISN'T sold at Amazon, he mentions that you can buy the list elsewhere, why not list anime that can be bought elsewhere? This list just has 0 credability, I feel sorry for any kids who think they can only be an otaku by watching or reading these titles.
Emerje |
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Case
Posts: 1016 |
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My 2¢:
This is true, but many people (Americans) use the term frequently and perceive it as a respectable title. I know I do. It just seems so much more succinct to say "Nick is a closet otaku" than "Nick is a closet anime fan". But maybe that's just my inexperience with the Japanese language talking. (You know. That strange personality quirk that makes fangirls wildly glomp people at cons and makes DBZ addicts shout 'Kamehameha!' at random intervals?) 
And to be quite honest, the Japanese perception of "otaku" isn't all that different from the American perception of anime fans. People like us who have interest in the medium are generally accepting of that label, but many people disrespect and often take sadistic pleasure in teasing others who amass Japanese cartoon video collections. If you look at the bigger picture, the terminology applies to the author better than he probably even realizes.
With all due respect, I believe Sailor Moon and Bubblegum Crisis are just as conducive to "otaku-ism" as anything else. You wouldn't have any better perspective if you only watched Miyazaki films, or if you only watched obscure fan translated VHS tapes from the golden age of fansubbing. I can speak from experience. My interests in Voltron and Sailor Moon are what eventually lead me to becoming the avid fan that I am today.
Well, naturally. This is a list of recommended purchases remember, not a personal website or something. Why would he suggest products that are not available?
Is there really any such thing as an "average" anime fan? Certainly, anime fans who are not internet savvy probably don't do a lot of business with Amazon. A lot are, however, and I have come across many over the years who DO use Amazon as a main source. that's really just a matter of semantics. Many do, many do not. If the author of this article does, it is his prerogative to use that as a point of reference. (Honestly, what else would/could/should he do besides go by his own experience?) A fan's methods are more or less irrelevant in detemining whether or not they qualify as fans. |
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 2460 Location: Do not contact me for support. |
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Evil Stalker Cookie points this out about the reviewer:
http://feathersites.angelcities.com/ and http://www.arts.arizona.edu/mar335-anime/Main.html are sites he's worked on. I think he's probably got some pretty good ideas about what anime is and isn't.. I think he just had to simplify what he wrote for the Amazon audiences. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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"But maybe that's just my inexperience with the Japanese language talking. (You know. That strange personality quirk that makes fangirls wildly glomp people at cons and makes DBZ addicts shout 'Kamehameha!' at random intervals?)"
It isn't a strange personality quirk, it's something done consciously to try and get the people around you to think you have a strange personality quirk. Personally, few things annoy me more. And yeah, Jame Stafford is an OK guy. He taught the anime course at my university. He sticks to the mainstream a bit much and it's hard to convince him to look at the bigger picture, but he knows what he's talking about. And of COURSE the article is designed to get you to buy stuff from Amazon. Sheesh. You people point out the obvious and get upset over it so often these days. That's like seeing the new Harry Potter movie and saying "Hey, wait a second.. I think they want me to BUY HARRY POTTER MERCHANDISE! How dare they!". -Zac |
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Aberu
Posts: 9 Location: Camarillo, CA |
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Yeah but if they disguise it then that's what makes it wrong. It's telling us how to become an "otaku" supposedly. And then it's saying "buy this buy this buy this". It's worse than the japanese advertisements after each episode of dragonball.
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Emerje
Posts: 7548 Location: Maine |
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As a buyer's guid it's great, but I've never believed in a set rule of watching anime and certainly not anime that people HAVE to watch to become an otaku. It's like saying you have to get behind the wheel of a '57 Chevy to like cars. What if I don't like Sailor Moon? Does that make me any less of an otaku? Of course not, that's nonsence. But if you read the article as a newbie to anime you'd think other wise, it's right in one of the headers: "What are the Series/Films One Needs to Know to be Considered an Anime Otaku?" Maybe it's just bad phrasing, but rather than "needs to know" he should have said "should know" since it really doesn't imply that you have to know these titles the same way "need" implies that they're necessity. It's that whole Need/Want think. Sorry, it's just one of those things that have always annoyed me, I just don't like being told what to watch, thought it's never really stopped me from watching everything anyway.
