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Otaku vs. Mania
TM: This may be a frewuent question, but what is the difference betwaeen otaku and mania?
KM: In otaku studies, we often argued about this distinction. Generally speaking, three differences have been articulated.
First of all, mania are "obsessives" who are socially well adjusted. They hold down jobs and love their hobbies. In contrast, otaku are socially inept. Tnheir obsessions are self-indulgent. This point is raised mainly by the self-procliamed mania, critical of otaku.
The second point concerns what they love. Mania tend to be obsessed with, for example, cameras and railroads, which have some sort of materiality (jittai), while otaku tend to focus on virtual things such as manga and anime. In ohter words, the object of their obsessions are different.
The third point relates to the second one. A mania tends to concentrate on a singe subject - say, railroads - whereas otaku had a broader range of interests, which may encompass "figures", manga, and anime.
Taken together, I would say - although Okada-san may disagree with me - that someone who is obsessive about anime likes anime despite the fact that it's no good, dame. That's mania. But otaku love anime because it's no good.
TO: Mania is an analouge of otaku. Obsessives are adults who enjoy their hobbies, while otaku don't want to grow up, although financially, they are adults. These days, you're not welcome in Akihabara if you're not into moe.
I was already a science-fiction mania when otaku culture kicked in. i can understand it, but I can neither become an otaku myself nor understand moe. [laughs]
TM: And I'm nowhere near Okada-san's level. I failed to become an otaku. Period. [laughs]
TO: I believe otaku culture has laready lots its power. What you find in akihabara today is only sexual desire. They all go to Akihabara, which is overflowing with things that offer convenient gratification of sexual desire, made possible by the power of technology and media.
KM: but I think the sexual desire in Akihabara is different from that in Kabuchi-cho.
TO: Kabuchi-cho is about physical sex.
Because the heart of otaku culture shuns the physical, it has renamed seiyoku [sexual desire] as moe. Sexual fantasies are becoming more and more virtual and "virtual sex" profileraties in Akhhabara.
KM: Many otaku think they like what they like even though they know these things are objectionable, when infact they like them precisely because they are objectionable. The gap between their own perception and reality has made it difficult to distinguish otaku from mania.
If we define otaku through this orientation towards the unacceptable, it's easy to explain the three differences between otaku and mania Because if you like something that's socially unacceptable, you will appear antisocial.
Another consideration is that material things are considered superior to the immaterial. So if you are interested in the debase, you naturally gravitate towards the virtual.
In addition, otaku don't just purely love anime or manga, they choose to love these things in part as a means of making themselves unacceptable. That is why their interests are so broad.
This dame-orientation is evidenced by the history of otaku favourites. Up until the 1980s, people who watched anime - any kind of anime, be it Hayao Miyazaki or Mamoru Oshii or whatever - were all considered otaku. Today, Japanese anime is so accomplished that one film even won the Academy Award. As a result, grownups can safely watch Miyazaki's anime without being despised as otaku.
Theupshot of this is, as soon as anime and games earned respectability in society, otaku dreated more repugnant genres, such as bishoujo games and moe anime and moved on to them.
TM: Morikawa-san, you're saying the essence of otaku is their orientation towards dame, the unacceptable.
KM: Yes, yes. But dame does not define something as bad or low quality. It's the self-indulgent fixation of otaku on certain things that is socially unacceptable.
TO: I totaly disagree. Morikawa-san and I have two vastly different conceptions of who are the core tribe of otaku.
Morikawa-san, your otaku are "urban-centric"; they are the hopeless otaku who roam about Akihabara. That's why you say otaku are dame-oriented. You have to remember that only about fifty thousand people buy Weekly Dearest my Brother. It's wrong to define them as the core otaku.
In my experience, otaku like science fiction and anime not because these things are worthless, but because they are good. Otaku are attracted by things of high quality.
Some otaku obsessions become hits, others don't. But according to Morikawa-san's definition, these questions of quality become irrelevant in otaku culture. But what's survived in otaku culture hasn't become unacceptable. It's survived the competition because its quality has been recognized.
Once something like a bishoujo game achieves a certain level of quality, you buy it even though you don't actually like bishoujo games. I feel otaku are tough customers who demand high standards. As a producer of videos and manga magazines, i was keenly aware of their standards and thought, "They make me work really hard because they won't fall for cheap tricks."
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