Emerje |
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ownerizer
Posts: 136 |
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after reading that article, I have come to this conclusion:
The author of the article, and the article itself are utterly retarded. 'nuff said |
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Vicious
 Posts: 97 |
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Regarding otaku...it basically means fanboy, and while people know that fanboy is a bad term many still call themselves fanboys. While it may occasionally be ignorance when somebody calls themself a otaku it's usually done by a person to make them either look like a 'extreme' fan or simply them being honest about it. A rarer example could be someone rebeling against the term itself by using it. Like the outcast kids from highschool who call themselves freaks or a black person using the n word.
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
 Posts: 3817 Location: Montreal |
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That's not totally true. The negative meaning associated to "otaku" came from the case of Tsutomu Miyazaki in 1989, an otaku who murdered 4 girls. That got a very negative tone associated with the word "otaku", but apparently this is fading away. Nowadays, a fashionable ko-gal might say she is a "fashion otaku" and it would be totally acceptable. It still has the meaning of "obsessive fan", but it has lost a lot of its negative image. Well, or so I hear. The Full Story
Actually, I agree completely with the phrasing. These are indeed series/movies that any otaku needs to know. Now, if he had said "need to have seen", I'd have to disagree. |
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Emerje
Posts: 7548 Location: Maine |
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OK, in that light I agree. I know all those titles and atleast have a rough idea what they're about and agree that everyone should at least know of them, but I doubt that's how he ment it. Then again, I'm not a mind reader so I can only rely on my own intuition. Emerje |
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ashram12
Posts: 86 |
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I'm a bit lost here. The article in question looks to me to be a list of recommendation. I know Amazon.com lets its customers create lists of recommendation, and while this "article" looks slightly different than the usual recommendation list, I'm pretty sure this is nothing more than some guy with some opinions who's not being paid by Amazon.com. But that's just my assessment.
And also, as for the items also being sold on Amazon.com, I'd like to say that Amazon.com has a pretty darn expansive catalog. It carries the great majority of anime ever released in the United States, so it's not exactly a coincidence that the list of recommendations can also be bought at Amazon.com. Lastly, why can't this guy have an opinion about anime must-haves? I've seen three out of the five dvd recommendations, and they were good. If the guy was trying to make people buy "Kimera", now that would be somehing else |
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shinji th3 l0s3
 Posts: 16 Location: Wisconsin, USA |
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I am an otaku, i will die alone...*sniff* :cry:
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Akuen
Posts: 6 |
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um... no offense, but isn't the definition of otaku... "obsessed"?
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief
Posts: 2460 Location: Do not contact me for support. |
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well... roughly, yeah. 'otaku' literally is a polite way of saying 'you' (polite) or 'your house'.. (...although I can't think of a good sentence where I'd use it as 'you') 'otaku' got its negative stigma because a fellow by the name of Tsutomu Miyazaki (no relation to Hayao Miyazaki) was arrested for murdering 4 young girls. in his house, police found thousands of anime video tapes, porn and other assorted collectables and fetishes. anywho, the japanese media jumped on this as quickly as american media attacks video games for school shootings and such. How many of us heard a "possible sniper-video game connection"? I know I did... Anywho, Miyazaki was termed "otaku" by the media, and quickly the term gained a really negative impression -- a sociopath of sorts. A lot of people still say there's a really negative association with the word since 1989... but most of the Japanese people I talk to seem to not really care about it's past "political" meaning and association with anime. (Real Life Example: I was called 'otaku-like' in a Japanese chatroom for saying a few sentences in Nagoya dialect..) You can use 'otaku' in association with any hobby, such as "Game Otaku" or "Gun Otaku". In America, however, the term almost exclusively means 'anime fan'. Some fans I've talked to use it, even with kids who only watch DBZ or Pokemon. Others use it for anyone who watches stuff that isn't on TV. Others use it as the derogatory word it was in the early 90s, and thus 'otaku' is like calling someone a 'loser'.. |
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